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How To Design A Memorable Website?

One of the main goals of having a website, whether it be a portfolio website or a business website, is to declare your presence on the Web. There are thousands upon thousands of websites out there; it’s pretty well established that you are competing for your audience’s interest and attention. To this end, it’s important to make those few seconds count when making a first impression.

How To Design A Memorable Website?

Make use of original and unique graphics. Having a large, punchy or slightly quirky graphic on your portfolio can help separate you from the competition.
Feel free to experiment with non-traditional color combinations. Experiment with various contrasts to create tension, but put readability always first. Invite the users to feel engaged, but keep the page usable.
Use original, compelling language to clearly emphasize your differences. Unfortunately, your visitors are likely to read only a small percentage of the text on your website. You can pack the most punch in that percentage by using confident opening statements, catchphrases or interesting summaries to pique the interest of your audience.
Keep things organized. This might go without saying, but if visitors can’t navigate through your website or figure out who you are from the start, chances are they won’t stay around to see your amazing portfolio.

Let’s now take a look at some recent examples of striking, memorable designs.

Zinguh! Creativ

Modern Minimalism and Cool Green Accents

Zinguh Creativ features a large, bold slide show and a memorably detailed green leaf favicon. This is a nice example of a slide show spanning the width of the page; it’s both funky and neatly executed. Notice the high quality of product images throughout the site.

Green accents in the navigation, and in the favicon, are a unique touch, but could be improved for better readability

The green highlights for text are a bit harsh on the eye, a slightly darker green would probably work better. A minimalist arrangement of the images is a nice touch.

United Pixelworkers

Pixelly Images: A Visual Pun!

United Pixelworkers features a subtly pixellated, textured background as well as foreground images with blocky edges, creating a play on their name which is fun, cute and smart. The texture is so rich, and the information architecture so clean, that this website feels far more content-rich than it actually is.

United Pixelworks uses a static, left-aligned navigation bar

The left-aligned sliding navigation bar is an example of static navigation done right. It’s there, but it doesn’t get in the way of the content and isn’t too obnoxious or obvious. The select color palette and letterpress-style links at the bottom are a nice final touch.

Outback Creative Studio

Large Original Illustrations

Outback Creative Studio features innovative, large navigation buttons on the right side which is a fresh, colorful and inviting approach. The colors, the graphics and the blocky feel of the layout work together to create a bold and unique statement.

Outback Creative Studio has “night” and “day” themes, emphasized with a rooster graphic

The “night” and “day” button allows the user to switch between themes, a creative and unique presentation reinforced by the central rooster graphic. The graded orange and purple color scheme is rich and unusual, and lends the design a unique look and feel.

Mike Kus

Right-aligned, Interactive Logo

Mike Kus has an eye-catching interactive logo with a motto that displays on mouse-over. DEAD stands for “Dreaming Everyday About Design,” which stands out and is easy to remember. DEAD is featured in the favicon too, adding more places for users to see and absorb the tagline.

Interactive logo

The light background again leaves the emphasis on the work, which is strong enough to stand on its own. Punches of color and the use of images lead the eye down the page very well; notice how well each project’s description and related images are grouped, making the page flow very smoothly.

Wez Maynard

Right-aligned Graphic Mayhem

Wez Maynard uses offbeat graphics, creative layout and original content phrasing to make his website memorable. The design is completely right-aligned, which is quite unusual to see and feels truly novel. The ribbon sidebar on the left is interesting and unique, and the vintage graphics and blue, textured footer are fun and visually interesting. The quirky messaging is a great example of how to use language to create an impression. This is a nice example of an original, unique and interesting design.

Quirky graphics, and messaging to match

Epic Web Agency

Bookplate Graphics, Rainbow Textures and Grunge

Epic Web Agency lives up to its name with its portfolio website. With grungy textures, plenty of bold, contrasting color and Spartan-like helmets as themes in the graphics and images, this site is certainly “epic.” The loud typography and punches of orange add excitement. The colorful logo adds a bit of saturated color to the header. Notice how visual tension is created with a thick diagonal line on the home page. The website uses various background images across its second- and third-level pages, all related to the “epic” look.

