Rabble of Rats

Archive for May, 2010

Aspen Colorado! The name conjures up fascinating images of snow-capped mountains, wonderfully green foliage, and pristine white snow. It creates a ripple of excitement!

When you talk about Aspen Colorado hiking, it doesn’t just mean staying in a hotel room or condo unit all day, watching the beautiful scenery. It’s not even about getting a huge adrenaline-pump from skiing down the high slopes. It’s not even the Hollywood flavor lent to it whenever celebrities decide to get away from the media buzz in L.A. None of those types of excitement. Rather, Aspen Colorado hiking is about enjoying the quieter pleasures in life without boring yourself to kingdom come.

Aspen Colorado hiking is both elegant and egalitarian. Just think about it. Aspen Colorado hiking offers low overhead prices and you don’t have to be an expert to do this. You don’t need a set of wheels to go on an Aspen Colorado hiking trip. Neither do you need any balls to control (as in golf, tennis, baseball, football, bowling, etc.). Aspen Colorado hiking means no fighting the elements for balance with recalcitrant objects as in skiing or snowboarding.

Not that there’s anything wrong with any of the sports mentioned above. But the fact of the matter remains: If you’re looking for the ultimate recreational activity, then Aspen Colorado hiking might just be what you’re searching for.

In Aspen, Colorado, trails are everywhere. From easy walks along clear streams or challenging hikes up a mountain, almost everyone can participate. Anyone who can walk can take an Aspen Colorado hiking trip. The goal is to walk or hike or trek. What could be more beautiful than that? And if you’re the excitable type, you can choose trails that have that element of danger in them. Aspen Colorado hiking trips have everything any bona fide adventurer could ever need.

Below are some tips you can follow when preparing for your ultimate Aspen Colorado hiking fun.

Go Early

This is especially true if you decide to take a day hike. Bu even if you’re not, it’s always advisable to start your Aspen Colorado hiking trip early. High altitude trails that are very often what you’re getting with Aspen Colorado hiking can be prone to afternoon thunderstorms. So if you want to make it back home before dark, getting on the Aspen Colorado hiking trail at 3 or 4 in the morning makes sense.

Go Light

Another sensible option. It’s really quite simple: carry less, go further. That is the basic philosophy of all Aspen Colorado hiking trips. You want to take on a minimalist approach because you don’t want to be burdened by a lot of weight from stuffs you don’t need. Just pack enough food, clothing, and a few extra items, such as a camera, arctic parka, first aid kit, etc.

About the Author: Josh Hayes is the webmaster of several websites. One of his newest is http://www.freeinvitationtemplates.net. If you are interested in sweet 16 invitations or 50th birthday invitations please visit this site.

Nearly every company on the planet sets out with the main objective of making money. This is usually done by manufacturing some form of product, or offering a service, and then charging people money for it.

First of all, it is a very rare case that a business can offer a product or service that is truly unique and cannot be provided by anyone else. This means that your enterprise will be competing with other businesses that sell a similar product and you will both be trying to make money from the same customers, who only want to spend their money once.

Marketing is the primary tool used by modern organisations to draw prospective customers to do business with them and not with their rivals. It is a very broad topic that is affected by a great number of internal and external variables, but when done right it can be the one business practice that could make or break a corporation.

So where should you start when creating a marketing strategy for your own company? Well, each situation is different, and each business will have its own set of strengths and flaws that must be taken into consideration, but there is a marketing rule that can be applied to almost any company to be used as a marketing platform. It is called the “Marketing Mix”.

The Marketing Mix

The marketing mix was a term that was first coined in the 1950’s and is a phrase that is used to describe the fundamental building blocks of any marketing system. It reflects the fact that marketing is not a straightforward, blunt-edged business technique, but rather a delicate balance of different aspects of business operations.

The term was later developed to include the concept of “four P’s” that described the essential elements of the marketing mix. The formalisation of these P’s made it very easy for business managers and marketers to swiftly associate the elements of marketing to the strengths of their own companies, and by doing so could very quickly create a customised and effective marketing system. The four P’s are Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

While we were preparing the release for some of our childrens bedding products we employed ideas from the marketing mix to create a strategy.

