When you work as an independent web or graphic designer, you can get projects on the basis of your resume and portfolio. However, when you run a website design company, you have to show your business skills, besides creative skills, to secure new designing projects. You must create an impressive business proposal to convince your clients and beat your competitors.

Here are 12 secrets to write an effective business proposal.

1. Meet Your Client- Before you write the business proposal, meet your client and ask him all the necessary questions. Make a short questionnaire and give it to your client. Once you know all the details about his business, you can write the proposal comfortably.
2. Showcase Your Work- When you meet your client; show him some of the projects your company has delivered successfully. This way he will understand that you are good enough to meet the demands of his project.
3. Do Some Research- Apart from the information you get from your client, you need to do some research on your client’s background, his competitors, target audience and the current condition of his company. This will help you write an organized business proposal.
4. Know the Target Audience- When your client approaches you with a project, try to know his target audience and write clear details about them in the business proposal. For instance, write gender, age group and financial status of the target audience and state clearly how you can help your client grab their attention.
5. Write a Brief Executive Summary- Executive summary includes all project details in a nutshell. Most clients read this part of a business proposal carefully and you must write a brief yet impressive executive summary to convince your client. Show him that you truly understand his requirements and are ready to help him.
6. Discuss the Project Goals- Every design project has a goal, and you must know what your client expects from your design to deliver him exactly what he wants. If your client’s needs and your ideas do not match, he won’t give you the project.
7. Know the Competitors- There are hundreds of web design companies out there and it’s your duty to make sure that clients hire you for their projects. Take a look at your competitor websites and find out their weaknesses. Once you know their weaknesses, write a design proposal that can outshine your competitors.
8. Write Creative Strategy- Discuss your design strategies with your client and explain your decisions. Tell your client how you are going to meet the project goals and help him attract his potential customers.
9. Explain Project Methodology- You must explain your work methodology in the proposal. Show how you are going to handle the project from beginning to the end. This will help your client understand your work procedure and he won’t argue with you about the project deadline.
10. Explain Project Budget- Write the total project cost and the payment method in the business proposal. Break total cost in different parts such as “website design”, “frontend development”, “and backend development”, etc., to assure your client that you are offering him a fair deal.
11. Mention Project Deadline- When you set the project deadline, make sure that you keep some extra days in your hand. Website design is a creative process and sometimes you may spend a few extra days to design a beautiful layout. Therefore, if you think a project will take 10 days, give a 12 days deadline.
12. Give Your Contact Details- Always give your contact details to your client. Give him your mobile number, office landline number, email address, etc., so that he can contact you anytime regarding the project.

A well written and organized proposal can certainly win you a project. After you show the business proposal, don’t forget to send a follow-up email. Let your client realize that you are eager to work with him. If your client is impressed with your proposal, he will hire you for his design project.

Many people believe that videos games are exclusively about eye-catching graphic design and Flash animation (2D/3D). This is, however, not a right concept. Apart from great visuals, an interesting video game should also contain a good story. In fact, with the help of creative writing, a video game can make players experience various emotions and thus, offer wholesome entertainment.

If you are planning to write video games, you should be aware of the fact that the process of writing involves three crucial aspects. These include developing the plot, creating various characters, and putting together the storyboard. We discuss in details these three aspects.

• Developing the plot

The first step is to create a plot for the video game. To fulfill this goal, you need to figure out the theme of the video game (horror, adventure, or comic), and the characters. Thereafter, you should develop a general plot for the game.

Consider the fact that developing a plot for the game is a time consuming process and demand great effort. However, this step is important because it will help game developers to understand what they are trying to create. If they like your idea, you may move on to the next step.

• Developing the character

Character is a crucial aspect of any video game. If you create characters that are boring and uninteresting, chances are high that players will not have a positive impression of the game. For this reason, you need to create intriguing characters, those that possess special qualities, and interpret situations differently.

Adding humor or quirky traits to the characters can provide them with a special appeal. Furthermore, you need to justify their actions as well. If a character sulks or reacts violently, you should point out the reasons for their behavior.

