Designers would play ping-pong below; people were allowed to drink beer at work; and brilliant ideas would flow effortlessly from your mind into multi-million-dollar campaigns for clients like Nike and Coca-Cola.

In fact, you got a job at a large corporation and were shown to a desk in a sea of light-gray fabric-covered cubicles. Instead of 30-foot ceilings, you have surprisingly low ceilings, covered with a substance that you could swear is asbestos.

You were given a 90-page handbook on how to create drop-shadows and sent off to populate templates for product brochures.

Sounds like hell. But outlined below are a few ways to improve your outlook on work life, foster creativity in you and the business and, most importantly, bring some fun into your corporate job.

Accept the Corporate Mindset, and Then Make Your Mark

Image by Tim Patterson

Working for a large corporation comes with many perks, such as benefits packages, consistent pay checks, team collaboration and not having to chase down new business. But it also comes with communications guidelines, branding standards and templates.

To maintain your creativity, you have to look beyond the projects in queue.

Getting used to the corporate mindset is difficult for some (me included), but embracing it and learning where you can and cannot make concessions is a crucial part of success. For example, I once led an initiative to change the way we marketed a segment of our products.

Instead of simply opening the packaging template and dropping in an image of the new product, I designed a template with a new photography standard, new colorways and a new ad campaign to coincide with the product launch. Of course, I produced what the project originally called for, but I was also able to present another option to the client that included a well-researched, integrated campaign that I had designed from the ground up. Damn, was that ever fun.

Think Like an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs are constantly looking for opportunities in the market to offer something new or make something better.

You can have the same mindset in your corporation. Constantly be on the look-out for ways to improve your company’s products, processes, vendor contracts, print-vendor relationships, color-correction issues, design workflow, online-advertising testing practices, conference-calling ability, whatever.

You’ll see problems and holes in the processes of many of your daily workflows. Instead of complaining about them, you could be the person improving them.

Seek Out Challenges

Few designers want to sit for hours on end putting silos on images because it’s tedious, unchallenging work.

For me, the best projects are the ones that take me a little out of my comfort zone, and I actively seek those out. Not only do they keep me engaged at work but they increase my skill-set and make me more needed to management and the entire team.

I even like to look beyond my team for challenges, and now people come to me for input on all types of projects, from software implementation to video direction to website usability testing.

Scare yourself and you’ll find interesting ways to learn new skills and bolster your creativity.

Become a Free Agent

Want to move to a different team? Let that team’s leader know by offering to help it out!

For months I wanted to move from the print team to multimedia team. Having pretty good knowledge of Flash, I would volunteer for projects whenever they were overloaded.

Eventually, an opportunity to join the team opened up, and because the team leader was already familiar with me and the quality of my work, I was the logical choice for the job. I managed to create the situation I wanted, even though it wasn’t what I was hired for.

Be the Go-To Guy

Know of a huge campaign coming up? I can assure you that the creative director will be overwhelmed.

Mention to him or her that you’d like to help out in any way you can, and show an example of what you can do. As with any client pitch, put yourself in his or her position to figure out where you can help out. You might get the opportunity to work on a high-profile campaign or to travel to help direct a photo shoot.

Become known as a person with a wealth of good ideas, and you’ll get to work on all the fun projects. I’m constantly helping the video team when they get overloaded; consequently, I’m often asked to assist with concepting, art direction, casting, location management, etc. Because I’m not anything close to resembling a filmmaker, I find the challenge rewarding and extremely exciting.

Befriend Clients

Working in a corporate design department affords you constant access to clients. Make friends with them. Not only will it make communication easier during projects, it will also streamline feedback and approval times.

Equally important, friendship is a great way to nurture “brave clients.” Brave clients are people who get in the ring and fight for your great ideas and secure money or backing from management. So, keep the big picture in mind, and realize that when someone asks you to do something slightly outside your job description, he or she may have the key to the budget that would kickstart that pet project of yours mired in red tape.

You’ll get to know some great people who will be willing to go to bat for you in a crunch.

Conclusion

Don’t let preconceived notions hamper your experience of the corporate world. The world may not be exactly what you envisioned, but there are many ways to keep your job fun and interesting. With an open mind, a willingness to execute your ideas and a lot of hard work, you will stay creative, develop skills and advance your career. Who knows? You may even enjoy it.

Written exclusively for Webdesigner Depot by Jason Bowden, corporate-design team leader by day, freelance designer by night. You can follow him on Twitter @jason_bowden or witness his admittedly mindless personal ramblings at jasonbowden.com.

What about you? What strategies have you tried to improve your job?

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My usual answer is that they cannot be compared. While WordPress had made huge strides in usability, for anything other than a blog it is an apple.

ExpressionEngine, with the release of version 2.0, makes for a lovely platform that is, as we will see, an orange.

Handling Content

The biggest difference between WordPress and ExpressionEngine is the way in which content is handled.

In WordPress, we all know that you can create a new post. This new post usually has a content section but may have some custom fields that are defined either on the fly or by the developer who created the template’s framework.

So, when you create a new post, the content will be displayed in different ways, depending on the category chosen and whether the category is a parent or child (i.e. sub-category). For the most part, though, whether they choose a new category or input data into pre-defined custom fields, the user will see the same input screen.

The items chosen by the user determine how the content is displayed. Some users like this. I think it shows WordPress’ roots as a blogging platform. This is not a knock because WordPress has certainly pushed the envelope on what can be done with a CMS just by uploading a few files. More to come on themes later.

Changing Channels

ExpressionEngine handles content quite differently. In ExpressionEngine, the user defines channels.

Each channel can be thought of as a separate blog—in fact, this is what it was called back in version 1.6.x. For each channel, you can define custom fields, categories and behaviors.