Texture, color and type work together seamlessly

The artwork used here is all the more unusual because it’s in a much more traditional style, usually reserved for print media. Epic Agency uses plenty of graphics, and does so in a very original way, making for a very visually striking user experience.

Ryan O’Rourke Presents

Elegant, Dark, Responsive Layout

Rourkery.com features a vivid, majestic, theatrical theme which juxtaposes well with playful typography and colorful graphics. Using a distinct theme can be a good way to ensure that content, graphics and messaging work together in a focused way. The website’s centered logo and navbar are both unusually and elegantly done, aligned in the center and using a subtle navy pattern.

Theatre theme keeps content and graphics focused

Potential downsides to note are the leading of the text, as well as the visibility of the home page link, which is the logo in the center of the header. Notice how well orange is used as the main color across various design elements. The layout and images resolutions also nicely respond to changes in the browser window size, responsive design at its best.

Christina Ung Illustration

Bold, Unique Use of Typography

Christina Ung Illustration is all about the typography. The liberal use of bold and lighter font-weights, along with the mix of lowercase, uppercase, and mixed serif and sans-serif fonts, all work together to make the type as visually interesting as the use of graphics would be.

Bold typography logo

The clear, dark logo anchors the eye on the left-aligned navigation, which leaves plenty of room for the portfolio content occupying the main part of the page, to be the main focus. Large screenshots allow the content to be seen very easily without clicking through the actual blog posts. The pink highlights feel fun and fresh, but not overpowering.

Josh Sullivan

“Droll” is Memorable

JoshSullivan.me is a good example of how even a one-page website can pack a punch. The large header graphic is very unique and memorable, with its old-fashioned “nature book” feel. The background is an interesting mix of textures, colors, geometric shapes and historical-feeling images. While nothing is really clickable, this is just a calling card so nothing really needs to be; the social networking and email address links serve as the page’s call to action.

Interesting stew of background images

The color palette may look a little offbeat, in keeping with the graphics, but this all helps make the website as memorable as it is visually appealing. One small suggestion would be to make the links on the page a bit more prominent so that users don’t end up wandering. A stronger contrast between the text color and the background color would help. The main graphic is so central that it might be a bit overpowering for some, but this really does depend on who the audience is.

Jake Przespo

Fun Graphics and Clean Organization

The portfolio of Jake Przespo features another very creative central graphic. The “fun factor” goes a long way toward making a website memorable, and this is one that adds fun, very effectively. As users navigate through the website, the graphic flips around. The words in the red banner stand out, with subtle hover effects and woodcut detail.

Whimsical central image flips around as users navigate through

The minimal colors and splash of red keep the page a clean, minimal background for the front-and-center images. The readability of the content would certainly benefit from an increased font size, though.

Cooper Graphic Design

Large, Bold Header Graphic

The colors really draw the user into Cooper Graphic Design. The shades of brown, with texture and punches of turquoise, feel very bright and upbeat. The layout is clean and systematic, while the main, large center graphic contrasts with the more subtle background graphics in an interesting, attention-grabbing way. The top-level navigation is also very clear, making this an effective and visually appealing portfolio website. Also notice an interesting background image that lends the page more visual appeal. And don’t forget to resize the browser window, too.

Bold header graphic contrasts with subtler background

One small usability problem, however, might be the tabbed navigation at the bottom of the page. The use of tabs often signifies internal navigation, rather than external. In this case, these tabs seem to link out to external pages, which might confuse users a bit.

Brandon J. Schmidt Design & Photo

Watercolor Graphics

The watercolor graphics on Brandon J. Schmidt Design & Photo are very prominent and visually appealing, especially on the front page. The black, white and yellow color scheme feels minimal and modern, an interesting juxtaposition with the old-world feel of the watercolor.

Soft watercolor graphics

The logo graphic on the home page is faded into the background on the website’s second-level pages, keeping the website logo as the focus and leaving a lasting impression on users.

Water’s Edge Media

Minimal Design With Floral Illustrations

The simple, solid navigation structure and design of Water’s Edge Media stands out even without the illustrations, but the illustrations help make it more memorable. The logo, in particular, is very fresh and modern.