Try to make the characters interactive. Convincing players that these characters take an active role in any situation will make them more popular. Offering your characters various choices during interactions is a great idea. This will stimulate curiosity of users, thus encouraging them to play the game repeatedly.

• Creating the storyboard

You have finished developing the storyline and characters. The next step is to create the storyboards. Storyboard indicates words, pencil sketches, and instructions that explain every single scene of the game. In most cases, graphic designers create these sketches, after consulting with the writer.

Depending on the story, decisions regarding movement, appearance, and behavior of the characters are taken. The storyboard can also include interaction between various characters of the game. Every panel of the storyboard includes a short overview of every action. While writing, this storyboard will act as your visual guide.

We have highlighted the three main aspects of video game writing. This is, of course, not an easy job. It demands patience and hard work. However, if you are imaginative, willing to undergo grueling schedules, and have a flair for writing, this can be the best career choice for you.

For majority graphic and web design professionals worldwide, Adobe Photoshop is the de facto image editing tool. Photoshop is used for a variety of design projects – creating web graphics, photo retouching, graphic design, etc. With each new release, Adobe has given Photoshop a number of features and toolset to retain its usability and popularity among its users. Recently, new features of Photoshop CS 6 (version 13) beta were leaked online, causing design professionals immense excitement.

Photoshop CS 6 will be released in 2012 as part of Adobe Creative Suite 6.0. Adobe has opted for a darker interface for Photoshop CS 6 and it will also come with new Auto save features and enhanced 3D capabilities. Now, since Photoshop’s new darker interface may not go down well with some users, Adobe has provided an option to switch over to the older platinum interface.

3D features were made a part of Photoshop with CS4 version and in this release, Adobe has spruced up its 3D capabilities significantly. Paint Bucket tool now comes with “3D Material Drop” feature. There is also a new 3D Text feature in Photoshop CS 6. Users can tweak 3D options in Preferences menu, including controlling the 3 axis. These will give web design professionals enough resources to create stunning 3D designs. Photoshop CS 6 has got a number of new tools like Remix Tool and Perspective Crop Tool. Photoshop can now save files without user intervention, a much needed improvement.

It is possible CS 6 final version will be released with features that have not been included in the beta version. There has been much speculation about a spanking new image deblurring tool that was talked about with much enthusiasm at the Adobe Max Conference. However, it is uncertain if it will be included in the Photoshop CS 6 version or Adobe will sell it with other apps.

Designing a website may not be as time consuming as it was a few years back owing to the advances in web technology, but catering to the user’s requirements can be daunting for the web designers. A website design company needs to have the expertise to delve into the psyche of the internet users and understand the need of the individual clients. With time the internet users are becoming more demanding and they expect websites to be more dynamic and interactive. The web designers need to be particularly careful when they are designing websites for the clients whose revenue gets affected directly by the website. The website developers making the site for a real estate agency need to be careful about certain site design aspects.

• The web users visit a real estate website for concrete information and latest information on real estate rates. Therefore, a web design company making such a website needs to make the content crisp and simple. The site needs to be made in such a way that content updating becomes a straightforward affair. The content should not have any jargon that is difficult for the prospective customers to understand.
• A real estate website that has impressive visuals can appeal to the first time visitors. The viewers will like it very much if the site has a 3D visual walkthrough of the real estate properties in the site. Flash slideshows can also be used for the same purpose. However, the graphic design job needs to be done in the site in such a way that it does not lengthen the page load time.
• The web design professionals making a real estate site should ensure that it has a straightforward navigation scheme. To reach out to the maximum users, links to major social networking sites should also be given in the site.

Democratic media unlike print media or online media is a different ball of wax altogether. It is powerful and highly influential but it is hard to control. You simply cannot tame it as it is largely controlled by general people. It is its unpredictable nature, which is giving corporate organizations a hard time. For good or evil, democratic media is here and it is here to stay and there is no way to escape this truth. Here in this article, we are going to explore how this new and evolving platform is posing serious threat to brand images of large corporate organizations.