All of this is hidden from the average user in the administration portion of the website. The user would typically have access only to the “Publish” and “Edit” sections of the website and possibly some modules (which is similar to plug-ins in WordPress).

An Example

Recently we built a website for the Bay Community Church using ExpressionEngine. The website has a media section, and in that channel we created the following custom fields: title, description, image, audio and video files, file sizes, file lengths, and date on which the files were recorded.

Of course, channels can be as simple or as complex as you like (this particular website had five to six more custom fields for the media channel alone).

Most ExpressionEngine developers realize the power of the CMS’ add-ons, which also happens to be why most of them have been slow to move from version 1.6.x to 2.0. They know that most of the add-ons won’t be available for 2.0 for another couple of months.

With just a few add-ons, we extended ExpressionEngine, allowing church staff to add multiple files per entry. In the content structure of this particular website, a sermon series would be an entry on its own, and individual sermons for that series would be added to it.

To make it even more complicated, you could have any number of different types of fields in a channel (e.g. textbox, textarea, checkbox, S3 Integrated BucketList, FieldFrame Matrix, nGen File Field).

The website also has a section for small groups of people who gather for studies or fellowship.

If you navigate to a “New entry” page for the small groups, you would see a completely different set of custom fields (title, leader, location, meeting time, etc). So, from the user’s perspective, entering new content is easy because each channel is tailored to the content they are recording.

Why I Love ExpressionEngine

As a web designer, I love ExpressionEngine because it gives me extensive control. Most of my clients don’t have a single WYSIWYG editor anywhere on their website! I can control headings, MP3s, PDFs, lists and whatever else needs styling through CSS.

Unless they decide to learn HTML in order to apply inline styling, the design won’t be horrendously violated with 50-pixel blinking red fonts.

Content Construction Kit

I believe the Drupal community originally coined the term Content Construction Kit (CCK). CCK basically allows the user to define various types of content.

Perhaps the folks at EllisLab would disagree, but I would define ExpressionEngine as a CCK system. WordPress seems to be moving in that direction but is not there yet. Plenty of WordPress template developers are designing and adding to the framework, giving WordPress new kinds of functionality.

Changing the Look and Feel

For the most part, anyone can set up a WordPress blog or website with little knowledge of WordPress, PHP, HTML or anything else that would keep an Internet newcomer from blogging.

I have a non-technical friend who has set up several WordPress blogs without any of my help. Just download a template package; unzip it; upload it to wp-content/themes; log in; activate the new template; and voila! Magic happens, and you end up with a whole new website. WordPress shines in this area.

ExpressionEngine 2.0 Moving in the Right Direction

ExpressionEngine, on the other hand, has no easy way to add or change themes… yet.

With version 2.0, we are seeing the team at EllisLab starting to move in that direction. The team has added functionality that allows users to upload HTML and CSS files into folders with specific naming conventions (blog.group, main.group, portfolio.group, etc.), and you can synchronize the HTML and CSS files with ExpressionEngine, which will recognize and render them.

The problem is that ExpressionEngine only begins to shine when you get into its CCK capabilities. So, syncing files is great, but that does not get you the custom fields, categories and channels that bring ExpressionEngine to life.

EllisLab has added a file to the CMS named default_content.php, which is required to install a theme and which specifies default content, channels, custom fields and the like. But the file is not exactly intuitive.

ExpressionEngine fields are highly relational, so you definitely need to grasp SQL if you want to put a default_content.php file together.

Changing Themes

With WordPress, you can upload a new theme to change the look of the website at any time.

ExpressionEngine, on the other hand, allows a theme to be added only at the point of installation. So, if a user wants to change the look of their website, they’ll have to jump through hoops.

They would either have to keep their HTML, custom fields and other elements and then change the CSS and images. Or they would have to learn the system and then define custom fields, categories and channels. But this goes back to the way the two systems handle content.

Themes in WordPress typically all handle content the same way. Themes in ExpressionEngine do not.

What Have We Learned?

WordPress is especially good for PHP developers, tinkerers and bloggers. It is great for PHP developers because they can bend the CMS to their will; they can add functionality to the framework, as well as add custom fields and modify them at will.

It is great for tinkerers, who can set up a website easily; and if they ever get bored with the look and feel, they can search online for a new theme and have a completely new website in 20 minutes.

They can also download widgets and plug-ins that add functionality quickly. And having started out as a blogging system, WordPress really shines as a personal blog.

ExpressionEngine is great for front-end developers and designers because it does not require that users learn a difficult programming language in order to manipulate it.

Most HTML and CSS gurus can grasp the simple expressions and how to use them.

ExpressionEngine is the tool of choice for some well-known designers: Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain, Veerle Pieters and Andy Clarke, to name a few. It is extremely flexible, and few things cannot be accomplished with it.

As you can see, then, it really is an apples to oranges comparison.

This post was written exclusively for Webdesigner Depot by Marcus Neto. Marcus is a member of the ExpressionEngine Pro Network and is the man behind the curtain at EETemplates.com and Blue Fish Design Studio. He also has his say on Twitter @marcusneto.

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Many thanks to all of you who participated. The response was great and we’ve got almost 500 comments.

Each of the 10 winners has won a set of 500 free business cards of their choice with free shipping to anywhere in the world.

The winners were selected at random and you can see the results after the jump.

All winners will be contacted via email for details as to how to receive their prizes.

Here are the 10 lucky winners:

#294 – Vnikey – Specialty Shapes
#228 -  Anthony – Specialty Shapes
#415  – Diana – Square/Round Shapes
#220 – Brian Purkiss – Specialty Shapes
#353 – Josh L – Square cards
#264 – BuyMyHouse – US Standard
#357 – Cory Jones – Specialty Cards
#63 – Jake – Slim Cards
#154 – Fenson Jeremy – US Standard
#219 – Justin – Specialty Shapes

Thanks again to UPrinting for offering these fantastic prizes to WDD readers and stay tuned for more contests in the coming weeks.