Fresh, modern color palette and pretty floral illustrations

The slide show of recent work is neat, but it could use some polish, especially the slider buttons. The left alignment adds a modern feel. Overall, however, a little more variance in font type and size would make the design just a bit more interesting.

Jordan Gray Creative

Minimal Design With Left-aligned Navigation

Jordan Gray Creative features seamless left-aligned navigation below a clean, minimal typography logo. This design is super-minimal, relying on the work in the slide show for content and appeal. Subtle details like the favicon and CSS spacing keep the design from seeming too simple.

Striking minimalism lets the work speak for itself

Eight Hour Day Design & Illustration

Bold and Colorful

Using the portfolio as the graphic element, Eight Hour Day Design & Illustration integrates a lot of color through relying only on the work. The select color palette of the page itself is crisp and bright. The type is clean and vivid. Although it’s simple, the hint of subtle patterning and shadowing at edge borders and between navigation menus effectively keeps things from looking flat.

Colorful elements are drawn directly from the Eight Hour Day portfolio

It’s Not My Type

A Typography Blog About Typography

It’s Not My Type makes good use of the richness of Web typography—with strong slab serif typography widely used across the various design elements, including the Web form, date and comment areas.

Fonts change as users navigate through the website

The scrolling content panel works pretty well here; the colors and subtle textures are clean, and add visual appeal.

McKinney

Simple But Elegant

McKinney features a minimal design with accent graphics that are not textures, but geometric shapes like lines, circlesand triangles. The red, gray and black palette is striking yet subtle.

Elegant touches through geometric accents

One thing that would be fun, is if the slide show controls were draggable. More hover effects would also give the page a more dynamic feel, making it more interactive and responsive (some elements do, however, respond when clicked on). The consistency of the layout and color choices of the website’s internal pages, also deserves a mention.

Shaping the Page

Playful Origami Animations

Shaping the Page uses a soothing, light and airy color palette as a backdrop for fun, whimsical, animated origami illustrations, which are a visual pun on its name.

Elephants, butterflies and more!

The lightly textured blue background and the wispy social networking graphics at the bottom of the page are downright charming. The portfolio page is nicely organized and right-aligned, which seems to work well with the playful, moving illustration on the left to visually balance the content.

Broken Pencils

Pencil Sketch Illustrations

Broken Pencils, Inc. has a prominent and visually striking logo. Although the navigation is split into bottom and top sections, it doesn’t look redundant since the top is more understated and the bottom uses different colors. The slow color transitions on hover effects on the “Services” page are a nice surprise as well. All of the graphics are simple and modern. The most striking part of the design, however, is the pencil sketch illustrations, in keeping with the “pencil” theme.

Pencil sketch illustrations echo the website theme and company branding

Who is Leon

Fun With Interaction!

The background animation of Who is Leon might be the first thing the user notices. The static background and scrolling content, combined with the slightly blurred photography, work together to create a sense of motion and excitement. Users might feel invited to click around, and many elements on the page are, in fact, interactive.

Hover, click and move!

The grayed out portfolio screenshots turn to color on hover. Against plain flat background this really makes the screenshots pop, and along with the prominent buttons, invites visitors to take action. The website also involves the use of several fonts, which add to the overall striking effect of the design.

David Paul Seymour

A Monster!

The portfolio of David Paul Seymour is a very fun, colorful, illustration-based website. The illustrations take up most of the page, making them the main focus as well as a design statement. The cloud illustrations for the navigation are fun and makes users want to click around. In contrast to the previous website, none of these illustrations are interactive. This feels a little bit like a missed opportunity, as some hover effects or small animations would really go a long way toward adding to the playful feel of this website.

Color and whimsy make this page stand out

One other thing that stood out was the lack of a favicon. The addition of a favicon (most especially on such a graphically rich website) is a really quick and easy way to enhance brand recognition, and to add a more polished, complete feel.

Creativepayne

Bold, Unique Graphics

Creativepayne is a bit tongue-in-cheek, graphically speaking. The old-world art mixes with a variety of other styles; there is a lot going on in this design. The color palette is a subdued mix of browns and tans.