It is democratic and Free

The most striking, perhaps the most annoying from organizational perspective, feature of Democratic media is that there is no way to sensor or stop people from expressing their views or opinions freely. Opinions can be expressed through blogs, communities, forums, microblogging sites, social networking sites and many more which are all powerful enough to make or break brand image of any organization irrespective of its size or market status. If this is not enough, these social media sites are open to all, which is definitely an icing on the cake for those who are looking for a medium to vent their feeling.

Power of People

Allowing easy access to comment and share views, the social networking sites and blogs evolve as the most prominent democratic media platform for common masses. Read below and know how the influences of democratic media affect the corporate world:

• Democratic media helps to protect the rights of a consumer
• Provides with freedom of speech to consumers
• Curbs the power of brand identity
• Allows access to fair knowledge to public
• Limits the creative flow of a designer

So, lets find out how democratic media is changing the very principles of online reputation management. Here are the two classic examples that you should not miss at any cost:

BP Fiasco
BP has learned the immense power of Democratic media the hard way. The massive oil spill that put the company on its toe last year drew furious feedbacks and flak from a large number of netizens. Some over enthusiastics even try to tarnish its online reputation by making parody of its logo and some even went on further by announcing to launch a logo design contest to make fun of BP’s global brand image. Green Peace, as obvious, was on the forefront of these activities.

Gap fiasco
Power of democratic media once again got reflected when Gap decided to change its original logo. But the decision did not go down well with people. People started posting against the decision in various social media sites, blogs etc and eventually, Gap decided to put an end to this by reverting to its old logo.

So, if you are still in denial about the ever increasing power of democratic media, you are just inviting similar kind of embarrassment for your corporate organization.

A designer is considered to be the middleman who helps build a bridge of communication between the selling company and the buyer. The sole objective of a designer is to create a design that helps convey the message in print or web based mediums to the buyer or customer. To be able to approach the job of designing properly, a graphic designer or a web designer needs to know the basic similarities and dissimilarities of designing in print medium and web medium individually.

The principles of designing for print and web varies in accordance to their need and target audience. Here we will be discussing about the principles to follow in graphic designing and web designing:

• Forget Linear Movement
  Before you start designing any concept or message, the first thing to know is whether it is being done for print or web. If the designing is for web, it is important that you understand the habit of web users well beforehand. In web, users tend to browse through and not spend more than few minutes on a particular site. Hence to attract more traffic, the items used in web designing need to have a smooth flow among them. On the other hand, for print the items used in designing do not need to interact with each other.
  Proper planning of the linear movement and interaction of items in designing can help you have your way through web designing and graphic designing.
• Plan for growth
  While planning your design, there should always be scope for growth and improvement. Certain elements of designing keep on changing depending on the change in time and likes of customers. A good designer should understand the need for growth in accordance to the changing trend, especially in web. Website design undergo changes frequently keeping pace with the global need of customers. Plan your scope of growth in areas of content, navigation, footers and any other place that allow easy up-gradation and accessibility.
• High Usability
  Conduct a usability survey before you start designing to understand the flaws of a design from user’s viewpoint. Do not get trapped in various complicated designs that do not help in improving website traffic. Instead focus on keeping your web design simple and easy navigation of the site that allows a smooth and easy accessibility to users. Add authentic visual appeal to your website products, buttons and other options so that they influence a customer in availing that product or service.
• Cooperation with developer
  As a graphic designer or web designer, you get to have the initial approval from clients. But it is recommended that before you show your design to client for approval, talk to your developer to ensure that what you are designing makes sense and can be efficiently implemented. Web designing and development goes hand in hand. Therefore always maintain a cooperative and open communication with your developer to avoid future problems.
• Embrace the standards and principles of medium
  Though web designing and graphic designing is said to be totally dependant on a designer’s creativity, yet there are certain rules and principles that a designer need to maintain in accordance to trend and need. Some of the things a designer needs to accept in both print and web designing are as follows:
  • There is no fixed standard of color for web
  • Web fonts should be the standard fonts that are available in all customer machines by default
  • Common rules of designing need to be followed well

Follow the above stated principles and ensure that you have a properly prepared quality design. There are many web designing companies as well as graphic designing companies who can help provide various innovative and unique designs as per client’s need.

