Saturday, March 6th, 2010
For the longest time, I searched for a content management application that I could use for all my sites that worked great, was easy to install and easy to use for both the designer (me) and my clients. After playing with Joomla, WordPress, Drupal and a few others I’m happy to say that I’ve settled on ModX. There are many reasons why I settled on ModX but the first and foremost is how easy it is to template. You create your html and css just like you would for a static site, copy the code, paste it in ModX, add a few simple tags such as [*content*] and your site is up and running. Honestly. I’m not a programmer. I struggled with just about every other system I tried. Nothing just worked until ModX.
So, with the good, there is always some bad, right? Well, so far, not much bad. Let’s just say inconvenient. The main drawback really is the lack of plugins that just work right out of the box. I’ve found quite a good list of solutions that I’m not really starting to understand, but compared to Joomla or WordPress, ModX is miles behind. But what I’ve found is that for most of my clients that really just want a nice site up that they can add to and edit, there is nothing better than ModX. Most of the sites I’m making now have news, calendar events, photo galleries and more and ModX is doing the trick.
Take a look at a few of the sites I’ve done recently. My ModX skills are getting better with each new site I complete.
I’ve done even more, but this is a good showing of what I’ve done since finding ModX. I love creating 1 or 2 templates and then creating all of the pages right in ModX. So easy when I need to update something on the entire site. A quick change on the template and the whole site is updated.
Look for more information about ModX and what’s going on at my new design studio – Big Pixel Studio. Justin and I have been so busy our first year together that we just have so little time to do much other than client work. I’m also planning on actually updating and maintaining this blog a bit more as well. I may even switch it over to a ModX site. Not sure yet. ModX can certainly handle blogging, but nothing like good old WordPress.
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. In fact, this was just a little experiment to see how to work with Wordpress. But, it’s out there and things are changing with my business, so I might just starting using my Design Notes sites as more of a personal web site while my new company Big Pixel Studio gets rolling. So… Big Pixel Studio… I’ve partnered with two long time associates to form a new design studio. We’ve been working together for over ten years and finally decided it was time to get together and make an official business. I hope to post more info as we go but for now, visit our site: http://www.bigpixelstudio.com, check out our work and let me know what you think.
Look for me to actually update this site a bit more often and to make it look a little nicer. Again, this was just a test site that happens to be live.
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
You see it all of the time. A small business owner hands you his business card that looks like it was picked right out of a business card template book. It doesn’t look bad. The type is nice, colors are o.k. But then he hands you his brochure or catalog that looks like it was printed right out of Microsoft Publisher. Again, it doesn’t necessarily look bad, but it doesn’t look anything like his card. Then the worst part, you visit his website that definitely looks like he created himself or worse yet, his kid did it as a project for school.
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Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
I’ve been swamped lately. The economy continues to tank and I continue to get calls from my existing clients as well as clients that I haven’t heard from in years. Everyone wants to update their web sites. It seems that with the current economic climate people are pulling back on a lot of advertising and extra promotions, but they still want their web presence up-to-date. More and more clients are starting to see requests coming from their sites. They can track the hits, read the e-mails and actually see results. It’s not always as easy to track results from other advertising. With advertising budgets shrinking, the web seems to be a place that small business want to focus. So, with that being said, could it actually be a good time for the small graphic design shop. I guess only time will tell. But for now the signs looks good. And, now more than ever, making a good impression on the web, being found on the web, promoting your products and services on the web are as important as ever.
Sunday, May 3rd, 2009
Yeah? So do I. And, it’s getting harder and harder to make that happen. More web sites come online every day. .com addresses are harder and harder to come by. Search engine optimization changes all of the time. So, how can you make search engines work for your small business? You can hire a top notch SEO (search engine optimization) company, but as a small business that can get very expensive. Many SEO companies charge more than you will have paid to create your entire site. Or, you can share this article with your web designer and work together to come up with a plan to get more traffic to your site. Here are a few tips:
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