Why are we boring you guys with this topic?

Because if you’re thinking about having a website designed, this is definitely something you want to consider, so listen up peeps!  Plus it’s wicked cool, so there’s that too.

Before we get into telling you what responsive web design is, go here and slowly make the desktop browser thinner and wider. Do you see how the layout magically changes to fit the new width of the browser? See how you can make it really small and skinny just like the screen on a smartphone?

Go ahead. Play around with it and try not to get distracted by all the cool apartments featured on that site.

We’ll wait…

This is most excellent in a flexible and fluid-y sort of way, isn’t it?  It’s kind of like yoga for websites.

That’s the point behind this whole responsive design shebang. Here, let us explain.

As you’ve probably noticed, computers aren’t the only things with web browsers anymore. Many of us now have mobile devices and there’s a whole “mobile web” out there that web designers have to contend with. People expect to be able to look at a website from their phones with the same ease and clarity as they can on their desktop computers. If you’ve ever tried to look at a website from your phone, you know it doesn’t always turn out very well and it can be a supreme pain in the tookus.

In fact, you might even get frustrated and either go looking for a site you CAN see on your phone, or just forget the whole thing and go do something else.

In response to this problem, web designers started creating mobile versions of their websites. This meant that there were two different versions of these websites—a mobile one and a desktop one. And that was just ducky and it worked out fine until things started to get interesting when devices like iPads and netbooks started appearing in people’s hands. The heads of web designers everywhere collectively exploded.

It was gross.

AND THEN!

People started buying all of these gigantic, high-resolution displays and web designers took to the streets in protest and threatened to break the Internet forever if somebody didn’t stop the insanity!

No they didn’t.

But clearly, something had to be done because these poor web designers couldn’t possibly design a site for every single stop on the now huge spectrum of screen sizes and resolutions. It’s getting bigger every day and it’s impossible to create different versions of a website that targets each and every kind of device on the market.

In response to this, web designers (specifically This Guy), have adopted this responsive web design thing so that no matter what kind of device a person might be using, the elements of the web layout can be squeezed or stretched as needed to fit the size of the screen, and everything will still be readable and look pretty.

Cool, right?

So why do you care about this?  After all, you’re not a web designer. But you ARE (maybe) a business owner who could lose customers because your website might not work on their particular device.

Right?

You’re feeling where we’re going with this, aren’t you?

So, if you’re thinking of creating a website or updating your old one, this is something you should be thinking about doing because when you’re accessible from anywhere, you are accessible from anywhere.

I think we can all agree that is a very good thing.

PS: Our web designers’ heads remained intact during The Great Head Exploding Incident. They are unflappable!

So, is a picture really worth a thousand words? If the picture's on your website, it could be worth ten times that many.

Considering that the average visitor spends less than a minute on your website, the design of your site needs to quickly and easily communicate who you are and what you do. When you have a small window of time to say, "I am a friendly, thoughtful, customer-service-oriented business with happy customers," good quality images may be the perfect way to do it!

Including images in your website design is like hanging pictures on the wall: your house may not look bad without the pictures, but it can look so much better with them. Using imagery on a website adds color, breaks up monotonous text, and helps frame what is most important on the page.  And using photography to make the site look better means visitors will stay longer... always a good thing.

But how do you decide what images to use? And how much will this cost anyway?

There are a number of options available to suit any size budget...

• Smile! You can choose to hire a photographer to shoot some photos that are exactly what you need. If you make a specialty product or own some unique manufacturing equipment, or if your facility or your staff can be a draw for your prospects, this option may be the most effective one for you. A good photographer will provide you with a library of images you can use for your website, print collateral, annual reports and for a wide variety of other uses. (Just be sure to tell them what you're looking for, so you can get what you need.)
• "Today, the stock market stayed steady..." Another option is to purchase stock photography. And even here, there are two distinct camps: rights reserved and royalty-free.

Rights reserved images are photos that are available for sale by photographers or agencies. The prices can vary dramatically, but if you need a particular high-quality image for a specific purpose, it can be money well spent. Keep in mind that when you purchase a rights reserved photo, you're paying for exclusive rights to use that photo in specific applications, so the cost depends on how you'll use it. You'll need to specify the details of how, when, where, and how often the image will be seen when ordering.

Royalty-free images are photos available for sale by agencies and online vendors. These photos can be sold individually or in sets (for instance, medical or hospital imagery), and are typically less expensive than rights reserved photos. The image quality is still quite good, but because you're not purchasing exclusive use of the photos, remember that the agency can sell the same images to a number of organizations.

A friendly reminder: it's illegal to use any artwork (including photography, clip art, illustrations or paintings) without permission.