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In many of these cases the designers behind the sites are simply incompetent.

They’re often amateur designers or those who have little or no design training or people who design their own sites based on a book from their local library that’s ten years out of date.

But there are other times when the designer was perfectly capable of creating a better site.

So why would a perfectly competent designer create a site that isn’t very good? The answer is simple: they settled. It happens all the time.

Maybe the designer has hit a slump and they’re looking for any paying work. Maybe it’s a site for a friend and they just don’t have the heart to tell them their design ideas are horrible. Maybe they were overwhelmed with work and just didn’t have the time the needed to devote to a project.

In any case, the end result isn’t up to par. It reflects poorly on the designer and oftentimes is left out of their portfolio entirely.

Of course, design isn’t the only place designers shouldn’t settle; it’s also important to maintain high quality standards in their business, their blogging, and other aspects of their professional life.

Work Begets Work

It’s long been said that work begets work. But it’s more complicated than that.

In reality, high quality work begets high quality work, and low quality work begets low quality work.

If you take on high quality design projects and product high quality results, you’re more likely to get similar projects in the future. If you take on projects with low design standards, you’re likely to get similar projects offered to you in the future.

Think about it for a minute. If someone sees a great website and they’re looking for a web designer, they may try to find out who designed that website. Of course, “great” is a subjective term.

So if someone likes site designs that look like they’re from the mid-90s, they’ll contact designers who are still designing like that. If they like designs that are up-to-date, unique, and professionally designed, then they’ll be looking for designers whose work is similar.

So again, if you settle for lower design standards, then you’re likely to get more work along the same lines. Hold your work to the highest standards you can and you’ll not only attract more high-quality work, but you’re also likely to improve your own skills in the process.

Pushing Yourself Results in Improved Skills

If you always settle for the easiest way to do something, you’ll never improve your own designs skills.

If you push yourself to always do things in the best way possible, you’ll constantly expand your skills and your knowledge. New and better techniques for doing things are coming out all the time, and if you expand your knowledge enough, you may be able to create your own techniques that do things better and easier than other methods available.

If you improve your skillset, you’ll be able to take on more complicated projects in the future. You’ll also improve your efficiency, as you won’t have to spend as much time figuring out how to do some things. Both of these can lead to higher income from your design work.

Good Clients Will Respect You More

Good clients will respect a designer who holds fast to their own standards. If you’re willing to sacrifice quality for the whims of a client, you’ll almost surely create inferior work at least some of the time. But if you’re confident enough in your own skills and your own aesthetic ideals, stand up for them and good clients will respect you for it.

After all, a good client recognizes that you’re the designer, and that while it’s their business, you have more experience than they do when it comes to design particulars.

They’ll appreciate it when you say (tactfully) that the giant flashing banner on the home page and all that scrolling text just isn’t going to give the impression they’re after. While it’s important to listen to your clients, don’t be afraid to step up and tell them why something isn’t a good idea.

Sure, you might lose some clients if you refuse to bend to their every poorly-thought-out decision, but the clients you retain will be easier to work with and will likely give you more design freedom. These clients will also likely refer more work to you, both directly and indirectly.

If your portfolio is filled with projects that are high-quality and reflect both your aesthetic ideals and those of your clients, you’ll attract more business. And if your clients are happy with their websites and the results they’re getting, they’re more likely to refer others they know to you.

Other Designers Will Respect You More

Designers tend to respect other designers who do excellent work and have a clear aesthetic and style.

While adapting to what your clients want is important, it’s still possible to maintain your own signature in your work. In some cases, this can be recognizable to others trained in design and can make your work stand out.

Respect from other designers isn’t important to everyone. But then again, it can lead to a lot of opportunities that you might not otherwise have. If a designer has too much work coming in, they may start looking to refer that work elsehwere rather than just telling prospects they can’t help. If you’re respected in the design community, some of that work is likely to come your way.

Low Standards Will Eventually Kill Your Business

Low standards in your designs will bring you low-quality clients. And the thing about low-quality clients is that they are generally more of a hassle than they’re worth. These are the people who will request a million revisions, delay paying you for as long as possible, and wonder why you didn’t send them back the changes they requested within the hour.

Dealing with clients like these will drain your energy and enthusiasm for design, which will show through in your work. Eventually, you’ll likely give up on designing for other people all-together, or you’ll find that you just don’t have enough clients coming to you. In either case, your business will suffer and likely close.

The same is true for aspects of your business other than design. If you have low standards for your bookkeeping, for example, you’ll likely spend money where you don’t need to, or fail to pay certain bills (or your taxes, which can result in very high penalties).

If you don’t uphold high quality standards in blog posts you write, you can expect that you won’t be asked to guest blog for more popular blogs and your blog will likely stagnate and fail to gain many new readers.

Upholding high quality standards can improve every aspect of your business and make you more effective. You’ll also likely enjoy your work more if you’re challenging yourself on a regular basis and designing projects you can be passionate about.

How to Get Past Settling

If you’ve got a history of settling in your business, it may be hard to break out of the confines of that mindset. But in order to grow as a designer, freelancer, or blogger, you need to be mindful of what you’re capable of and what your personal expectations should be.

If your portfolio is currently filled with designs that aren’t as good as you could have made them, take on some projects that will really let your skills shine. These could be personal projects or even pro bono work, but it’s important to set a new level of quality for yourself.

Make sure you eliminate low-quality work from your portfolio. No one ever said you had to include every design you ever created in your portfolio. Only include the high-quality work that’s indicative of the kind of projects you want to work on in the future.

Once you establish the quality standards you want to uphold, it’s important not to settle again. Defend your position to clients who want you to settle. Explain to them why you’re not comfortable incorporating a design element or feature they’ve requested and then stick by your decision. As already mentioned, good clients will respect you more for this.

