Monday, July 11, 2016

The best new portfolio sites, July 2016

Hello, Readers! This month, we have the usual mix of minimalist sites, traditional-feeling sites, more than a few asymmetrical sites, and a couple of wildly experimental sites that look really cool, but are practically unusable.

I mean, things get wild in here: Hell freezes over; oil and water mix; I say something nice about a parallax effect—it’s mayhem, I tell you. Mayhem!

pixelindustry

If pixelindustry’s agency portfolio looks a whole lot like a theme, that’s because they make themes. So while it may not be the world’s most original design, it certainly plays to their strengths, and showcases their talents.

This may be the only case where a site “feeling like a theme” is a positive thing.

David Alexander

David Alexander’s portfolio throws you right into the work with a large, image-focused, fully-screen-friendly layout. If your content is light on text, and heavy on imagery, this is one great way to do it.

Martine aimait les films

The portfolio site for Martine aimait les films, a video production company, embraces that divided-in-half feel that I love. Combined with the short, high-quality clips used as video backgrounds, the whole site feels modern and professional, and seems to fit the style of the videos presented.

Aycan Elijah Yilmaz

Aycan Elijah Yilmaz’s portfolio is the second one I’ve seen embrace the “galaxy beard”. Galaxybeards aside, this is a pretty, minimalist site with a lot going for it.

Chris Cook

Chris Cook’s portfolio is simple, largely monochrome, with decent typography. The thing I really like about it, however, is the use of a subtle background pattern. I know that background patterns were basically abandoned along with skeuomorphism, but this is a site that does it right.

I’d like to see more subtle patterns used here, and there. We might even wean ourselves off of our near-complete dependence on huge (and thus slow-to-load) photos.

whitelist

The site for video production studio whitelist goes full 90s multimedia presentation, but with modern technologies and style. I’ve often railed against the usability problems this kind of design presents, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t pretty.

You could drop most of the fancy JS and animation, and what you’d have left is a beautiful, minimalist site. I especially like how it makes use of less-common geometric shapes both to decorate, and to draw the eye to UI elements and important content.

4musketier

I’m forced to assume that 4musketier is a design agency, because though I can’t read German, that’s what’s in the portfolio section. It’s not too imaginative. It’s really a textbook flat design that seems dedicated to a pastel version of the rainbow itself, rather than a specific color scheme.

Still, it looks good, with excellent typography, generous white space, and more. The whole design feels like it was executed with precision, and that alone is worth a look.

Lachlan Kincaid

Lachlan Kincaid’s portfolio brings us back into the world of minimalism, with a more literal definition of “white space”. It’s a simple site that shares the emphasis between the text and imagery, in an effort to give proper context for all of the work presented. It’s an effort that I appreciate.

Electric Enjin

Electric Enjin’s portfolio site starts off with a bang, by presenting a polygonal 3D globe that zooms in and… well I’m not going to spoil it. Suffice it to say that, potential usability problems aside, this is what all those Flash site designers were going for, but couldn’t quite manage. It’s quite something to see.

The rest of the site is decidedly simpler, and not too spectacular, though certainly pleasing to the eye. But that home page… that will definitely give customers something to think about (if it works in their browser).

Olle

The studio portfolio site for Olle combines minimalism with a streak of Bauhaus style. The pages weren’t just designed, they were art directed.

Designers take note: art isn’t just about fancy layouts. Simply changing small details on the page, or the entire color scheme, to match the content… that counts too.

Locomotive

Locomotive’s portfolio site is a fantastic example of a site based on Material Design that doesn’t look all-Google, all the time. Yes, certain elements retain that very specific Material Design feel, but the site very much has its own personality.

AREA 17

Combine a modern aesthetic, a strictly black and white color scheme, a bit of asymmetry, and you get AREA17. Now, I love my greyscale sites, as you know, but it’s not often someone can actually pull off a design with near-solid black (it will look solid black on most screens, anyway), and a lot of it.

C RCL

C RCL’s portfolio site makes a risky choice with using a full-screen carousel in the middle of their one-page site. Well, the risk comes from the fact that it’s the only way to see their work. Still, it fits in with the aesthetic. Great typography too.

Whitehall

Whitehall is an interior design studio in New York City. They leave all the sales work to the excellent photos of their projects, which are presented full screen. The rest of the site is kept simple, giving you just enough information, and no more.

The asymmetry on the “About” page surprised me, but it still seems to work, even if it’s nowhere else on the site.

Uzik

Uzik’s agency portfolio site is another one of those that’s not too original, but too well-executed to ignore. It just has fantastic use of imagery, type, color, and everything else. There’s something to be said for following the formula once in a while, and it’s working for Uzik.

It’s a pretty site. Go look.

Dunlop Builders

The portfolio for Dunlop Builders is another great example of a minimalist business site. It looks very familiar, in terms of structure and the elements used, yet still retains its own distinct personality. Some of that personality comes from the imagery, but a lot comes from the use of layout and type.