Product

Whilst every element of the marketing mix is a necessity, the “product” element mentioned as one of the four P’s is perhaps the most critical of all. It identifies the physical product or intangible service that your company will be selling, and at the end of the day it is the reason that customers are going to spend money with you.

Many people do not think that marketing has any place to play when it comes to the physical product that your company is selling. In fact, the common train of thought very often bears the precise opposite sentiment. Surely it should be the opposite way around – your manufacturing department creates a product for sale and then it is the task of the marketing department to find ways to sell it, right? This is not always the case.

Take the computer software market as an example. There are many established brands of both operating system as well as software application solutions on the market already, and since the market is fairly well saturated it would be incredibly tough (and expensive) to “take on the big boys”. So how can the principles of the marketing mix assist in this situation?

Rather than creating an operating system and then trying to craft a marketing strategy to rival the likes of Microsoft and Apple, it would be more effective to look at what types of product are desired in the current marketplace, and how feasible it would be to manufacture and sell them. By being mindful of the marketing mix early on in your product development period you can prevent business dead-ends at a later stage.

Once your products have been fashioned and created it is still a critical skill to be able to objectively review your own products to recognise the reasons that a customer should buy your product rather than a competitors’. The skill is called product differentiation and forms one of the fundamental skills of the product part of the marketing mix cake.

A different form of this part of the marketing mix is known as product variation and is typically used to either prolong the lifecycle of a product already in the market, or to make your brand new product attractive to as many consumers as possible.

The car industry uses this approach very effectively by offering different engines, trim packages and interior options with the cars that they offer. They use the marketing mix to great effect to sell their own products in an incredibly competitive marketplace.

We do not have a specific marketing team within our new how to make icing service although several of our managers have been able to adopt marketing as part of their work role.

Price

Another key factor in the marketing mix relates to the price of your products or services. This isn’t a simple case of carrying out market research to determine the top price that your customers would spend (although that can be a handy tool to use), but rather using the price of your products as a strategic tool designed to achieve any particular objectives your business has. The potential benefits of an effective pricing strategy are surprisingly substantial!

Although it may seem obvious, it is still worth noting that price has always been, and probably always will be, one of the key factors that shoppers take into account when they are making a purchase. It is also worth noting that customers don’t always consider the lowest price to be the best price. In fact a price that is too low can often turn buyers away.

There are many questions that you need to ask yourself while devising a good pricing plan, key amongst which are the price sensitivity of your clients, what your rivals are doing and how can pricing boost your own profits. From a strategy point of view though, pricing can be covered by two main principals; price skimming and penetration pricing.

Price skimming

The principal idea behind price skimming is to make as much money as possible from the segment of the market which is price-insensitive and are going to be prepared to spend a large amount of money to get a product or service early on.

This pricing strategy is frequently used in the consumer electronics industry where customers will often eagerly await the launch of a new mobile phone or computer games console. Makers could set almost any price they wanted to and there would still be a loyal base of customers that would pay it. By using this method as part of a pre-ordering strategy, a firm can help to smooth its own money flow.

Penetration pricing

Penetration pricing is at the opposite end of the pricing spectrum, and is geared towards gaining a large market share at a short-term cost so that financial benefits can be made long into the future. It can be a risky strategy, but when used correctly it can create revenue streams for many years to come. When establishing a price for penetration it is still important to not give a bad impression of your product by aiming for too low a number.

Yet another thing to bear in mind is that “price” is the one part of the marketing mix that will generate earnings for a business. The other members of the four P’s will all cost money to create or carry out.

To optimize our website for search engine marketing we chose rice and peas as an aimed key phrase since it relates to our company and what we offer.

Place

Place is the component of the marketing mix that is often overlooked by companies, but it’s still a significant part of selling your product successfully. In short, it describes the method in which you deliver your product to your customer, and consequently how you receive money from them. It can be a great marketing technique when applied appropriately.

The most typical implications of place-based marketing are the physical venues in which your goods are sold. For the vast majority of consumer products, this includes the distribution network between your manufacturing centres and shops or other outlets around the country. Since distribution of a physical product costs money it is crucial to determine your own priorities and alter your distribution network appropriately.