Bold, unique graphics and mix of styles

The call to action, “ESTIMATES get yours TODAY,” does get a bit lost in the top right corner; overall, if some of the other design elements had slightly bolder fonts, they might balance out the main, large graphic a little more.

Chicago Interhoods

Interactive Map

Chicago Interhoods is an example of a great marriage of design and information. The orange, cream and blue color palette is striking and fun. With a prominent, central logo and clearly organized top-level navigation, this design is a clean and effective backdrop for the interactive map. The map itself is a nice visual way to browse for information.

Beautifully interactive design aids browsing for information

AdPacks.com Classy Sites & Classy Ads

Vintage Graphics and Type

AdPacks Classy Sites & Classy Ads features a fun, vintage feel in the graphics, fonts and textures. The visual interest created by this mix, invites and engages users to interact the website elements.

Fun, vintage graphics and type

The visual representation of the products makes it easy for potential buyers to see and understand what the products are, while the calls to action are clearly laid out in the buttons for each section, making this a complete, well-laid out product landing page.

Min Tran’s Journal

Beautiful Typography and Unusual Textures

Min Tran’s Journal features a ribbon navigation that is sophisticated and tidy. The soft colors work together nicely; the playful typography looks informal and engaging, and also works nicely with the graphics and overall feel. The two-column layout features columns of equal width, conveying a clean, well-organized and fresh impression that is unique at the same time.

Camera graphic, centered two-column layout

Solid Pink Studios

Big, Bold, Diagonal

Solid Pink Studios takes the pink theme its name suggests, but takes it in a completely unexpected direction; the grumpy rock monster looks like he means business.

The solid pink rock monster is a fun, memorable element

The diagonally-aligned text works best at a fixed width, and could present some display difficulties to users with a small screen; on smaller screen resolutions, the blog link is cut off to the point of nearly being hidden. Overall, the diagonal text alignment is is a fun and memorable way to present content and is very in keeping with the rest of the design. One final note: this is nit-picky, but it does feel a bit odd that the favicon for Solid Pink is green, not pink.

by martin

Lessons Mark Zuckerberg taught us about business

Business, Development, Social media

You don’t get to 600 million friends without doing something spectacular. Mark Zuckerberg knows this more than anyone. But I wonder: do we have any hope of achieving similar success?

Facebook’s story begins, like most businesses, with a single idea and an ambitious person that executes it. Zuckerberg wasn’t a world-class genius, and Facebook was hardly a revolutionary idea. Yet here we stand: Facebook is one of the most valuable websites on the Internet, Zuckerberg is one of the world’s youngest billionaires, and MySpace… let’s not pick on them.

There wasn’t any magic, fate, or destiny at play here — anyone could’ve been in Zuckerberg’s position. However, just because anyone on this planet has the potential to achieve success, doesn’t mean that anyone else actually will.

There are factors at play: things like leadership, experience, timing, funding, and execution play their roles. But some things will always stand out above the rest, and many of the factors that really make a difference will never be taught at an ordinary business school. So let’s steal a few pages from Mark Zuckerberg’s school of business.

Lesson 1: Be passionate about what you do

If there is any way to create something that hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people will eventually use on a daily basis, you better be sure to create something that you would have passion and dedication in creating.

The aforementioned isn’t exactly a revelation to anyone, but if you are not genuinely interested in what you are creating, why would anyone else be? They wouldn’t. It’s a serious problem for many entrepreneurs of both young and old.

Lately we have seen entrepreneurs creating this businesses that some have little interest in actually investing their heart and soul into. Some of these startups look great on paper, but, in the end, the whole intention is to quickly flip these businesses to a company that has plenty of cash on hand. The investors, founders, and, if they’re lucky, employees get rich and everyone goes out for drinks to celebrate. If this is the measure of success, it is no wonder why we hear so much discussion about a potential tech bubble.

Mark Zuckerberg, however, is one of the most prominent examples in recent history of someone who has the passion. Not only did he care about his project, but he also turned down billions of dollars in order to let his company thrive. Turning away billions of dollars, and the opportunity to never have to work again, can’t be that difficult. Can it?