David Schweitzer

Composer David Schweitzer’s portfolio isn’t a one-page website, but it might as well be. All of the most important information is on the home page.

Almost random colored geometric shapes are used to spice up an otherwise monochrome website to great effect, although they make the text a bit less legible where they overlap with it. What I love, though, is that you can click on any of his musical projects for a full case study, or just listen to a sample right there, with the provided mini media player.

The whole site is efficient like that, while also providing more details for anyone who wants them.

Geordie Wood

Ok, Geordie Wood’s portfolio is, to be perfectly honest, an unusable mess. Take a glance and tell me where the main navigation is. No, it’s not the arrow in the upper right. It’s revealed on hovering over the photographer’s name.

That mess aside, I love the use of typography, and the way the text stays on top of the hover-images until you click through. I love the way each photo is given a different ratio of white space. It’s feels experimental, a little unpredictable, like the photography it’s showing off.

I love that. (They still should fix that navigation, though.)

Sam Lord Flavin

And we keep getting experimental with Sam Lord Flavin’s portfolio. And it kind of has to get experimental. After all, he’s using this site to showcase three major, and majorly different, skillsets.

Well, the combination of asymmetry and parallax effects works incredibly well, here. (Yup, there it is.)

Villa Böhnke

Villa Böhnke’s one-page poortfolio feels, at first, like more of a collage than anything else. I’d say it works for them, even with, gasp, drop shadows. Okay, it really is mayhem out here. But for the content, this is perfectly appropriate.

Jon Montenegro

Jon Monttenegro’s portfolio gives us another decidedly minimalist one-page portfolio. This one is targeted at… people impressed by really long lists? I mean ok, I’m actually impressed. That’s a lot of work done.

So, if anyone wants social proof, that’s one way to show off. I just wish he hadn’t used those clicking sounds when you hover over a link.

HOO KOO E KOO

HOO KOO E KOO has a name I don’t even want to try to say out loud because I just know I’ll get it wrong. It also gets off to a great start with what might be the most modern-feeling animated depiction of Pong that I’ve ever seen. Scrolling down gives us a change in background color that never feels awkward, so that’s cool too.

Humans & Machines

The portfolio for Humans & Machines brings us more asymmetry, more minimalism, more goodness.

Pilote

Pilote’s portfolio presents their portfolio in just two photos. They showcase their print and graphic design by zooming in on each product as you click through the menus. It’s a bit “Flash-y”, but still fairly unique, and an interesting way to do it.

Brave People

Brave People’s portfolio site is another that’s not too original, but still beautiful. Have a look at that typography, especially. It’s pretty.

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Sunday, July 10, 2016

Popular design news of the week: July 4, 2016 – July 10, 2016

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers. 

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that were posted, so don’t miss out and subscribe to our newsletter and follow the site daily for all the news.

10 CSS Rules Every Web Designer Should Know:

 

Complex UI Inspiration

 

Buno: Simple, Minimal Note-taking

 

How Well do You Know CSS Display?

 

ColorDrop.io – The Last Color Palette You’ll Ever Need

 

The :Target CSS Trick

 

Flat Design Vs. Material Design

 

Site Design: Kaseta.co

 

How to Interview for a Design Job

 

The *designer* is in the Details

 

Free Landing UI Kit

 

Work/Life Balance is Bullshit.

 

Vintage Colour Wheels, Charts and Tables Throughout History

 

How to Declutter your Design

 

Apple’s New “Shot on iPhone” Campaign

 

Modulr: A Fast and Modular Approach to Building Powerful UIs

 

Gravit.io: In-Browser Design Tool

 

Try to Guess the KOLOR as Fast as Possible!

 

All New Framer Meetups

 

Visual Studio Code 1.3 Released

 

Snapchat is Ruined

 

Cognitive Load: Brain Gems for Product Designers

 

SEO is as Dirty as Ever

 

Design Needs More Women

 

The UX Secret that will Ruin Apps for You

 

Want more? No problem! Keep track of top design news from around the web with Webdesigner News.

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Saturday, July 9, 2016

The 8 Metrics Your Online Marketing Agency Doesn’t Want You To Know About

Originally published here

The Unbelievable Truth About Online Marketing Campaign Reporting

Clients switch to us from other agencies all the time. Not too long ago, we were onboarding a new client. While onboarding, we started discussing reporting and what we felt would be the most effective reporting structure based on this client’s needs. He was absolutely amazed! He started telling us more and more about the “reports” he got from his prior agency. We got more and more furious! His prior agency wouldn’t even tell him how much they spent on his Adwords campaign, and how much was dedicated to account management. This client was spending $30,000+ per month just on AdWords and the agency wouldn’t tell him how much of that money was the maintenance fee? Are you kidding me? Even worse, we see this all the time. SEO agencies that won’t even report on organic website traffic and/or keyword rankings. Social Media Marketing agencies that won’t report on social media referrals. The list goes on and on. Quite frankly, we are SICK of clients getting duped by agencies that don’t bring results and are basically stealing money from their clients.