With the increasing use of the Internet by your prospective customers, marketing methods have had to consider how they use the Internet to help distribute their products. By using the Internet as a point of contact (or even as an entire distribution channel in download-based markets such as MP3s) companies are now able to reach out to a huge pool of potential customers.

Promotion

When you say the word “marketing”, many people immediately think of the promotional aspect of the marketing mix, although as we have seen, this is merely one branch of a more complete system. Promotion can be used on a very individual basis or as a mass communication instrument, and whilst it might be a costly undertaking it is often an important one.

Advertising is one of the most common forms of promotion. Typically it would be done by posting on billboards, producing short clips for TV and radio or by physically distributing flyers or leaflets to potential buyers. With the coming of the information age we have witnessed a great increase in promotion via e-mail and the Internet, or just as targeted advertising materials posted through your door. The potential for individualised advertising has never been so great.

Another important part of promotion involves branding, which may not necessarily yield more product sales directly, but relates back to one of the initial functions of marketing; getting customers to choose your product over those of your competitors. When all other parts of the marketing mix are equal it could be branding that sways a customer’s decision.

Putting it into Practice

As previously mentioned each company is different and will have different marketing needs. By using a balance of the four P’s reviewed above you can take a good view of your own marketing strategy.

When energy is wasted it not only cost you extra money but it also hurt the environment. With the fuel costs raising many people are looking into building a more energy efficient home this will decrease their energy bills, like energy efficient homes many times. It is a great thing that new homes are now being built to be energy efficient.

When an energy efficient house is built there is money that is being saved in the long run. There are mortgage companies that offer incentives for people to build an energy efficient home. Also another incentive is that there is a federal tax deductible for anyone who builds an energy efficient home. Also by building a new energy efficient home will only increase in value as there are many people that are looking to buy one. It is very rewarding knowing that you are doing your part for the environment when you have built an energy efficient home. There has been an estimation done that sixteen percent of greenhouse gasses which are produced in America do come from the energy that comes from homes which is like old homes to many people. So it means that the less energy used that there is less greenhouse gas produced.

If you decide to build an energy efficient home you will not feel any cold breezes blowing through you home unless you have a window open, you home will be warm and comfortable. New energy efficient homes also protect against cold, heat, drafts, and also moisture. It will not only improve the air quality inside but it also keeps the temperature consistent. When building a new energy efficient home there are other things to consider. Energy efficient windows and doors, solar heat, water saving faucets, appliances that are energy efficient, unlike energy efficient homes which are very popular. There are many choices to make in order to go green by building a new energy efficient home should be one that you truly consider.

As with any other move that directly affects your overall financial situation, there are things you should know about personal loans before considering to take one on. Anyone can have personal loans fulfill a variety of purposes like absorbing costs in implementing improvements around the home, supporting additional medical bills or paying for tuition and other disbursements which you may not be prepared for. Personal loans can likewise augment your budget and help accommodate monthly payments for other loans or credit card bills that are due for settlement to avoid being late or missing out on a deadline entirely.
 
The circumstances you are in will help you determine whether a secured or unsecured personal loan will be a more necessary option. Unsecured personal loans are classified as high-risk loans and usually require higher interest rates for lesser amounts. Unsecured loans are also primarily granted to individuals who have good credit scores and a clean credit history. In comparison, secured personal loans demand for collateral or guarantors to co-sign with you on loan agreements and make sure that proper and timely loan repayments are made. Since secured loans are somewhat less risky, you can possibly get more money out of it and be provided with a more flexible repayment scheme with a low interest rate. Personal loans for people with bad credit are more likely of the secured kind than unsecured.
 
Seeking a good amount of advice on debt management is a great way to ensure success in getting a personal loan as this will entail studying your cash flow and coming up with an estimate of how much money you can dedicate to paying the loan off and still be comfortable with your finances. Debt management consultants also help compare personal loans that are being offered by banks and other lending companies to ensure that you get the cheapest personal loan there is.
 
Note that prior to applying for a personal loan, you should have already looked over your financial situation and be with a good amount of certainty that your credit score or history will not be negatively affected by it. At the end of the day, your decision on whether they will do you any favors or only cause you more trouble should be based on an adequate assessment of your financial situation after looking closely at facts about personal loans.