When it comes to photography, size does matter.

In imagery, the important thing to keep in mind is the resolution. Just like high-definition TV, the higher the resolution, the sharper the image will be. Resolution is measured in "dpi" or "dots per inch". The higher the resolution (the more dots of color per inch of image size), the better the quality of the image.

For your website, the image resolution standard is 72 dpi because that's the resolution of most computer screens. (If the image you have is a higher resolution, you can use a photo editing program to change the dpi.)

Remember... the images on your site are intended to entice visitors to stay a while, so think about what images will keep people on your site long enough to find out what a great company you are!

Next month, join us as we discuss some e-marketing options you can use to drive more traffic to your site.

With the prevalence of email, text messaging and IMs, it seems hard to imagine that conventional mail (a.k.a., "snail mail") could be an important marketing vehicle. And yet, millions of dollars are spent by companies each year to create direct marketing pieces that deliver an experience right to your door.

How do you know if you should reach out and touch someone in their mailbox? Just ask yourself three questions:

• Do you want to touch them? If you want to market to a particular geographic area, direct mail may be your best bet. There are dozens of mail list services that sell lists segmented in a variety of ways. If you're a pizza shop that offers delivery in downtown Cleveland, you can send your menu to potential customers in your city, or even in a specific zip code.
• Do you want them to touch something? If you want to send a "thing", direct mail is the way to go. Does your mailing include a coupon? A logo'd magnet? A free gift? There's a reason that Easter Seals sends out those preprinted address labels year after year.
• Do you want them to do something? If you want your customers to connect you to your mailing, this method could be the perfect option. Whether that means sending a refrigerator magnet in your mailing, offering a special discount to shoppers who bring your postcard into the store, or including a scratch-off prize to a number of "winners" to encourage visits to your restaurant, the mailing should tie directly to your promotion and your company.

Assuming you have good reason for entering your prospect's home or work space, what should your direct mail piece look like?

There are dozens of books, blogs, websites and experts who all have opinions about what works and what doesn't. If you don't have time to collect the wisdom of the ages and distill it into a few simple rules, no need to worry; we've done that for you here.

Unlike digital media, direct mail actually shares time and space with us. Your prospect can see and touch it. And with the wide range of design methods and printing technologies, the options for creating a unique and appealing campaign piece are limited only by your (or your agency's) imagination.

Five Rules to Direct Mail Excellence

1. Say what you mean. Then, say it again. And close by saying what you just said.
2. Use a great designer. If you skimp on the look, no one will read your mailing. Trust me.
3. Find the people you want. Make sure you know who you want to reach and where they live, work and/or play.
4. Keep it simple. Only Publishers Clearing House gets away with complicated mailings.
5. Don't shower them with love. Make sure you have something to say that's worth the time, effort and expense of creating a mailing.

Creating a winning direct mail piece can significantly impact your bottom line (plus or minus), so work with an agency that's designed mail you would read, and let their expertise work for you.

Next month, we'll deliver the primer on how to create winning print ads.

For the first time in 14 years,QVC is redesigning its image. The television shopping network recently launched a new logo as part of atotal integrated marketing campaign (the first of its 21 years) that aims tooverhaul QVC’s identity from the ground up.

The changes to the updated logo are hardly subtle. QVC went all out, changingits straightforward, plain red letters to a bold, teal Q that surrounds theclassic, simple QVC and resembles a ribbon ready to unravel. The new look hopesto appeal to QVC's target 35+ female audience by urging them to grab thatribbon, unwrap and enjoy the metaphorical gift that the network delivers. DesignblogBrandNew approves, noting "despite the unwatchable content (at least for me), thenew logo surpasses any expectations I may have had about QVC."

QVC’s new logo coincides with an entire campaign based on the first of its threecall letters. “We’d really like to own the 17th letter of the alphabet,” Jeff Charney, the chief marketing officer for QVC toldTheNew York Times. Consequently, the letter appears everywhere from thechannels' catchphrase “iQdoU?” (“I shop QVC, do you?”), to a line ofconsumer-friendly Qture products, to the creation of its first nationaltelevision ad featuring QVC shoppers and the tagline “Merci Beau Q.”Highlighting the distinctive Q to emphasize the social shopping experience,"said QVC presidentMikeGeorge, aims to tap into “smart, savvy shoppers” and get them thinking aboutthe “excitement and feelings” associated with shopping QVC.

Are those feelings enough? Companies like QVC should cautiously approach basingmarketing initiatives purely on dominant pop culture presence, warnsAdAge(free registration required for article abstract). Once the initial Q frenzywears off, will all those crazy Qs be enough to keep consumers' interest in anage of online shopping?