If it helps, keep a list of specific things you found yourself settling on so that you can avoid them in the future. Put them on a post-it note on your monitor or post them on the wall behind your desk. Think of it as a to-don’t list rather than a to-do list.

Don’t be afraid to cut some of your clients loose. If you have a client who always expects you to settle, tell them you feel like their needs would be better-served by another designer. If you eliminate some problem clients, you’ll have more time to devote to high-quality projects that come your way. Plus, your stress levels will be lower if you’re not dealing with difficult clients all the time.

In the end, what you consider “settling” is going to vary, based on both your own skill level and the project at hand. While doing your best for the project at hand is important, different projects require different quality levels. A four-page brochure-style site has different requirements than a full-fledged web app. Keep that in mind and don’t go overboard on projects that don’t require it.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Do you settle in your work? Why or why not? Please share your opinion below…

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The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot

Top 10 Android Apps – http://bit.ly/bFP4xM

The next big thing by Apple: the iBoard and iMat: http://bit.ly/aG8kRI

Top 5 Web Design Debates That Cause the Most Riots http://bit.ly/bv9YBm

Life Below 600px http://j.mp/cBY33j (via @buildinternet)

iPad case with wings: http://bit.ly/c80Rf6

Vancouver! Like you’ve never seen it before: http://bit.ly/cpPAGK

Awesome photo of the Space Shuttle launch: http://bit.ly/brm7LH

Realism in UI Design http://bit.ly/5HKXHg

Web Design Criticism: http://bit.ly/bqxN9H

How Much Do Standards And Trends Dictate Your Web Design? http://bit.ly/9ASdD3

Sergey’s Brin Résumé : http://bit.ly/dtK8ea

Shrevatar (Shrek + Avatar) wallpaper: http://bit.ly/9g90Zc

How jQuery is Killing Flash + jQuery Tutorials & Plugins to Beat Up Flash Animations http://bit.ly/bz96wR

I shot the serif… http://bit.ly/pMShZ

Futuristic PACO House http://bit.ly/nDAE

10 Famous Logo Designers and their creations http://bit.ly/9T0nag

Finding your voice in the design community http://bit.ly/cDTE5x

Loch ness monster lamp – http://bit.ly/d6daoR

IE6 Laid To Rest. Pictures, Videos, And Flowers From Microsoft. http://tcrn.ch/aeKI3E

So You Call Yourself A Designer? http://bit.ly/a4MNJi

Uh-oh! Seven Steps to Deal with an Unhappy Client http://bit.ly/bbAUPI

NYC and Las Vegas from above, at night http://bit.ly/91Z8iu

Want more? No problem! Keep track of all our tweets by following us @DesignerDepot

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The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

The Great Escape

Young Again

Budget Humor

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

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Some have automatic slideshow capabilities or buttons to scroll sideways or up and down, and most of them feature a transition effect, usually a slide motion.

Sliders can be great focal points on websites and blogs as they instantly draw the audience’s attention and provide for an easy and sleek way for visitors to interact with a lot of information that can be sorted through quickly.

In this post, we have compiled a massive amount of content slider examples that you can use for inspiration on your own websites. Enjoy!

Violet

Kodu

Teoskaffa

Tea Round App

Dailymile

The Great Bearded Reef

Templatica

Iceberg

Daniel Stenberg

Flourish Web Design

Howarths

Andy Shaw

Suki

The Horizontal Way

MetaLab

Digital Convulsions

SlideDeck

Seventy7

Richie Qilayout

Auxiliary Design Co.

Made By Elephant

MyGoLocker

Icon Designer

Food, Inc

Sketchen

Electronics Arts

Eric Johansson

Lodjixmedia

Holdifre

Apple

Paramore Redd

Pixelounge

Benjamin David

Lomotek Polymers

TweepMe

Vegas Uncork’d

Nike

EnterRodaGata

Alienware

Also Design

Traffik

Zendesk

Branded07

Helldesign

Slice Machine

JP3 DESIGN

FKQ

ShoeGuru

Go-On-Web

Tutorialzine

Dreamer Lines

Sunny Zheng

Visuall

Jarnheimer Productions

Tracermedia

Robert Atlan

A Simple Measure

Sean Nieuwoudt

Front-End Design Conference

Coda

Suberapps

Spundo

Hello Themes

Eighty8Four

Miro

Deluge Studios

Microsoft

Lucas Hirata

Threadless

Simplicity Law

Viewport

Sprinkle Penny

GoBible

Arteria Plastica

Wall Swaps

Lift

8Interactive

Rapid Xhtml

Find Me By IP

Cu3Er

Domenico Tedone Design

NETWiSE Strategies

Redesign Unit

Josh Smith Portfolio

Mint

Department of Infrastructure and Planning

Galan

Larkef

Direct Design

Nealite

World Wildlife Fund

Fat-Man Collective

Netdreams

Nuemedia

Viljami Salminen

OSDN

Chantyce

Giraffe Restaurants

Add Noise

Nosotros

HABITAT 4D

Go Site Wave

Do you use content sliders? How do they affect your website usability?

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The possibility that such discussions are going to improve the design community is quite troubling.

In the interests of taking advantage of this recent trend (namely, writing about “killing the community”), I felt it would be necessary to address this issue by describing some easy-to-learn and practical tips that will help all of us do our part in killing the community.

Rules for Commenting on Blogs

Design blogging and commenting are inseparable. You cannot have any kind of blog without allowing a free flow of discussion and spam on each published article or tutorial.

That said, I have a number of very important suggestions for posting comments on various sites.

Don’t Use Your Real Name

Although comments are posted by human beings, there is no need to reaffirm such an obvious fact. Therefore, take advantage of the opportunity to promote your services by using a name that tells people exactly what you do, instead of who you actually are.

