First impressions count!

You have only a few seconds to grab someone's attention before they leave your site. An attractive, easy-to-navigate, content-filled site with periodic updates is a good start--and a lot of work. I recently launched my company's Web site, along with a new corporate logo and a totally new look. Along the way, I found some great resources that will help small, medium and large businesses who want a fresh look.

Readability

If you have trouble reading this section's heading, then read on... One of the most important design considerations for a Web site is readability (others are the amount of white space, the use of color, and contrast). Let's talk about font readability. There are plenty of studies on font readability. These talk about serif vs. non-serif fonts, aspect ratio, and on and on (Google "font readability" if you want to learn more). Microsoft developed fonts like Calibri, Cambria, and Candara for Windows Vista, and Tahoma, Verdana, and Trebuchet for Windows 95 and later because of their readability on a screen. I find the new Vista fonts are kind of murky on my wide LCD monitor, which has a finer resolution, greater brightness, and quicker response time than many of its similarly-priced competitors. Using Clear Type does not seem to help.

Fonts, fonts, more fonts...

You can never have too many fonts (as long as you don't install all of them at once). I am a fontaholic...  and have been for some time. While hundreds of free font sites exist, a few of my favorite free sites* are:

www.dafont.com
www.fontphreak.com
www.acidfonts.com
www.larabiefonts.com
http://manfred-klein.ina-mar.com/
www.urbanfonts.com
www.coolarchive.com
www.grsites.com

*Most of the free fonts from the above sites are for your personal and/or nonprofit use only.

If you need fonts for commercial use, try one of the following:

www.myfonts.com (some free fonts)
https://store.adobe.com > select your country > click on fonts link
www.fonts.com
www.fontshop.com

Say it with color

As mentioned above, color is an important design consideration, not only for readability, but to properly reflect your/your company's personality and image. Unless your business is selling retro tie-dye T-shirts, avoid using too many colors, especially neon green with yellow and red, as it's hard on the eyes! Instead, chose 2-4 colors and then use shades (darker) or tints (lighter) for visual appeal. You can find help at:

www.colorschemer.com

I will post more on design later.

I am trying to simplify my life, removing unnecessary clutter (except for that on my desk). A few time-honored suggestions, which if followed, really work!

• for snail mail and other papers, triage into 3 categories

a) discard
b) take action
c) file

• for e-mail:

a) triage as above
b) think twice before printing
c) set expiration dates and automatically send expired e-mails to the trash folder
d) periodically sort e-mails by subject or by sender, and purge what's not essential
e) archive essential e-mails and keep a copy elsewhere, such as on a CD/DVD in a safe deposit box

• for other posessions, place each into one of four bins/piles

a) discard
b) donate
c) sell
d) keep

About nine months ago I was long overdue for a new eraser for my Mont Blanc mechanical pencil. I checked in the local office supply stores, and they did not carry the erasers; a special order would cost about eight dollars to ship, in addition to the cost of these "specialty" erasers.

So I did the logical thing... I looked on ebay. I found what I was looking for, and asked the seller to cut his shipping charges to $2--which he did willingly. And so the story came to a happy ending... or did it?

While I was on ebay I began to think that I wanted a Mont Blanc rollerball pen to match the ballpoint pen and pencil that I recieved as a gift many years ago. I looked for several weeks, and found that buying Mont Blanc pens on the Internet can be a challenge, with lots of counterfeits on the market. I even received a security notice from ebay because I was watching an item that ebay deemed was from a suspicious seller. I gave up the idea of buying another Mont Blanc.

Along the way, I came across Acme Studios pens. Each pen is solid brass, with sturdy lacquer designs by different artists. I bought my first, the Jazz design by Rod Dyer, thinking it would be my only rollerball pen. I had Buyer's remorse, thinking that I had selected the wrong design, and bought a second Acme rollerball, a Frank Lloyd Wright design remiscent of the Imperial Hotel in Japan... and another, and another... now I have a collection of many different designs, and it's hard to say which one is my favorite. I expect the collection to grow in value as each design is retired.

I like the feel of a fountain pen, bought a couple of Acme fountain pen adapters, and use one in the Jazz pen daily. One of my favorite sellers offers a multitude of fountain pen inks, and I have a few colors of bottled ink, as well as a sampler of seven or eight colors of ink cartridges.

Good, cheap, harmless fun... Write on!

I have always liked graphics. I remember going to the college bookstore at the age of 10 or 11 while visiting my big sister. I got my first Speedball graphics book and a set of India Ink pens with interchangeable tips. I loved the different styles of showcard writing, as well as Old English text. I practiced with my India Ink pens and poster paints diligently though high school and college, even getting a few (unpaid) gigs lettering posters and designing T-shirts. Not bad for a science major with a Bachelor of Arts!

Enter the PC. I was one of only two people at work to have a PC clone, other than the administrative assistants or the CFO. My boss told me that I "played with the computer too much" when in reality, I was managing my project work. A few years later, I ended up at one of the world's largest software companies, one of the less "technical" people on the team... but I learned to speak "techie!"

Technology progressed from DOS to Windows 3.1. Word processors and spreadsheets let us choose different fonts to express ourselves. With Windows 95 and the Internet, things really changed. Since much of my work was product marketing, we relied heavily on presentations and visual appeal. I started collecting and using graphics and fonts.

Today, with high-speed Intenet connections and an almost unlimited supply of graphics and fonts, I am in heaven! I own a small professional services firm and part of my work is writing and designing marketing materials, Web sites, and White Papers; developing corporate identity programs; and designing software modules, user interfaces, dashboards and the like. Bring it on...