Today's web 2 sites all have some unique features that set it a bit apart from the earlier websites. Web 2 means a new revolution on the web with greater focus on interactivity between sites and a lot of socializing and formation of new online communities. The modern style of web designing has certain common features and one could say that the key word here is indeed simplicity. No more flashy websites with strong colors to tire away people.

Contemporary web design is distinguished by,

• Simple layout
• Centralized orientation
• Neutral background colors
• Good spacing between text
• Clear and bigger text

Thus web designers are able to come closer to the overall objective of a web site. Any visitor to the website is well guided because of the use of lesser visuals and images /icons that are very appropriately chosen. The required effect is created by using the minimal required words. In the earlier days web designers believed that the visitors to the websites were to be motivated and did not know what to expect from a web site. However all that has changed. Today visitors know what to get and from which site.

Current web 2 design trends include,

• Use of cute icons but sparingly
• Giving a realistic effect to water droplets buttons etc
• Use of rich details
• Using star flashes
• More use of gradients
• Restricted use of the number of columns in a page
• Giving an illusion of reflection and the shiny table effects
• Aqua themes using blue and white colors
• Distinct top section of web page
• Clear and visible navigation

Managed Outsource Solutions (MOS) is a US based outsourcing, company that offers professional yet affordable services in corporate website design, custom website design, e-commerce website design, real estate website design, small business website design, mortgage web site design and realtor website design services for clients in the US, Canada the UK and Australia.

Labels: contemporary web design, outsourcing, web 2, web 2 design, web design

What is typography? It is the practice and art of creative arrangement of text and selecting of typefaces to achieve functional as well as aesthetic goals. Type design is a specialty by itself and is the art of designing typefaces or fonts. While we design a web page, we realize how important it is to choose the right font because it affects the overall design of the page, and also the website visitor. Thus typography and fonts are considered among the primary factors that can go into making an effective website design.

Typography is practiced by typesetters, compositors, typographers, art directors, educators, calligraphers, stone-cutters and software writers, graphic artists and other print professionals. Some of the work aspects in typography involve,

• Type design
• Modification of type glyphs
• Letter spacing
• Line spacing
• Line length
• Point size

Association Typographique Internationale or ATypI is the premier worldwide organization that was founded in 1957 and is dedicated to the profession of typography. A revolution triggered by digitization has seen arrival of more new typography professionals called visualizers / lay users and visual designers.

The web design community of today has been influenced much by the concept of Web 2 and the fast growing open source environment with social networking that demands certain rules of typography to be followed in web design. These include,

• Sufficient white space on page
• No narrow line spacing
• Limited length of text lines
• Good text alignment
• Uniform font size
• Proper placement of image/picture
• Good scalability

Managed Outsource Solutions is a US based web designing and BPO service provider offering professional website design services for the realtors, law firm, corporate and mortgage communities besides offering outsourcing in legal transcription, data entry, web content development and search engine optimization for clients in the US, Canada the UK and Australia.

Labels: glyphs, typeface designing, typography, web design, webdesign services

The term 'Web 2' was coined by Tim O'Reilly, the great supporter of free software and open source movement himself. What is Web 2? In his own words,

Web 2 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.

What are web 2 awards? Well, the web 2.0 awards were created by Rand Fishkin, the CEO of the website "seomoz.org" in 2006.

What are the characteristics that comprise a web 2 website? These are the requirements that the website must have to participate in the web 2 award.

• User generated and/or user influenced content
• Applications that use the Web (versus the desktop) as a platform, in innovative ways
• Similar visual design and shared functional languages
• Support trends like blogging, social tagging, wikis, and peer-to-peer sharing
• Include technologies like RSS, AJAX, APIs, RoR etc
• Incorporate Open source/sharable frameworks as user-oriented "create your own" APIs

Take a look at all the great websites that were declared winners of the 2007 web 2.0 Awards. These include over 200 web 2 sites in 41 categories. Just go to http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0

Managed Outsource Solutions is a US based web design and solution provider with expertise in offering website design services besides services like logo designing, 2D /3D animation, legal graphics, corporate web design, small business design, search engine optimization and photo editing to clients in the US, Canada the UK and Australia.