But the reality is that you, me, everyone needs to be reminded every once in a while that having a dedication and passion for what we do in life is key to happiness.

Lesson 2: Constant evaluation

There are generally two types of people in business: those who prefer to play it by gut instinct and those who analyze every little measurable detail. Both have their pros and cons; having a mix of both couldn’t hurt. Generally a person gravitates towards one or the other.

Mark Zuckerberg is the analyzer.

Zuckerberg always insisted that his employees create powerful analytics dashboards. Their purpose was simple: allow him and fellow employees to gauge the interest in newly released features to coordinate their global domination. While other companies were still figuring out which advertisements could be placed at which spot and generate the most return, Facebook focused on optimizing the performance of the user experience. He wanted to know which features worked and which did not.

Those who can gather enough data to garner an understanding of their users, while also being able to determine which features work and which do not, will ultimately be in a better position to achieve success.

The takeaway: do anything in your power (within reason, of course) to find ways to measure success and failure across the board, but don’t get so caught up in the data that you are unwilling to explore new avenues.

Lesson 3: Be willing to experiment

In Facebook’s infancy, its founder preferred to push out enhancements and never look back. This is, admittedly, easy to do when you have a few thousand users; they expect things to change at a rapid clip. But Facebook was different. People relied on Facebook in more ways than most other websites — it was a service that connected people to each other. At this point, failure is unacceptable.

Still, Zuckerberg preferred the gung ho method of development. He would regularly introduce new features — adding the “Wall,” introducing chat functionality, allowing third-party development, and changing the site’s layout (which I have had numerous complaints about before).

One has to admire the company’s insistence on pushing out features in a world where critical services tend to iterate slowly and safely (think Microsoft Windows). This insured that Facebook was a step ahead of the competition while also appearing innovative amidst growing competition.

Sure, there were those who didn’t appreciate these drastic changes (especially those dealing with privacy settings and layout), but when you have a vision, sometimes it pays to put in the extra effort and take the risk; explore it through to the end.

Lesson 4: Be aware of opportunity

Before Facebook, there was CourseMatch, an application that allowed students at Harvard University to compare their course selections for that semester. With this, Zuckerberg indulged students’ desires to know which classes their friends were joining. He exploited an opportunity.

Facemash was a similar expereince. It was Harvard’s Hot or Not for students. These students were interested in knowing where they stood socially — in some ways, we all do. And Zuckerberg, once again, saw an opportunity to exploit this as well.

Facebook was simply a culmination of all these previous opportunities into a single useful package.

It isn’t magic. But it does require looking at things in a different way — to see things for what they could be, as opposed to only what they have been or currently are. Zuckerberg’s ability to notice these opportunities and execute on them gave him the edge in creating and maintaining products that people believed in.

Opportunity exists everywhere — especially with the Internet, where the ability to reach millions is easier than ever. Perhaps there is so much opportunity out there that, perhaps, we have become ignorant to spot the most obvious of opportunities. But being able to spot opportunity is an invaluable skill.

Lesson 5: Make something useful

Facebook isn’t simply another interesting website to visit every once in a while. It is a tool that millions of people use to connect to each other. People use it for sharing experiences and creating new ones. Most importantly, Facebook does something that no other website has been able to do as efficiently, effectively, and with such impressive scale: it creates a virtual environment to interact with your real friends.

I don’t think it is necessary for me to explain how useful something like this is; the 600 million plus members does that well enough. Yet it is this usefulness that makes the company a success. It is a recurring theme that all successful companies build upon. It is also something that many startups don’t seem to comprehend.

If you want the best business advice out there, here it is: create something useful.

Explaining what makes a product or service useful is simple: it is something that people are using repeatedly and on a regular basis. Make something that you and others could use on a regular basis, and make this thing unique. If you do this, along with everything else mentioned here, you will have an opportunity to create and maintain a successful business.

And who knows? Maybe you will be the one creating the next Facebook killer.

by martin

How to identify good clients

Business, Communication

Peter Drucker is one of the most influential business writers of the last century. His ideas have shaped the ways we conduct business today. One of Drucker’s main ideas was the notion that without a customer, there is no business. Furthermore, customer satisfaction is the key to the success of any business, or in his words: “The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer.”