For example, if you are a web designer who lives in, oh I don’t know, maybe the Gold Coast, you could use the name “Gold Coast Web Designer”, instead of something overly-personal like “John Williams”, as shown in the example below.

It’s actually very helpful to receive comments from persons with such names because as soon as I see someone named “Gold Coast Web Designer”, I realize that if I’m ever in the Gold Coast area, I’ll know who to call for web design services. So, the benefits are twofold: You promote your services; and everyone who reads the article will have a web design contact in the Gold Coast area.

Of course, maybe you want to be an honest member of the community, and it would bother you to use a fake name. Well, in that case, all you have to do is legally change your name to whatever you need it to be. For example, take a look at the image shown below from the comments on a post from Webdesigner Depot:

In order to cleanse their consciences of dishonest practices, the commenters shown above have probably legally changed their names to those you see listed. This has brought them immeasurable benefits: Increased visibility, quality click-throughs (there are so many people in the web design community who want to learn to “jump higher”), and an exponential increase in sales. Those benefits can be yours if you do the same.

Don’t Let rel=“nofollow” Stop You

Don’t worry about the fact that 99% of blogs use the nofollow value for the rel attribute. That doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you inform everyone that you are a Gold Coast web designer (or an Indian Joomla developer, or a guy who teaches people to jump higher, etc). So don’t use your real name — that would unnecessarily expose personal information that is nobody’s business but yours.

Tell Them They’re Wrong, But Don’t Tell Them Why

Time is a valuable commodity. You’re a busy Gold Coast web designer responding to all the RFQs you’ve garnered through the comments you’ve posted. You can’t kill valuable time explaining to some dumb blogger why his article sucked, or why his design is terrible. You just want to tell them that they suck, to get your opinion noted (like a vote, Yay or Nay). Don’t explain why, and don’t listen to the whiny bloggers that ask for reasons.

This concept of not providing reasons for your opinion will be discussed further in another section, but for now understand that it’s best that you don’t provide any sort of depth to your stance on the topic under consideration.

Use Your Photo to Attract Attention

Your fake name is not the only way to get you noticed in blog comments. Your photo plays a large role in this area, and you should make effective use of this opportunity.

Let’s be honest, here. Babies are cute. Everyone loves them. They’re adorable, the way they drool, the way they smile, the way they talk, the way they walk — it’s all good. Take advantage of people’s love for babies by using a cute baby photo as your personal avatar. Often, the only comments I ever read are the ones posted by cute babies, because I just can’t resist!

Babies, however, aren’t the only way to draw attention to your comments. Since the majority of web design and development professionals are male, use this to your advantage by using a picture of a pretty girl as your avatar photo — even if you’re not a pretty girl. Heck, even if you’re not a girl!

Jane, Latia, Jaisa (and many more) ***LOVE WEB DESIGN***! If you love web design, you’ll want to show it too. Don’t be shy about your feelings towards your work. And don’t worry, no one will know that the pictures and names are fake. They’ll draw everyone’s attention and before you know it, your website will be inundated with quality click-throughs.

The company that’s been posting comments using the photos and taglines shown in the images above is obviously a group of marketing geniuses that knows what it takes to earn respect in the web design community. You should learn from their example and disregard the so-called integrity keepers.

The First Comment is Crucial

If you’re the first person to post a comment on a high-traffic blog, there is a requirement for the content of the first post: Your comment must consist of the following 7 characters in the exact order shown:

f – i – r – s – t – ! – !

You cannot omit the trailing exclamation points. It is imperative that you inform all subsequent commenters that you were the first one to post a comment on that article (hence, why you say “first!!”). The “first” commenter in the example below almost got it right, but he failed to include the exclamation points immediately after the word “first”:

Readers will not know that you were the first one to comment unless you specifically say so. Someone who posted the 5th or 12th comment might presumptuously use the phrase “first!!”, thus giving everyone the false impression that they were the first (who can be bothered to count to one?). So make sure everyone knows that you were first by stating it clearly and confidently.

Do Everything Possible to Get the First Comment

Of course, being the first commenter on a high-traffic blog is not an easy feat to accomplish. You’ll need to subscribe to all the popular blogs and stake them out early in the day. Don’t wait for email notifications that announce new blog posts; visit their home page and hit the refresh/reload button regularly (preferably once per minute or more).

You need to develop the Wal-Mart shopper mentality and get ahead at all costs. Therefore, don’t read the article. Just say “first!!” and follow with something that makes it sound like you’ve read the article. For example, you could say “nice post, thx”, or maybe “this is a nice” and then just repeat the title of the article (”This is a nice 20 jQuery tutorials” or “This is a nice 30 portfolio designs”).

The key is not to spend too much time formulating what you have to say; the important thing is that you get the first comment, and thus gain some quality visibility. Before you know it, your business will be booming and you’ll be turning away clients left and right.

Your Brand is More Important Than Anything Else

What does all of the above mean? It means that your branding should be put before all else.

The community must be sacrificed so that you can gain traffic and visibility. How do you think all the big design blogs, css galleries, and agencies got people to visit their websites? You guessed it: Baby pictures, photos of hotties, and fake names at the top of the comments list. Those are the principles on which all top blogs and agencies built their businesses, so its crucial that you follow their example.

Save, Tweet, Share — But Don’t Read!

Remember in the previous section when I told you to avoid reading an article so you can be the first one to comment? The truth is, you shouldn’t read anything. Ever. You should judge a post by its title, bookmark it in your browser, add it to your Delicious account, and save it with all your research tools.

After you’ve saved it for your own personal use, don’t be selfish — using all your social networking and microblogging tools, share what you never intend to read. Tweet it, and Facebook it. But don’t stop there. Go nuts.