It comes as no surprise then that many couples ask themselves, “should we choose traditional wedding rings or follow a modern trend?” There are many types of simple, domed wedding bands.

A plain wedding band might seem uninteresting or too simple but when looking into wedding rings, it is easy to see why understated traditional wedding rings are so preferred. Although, if you have yet to look in detail at wedding rings, it might seem that all plain wedding rings are the same, there are many differences, from obvious choices such as colour and metal to the profile of the ring and the weight.

Although it is simple, such small changes can make a huge difference overall, making your ring yours, and not the same as everyone else’s. The plain ring is a favourite because its simplicity has an air of traditional elegance & style.

Consulting each other and comparing the different types of rings will help the couple reach a consensus on this issue. There is a chance of the couple buying identical rings or two rings that are as different from each other as night and day.

The elegance and sophistication of a plain ring, while it may not cause people to stop & stare, is something that you can take pleasure in and not grow tired of. A search on any search engine for traditional and modern wedding rings will give you a host of options to consider.

Look at the many pictures of different types of wedding rings. A plain traditional type of wedding ring will match any fashion trend in the future, whereas some of the modern trend rings may look dated. However, the modern design of wedding rings allow you to make your ring as individual as you are.

You might associate heart attacks with or as a life ending event. That is not in every case true, as more and more people are recovering from these episodes and even going on to have normal lifestyles afterwards. Though a few heart episodes do end lives, others are only warnings to take it easy or to make some changes that are much more favorable to the heart. These adjustments can easily result in a longer and much more rewarding life. Modifying lifestyle habits doesn’t mean you must forfeit all that you love, but you do need to make some adjustments.

If you love steak, you may not have to give it up right after heart attacks, but you do need to rethink what type of you get and how often you eat it. You will want to talk with your doctor, of course, but some can have very lean cuts of steak once in a while. Beef is often considered off limits, but if you can find exceptionally lean cuts these days that are not as bad for the heart. You will find also lean cuts of many other kinds of meats that could be added to a heart healthy diet. Think about lean pork, chicken breast, and some seafoods.

You’ll wish to eat more vegetables for your diet after having heart attacks, but you will find many methods you can jazz them up. You will find great spices and rubs out there that you can use with your veggies that make them taste phenomenal, even for those that don’t like to eat any kind of vegetable. You may even to them on the grill outside for an even much better taste. Just remember to skip the butter and even the margarine for even more benefit for your heart and your overall health.

People that have experienced heart attacks also find that they are advised to get more activity, but you do have to be careful about what kind of activity you take on. Some kinds are good and others are just too strenuous. That means asking your doctor which are the greatest for your particular situation. Walking is really a great way to start getting much more activity after most types of heart attacks, but anyone who is not used to much activity has to take things slow. Walk about the yard a bit before you walk around the block, and then see how it goes from there. Heart attacks do not have to be death sentences, and life could be somewhat normal as long as you know what to do.

Below are a few sites on carotid artery issues:

• http://www.carotidarterysurgery.org/
• http://www.carotidarteryblockage.net/
• http://www.carotidarterystenosis.net/

If you are still alive, a heart attack is not the end of the world but recovering from one is a new world with room for a new perspective.

 

http://www.anythingandeverything.org

 

In the simplest terms, search engines collate data about a website by sending an electronic spiders to visit the site, copying its content which is then stored in the search engine’s database. Generally known as ‘bots’, these spiders are designed to follow links from one document to the next. The spiders index the site’s content (links, images and copy), developing a complex map of the site’s components. This is then stored and later accessed by users searching relevant content from the search engine.

Understanding spiders and how they read information from a site, is the technical basics of search engine optimisation or SEO. Spiders are designed to read site content like you and I read a newspaper, starting in the top left hand corner, a spider will read site content line by line, left to right, top to bottom.

Search Engine Friendly Sites

Once a search spider finds a site, helping it get around is the first priority. One of the most important basic search engine optimisation or SEO tip is to provide a clear path for spiders to follow, starting from “point A” through to “point Z” of your website. This is best accomplished by providing easy to follow text links, directed to the most important pages in the site. One of these text links should lead to a text-based sitemap. The sitemap is a list (or directory map) that provides a text link to every page of the site. The sitemap can be the most basic page in a site as its purpose is primarilty to direct spiders, rather than help lost site visitors.

