Secret of beauty
Long time since my last post. Xmas and end of the year stuff, you know?
So whats new on my work and life. First of all I moved from office to work from home. I was afraid that I become a lazy or loose motivation, but no, now i stay awake all night along to finish some things to perfection. I can listen to music as loud my sound system allows it and go to eat, sleep and watch TV whenever i feel like that.
Is it good for creativity? Sure it is. I don’t need to go home to switch between projects or reset brains to start something from beginning. I can just walk away from desktop, go outside at garden, have some conversations with neighbor or my dog :) And when I feel im ready and my mind is clear I can work 10h and more along. And no matter how clock it is. And when I see sun set come acros, It doesn’t mean that Deadline is today. I’m still awake, because I got inspiration. And so on…
So, a couple of weeks ago I done some wordpress site called “Skaistuma noslēpums”, eng “Secret of beauty”. It is about woman health, food, fitness and all other kind of stuff what makes they look better and happier. Sure I made it in style what Im so amazed recently(see previous posts ).
Job well done
A couple of past weeks I spent on this project. This is a kind of nice example how simpleness can make a wonderful effect. I very lucky with the client and mostly she said: “Its up to you. You know the best!”. I wanted to make site looks radically other then client concurrent companies, but nor look radical at all. Freya offers solutions to keep nature and air clear. The same what I did with that web.
Closer look: The scenario i wanted to keep as simple as possible. You need some service. They do that service. They got the skills. Price is clear. You pick up the phone and everyone get what they want.
First week online: Google Analytics tells that page in one week is attended by 150 visitors. For small business no better can be. They didn’t spent any money for advertising. Just put a couple of links in branch forums and directories. Yeah, and site has 35% search engines referrals in first week.
Conclusion: Thanks to this web site, they already got at least one clients( research: Q: How you know about us?). Thats mean 25% of project investment is earned . Project cost 800$,~600€.
Here is a screenshot. Enjoy the Latvian language 
Stupid name. Cool vectors!
Story continuous. Found some cool vector library. Visit Vecteezy.com and get this goodies. Site is pretty new, but looks like community is enough active to bring this site useful in short time.
Do WEB designer need to know Illustrator?
When I started my carrier I was a printed ad’s designer. I mostly worked on Fronthand and was able to do amazing things on this poor peace of software. After two years I figured out that I am not such a person who is able to done things by 100% and moved to web development and forget about vectors. Till today.
There was a time when web was a fool of smiling faces. After than was an absolute clean style domination. Even corporative sites was designed in a couple of pastel tones. There was a 3D time and flash (remember 2advanced). But now it’s vectors and cartoon time. So, knowing Illustrator is the necessity.
Look at ndesign-studio.com. Sure, its the next web design sight. And here is an illustration by author of this site.
And the answer for this post title is: Sure, you can do well if You are using Photoshop only, but If you or the clients need a web that isn’t yesterday you must think to use Illustrator. I’m not talking about technique, but time what is wasted to do tings in photoshop when there is Illustrator, who is easy to learn and have no brakes to stop your creativity.
I’m telling you, vector is the next big thing of web design, indeed!
Some more random examples: investingissimple.com www.katrinwegmann.de www.malenehald.dk www.cult-f.net
