How to Make Retina Graphics

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Retina capable displays don’t seem to be going anywhere, and every new analysis of mobile browsing shows that Apple dominates the mobile browsing market. Add to that the number of people using new MacBook Pros, and you have a fairly large audience using very powerful screens.

For the designer, this poses an issue. How are you supposed to go about creating graphics at high enough resolutions for these screens? Even worse, how are you supposed to make your old website look good on these new screens?

Well Chris Spooner has made a tutorial available at Line25 to help you through this, and he makes it much easier than you probably thought. From creating new graphics to optimizing those old images, the tutorial covers just about everything you need to know, including the code.

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Cyber Monday Ruined By AdWords Bug

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For anyone using online advertising, the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is a great opportunity to see a spike in your ads’ views. Search Engine Roundtable reports, however, that a “technical issue” on some AdWords accounts caused ads not to show over perhaps the biggest online shopping weekend of the year.

No word yet on the official cause of the problem or how Google plans to deal with the backlash. I think I would want to be compensated in some way for the inconvenience and possible loss of business. Wouldn’t you?

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2012 Wrap-Up: The Big Shifts in Google SEO

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Well, it’s the time of year for wrap-up lists, yet again. For most industries, there aren’t too many big changes throughout a year. When discussing everything that happened in SEO however, there is certainly a lot to cover.

Tom Schmitz over at Search Engine Land has a detailed analysis of all of the important shift in Google SEO throughout 2012. There’s a lot there. Google has been very active in trying to fight webspam, and personalize search results for individuals. Panda alone has had 13 updates since November 18th, 2011.

If Google keeps this up, 2013 will be a busy year for SEO as well.

 

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Who Are Web Designers? [Infographic]

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The UK web hosting company Heart Internet wanted to find out who web designers are and what their opinions are on their profession. They asked 500 designers and while that is far from being representative of the entire industry, the results are pretty much in line with what you would expect.

Firstly, Heart Internet found that 78% of all web designers are male. There are definitely female designers out there, but I think most figured web design was still a male majority.

Eighty-percent believe work is hard to find, and three-fourths don’t expect it to get better in the near future. That makes it shocking that 77% feel secure in their job security, probably because most designers are freelancers anyways.

The rest of the results are compiled into this infographic. There are some very interesting findings.

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Answering “Why?” – The Most Important Step in Design

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In the design community, every step of the creation process becomes a tale we tell each other to establish our own know-how, as well as trading insight and tips. What we don’t seem to discuss is the “why” side of things. We share what happened and how, but rarely do you hear designers explaining why they decided to do what they did.

It is possible we just don’t realize how important that question can be. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem relevant while trading stories “from the field”. Unfortunately, not answering these questions holds everyone back.

This is the issue Rob Bowen brings up in his article for Webdesigner Depot, and he makes some important arguments for why to be sure you can answer “Why?” Most importantly, answering why you did something helps a client understand your professional opinions and decisions.

If you have thought through why you selected a certain layout or tool, you will be able to argue for it better if your decision is questioned by your client. Sometimes, that forethought is all that can get some ideas past the boardroom. Thinking through every step, also helps ensure you create the best design you can.

The good designer can make a solid website, but the great designers can tell you why every aspect of the design was chosen. If your vision or understanding of the design are blurry, you won’t be able to back it up when the pressure is on.

 

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