To that, I say amen. Here’s the tricky part, though: satisfying all of your customers is simply not feasible unless you choose the right ones and let go of the rest. How do you do that? First, you have to set principles for identifying good customers. Then, evaluate potential customers against those principles, and bid farewell to those who don’t measure up… yes, even if you currently work with them.

Crafting Your Principles

The quest for good customers starts early on. It starts with deciding who your ideal customer is. Different companies have different ideals and cultures, and a variety of parameters are important for making this decision.

Here are the parameters to consider:

Size
What sizes are the companies you have enjoyed working with? Do you prefer to work with small family businesses or large corporations?
Budget
What is your minimum project budget? Will you take on a project with a tight budget if the customer is strategic?
Payment schedule
Would you agree to receiving the full payment at the end of the project? If not, what’s the minimum up front that you require? This is often a pain point for small businesses and freelancers, and I strongly recommend following a harsh rule here with no exceptions.
Technical knowledge
Are you willing to work with a customer who has minimal technical knowledge? How might this affect the outcome of the project?
Project dynamics
Are you looking for a customer who will just give you the requirements and then wait for the deliverables, or would you prefer a more engaged client? On projects in which you collaborated with the client daily, were the results better or worse than those of projects with less interaction?
Length of relationship
Are you interested in one-time gigs or a long-term working relationship? If you are thinking long term, estimate whether a particular customer would have enough projects to sustain that.
Personality fit
What kind of people do you like to work with? Check with other companies that have worked with your prospective customer to find out whether there were any personality clashes during their projects.

Qualification Is Crucial

If you get this right, you will gradually see your customer relationships improve. More importantly, you will be less likely to wake up asking yourself why you are working on your current project.

To keep it simple, I’d recommend a total of four to five principles; but as with everything, tailor it to your own business. One effective method I have found is to set your principles in a spreadsheet, rank them, and then decide on a cut-off average for qualification. This is a great tool for identifying deals with higher average scores or for deciding between two potential deals. We’ve prepared an example of such a spreadsheet (Excel Spreadsheet).

A simple and efficient way to determine whether you’ve ranked your principles correctly is to look at past projects and make sure they align with your cut-off average. Specifically, make sure that past projects that really sucked get a low score, so that you avoid taking on similar projects in future.

Don’t be afraid to share your principles with potential customers. Some might show flexibility. A few years ago, when I approached a freelancer for a potential design project, he made it clear to me that he would charge 50% up front and 50% upon completion of the project. I told him we couldn’t accept such payment terms. He immediately wished me luck. You know what? I was so impressed by his confidence that I called him back and hired him anyway.

Self-Qualification

The qualification principles are important because they can also be a great time-saver. I call this self-qualification. The idea is simple. Now that you know what matters most in your relationships with customers, you can signal that on your website, filtering customers who you would never want to work with.

For instance, you can be clear about the prices you charge and the projects you’ll take on. Read this beautifully crafted message from Forty:

“We try to avoid very small projects (under $10k) because our process doesn’t work well at that scale. Likewise, we also pass on very large projects (over $300k) because they’re just not much fun to work on.”

You can be sure that Forty is saving a lot of time by not dealing with customers who want a plain WordPress skin for $500. The company also subtly hints that the big guys needn’t call it either. It has decided that it doesn’t enjoy big lengthy projects, which are usually initiated by big messy corporations. To make sure prospective customers get the picture, Forty specifies its hourly cost straightforwardly: “Our base rate is $145/hour.”

Another beautiful thing to notice is that personality comes through the text on the website. You can be sure that anyone who takes themselves too seriously won’t be contacting the company. And that’s perfect! It helps the agency focus on the right set of customers.

We see the same approach with Blue Flavor: clear, detailed pricing accompanied by a clear message, setting the stage for the initial communication:

Nclud takes a different approach by including a drop-down form in which the customer can indicate their budget. This again makes clear the range of projects the company is willing to take on:

Ngen uses the same “trick.” The difference in the messages that these two menus send is interesting. Judging from the budget ranges, Nclud probably handles bigger projects:

Never Too Late To Say Goodbye

Assuming you’re passionate about your profession, let’s make one thing clear: you should enjoy the work that you do. If you don’t enjoy your work, that means you’ve taken on a frustrating project or, worse, a frustrating customer.