Basic elements a search engine looks at when examining a document

 

• After the URL of a site, the first information a search spider records is the “Title” of the page.
• Next, it examines the “Description Meta tag”. Both of these elements are found in the <head> section of the source code.
• Good content is the most important aspect of onsite search engine optimisation. The easiest and most basic rule of the trade is that search engine spiders can be relied upon to read basic body text 100% of the time. By providing a search engine spider with basic text content, SEOs offer the engines information in the easiest format for them to read.
• Keep it simple, some documents cover multiple topics on each page, which is confusing for spiders and User’s alike. The basic SEO rule here is if you need to express more than one topic on a page, you need more pages, creating new pages with unique topic-focused content is one of the most basic search engine optimisation techniques.
• Do your keyword research before you write your page copy, understanding how your audience searches is the most beneficial thing you can do for your website.
• The last on-site element a spider examines when reading the site (and later relating the content to user queries), is the anchor text used in internal links. Using relevant keyword phrases in the anchor text is a basic SEO technique aimed at solidifying the search engine’s perception of the relationship between documents and the words used to phrase the link, page linking and anchor text should follow a logical path A to B to C.

 

 

One of the favorite human pastimes is to try andunderstand oneself and other persons. And it is often much harder to understand oneself!

One instrument that may make it easier are personality tests.

A personality test aims to discover aspects of a person’s character that remain stable throughout that person’s life-time, the individual’s character pattern of behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

Already the old Greeks…

An early model of personality was posited by Greek philosopher/physician Hippocrates.

His theory divided personalities into four groups, depending on which bodily fluid was dominating the personality, into sanguinic, phlegmatic, melancholic and choleric

Modern tests

The last century heralded a new interest in determining and discovering separate personality characters, in close correlation with the emergence of the subject of psychology. As such, several different tests emerged; some attempt to find specific features, while others try to describe personality in general.

There are many different types of personality tests. Usually personality tests consist of a large number of items, where respondents must rank the pertinence of each statement to themselves.

Projective tests, such as the TAT and ink blot tests are a different variety of personality test which try to measure personality indirectly.

Scoring

Personality tests can be scored using a dimensional, where different aspects of personality ar rated on scales, or a typological, where each aspect is placed either in one type or in another, approach.

Dimensional approaches such as the Big 5 describe personality as a set of continuous dimensions on which individuals differ.

Typological approaches such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator describe opposing categories of functioning where individuals differ. Normative answers for each category can be graphed as bell curves (normal curves), connoting that some aspects of personality are better than others.

Ipsative test responses offer two equally “good” responses between which an individual must choose. Such responses (e.g., on the MBTI) would result in bi-modal graphs for each category, rather than bell curves.

Personality tests such as the Strength Deployment Inventory (r), which assesses motivation, or purpose, of behavior, rather than the behavior itself, combine a dimensional and typological approach as described here. Three continuums of motivation are combined to yield 7 distinct types.

Many, but by no means all, psychological researchers believe that the dimensional approach is more accurate, although as judged by the popularity of the Myers-Briggs tool, typological approaches have substantial appeal as a self-development tool.

Few personality tests accurately predict behavior in a specific context. For example, with some of the five factor model tests, only one of the five factors is significantly correlated with job performance.

Emotive tests can become prey to unreliable results as most people strive to pick the answer they feel the best fitting of an ideal character and therefore not their personal response.

Test evaluation

There are several criteria for evaluating a personality test. Fundamentally, a personality test is expected to demonstrate reliability (produce similar results when a person takes the test again) and validity (the results show what they claim to show).

Criticism and controversy

Biased test taker interpretation

One problem of a personality test is that the users of the test could only find it accurate because of the subjective validation involved. This is where the person only acknowledges the information that applies to them. This is related to what is called in psychology as the Forer effect.

Personality versus social factors

In the 60s and 70s some psychologists dismissed the whole idea of personality, considering much behaviour to be content specific. This idea was supported by the fact that personality often does not predict behaviour in specific contexts. However, more extensive research has showed than when behaviour is aggregated across contexts, that personality can be a modest to good predictor of behaviour. Almost all psychologists now acknowledge that both social and individual difference factors (i.e., personality) influence behaviour. The debate is currently more around the relative importance of each of these factors and how these factors interact.

