Following up on my previous email about a new look for ZoNicholas.com I have been working on creating a SlideDeck, a content slider, displaying images on the website instead of the Flash slider I was using before.

SlideDeck Pro

Having attended the YcademY March Seminar which focused on working with and customising the SlideDeck Pro, having gained an insight as to how to deal with the various skins etc and after some testing, I have put together a SlideDeck with a few slides; the first slide, Web Design, 2nd Kid’s Web Design and the last, Graphic Design,  There are still a few minor issues that I need to resolve and I may end up completely changing the look of this jQuerycontent slider, but what you see is how it stands at the moment.

The SlideDeck plugin which intergrates into any WordPress blogging platform made life pretty simple.  In the first instance, no coding is required unless there is customisation to be done. Not only does the SlideDeck display on the main web site, but when a Smart Slider is created this can be intergrated into any blog post just by copy/pasting a simple code. A very attractive marketing feature! The real beauty of this slider is, that while it draws the attention of the prospective customer to the displayed content it still maintains full search engine optimization. That is a real bonus for any business owner. The Pro version that I am using also offers Touch Support for mobile browsers, an important feature on touchscreen mobiles.

Mobile Ready Website

The whole issue of changing from a flash slider to a SlideDeck was instigated by the fact that flash is not clearly seen on smartphones. As more and more people turn to using smartphones with computing ability and connectivity such as the Apple iphone, Google Android and such like, our websites must be mobile ready: this means fast loading, with good visibility and easy navigation. The basic rule applies on mobiles, KISS! keep it simple.

Ycademy January 2011 Online Seminar

Back to work! After a busy 2010 and hopefully a good rest over the year end, let’s start 2011 with WordPress based Website Development using Semiomantics XO.

After multiple exercises such as the Christmas site or the personal blog, we need to go into some more detail in as much as design, presentation and production are concerned. There are 4 areas of concern we will focus on at the January seminar:

1. Typography

While XO offers a good choice of built-in fonts, each customer’s branding is different and we may have to implement existing branding elements, namely defined typefaces. The seminar will deal with the font issue and show

• how we can overwrite the XO default settings
• how we can use Google Fonts
• how we can use any font for for any part of the website
• how to define font families
• where to use which kind of font

2. Menu Design

A delicate issue, but subsequent to the Apple Exercise, we have received requests to go deeper into the issue of advanced menu design. This concerns all sorts of solutions whereas we will keep the focus on easy navigation. We will start from the almost endless possibilities of the XO menu, move on to sprites and end up with advanced custom hand-crafted menus.

3. Graphic Design

Graphic Design for the Internet is different from Print Design. We will focus on understanding these differences and learn about the requirements of cross-platform readability. The Workshop will be focused on communicative graphic design with Photoshop (or any other tool of your choice). Depending on participants skills, we will do this in 2 parts: basics in January and advanced in February.

4. Selling XO

Semiomantics will present it’s new affiliate program, enabling anyone to sell XO and to earn money from doing so. The interest is not just in selling some scripts, but in selling our skills and know-how when it comes to customization, custom design and optimization.

With XO we have a great and flexible product which can serve as a base for any website. Together with WordPress, the world’s most popular publishing platform, there are hardly any limits to design, features and performance. We train you to digg out the best from WP and XO for the benefit of your customers.

This chapter will lead us into the main curriculum of Ycademy 2011: Productivity, Marketing and Project Management.

Registration

The Online Seminar will take place on January 29 – 30, 2011, from 1 pm London Time to 9 pm London Time on both days.

Please register early as we need to prepare the personal materials for each participant.

Related posts:

1. WordPress Seminar by Ycademy
2. Ycademy WordPress and Flash Seminar
3. WordPress Themes and Development
4. Ycademy Online Seminar
5. WordPress for Authors Seminar

Ycademy January 2011 Online Seminar

Back to work! After a busy 2010 and hopefully a good rest over the year end, let’s start 2011 with WordPress based Website Development using Semiomantics XO.