That can happen. In fact, it happens a lot. And even if you employ the principles mentioned above, it will still happen. But that doesn’t mean you have to continue suffering. No matter how many hours you have invested, if a project doesn’t work, it will continue not to work, and you will only experience more grief. Kill it as early as possible. That would be best for both you and the customer.

So, why would you fire a customer? Let’s look at five reasons:

The customer is abusive.
This is an easy one. You should be treated with respect and dignity, and you should not tolerate any kind of abusive language or behavior. Period.
You don’t get paid on time.
You are not a bank. Be willing to bend over backwards for your clients, but they must pay you on time. A customer who doesn’t understand this will hurt your cash flow and, eventually, your business.
You get phone calls at nights or on weekends, even though you insisted otherwise.
People have to respect your time and not act as though they own it. You are selling your professional services, not yourself.
The scope of the project perpetually increases, but the customer refuses to increase the budget.
This happens a lot. You start a logo, and then the client asks you to throw in a website. The responsibility for setting expectations is yours, but if you do that, and the customer still pushes for more without being willing to increase the budget, then you’ll end up with an unprofitable business.
The customer doesn’t respect you professionally and ignores your recommendations.
To stop caring and just take orders from the customer takes all the fun out of a project. It kills your productivity, erodes your portfolio and stunts your skills.

Obviously, an important question is whether you can afford to fire your client. This is a valid concern, and it depends on the circumstances. This goes back to what you value in customers, and so this will vary from company to company.

If you have many projects waiting on deck, you could probably fire a customer without hurting your revenue. In fact, by working with someone who don’t fit your business values, you are probably giving up on great customers who could take your company to the next level. Take all of these factors into consideration when deciding.

If you do decide to fire a customer, you should seriously consider how to go about it without hurting your relationship with them and without risking your reputation.

Some ways are better than others. The fact that you didn’t get along with this person doesn’t make them bad. It simply means that your values or personalities do not match. More often than not, you will be the one who has to pick up the phone. Follow these steps:

Prepare for the call. Look hard again at your decision to make sure it is the right one.
In the call, explain the reasons for your decision, and point out that it was a business decision, not a personal one.
Help the customer find someone else who would be willing to work with them. Other firms or professionals would likely be happy to get the opportunity.
Bill what you deserve.
Note what you learned from the relationship, and add it to your qualification process.
Most importantly, move on.

At the end of the day, the Pareto effect applies to some degree: 20% of your customers are profitable, fun to work with and contribute to 80% of your growth. The ideas explored above could help you increase that 20% to 30, 50 or even 90%.

In Conclusion

Working with the wrong customers has ramifications. Designer David Thorne relates one email exchange of his that serves as a funny yet unfortunate reminder of this. It didn’t matter to David that he had already spent hours working for that customer; he understood that the relationship was not for him, so he ended it.

If you are disciplined and follow this simple process, you will see an increase in successful projects. And your life will be better, too.

by martin

Is Facebook temporary?

Business, Social media

Last week, the most prestigious investment bank in the world, Goldman Sachs, decided to invest almost 2 billion dollars in the social network Facebook (a mix of its own and its clients capital), which on paper made the six year old startup worth $50,000,000,000.

Yes, a social networking site is now worth $50 Billion Dollars. With a B.

The recent frenzy around the Goldman Sachs investment as well as the selling of private shares has been a sight to see: everyone wants in on the action. To the casual observer Facebook can do no wrong, they are still growing strong and everyone seems to want in on it.

But, if you’ve ever been a part of an online social network, you might be wondering…what happens when all the cool kids leave and nobody goes there anymore? It has happened with all of them so far, from the online BBSes of the 80s right up to Facebook’s predecessor MySpace, which while still having millions of users is doing poorly financially and has lost its cool edge.