Respondent faking

One problem with self-report measures of personality is that respondents are often able to distort their responses. This is particularly problematic in employment contexts and other contexts where important decisions are being made and there is an incentive to present oneself in a favourable manner. Work in experimental settings (e.g., Viswesvaran & Ones, 1999; Martin, Bowen & Hunt, 2002) has clearly shown that when student samples have been asked to deliberately fake on a personality test, they clearly demonstrated that they are capable of doing so.

Several strategies have been adopted for reducing respondent faking. One strategy involves providing a warning on the test that methods exist for detecting faking and that detection will result in negative consequences for the respondent (e.g., not being considered for the job). Forced choice item formats (ipsative testing) have been adopted which require respondents to choose between alternatives of equal social desirability. Social desirability and lie scales are often included which detect certain patterns of responses, although these are often confounded by true variability in social desirability. More recently, Item Response Theory approaches have been adopted with some success in identifying item response profiles that flag fakers. Other researchers are looking at the timing of responses on electronically administered tests to assess faking.

Psychological Research

Personality testing is frequently used in psychological research to test various theories of personality.

Research published by David Dunning of Cornell University, Chip Heath of Stanford University and Jerry M. Suls of the University of Iowa reveals that observers who are not involved in any type of relationship with an individual are better judges of the individual’s relationships and abilities. These workers have studied a large body of investigations into self-evaluation, indicating that individuals may have flawed views about themselves and their social relationships, sometimes leading to decisions that can impact negatively on other persons’ lives and/or their own.

Additional applications

A study by American Management Association reveals that 39 percent of companies surveyed use personality testing as part of their hiring process. However, ipsative personality tests are often misused in recruitment and selection, where they are mistakenly treated as if they are normative measures.[1] More people are using personality testing to evaluate their business partners, their dates and their spouses. Salespeople are using personality testing to better understand the needs of their customers and to gain a competitive edge in the closing of deals. College students have started to use personality testing to evaluate their roommates. Lawyers are beginning to use personality testing for criminal behavior analysis, litigation profiling, witness examination and jury selection.

Dangers of using personality tests

It is easy for personality test participants to become complacent about their own personal uniqueness and instead become dependent on the decription associated with them. This can be potentially dangerous with persons who are already suffering from a form of identity disorder or may be a catalyst to instigate particular behaviours in a person who was previously believed to be of sound mental health.

Examples of personality tests

    * The Rorschach inkblot test was introduced in 1921 as a way to determine personality by the interpretation of abstract inkblots.

    * Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a 16-type indicator based on Carl Jung’s Psychological Types, developed during World War II by Isabel Myers and Katherine Briggs.

    * Keirsey Temperament Sorter developed by David Keirsey is influenced by Isabel Myers sixteen types and Ernest Kretschmer’s four types.

    * The 16PF Questionnaire (16PF) was developed by Raymond Cattell and his colleagues in the 1940’s and 1950’s in a search to try to discover the basic traits of human personality using scientific methodology. The test was first published in 1949, and is now in its 5th edition, published in 1994. It is used in a wide variety of settings for individual and marital counseling, career counseling and employee development, in educational settings, and for basic research.

     * The Strength Deployment Inventory, developed by Elias Porter, Ph.D. in 1971 and is based on his theory of Relationship Awareness. Porter was the first known psychometrician to use colors (Red, Green and Blue) as shortcuts to communicate the results of a personality test.

1. Balance

Balance is all about ensuring that your web design does not tip to one side or the other. It is like the balance of weight in achieving symmetry or asymmetry. Achieving asymmetrical balance is an especially delicate matter that takes time to fine-tune and a somewhat trained eye to really pull off. You will find that every design you think looks good has a well-constructed balance underlying it.

2. Grid

The concept of grids is closely related to that of balance. Grids are a series of horizontal and vertical rulers that help you “compartmentalize” a design. Think of columns. Columns improve readability, making a page’s content easier to absorb. Spacing and the use of the Rule of Thirds (or similar Golden Ratio) make everything easier on the eye.

