zig advertising website
Sat, 31 Jul 2010 02:31:07 -0400
When people search online for your business and find that it is not listed online, or do not have their own web-site, or have e-mail ids with @hotmail.com or some other mail server extension, they are not impressed with your lack of online presence.
It is true that a truly well-designed, fully functional website could add to the financial burdens to a start-up business. This does not mean you totally chuck out the idea of having your own website. It is suggested that you start low, by simply displaying basic information about your business, viz. – location, products, services, pricing, ordering details etc. online; on a clean and well presented website.
Having such a website is not only affordable; it is also a very viable marketing tool. Buying your own domain name and opting from among various hosting plans is all well within the budget for both small businesses and bigger players. In fact, you can save quite a lot on business cards, posters, pamphlets, flyers and boards when you own your own website.
In short, here are 5 reasons that iterate the
importance of websites for Small Businesses –
- Online Presence is considered ‘Essential’
- Creates a Professional Image for your Business
- More Targeted Advertising Tool
- Helps in increasing Sales
- Convenient to Potential Customers
Since most people turn to the internet to look for more information, a website is highly convenient to potential customers. Having your own website establishes an impression that your company is both professional and competent. Online advertising is targeted. Hence visitors to your websites are most often not strays. Your potential customers can go through all of your products and services leisurely and make an informed choice.
www.DreamDezigns.com
This recent post by Frank Chimero made my thoughts crystallize on why I can sometimes feel frustrated by the perceived and real dominance of interactive design.
Websites are essential. Social media is essential. And I’m not for a second arguing the validity of the online sphere in providing immeasurably valuable experiences and insights. I’ve spent the better part of my life on computers since I sat on my dad’s knee with the Apple II, and since the first time I browsed the internet a few years later, I’ve been on that constantly too.
But I’m also a historian, both by interest and by education. My perspective on life involves questioning why and how things happened throughout the past, in order to better understand the present and, dare I say it, the future too. I look at things with a view to how they’ll be remembered, and that kind of long-lasting memorability is something that the online world is not meant for, and was never meant for.
Digital’s Hubris
That’s the hubris of the internet and the designs we create on it: by themselves, they rarely provide lasting impact. The content may carry the potential to change people’s lives, and it may do just that, but certain things resonate more in print because of the medium itself. Our human nature is changing, as Nick Carr argues, and with it the power for certain things to resonate over others by virtue of both their message and their medium.
The internet and all it entails will never go away, and heck, I never want it to; it’s an essential part of my life. But as the cynic in me periodically asks, what’s the point of devoting so much time, effort and resources to designing for something that’s always changing, will be outdated in a few years and rarely leaves a lasting impression beyond a “that’s cool” remark and a tweet?
In some ways, a website is a quick-fix solution, a quick-hitting promotion. Every few years the client develops a gotta-change-things itch it needs to scratch based on the latest developments and trends in the online sphere. It’s the new advertising and it has been for some time, and for the most part, websites are not intended to last more than a few years. Such is the nature of the medium, and such is the nature of the business.
But when you create something in the image of a band-aid, it’s no surprise that it’s constantly devalued in the eyes of clients. This mentality breeds quick-fix solutions, and will only continue the downward spiral of the value of design in the eyes of many — which, as Frank points out, is paradoxically matched with the increasing sense of the importance of design. But that’s just it: clients nowadays realize that there is an importance to design, but the true value of it gets missed.
And maybe that’s how web design should be. Passable graphic design is far easier to come by nowadays, and maybe that’s what the digital sphere should largely consist of: Chris Anderson’s oft-stated “good enough.” And maybe the best design should be reserved for those who’ll cherish it, fund it and enjoy it for what its worth. And is there any better way to convey that than print, at least when fully used to its maximum potential?
Design for Those Who Value It
It’s not just the tactility of print design that imbues its potential for a greater impression. It’s not just the strength of a brand identity that makes a greater impression. It’s not just the fact that you can look at something without the aid of a digital screen that makes a greater impression.
It’s the fact that when you combine everything together that comprises the “traditional” design world, it creates a lasting impression that no website can hope to reproduce because it utilizes more senses than vision. It engages on emotional levels that exist below the surface. There’s mountains of trashy print design that has accumulated over the history of printed design, but a printed experience at its finest engages its “user” in a far deeper, far more emotional way than a similar-quality (if such medias can be compared) website.
We say we want to make a difference. To really stand out. But to do that, you have to either knock something out of the park in the same field or you move in the opposite direction. Zig when others zag. March to your own beat. Designers are born to march counter to the rest of society, yet when so many of us seem to trip over each other following the latest trends and technologies, the term “unique” is rendered completely invalid.
This mentality of difference is why print design will never die. Because the tactile experience of holding something in your hands, carrying the modest hope of being retained, cannot be replaced. Witness the creation of 8 Faces, a bi-annual magazine devoted to typography created and edited by some of the finest figures in typography, whether they work primarily digitally or in print.
Annual reports will make their comeback, in a different way than they existed before, perhaps incorporating the best of open two-way communication to make them more relevant. Illustration has somewhat made its comeback, adding a unique visual element to the tactile element of a printed piece. Magazines and newspapers will keep on chugging. Look around you in a coffee shop, at a bookstore, or on the bus: hardly the funereal landscape of a dying industry. As I said in last week’s post, history is a cyclical mistress, and it’s cruel to those who observe the peaks without acknowledging the valleys.
The Margins
The highest-quality design was always something intended for and appreciated by the margins. Like the cultural institutions of a city, the best of the best will largely go unnoticed. But for those who do care, they’ll find it that much more worth their while, the same way that an art gallery will be known of by many but cherished by few. Maybe this is where the value of great design is best realized: not for the masses but for the few. Good design can benefit anything, and for that we have templates, but great design can only benefit a few.
While the floor should rise, maybe the ceiling should rise along with it.