Naturally, since you will be tweeting without reading, you will have no idea whether or not an article is of quality authorship, or if it promotes best practices, or if it’s something that has been repeated ad nauseam. That doesn’t matter. Don’t read any content; just share like your plane’s going down. Read the title, forward it, and move on to more important things (like posting the first comment on top blog articles).

“Design News” Feeds FTW!

One of the best ways to ensure that you’re reading as many headlines and as little content as possible is to subscribe to as many tutorials and news feeds as you can find. Your RSS reader should be 90% design news feeds (the other 10%, of course, are popular blogs that you stake out so you can be the “first!!” to comment).

Keep Your Content Trendy and Shallow

Many times in life you’ll be required to explain, research, ruminate, think, consider, analyze, contemplate, compare, and do a whole lot of other stuff that requires use of your brain. That’s what court cases are for! Your design blog doesn’t need that kind of so-called depth.

Nobody wants to hear why you thought it was good to make your sidebar 160px wide instead of 150px wide, and how that affected your site’s grid, and how the typography would then need to be adjusted and blah blah blah. Do I really need to know that the Gestalt principles of perception help take the guesswork out of design?

A List a Day Keeps the Web Analyst Away

Seriously, just give us the goods. Tell us your 35 favourite CSS techniques, or introduce us to 20 new JavaScript libraries, or show us 45 beautiful footers. And don’t ramble on explaining why each footer is intricately designed, babbling on about color theory, and use of whitespace. Just show us the pictures.

Compare the beautiful, graphic-filled article above with the boring one shown below.

Jason Santa Who?

Safe Content is Best

There is a fine line between sounding like you have something valuable to say, and actually saying something valuable. The problem with saying what is normally viewed as “valuable” is that many people will disagree and will express this in the comments (unless they are the “first!!” to comment).

The best way to avoid ruffling any feathers is to create safe, easy content that appears to make many profound statements without actually saying much of anything. To illustrate the difference, here are some examples of safe and unsafe statements you might include in one of your articles:

Examples of Unsafe Content:

• “Client-side scripting can be a helpful way to enhance fully accessible content, but should be used with care so as not to harm the user experience.” (way too complex!)
• “Logo design should be based on careful analysis of marketing goals, company image, and industry trends.” (are you kidding me?)

Examples of Safe Content:

• “JavaScript is a very important part of modern web design.” (wonderful!)
• “Your logo will pop if it has a cool design.” (nice!)

You’ll notice that the first two statements (the “unsafe” content) are full of depth and opinion, and will inevitably lead to long comment discussions where you’ll have to explain yourself, justify your reasons, and clarify your points all over again. That’s not what you want.

The next two statements (the “safe” content) are perfect. They are 100% true. No one in their right mind would disagree with either of those statements. The only thing they can say is “great post, so true!” (or similar). You’ll get about 75 of those comments in a matter of minutes, allowing dozens of Indian Joomla web developers to advertise their services. Thus, everybody wins (well, except the community).

Don’t Tell Us Why It’s Blue, Just Tell Us It’s Blue

Don’t give reasons for your decisions on design, and why you’re listing a particular example of beautiful web design. If you do that, then you’ll have to discuss your reasons with the people in the comments who oppose your “unsafe” view. If it’s glossy and has drop shadows, just say so; don’t explain why those features were necessary.

In fact, it’s probably best if you have no reasons for your design decisions, in which case you will never be tempted to explain why you designed something a certain way — because you won’t know! If anyone asks you why you decided to go with a particular color, you can just say “I don’t know!” and really mean it.

Everything You Need is Online

The only research you should ever do is online. There is no point in wasting time and money on books, magazines, or other non-internet sources. Everything in books is available on the internet — for free! (You don’t pay for internet access, do you?) Books, on the other hand, cost money. That money will subsequently go towards supporting a supposedly intelligent, educated, and experienced designer. That would mean less money for you, which is a bad thing.

Don’t Be Inspired by Anything Offline

All the inspiration you need can be found online. You are a web designer; you cannot be inspired by anything other than web design.

For example, you might want to create a pretty navigation bar. In order to do so, you need to look at other pretty navigation bars. It’s logical. How could a beautiful tree or flower inspire you to create a beautiful navigation bar? A tree or flower is nothing like a beautiful navigation bar. A navigation bar is the only thing that is like a navigation bar, therefore in order to be inspired to create a beautiful navigation bar, you must look at other navigation bars. I cannot emphasize this enough.

I know this is beautiful, but it should not inspire you.

Some people feel they need to enjoy the outdoors, breathe some fresh air, look at a sunset, or take a walk in a beautiful park or valley. They claim this “inspires” them. How ridiculous.

We are web designers, not tree designers or flower designers. Besides, you’re on the internet, so there is no need to take a walk in the park. You can look at parks and valleys and forests and trees from the comfort of your computer (or your handheld device, if you are forced to go to the bathroom or something).

What About Other Creative Sources?

Just because there are creative people involved with television, music, movies, theatre, culinary arts, and dance, does not mean that you can learn how to improve your own creativity from those professionals.

Steven Spielberg is a creative and accomplished film director and screenwriter, but you are a web designer so you cannot learn anything from him.

You are a web designer. You’re not a television writer, movie producer, playwright, chef, or ballet performer. Stick to what you know, and stay in your comfort zone. Those other so-called creative industries will only cloud your vision.

Conclusion

I was so disturbed when I began to read on different design blogs that the community needs to improve and that we need more in-depth discussions. But don’t worry, this “don’t kill the community” attitude is just a passing trend that will be gone soon.

The shallow, immature, anonymous, low-quality discussions that take place on internet giants like Digg and YouTube have worked wonders for them. Why can’t the same formula work for us?

I hope this article has provided plenty of useful tips that will help all of us to prevent the community from moving forward and being saved.

Please do your best to put these suggestions into practice, otherwise we’ll end up with a million design blogs that feature analytical articles full of text and informed opinions that elicit quality discussions promoting good practices and healthy exchanges of new ideas. Is that really what we want?