Hectic working hours, piles of files, timeline, project etc are some of the thing that most of us are acquainted with. Sometime these things take toll on us and we eventually get confused and end with messing up the entire thing. Those who are working in the field of graphic design are all well versed with these types of situation where they find it extremely difficult to organize their graphic design files. As these files look all same it becomes almost a headache for a graphic designer to keep them under track. Files can go missing, same files can be sent to clients and hosts of similar confusions can plague a working place. Now if you do want to get out of this messy situation, just chalk out a proper plan in advance. Here in this article, we will discuss some tips that can be proved extremely effective to manage and organize your files smoothly.

Stick To A Standard

This is the most vital thing that you should not ignore at any cost. While naming the file, you should follow the same method. This will help you organize things in proper order. Make sure the name can be remembered easily or can be located easily. Do not use fancy name, try to name by date or by name of the clients that will help you to find the files out in time of urgency.

Organize Folders Properly
Try to organize files with astute attention. You should use date specific folder and the structure should be thus: year>month>date. In each separate dated folder, you can create subfolders that can be named by the clients or by the projects.

Try Some Software

Though if you can follow the above-mentioned tips, you would not face any kind of hassle while locating a specific file. But there are some software packages available that are tailored to help you to browse through millions of folders. Adobe Bridge is a popular software package, which is widely used for this purpose.

Though most of us do not care two hoots to organizing files and folders in a proper way unless we face its brunt. Proper file management will eventually help us to save time and will help us to give more concentration to other important areas.

Graphic designing can undoubtedly make a website look visually appealing. It has been observed that if you could make your site look professional as well as attractive more and more visitors will come to your site and thus you can expect to get more popularity. Visual pleasure is undoubtedly the most remarkable quality of any website which allures the visitors and they get convinced to read your web content. So, not only make your content informative, but also make sure that the layout of your site looks colorful and bright.

Those who are involved with this work of graphic design are usually creative people, who are also expected to be technically sound. Nowadays, you will find very few people, who have high patience level, so it is advisable to make your website in such a way so that anyone can easily get impressed to see the web graphic design of your site.

Not only content, image has also the potential to convey the thoughts of the site owners. So, it is necessary to make the graphics of the home page sensible and eye-catching in order to keep the attention of the visitors hooked to your website for a long time.

If you want your website to get downloaded faster, you should stick to graphics of lower resolution. In case you are bound to insert large graphic image, make sure you have broken it down into small modules, so that the loading doesn’t get affected.

Before finalizing the graphic design, it is always better to check out the dimension of your images and try to understand if it suits your website. Another thing that should be kept in mind is that the graphic you are using should be relevant to your web content. Otherwise, people will feel that you have not taken any care while designing your website and they will simply loose to read your article.

Isn’t it often becomes very tiresome to run after your deadline and working through out the week in a tight schedule? This is almost the similar situation with every working person of today’s era. And when it comes to generate creative ideas, the person often seems not to produce satisfactory new ideas and his creative potentiality lessens. For example the graphic designers are those people who have to constantly provide new designing and re-designing ideas. So it is better to find some easy recreational activities to boost and refresh your mind at your work place.