After multiple exercises such as the Christmas site or the personal blog, we need to go into some more detail in as much as design, presentation and production are concerned. There are 4 areas of concern we will focus on at the January seminar:

1. Typography

While XO offers a good choice of built-in fonts, each customer’s branding is different and we may have to implement existing branding elements, namely defined typefaces. The seminar will deal with the font issue and show

• how we can overwrite the XO default settings
• how we can use Google Fonts
• how we can use any font for for any part of the website
• how to define font families
• where to use which kind of font

2. Menu Design

A delicate issue, but subsequent to the Apple Exercise, we have received requests to go deeper into the issue of advanced menu design. This concerns all sorts of solutions whereas we will keep the focus on easy navigation. We will start from the almost endless possibilities of the XO menu, move on to sprites and end up with advanced custom hand-crafted menus.

3. Graphic Design

Graphic Design for the Internet is different from Print Design. We will focus on understanding these differences and learn about the requirements of cross-platform readability. The Workshop will be focused on communicative graphic design with Photoshop (or any other tool of your choice). Depending on participants skills, we will do this in 2 parts: basics in January and advanced in February.

4. Selling XO

Semiomantics will present it’s new affiliate program, enabling anyone to sell XO and to earn money from doing so. The interest is not just in selling some scripts, but in selling our skills and know-how when it comes to customization, custom design and optimization.

With XO we have a great and flexible product which can serve as a base for any website. Together with WordPress, the world’s most popular publishing platform, there are hardly any limits to design, features and performance. We train you to digg out the best from WP and XO for the benefit of your customers.

This chapter will lead us into the main curriculum of Ycademy 2011: Productivity, Marketing and Project Management.

Registration

The Online Seminar will take place on January 29 – 30, 2011, from 1 pm London Time to 9 pm London Time on both days.

Please register early as we need to prepare the personal materials for each participant.

Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics. If you enjoyed reading the above, please consider following future tips and strategies by RSS reader, Email delivery, or Kindle subscription.

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Related posts:

1. Ycademy WordPress and Flash Seminar
2. WordPress Seminar by Ycademy
3. WordPress for Authors Seminar
4. Ycademy November Seminar
5. Apple Peel for WordPress

Web Design Trends in 2011

It has never been more exciting to be a web designer than in 2011. The need for good design is increasing as facebook and other social networks are introducing the longer the more people to the virtues of the internet. Once on facebook, many realize that there is more, much more between heaven and earth than Zuckerman’s flabby look.

Web design has evolved tremendously over the years. First designers coming from the print industry tried to copy and paste what they have always been doing in the low-tech world. Then, they noticed all of a sudden, that the web is a completely different medium which is defined by its own standards.Print design is out and Web design is taking over … even in the printing industry.

Now, the Mobile net is taking over slowly but surely and designers who don’t adapt will be out rather sooner than later.

1. Mobile Web Friendly Design

In 2011 all will boil down to mobile friendliness. Many companies have already made some efforts in the right direction by setting up additional mobile websites and by developing applications. However, the effort often lacks integration and a uniform look and branding.

2. Simple, Bold and Visual

In order to comply with the requirements of the mobile web and the relatively small displays on mobile phones, web design will be simpler, bolder and extremely visual. This means a definite good bye to the subtle details of print design. However, the quality of the design elements will increase: only crisp fonts and crystal clear pictures will do. Also small file size and fast loading is a must. The use of multiple servers serving media, fonts (web fonts) and other content will increase. From a layout point of vies positioning will become even more important, more than the choice of fonts and colors. It will be about understanding the medium internet, compared to printed media.

3. Cross Platform Branding

Based on the aforesaid it is obvious where we we will be heading: branding elements must become better defined and usable across all possible platforms, from desktop to mobile phone. The low tech business card will translate into an elaborate social network profile, visuals will be presented in formats which can be seen on all platforms (flash is out, html5 is in), personal or business websites will need to grab top positions on search engines, ahead of social network profiles.

The personal look or image and the brand of a business will be increasingly promoted across all platforms in a unique and uniform way.