This post was written exclusively for Webdesigner Depot by Louis Lazaris, a freelance writer and web developer. Louis runs Impressive Webs where he posts articles and tutorials on web design. You can follow Louis on Twitter or get in touch with him through his website.

Disclaimer: The opinions posted in this article are the author’s and they may not necessarily reflect WDD’s views on these matters.

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For online purposes, a great portfolio website or blog is a perfect way to spread the word, but for offline purposes, nothing beats the traditional business card.

We’ve partnered with UPrinting to bring an amazing contest to WDD. One week from today, we will be awarding 10 prizes of 500 free business cards each!!!

You can choose from a variety of business card styles, such as the traditional US Standard, square, slim and specialty shapes. Let your creativity flow and design the cards any way that you want. We will ship them to you worldwide absolutely free of charge.

Read on for more details on how to enter this contest…

Here’s a brief overview of UPrinting as displayed on their site:

For over 25 years, UPrinting has been a trusted leader in online printing, featuring its signature easy-to-use website and the famous Free File Review, a complimentary proofing service which requires no upfront payment. UPrinting offers convenient marketing support services such as design, lists, and direct mailing to help grow small and medium-size businesses nationwide.

Powered by brand new fully automated in-house Komori presses and CREO direct-to-plate, we offer faster turnaround with minimal human error and lower overhead cost. This allows us to provide customers with consistently high-quality printing at the lowest possible prices.

To participate in this contest, please choose one of the 4 styles of cards that you’d like to win: US Standard, Square, Slim Cards, Specialty Shapes and leave a comment below.

We’ll announce the results in one week, on March 9th. The results will be posted here on WDD and all winners will also be contacted by email for more details.

Thanks to UPrinting for bringing us these great prizes and good luck to all of you…

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But above-the-fold thinking neglects the natural flow of vertical page layout. What happens when people reach the end of a page?

You can bet that a simple copyright statement won’t hold visitors’ attention, but many pages are designed with the expectation that people will find their way… or so we assume.

The bottom of a page is not the end of a website. An informative, compelling footer is the natural place to lead people to more information within the site rather than wandering aimlessly.

Read more about the trends and innovations that follow page content and answer the unspoken question, where to from here?

The ongoing problem of how to hold people’s attention can be addressed in many ways: eye-popping graphics, clever use of negative space, snappy typography and well-written text.

But all too often people are left hanging when they scroll to the bottom of the page. Should they scroll back up? Visit another website? Close the tab?

Where the body content ends, the footer takes over.

The footer is a distinct collection of content that concludes every page of a website. Typically, it contains a copyright statement, a link to the home page and either an email link or a link to the contact page.

Footers almost always span the width of the page. Beyond this, they exhibit a variety of styles.

Even though it doesn’t offer many links, Dishizzle makes it hard to miss the large icons at the bottom of its website. With its search box and friendly type, this footer is both legible and useful.

Compare it to the footer on 43 Folders, which takes the opposite approach. A handful of concise sentences explains the website’s purpose, describes its owner and links to its web host. After a thorough copyright statement, the page ends.

Sometimes footers merely repeat the navigation bar. It’s a natural fit: once the reader has read or skimmed the page, they come upon a list of interesting links to other pages, rather than be left to wander.

But those links are often just that: bits of clickable text arranged in a thin, underdeveloped strip. While this may work for websites that have little content, a serious website isn’t complete without a well-planned footer.

A footer is not just an appendage. It’s a good host.

Unsung Stewards

The bottom may seem an unlikely place to put vital information, but footers are ideal real estate for navigation and important features because visitors naturally move in that direction as they scroll down.

Like a good host, an elaborate footer presents different kinds of information that reflect the nature, and content, of the website.

A footer can play many roles on a website. The trick is deciding where guests should go when they’re done with a page. A good host lets their guests enjoy themselves and steps in only when the guests begin to wonder “What’s next?”

Footers as Site Maps

While the header presents links to major sections of the website, the footer can delve into details. Site map-based footers, which are ideal for websites that store content in many sections and sub-sections, reflect the scale and concerns of a website.

The White House is a good example. Its footer presents the website as six sections, each with as few as 6 and as many as 23 links.

Deliberately simple, the keyword links can be absorbed at a glance by guests scanning for topics of interest. Almost as tall as it is wide, the footer is hard to miss, but its content doesn’t compete with the page above.

Footers as Advertisements

Especially if the website sells something—a product, service or membership—the footer is a second chance to incite visitors to act. The end of the page is a great place to remind guests of the benefits of the product or service being offered. Repeating this same message on every page drives the point home.

Mail Chimp takes advantage of this space to repeat its sales pitch: 1) free templates, 2) a comparison of its service to that of competitors and 3) flexible pricing.

Expression Engine lists some of these things, too, and also links to the help section and other information that prospective customers would want.

Unlike plain site maps, footers that advertise must be more persuasive than informative. They should give guests incentives to buy and lead to pages that enable them to act.

Footers as Character Studies

While a personal website would address topics that interest its owner, the footer could describe the person behind it. Whose website is this? What is he or she like? What else do they do?

Few websites do this better than the one of graphic designer Jason Santa Maria, whose footer could be a page unto itself.

Meanwhile, the footer of standards expert Jeffery Zeldman’s contains visual—and even photographic—snippets of projects he is involved with or interested in.

Footer as Colophon

A footer can contain information about how or why the website was built. It could:

• Reiterate the website’s mission or tagline.
• Say which CMS or ISP is being used.
• Declare that the page has valid (X)HTML and CSS and complies with certain accessibility standards.

Variation Based on Context

The footer should generally stay consistent throughout the website. Page-specific information usually isn’t warranted. But complicated websites can bend the rules.

