We’re just putting the finishing touches on 2 sister sites, www.mypregnancyexperts.com and www.drcarlacupido.com.
We designed lots of custom elements for both sites – buttons, sidebar promos, and some pretty collage-y banners for each.
We got to feature some of Anastasia Photography’s images on My Pregnancy Experts. It was a treat working with these fun and beautiful images. Check out her work here www.anastasiaphotography.ca and blog www.anastasiachomlack.typepad.com.
These drawings may seem like a departure from our usual experimental style over here at Anthem, but I have absolutely loved working on these. I began attending life drawing evening sessions when I was 15 years old, and have always had a special place in my heart for figure drawing.
I did some quick sketches of yoga poses and muscles for Dr Carla Cupido of Baseline Health for her series of e-books, and here is also a set of more finished drawings for a different client and their first aid guide.
I wanted to share these, just in case more of you out there are in need of some sketches or illustrations. Kindly get in touch via the contact page, and I’d be happy to draw you something!
They’re ready! I got to do some t shirt designs for Farm Skateboards last month, and here they are. These are screen printed by hand at the Farm workshop in Nelson BC. Watch for them on the Farm site www.farmskateboards.com or contact Anthem to purchase.
We’ve been getting more questions lately about mobile and responsive websites – folks wondering what the options are, and how to choose the best platform for a new website.
First let’s start with some stats.
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87% of the world’s population has gone mobile. There are 6 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide.
1.2 billion of these subscribers are accessing the web. Almost a quarter of Americans access the web from mobile only.
300,000 apps have been developed in the past 3 years.
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There are more shapes and sizes of phones and tablets than ever before. This means your website is being viewed on all kinds of different platforms in addition to the desktop screen. We are now faced with the question – how do we design one website that will be seen on handheld screens a few inches wide all the way up to the beautiful 27″ iMacs and TV screens?
This question has been hotly debated back and forth for quite some time now. Despite the strong opinions, I do not think there is a definitive answer. It depends on the website, the company behind it, the user experience, goals, and budget.
When thinking about a new website, return on investment (ROI) should be a key factor in determining what route to take. Who are your customers? What do they do, and what do they need? Your market analysis should lead the decision making process on choosing the best path. If the majority of your visitors are going to access your site from a phone or tablet, then it’s going to be a worthwhile investment to make sure the site looks great on all platforms. If your visitors are generally going to be accessing your site from their desktop computer in an office, mobile is going to be less important. (For now at least!)
Here are some options:
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Fixed width site with a mobile version.
This is a good option if your mobile visitors are looking for different information on the go than they would be viewing on the desktop at home. Have a look at www.drivebc.ca on your computer, then check out their mobile version on your phone – two different presentations of information tailored to each experience. There’s a nice big map to check out your route and highway cams before you leave from the home computer, then easy access to weather info and cams from the mobile version when you’re on the road.
You can have a dedicated mobile site custom designed, or if the budget is tight / you have a low percentage of mobile users, you could always try a mobile app. WordPress has a number of apps which transform your content into a more digestible format for small screens.
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Responsive website.
Responsive sites are built with percentages instead of fixed widths, and they resize according to screen size. Visit www.mediaqueri.es to view examples. These sites are great if your visitors are accessing the website from a whole variety of devices, because they adapt to whatever screen they appear on. Responsive design is not brand new, but still new enough that there are not a lot of sites built this way yet.
I suspect that in the future more and more websites will be responsive, but due to the higher development + design costs and the fact that responsive may not be appropriate for every website, we’re not going to see a web full of these for a little while to come. If you are able to invest in a responsive site, they can be a very smart and beautiful way to solve the multi screen size dilemma.
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Fixed width only.
The last option is to do nothing differently. Mobile phones are designed to allow users to pinch, zoom and swipe to navigate around the web. For a very small site, this may actually be a good solution, especially if the budget is very tight. If you take a look at ths.nu, his site is beautiful on the desktop, but it also looks great on my iPhone just as it is. One advantage to this route is that for an art site, you can zoom in on the image to get a better look. Zoom is disabled on responsive sites so this could be a good option if you have a very simple 2 column design, and some interesting features to explore with the zoom.
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I do not believe that there’s a one size fits all solution to the new advancements in technology. Design and development should be planned for each new site on an individual basis considering a variety of factors unique to each particular business.
A great user experience should be the primary goal for any new site, and we’re here to help you determine what is best for your your business.