Labels: corporate web design, Tim O' Reilly, web 2 awards, web design

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Started in 1996 the awards are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities with 550 members.

The 11th Annual Webby Awards received over 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide. The deadline for entry to The 12th Annual Webby Awards is on November 2, 2007. To enter, click here.

Managed Outsource Solutions is a web design company offering services in law firm web design, corporate web design, small business web design and mortgage web design services to clients in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.

Labels: web design, Web USA Award 2007, webby award

How often have you seen a data entry screen that is alive? As you enter the data, live validation data entry system would make it seem like as if the online form / data entry screen is a person that chats to you and guides you as you type in, and corrects you when you make a mistake.

Browsing the web today has become such an interactive process and one has to constantly enter data, fill up forms, answer questionnaires, vote, and comment, take part in online surveys, transact money and the like. Quite often one can end up making minor mistakes while entering data and it is only much later that we come to know that the entered data was not wrong and so not valid. But with live validation the scenario is different as the data entry screens / forms will respond and communicate instantly if you make a mistake. Now web site owners and designers can make sure the customers fill up forms just as is expected.

To try out and down load an open source live validation software and design similar forms yourself, just go to http://www.livevalidation.com/. This is a cross-platform JavaScript validation framework for the client side. What are the types of validations possible? They include validation of the following types of qualities /data.

• Presence
• Numerical data
• Length of characters
• Inclusion of characters
• Exclusion of characters
• Acceptance
• Confirmation
• Email

Managed Outsource Solutions (MOS) is a US based company and offers professional services in data entry, forms processing, web design and development, data processing, data mining, data cleaning, data capture and KDD (knowledge discovery) services to its clients in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.

Labels: automated data entry, forms processing, live validation, web design

A good logo goes a long way in creating brand awareness and is very crucial to the success of any business or company. Anyone interested in creating and developing a brand with an online or offline presence will have to design and develop a good logo first. A company becomes proud of its beautiful logo as it gains momentum and becomes functional. What are the basic features and principles of a good web logo design? Well they can be listed as follows,

• The logo should reflect the company's image.
• Logo must be very impressive
• Must have aesthetic appeal
• Logo should be able to attract the attention of people
• Must have an original look
• Logo should be unique
• Should be memorable
• Company logo should be identified with the products and services offered
• Logo should promote professionalism
• Logo should have high legibility

A good logo will never become outdated and should successfully face the test of time. It is essential that the basic principles of design be followed. It is better to have a simple design without any complications. As a logo will have to be printed in other media like paper or fabric etc the logo should be effective in all sizes big or small.

Managed Outsource Solutions (MOS) is a US based web design and development company that offers high quality affordable services in logo design, web design, search engine optimization, corporate web design, law firm web design, small business web design and real estate web design to clients in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.

Labels: brand image, branding, company logo services, logo design, web design

Before beginning work on a website it is best to first evaluate an existing website and rate it between one and ten. During evaluation there are some basic questions that will need to be answered. Depending on the site's objective one can then choose the required design criteria. However there are certain essential common features that a good website must have like,

• Get a URL which itself can convey the site message
• Front screen must have some thing interesting to capture the interest of the visitor and it should be very relevant to the theme of the website.
• Graphics on the opening page should neither be too large or small but just right.
• Home page must quickly download.
• Long articles must have subheads with separate links
• Links must be prominent and easily accessible
• Web page articles should not be too long or short
• Site must provide full contact address with fax and phone details
• Visitor registration/forms only if relevant or necessary
• Colors must be effectively used
• Site should offer useful database/ applications to the visitors
• Common theme and elements must unify all the website pages
• CSS to be preferred to tables for page layouts
  Care must be taken to avoid broken links, spelling mistakes and animation/graphics that slow down the pages.

Managed Outsource Solutions (MOS) is a US based web design and development company that offers a wide range of affordable outsourced services like, corporate web design, small business web design, real estate web design, law firm web design, e-commerce web design, search engine optimization, logo designing, to clients in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.

Labels: good website designing, principles, tips, web design, webdesign