You need not to go anywhere from office to find these recreations. You can enjoy your work even better if you take out some time to follow these given tips:

• Gossiping and Sneak Peaking: After some hours of continuous work, you can just take a short break to go around your work place or just check out with the colleague who seats next to you. Taking a sneak peak around your floor will lighten up your mind or you can just spend a couple of minutes to gossip with your teammates! Gossiping is quite an addictive habit among most of us. It is generally not a good practice but light gossiping with your colleagues will sure give you a pleasant break from non-stop work.
• Exercise: While working long hours, it is good to stretch your limbs and back. It will bring a relaxed feeling in between working hours. This is surely healthy and will refresh your body and mind. Take a few minutes break to do these simple stretching exercises, which can be done by not even getting up from your seat.
• Energy Drink: Get some energy drinks for your office. If you feel too tired in the middle of your shift, these drinks will sure give you a boost. Buy all your favorite flavors of your energy drink and keep enjoying them at your work place. The energy drinks will also raise your creativity level if you feel down.
• Ordering A Pizza: How about ordering a pizza and sharing it with your colleagues? It can be on any occasion or without an occasion. You can treat yourself and your friends with the spicy pizza slices. The spicy taste will sure help you people to speed up your minds.
• Short Nap: Pamper yourself with a nap at your office. But over sleepers do be aware of sleeping at your desk and resulting in loosing your job. It has been proven that short nap increases our working potential than working continuously for hours. If your office permits you can try this. This is indeed an effective way to refresh yourself and revive your energy in the midst of your work.
• Give the Shock: If you are feeling down or losing yourself in day dreams now and then at your work place then there is an effective way to keep you wide awake! Set your alarm with the most odd alert tone at regular duration. When you are all set for another day dreaming session, this scary alarm will remind you that you have loads of work to complete.
• Cold Shower: To make you feel rejuvenated for the next shift and tedious hours, try out a cold shower. It will work like magic. You will feel great and can get back to work with more enthusiasm. Do not forget to freshen up and keep yourself tidy at your work place.
• Browsing the You-Tube: Take out a while to browse through your favorite videos on You Tube. Watch and enjoy those that you already love and at the same time look for something new and interesting. If you come across one and quite like it, you can also share with the person next to you to break the monotony of work.
• Listening Music: How about listening some good music with a headphone and that too without disturbing anybody. Music sometimes adds magic to your working potential. You can either get carried away humming your favorite tune but most of the cases its just the reverse. It actually refreshes your mind and makes you all set to work harder and faster with more concentration.

Some of the above mentioned tips might not be always feasible at your work place. But if it is possible then you can surely try out some of them to keep yourself happy and livened up at your work place. Sometimes trying out the odd stunts will surely increase your working capacity.

For graphic design projects you can contact Quality Web Solutions. You can personally meet our graphic designers during your projects and consult them about your works. When you visit our spacious office, you can surely check out our working stations only to find a friendly and congenial environment for creative working. We have team of professional graphic designers to deliver quality work within time.

Web design and graphic design are two different processes. But both are important elements of creating a presentable website. While graphic design is closely associated with creativity, web design is synonymous with logical coding. Earlier creative graphic designing was hardly given any importance in building a site. But the scenario is different now. The visual part of a website has always been a priority and it is seen, a good knowledge of graphic design can only enhance it.

Why Graphic Designing is Important for Web Designing?

After all why does graphic designing play an important part in web designing? Lets discuss some of the basic reasons for it:

• Visual Appeal: The visual aspect is one of the crucial aspects of a website. Sometimes it is easier to communicate with viewers through graphical designs. An amazing design is sure to appeal to the aesthetic senses of the viewers. Hence pleasing graphic design will help to create an added connection with the site visitors.
• Professionalism: An added touch of professionalism can be added to a website by using graphic designs. It is often seen that a site has proper validation but it fails to attract visitors. It fails to create visual appeal to the visitors.
• Usability: The usability factor of a site should not be left out while designing it. The viewers should find the site user-friendly. The visitors will expect to find the content/information they are looking for with easy site navigation. Besides regular coding, knowledge of simple graphics will help a lot in this context.

Are you looking for graphic designers to enhance the appeal of your site then you can avail graphic design services from Quality Web Solutions. We have expert graphic designers and skilled web designers to meet your expectations and needs. Get a unique website where web design is teamed with graphics to make your site presentable and more attractive.