At Amplify ROI, one of our core values is transparency. Unfortunately, many Online Marketing Agencies out there just don’t follow this principle. Most of the time, you will find that the ones who obscurely report on unimportant metrics are the ones that either:
a. Don’t know what they are doing
b. Are not bringing you actual results

If the Agency you currently entrust the growth of your business to online is not completely transparent with their reporting, you should run like the wind! While every client’s goals are a little different, here are the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) EVERY agency worth their weight should be able to report to you with pride.

Website Traffic

Google_Analytics_Website_Traffic_Report

A good Digital Marketing Agency should be able to show you how they are increasing traffic to your website over the campaign. If they cannot do this, either they are not tracking it, or they are not bringing you more traffic. Ultimately, more traffic leads to more sales. If your goal is more sales, which is the case for most businesses, this should be a common metric in your discussions of campaign performance.

“Raw” Conversions

Raw_Conversion_Tracking3

“Raw” conversions means the actual number of total conversions on your website in a given time frame. We usually look at this over a month-long period. Don’t be fooled by agencies only tracking conversion rate without tracking raw conversions. It is easy for an agency to gas you up by saying things like “We increased your conversion rate by 200%!” In that instance, if you had 1 conversion the month before, increasing your conversion rate by 200% only means that they brought you 2 more conversions. Doesn’t sound like as big of a deal thinking of it that way, does it? Now, if you can see that they increased raw conversions by a number of 10, that means you got 10 more leads. That is a more aligned way to track.

EVERY online marketing agency should be tracking conversions for you. If they are not, then what is the goal? How can you even measure the efficacy of the campaign? The ultimate goal for business owners is to drive more leads from their website which, in turn, leads to more sales and a solid Return-On-Investment. If your agency isn’t tracking conversions, they are not tracking the ROI of the campaign which means they are not aligned with the same goals that you are.

Conversion Rate

conversion-rate-report

Yes, we know that in the prior section, we said don’t pay too much attention to conversion rate. While raw conversions are definitely more important to overall results, it is paramount to make sure that once visitors get to your website they are converting into leads. This is the main reason for monitoring conversion rate. Converse to the statement before about increasing conversion rate, if you have a conversion rate of 5% and your website receives 10,000 visitors in a month, this means you will receive 500 conversions/leads. If your agency is able to increase your conversion rate in that scenario to 6%, that equates to a total of 600 conversions/leads. Simply meaning that you got 100 more conversions than the month before.

Keyword Rankings

keyword_ranking_report

While keyword rank reports are much less important now than they may have been even a year ago, they are still an indication of whether the campaign is having a positive impact on your business or not. With Google’s personalized results, it is more difficult than ever to get a true measurement of where your website ranks for every keyword, in every search, by every visitor. What you should, however, look for is the keyword rank report showing top 3 results and/or increases in ranking if the site is not in the top 3 for that keyword. Think of it as monitoring trends more so than taking it for 100% accurate measurement of actual rank.

Average Cost-Per-Click

average_CPC

If you are running a PPC Campaign, your agency should be monitoring your average CPC. This, along with conversion rates, allows you to decide how much each lead generated by your PPC campaign is costing you. Over time, as your campaign is optimized, one of three things should happen. Either:

  1. Your CPC should decrease
  2. Your leads should increase
  3. Both

If this is not happening, it is time to find a new PPC Optimization Agency.

Traffic Sources

Traffic_Sources_Report

If you don’t understand EXACTLY where your traffic is coming from, you cannot make educated decisions on how to adjust strategy. If you are paying an SEO Company to bring you organic traffic, and the bulk of your traffic is still coming from another marketing source, you need to find another company. Likewise, if you are paying for Social Media Marketing and the bulk of your traffic is coming from your Email Marketing efforts, the same applies. So on and so forth. You get the point.

Most Popular Pages

most-popular-pages-report

Having access to a report showing the most popular pages on your site helps you understand where the bulk of your conversion-rate-optimization should be concentrated. The pages with the most traffic should be the ones that are highly optimized to pull visitors to other parts of the site, as well as generating leads at the same time. Also, sometimes you will find that the most popular pages are not the ones you thought they were! This can be very eye-opening.

Top Referrals

top-referrals-report

The Top Referrals report is a great way to see what websites are referring traffic to yours. It is a piece of understanding what traffic referrals convert the best. This way, you can increase efforts on the sites that are sending more traffic that converts. Sometimes, it is a social media channel like LinkedIn. Sometimes, it is a web forum where you helped someone answer a question. There are tons of other websites traffic can come from.

Reporting On The Right Metrics Is The Key

This list is, by no means, exhaustive. It is, however, some of the most important metrics your agency should keep you apprised of. If your marketing agency is not willing to provide you with detailed reports like these, it is time to work with someone else. Don’t be fooled by the hype that you often get about metrics that don’t ultimately matter to the overall success of your campaign and business. We are sick of seing clients get duped. Don’t let it be you! Now you are informed and can hold them accountable for their results.




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Comics of the week #347

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

Outdated designer

Smart car assistant

 

Postdated check

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

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