The playful icons on IBM’s website provide a friendlier, less corporate way to navigate pages. But these icons appear only in the “Smarter Planet” section.

IBM’s regular footer looks like this:

Likewise, the links in Apple’s site map-based footer varies according to the section it appears in.

Above, the footer in the Mac section. Below, the one for iPods.

None of these roles are exclusive. Elaborate footers can incorporate site maps, highlights, updates, credentials, search tools and more. Below, BustedTees offers ways to stay current, browse and submit feedback.

Functional doesn’t always translate into compelling, though. CNN’s footer includes a search tool, local weather, a site map, legalese and links to its content in other languages. Useful, but dry. The most interesting visual element is the red strip.

Although it fits the tone of the website, CNN’s footer is merely designed not to compete with the page above.

How to Craft a Useful Footer

Generally, a web page invites people to act or to learn. After reading a news article or blog post, people walk away with a new idea or set of facts. Product pages educate visitors on the items being sold. Pages with weather information affect how people dress. In each case, a person has changed somehow by the time they reach the bottom of the page. And there they find the footer.

So, the end of the page is a natural place to put two things: tools by which visitors can act on what they have just learned; and calls to action.

Footers have a tough job. People ignore them out of habit; they instinctively scroll to the top or click away. That’s why good footers must be designed not as afterthoughts but as if they were pages themselves.

Creating a useful footer begins with asking certain questions:

• What content on my website do I want to emphasize?
  A good footer guides guests to those pages.
• What else would interest visitors?
  A good footer attracts guests with information they would like. Visitors who scroll all the way to the bottom were likely engaged by the page’s content. Links to related information will keep them on the website.
• What content would benefit visitors the most?
  Like a good host, its job is to be helpful. The footer rewards guests for reaching the end of the page with, if possible, freebies or entertainment or, better yet, frequently requested information. If the website is for a bricks-and-mortar business, the footer could contain a simple map to the location.
• What would epitomize the website’s character and style?
  Like a good conclusion, the footer sums up the nature of the website: its topic, attitude and theme. In this way, the footer is similar to the header, which introduces the website to newcomers.

T-shirt seller Threadless answers many questions in its keyword-rich footer:

Once you’ve decided what to put in your footer, don’t neglect presentation.

• Make it big.
  A token footer is thin, just tall enough to admit one line of text. An attention-grabbing footer is substantial. A rule of thumb is to make the footer’s height at least a quarter of its width. For example, if the page is 960 pixels wide, then the footer should be at least 240 pixels tall.
• Set it apart.
  Give the footer a distinct boundary, and make sure it spans the width of the page. Guests should see where the body ends and the footer begins.
• Give it style.
  A footer should carry the theme of the website, in style, color scheme and typography. If possible, it should reuse visual elements from elsewhere on the website. But it shouldn’t detract from the page’s content.
• Make it worthwhile.
  The ideal footer is strong enough to warrant the visitor’s attention. It offers interesting content to peruse in an attractive package—like any important page.

The Guardian isn’t afraid to play up its footer. Eye-catching graphics laid between brand-matching color bars tell visitors that this is content, not just fine print.

Silverback has few features in its footer but plenty of style. It offers an easy-to-read experience that restates the website’s purpose and encourages visitors to receive updates via its newsletter.

While Travelocity packs 72 links into its footer, a lack of visual hierarchy or clear layout makes it hard to take seriously. More doesn’t always mean better.

All of these criteria may sound like a tall order, but there are two easy approaches to creating a good footer.

Approach #1: Create a Miniature Home Page

The easiest way to create a helpful footer is to recap the website’s purpose and highlights. Look at your home page for inspiration.

Typically, the home page is a cross between a table of contents and a news ticker, giving guests an overview of the website and the latest information.

A footer need not include every element from the home page. If the home page showcases 10 best-selling products and the 3 most recent blog posts, then the footer could highlight the top 5 products and 1 post, with links to more of each. A smaller version of the website’s logo would also be appropriate.

Think of the footer as a table of contents that conveniently appears when visitors need it most: when they’re wondering what’s next.

MacTalk Australia has a relatively small header, which leaves more room for content and advertising above the fold. Nearly twice as tall as the header, the content-rich footer expands on the simple header’s navigation and introduction by spelling out how much content each category has and which tags are most popular. Both the header and footer have RSS and Twitter icons, and the footer includes a newsletter sign-up form—plus two other RSS and Twitter links just below the copyright statement.

The New York Times footer includes the latest headlines and photos from various sections.

Approach #2: Provide Supplementary Content

Footers can do the opposite of serving as a miniature home page by offering content not found anywhere else on the website.

Bits of supplementary content that can’t fill pages on their own can find a home in the footer. Unlike the miniature home page, a supplementary footer can contain links to other websites, as long as they’re informative or beneficial to the guest.

But don’t treat the footer as a dumping ground for stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Like any proper page, a footer should inform, persuade, entertain or do all three. The key is to find worthwhile information that supports the website’s overall theme, not any one particular page.

Komodo Media’s footer includes eye-catching links to what the owner is listening to on Last.fm.

Some websites, such as Veer, point to their family of websites. Corporations can promote their brands simply by cross-linking them to each other.

Other Approaches

If your website has a substantial sidebar, try rearranging it as a footer. Although this will change the website’s layout drastically, moving secondary information to the bottom of the page might remove distractions from the primary information.

On Your Way

The golden rule of footers is never leave guests to their own devices.

Footers are hosts who present their guests with options. They are natural stepping stones across the website, enticing guests to click to other pages—or related websites.

You can learn a lot about a website’s priorities from the contents of the footer. What’s in your footer right now? You do have one, right? Because a website without a footer is worse than an article without an

Written exclusively for Webdesigner Depot by Ben Gremillion. Ben is a freelance web designer who solves communication problems with better design.

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