Design in Context: A Web Design Blog by Greg Kihlstrom

Design is a Collaborative Process

This is going to sound completely contrary to my "Design by Committee" post from a few weeks back, but I assure you that it's not.

Every once in a while I'm reminded of how much the 'end product' of a design project ends up being a  collaboration.  There are times when I get to work on a personal project and there is no client giving input, but most projects have an external 'client,' even if that is only one person making decisions for his/her organization. 

I think that there is something very satisfying about knowing that a few very different people's ideas can be incorporated into something and not only WORK, but create a kind of synergy.  It pushes you to reexamine your own process and open yourself up to an alternate way of thinking.

There's definitely a line where a committee waters down a passionate idea and where a few people can take a good concept and make it live and breathe.  And it's nice to be on the right side of that line.

A Blog is a Perfect Compliment to Your Site

By the time I'm writing this, it's no longer news that corporations are jumping on the Blog bandwagon. It seems like everyone is wanting to get in on this idea, and there are several ideas why it makes very good sense for your company, no matter what it does, to have a blog. Here's a couple:

1) Search Engine Rankings
No, just HAVING a blog isn't going to get you a better ranking in search results, but using one effectively will. I know this from personal experience, it's not just something I read somewhere. Linking to your Web site from your blog posts helps to building your page ranking both by having an increased amount of inbound links from a different domain name, but allows you to making the linking text whatever you want.

Here's a link to learn more about Web Design in Washington, DC. If you click on it, you'll see that it takes you to my company, Carousel30's page about Web Design and Development.

2) You can have a Perspective on the World without putting it on your Home Page
This is a little more abstract perhaps, but basically, the information that you have on your corporate Web site is directly relating to your company. You might have Press Releases, news stories that mention your CEO or company in a favorable light.

But what about related news happening in your industry? Previously, some sites would have RSS feeds on their page that would have "industry news", but this introduces a tricky issue -- what if your COMPETITOR is featured favorably in one of these RSS feeds? Do you take off the feed from your site. What if there was a way that you could CONTROL the related topics that you show and respond to?

That's where your blog comes in. Let's say the price of widgets increases because of transportation issues in the Midwest. Your business is in manufacturing, but you want to respond to this issue. Talk about it on your blog, and let your shareholders, your customers know that you are in touch with your industry and are working to help make things better.

So, there's a couple reasons to jump on the bandwagon.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Greg RS Kihlström is an award-winning Designer and is currently Creative Director at Carousel30, a Washington, DC-based firm that specializes in Web site Design, Video Production and Post-Production and Print Graphic Design.