Ycademy as a precursor of Trends

5 years ago we have anticipated these trends already at Ycademy by creating what we called at that time the Secret Garden.  The Exercise was about defining a personal profile, purpose and goal and to wrap it up in a web efficient way, at that time using the Cashflowin profiles. Also, YORGOO, Cashflowin and Ycademy design was always extremely sober, bold and simple, often to the dislike of people who have not yet made the mental step to embracing the internet and understanding the new publishing environment.

This year, Ycademy will have to focus on providing its members with the knowledge and tools to move ahead on the path to profitability. We will focus namely on providing customers with new features and functions, such as increased interactivity, media oriented content and mobile applications.

Note: The above Design from 2009 was a first test with CSS3 and HTML5 Elements on WordPress.

Related posts:

1. Personal XO 2011
2. Semiomantics XO 2011
3. Semiomantics XO 2011 Edition Release
4. Apple Look for XO 2011
5. South Africa Houseboats on XO 2011

Semiomantics XO 2011

If you were one of the lucky ones who managed to buy a ticket and attend the Ycademy Seminar this month, you were certainly in for a special treat with not only a brand new Semiomantics XO2011 but also with all the bonuses that came with it. All participants are well and truly equipped for a very profitable year ahead.

WordPress Semiomantics XO2011 Seminar

Having been one of the lucky attendees I came away from the seminar with my head spinning with ideas, and now to put them down on paper and explore them.

The whole seminar was a hands on workshop, discovering the workings of the new Semiomantics XO 2011 and applying some hardcoding to achieve the required result.

Here is an examples of the flexibility of the theme achieved during the seminar, a beautiful Elegant Design together with a dynamic photo display. An eye catching result.

I have been totally amazed by the flexibility of the new XO, whether I  want just a plain blog, a newspaper looking theme or just a photo gallery, or anything else, all these are possible with this theme. Really amazing!

As a developer I have had the privilege to be able to access the scripts and software ahead of others, but  all this will be available shortly in the Semiomantics Store and in my Small Busines Store. To be continued…

If you wish to know more you can contact me here.

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Ycademy Sandbox Fun

Just like when we were children we had a sandbox to play in, an own space to play and try out things, so today’s Ycademy participants have their own Ycademy Sandbox to try out and test new themes and software.  The training sessions provide a lot of  sound knowledge and information in web design but there is no better way to learn than through practical application.  Try and Do!  Test and re-test and have fun.

Ycademy Sandbox Tests

Working on the various themes in a sandbox allows for experimentation and tests and brings out the creativity. We all possess untapped creativity, but in our daily routine and jobs this rarely is expressed and brought to the fore.  

Here are a couple of examples of first drafts done on a theme in the Ycademy Sandbox.  

and another…

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Going Green

Watching and listening to the rain lashing against my window today I began to wonder how my little garden was bearing up in this dreadful weather that has hit most of the U.K. in the past few hours. Worse still, there’s more to come! The roses were still in full bloom  and brightening up an autumnal garden, but now no more after the winds have battered them today. Somehow all this talk of things green and garden inspired me to develop a green blog.

Going Green Blog 

Last week’s Ycademy trainings left  all participants with a new theme tuned by Semiomantics to turn our hands to over the weekend. No two themes are the same when it comes to checking out what’s behind the backdoor.  Firstly there’s the admin area of the blog and then there is the server side script. With both one has t0 become a little familiar in order to execute a design or redesign a theme. My new Going Green blog required a bit of  time to become familiar with the various features and constraints, however after a bit of work a green blog soon took shape and the site soon developed.

Here is my first shot at my Going Green blog.  A little more work is still needed on the web site to cross the ‘t’s and dot the ‘i’s if this was for a customer, however with my time constrainsts these days (my little grandson) it works well as a draft and gives a good idea of what a site can look look like. A theme such as this could be  adapted to  suit most any topic  with a few adaptations to the design, colours and images.  This theme will soon make a great addition to my Small Business Shop.

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