3. Color

Websites such as ColourLovers exist for a reason. You can’t just pick your colors Rambo-style, guns blazing. Some colors go well together, others don’t. A lot of theories on colors and their combinations exist, including conventions on monochrome and contrasting schemes, but a lot comes down to common sense and having a feel for it.

Find out for yourself what works together. Soak up as many website designs as possible, such as those featured on any of the many CSS showcase websites (like Best Web Gallery), to get a feel for how colors interact with each other. Pick two or three base colors at most for your design, and then use tints (which are lighter, mixed with white) and shades (which are darker, mixed with black) of these base colors to expand the palette where necessary.

Picking nice colors is as important as picking the right colors (that is, the right colors for the job). A Web design for a cozy little restaurant would do well with “earthy” tones: reds, browns, etc. Of course, there is no such thing as a surefire recipe. Every color sends out a message, and it is up to you to get the message right.

4. Graphics

Great design doesn’t need fancy graphics. But poor graphics will definitely hurt a design. Graphics add to the visual message. Websites like WebDesigner Wall have impressive illustrations, while others are understated.

You may not be a great illustrator or photographer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put great graphics on your website. Some basic Photoshop skill, possibly some stock images and great taste are all you need. Try to make the graphics go well together, and make sure they embody the style you are aiming for. We are not all gifted with the same natural ability, though. You can pick up some things by learning from others, but sometimes you just have to pick the style that suits you best (like a clean style if you are not the greatest of illustrators).

5. Typography

The art of type is a tricky subject to talk about because it encompasses so many elements. While it can be regarded as a branch of design, one can spend a lifetime mastering all of its aspects. This is not the place to provide a complete typographic reference, so we will limit our discussion to what will benefit you in the short term.

Web typography is handicapped compared to print typography. The biggest difference is our lack of complete control over the appearance of type on the Web, due to its dynamic character. Obviously, dynamic rendering has its strenghts, but Web designers have little control over the results, at least for now. Missing fonts on the user’s computer, differences in browser and platform rendering, and generally subpar support in CSS make Web typography a daunting if not frustrating task. But while we may have to wait for CSS 3 for Web typography to reach its full potential, we have the means now to make it look interesting and, more importantly, pretty.

6. White Space

White space, or negative space, has to do with what is not there. Like measure and leading, white space gives text some breathing room and spatial peace. You can make elements stand out by adding white space around them. Copy, for example, shouldn’t look cramped. To ensure readability, make sure paragraphs have sufficient padding.

Perfume ads — or any ad for a luxury product for that matter — are known for their use of white space… loads of it; and a serif typeface for good measure.

7. Connection

Connection here refers to a Web design that has both unity and consistency. These two attributes demonstrate the profesionalism of a design (and thus its designer). They are very broad attributes. A design should be consistent in its use of colors, in its range of fonts, with its icons, etc. All of these aspects count; a design can look great and still suffer from inconsistencies.

When a design is inconsistent, its unity can be lost on the user. Unity is slightly different from consistency. Unity refers to how the different elements in a design interact and fit together. For example, do the colors and graphics match? Does everything contribute to one unified message? Consistency, on the other hand, is found between the pages of a design.

Unity is perhaps the more important of the two. Without unity, having a good design is hard. Inconsistency, however, may look a bit “sloppy” but may not make the design “bad.”

Of the seven principles addressed in this article, connection is the most important. Connection has to do with how all elements come together: balance, grid, colors, graphics, type and white space. It is sort of the glue that binds everything together. Without this glue, the design falls apart. You could have pretty type and a brilliant and meticulously chosen color palette, but if the graphics are awful or simply don’t match or if everything is crammed together without thought, the design will fail.

This is the hardest part of designing. It is not something that can be easily taught or necessarily be taught at all. A little natural ability and experience is required. But it is what it is, and it makes a design look good in the end.

Conclusion

Good Web design is not limited to the seven key principles discussed here. Aspects such as accessibility, readability and usability play a part, too.

This is the reason why Web design is so difficult. Getting your feet wet in design is easy, especially today, with so many content management systems, blogging tools and themes readily available. But truly mastering all of the facets of Web design takes time and, let’s be honest, talent. Having the ability to craft pretty designs is just one facet, but an important one.

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