Douglas Rushkoff, who has witnessed and chronicled the rise of the Web as well as anybody, thinks that the recent investment is actually a signal that Facebook has reached its zenith, and will soon join the ranks of all the other “been there, done that” social networks. In Facebook Hype will Fade, he lays out his argument:

Rushkoff writes:

“Appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as I read the situation, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Facebook. These aren’t the symptoms of a company that is winning, but one that is cashing out.

The object of the game, for any one of these ultimately temporary social networks, is to create the illusion that it is different, permanent, invincible and too big to fail. And to be sure, Facebook has gone about as far as any of them has at creating that illusion.

If you were there for Compuserve, AOL, Tripod, Friendster, Orkut, MySpace or LinkedIn, you might have believed the same thing about any one of those social networks. Remember when those CD Roms from AOL came in the mail almost every day? The company was considered ubiquitous, invincible. Former AOL CEO Steve Case was no less a genius than Mark Zuckerberg.

Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It’s the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them. (Facebook’s successor will no doubt provide an easy “migration utility” through which you can bring all your so-called friends with you, if you even want to.)

We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym. We don’t live there, we don’t know the owner, and we are all the more ready to be incensed by the latest change to a privacy policy, or to learn that every one of our social connections has been sold to the highest corporate bidder.

So it’s not that MySpace lost and Facebook won. It’s that MySpace won first, and Facebook won next. They’ll go down in the same order.”

Rushkoff’s argument is that Facebook is merely the latest in a long line of social networks that have risen and fallen…he sees no reason why Facebook (albeit the biggest ever) is no different.

In the long term I definitely agree with Rushkoff…Facebook has a lifecycle just like everything else. But short-term we can identify several factors that will influence how fast Facebook loses its mojo:

Social Graph Export

Once we have our friends identified and connected with, a service becomes more valuable because we don’t have to go anywhere to find them. Facebook is betting that by owning the social graph (and making it difficult to export) they will have you locked into the service long-term. So far this seems to be the case, but if other social networks can use the current export tools to recreate the social graph and add valuable data on top of it, then they could start stealing user’s attention away from the service.

The Loss of Exclusivity

But there also comes a point when we’ve connected with so many people in one spot that that spot loses its exclusivity…it’s not special to be there anymore. This is the point that Rushkoff is making…equating social networks with social hotspots like gyms or clubs, whose popularity ebbs and flows with some sort of cool factor. This is a natural change that will inevitably occur…it already feels like Facebook is not cool anymore.

The Value of Niche Networks

For some time now we’ve seen other, niche social networks grow slowly into real communities. Sites like Ravelry, PatientsLikeMe, Dribbble, and others focus on supporting a specific activity and by doing so serve their audiences better than an all-encompassing social network like Facebook can. As more and more niche networks mature, they’ll increasingly steal attention away from Facebook.

A Return to Identity

Design-wise, it’s well known that Facebook is the yang to MySpace’s yin. Where MySpace let users customize their page in any way they wanted, Facebook has very little customization options at all. We’re seeing the rise of personal identity sites like flavors.me and about.me fill that gap…it will be interesting to see what sort of adoption those identity sites get going forward. So far they’re growing quickly.

In the meantime, Facebook is the current social network juggernaut now worth 50 billion dollars and they seem to have all the momentum in the world. The question is…is Facebook bound by the same laws of physics as everyone else?

by martin

Caotica helps to identify vision and goals

Business, Caotica, Digital marketing

Caotica keeps it small but effective. We come in when big giants are either too busy with loads of work or too expensive to afford.

You have probably experienced situations, where you need some solution fast and with best quality ever. Sometimes at these moments even price does not matter, because the idea is too good to pospone the launch. And then you are unable to find an agency that could live up to your expectations, probably they are too damn busy and often slow. You need an agency who you could call even on Sunday late evening to discuss the work, you need a partner who would take care of your ideas. Well, that’s what most of the people say about Caotica while working with us. Even though, Caotica is not a big digital agency.

Everything starts with a strategy.

There has to be a reason. Caotica’s strategy process helps to identify an organisation’s vision and goals, evolving a clear roadmap to deliver against its overall business objectives.

This roadmap can work across:

by martin