Also, when you spend over $50.00 at www.sweetboutiquedesign.com, you will automatically save 15% off your entire purchase! This sale ends July 5, 2009 and the 15% discount will automatically be deducted from your order of $50 or more (USD) during checkout.

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Adobe now has a way to find a font for your next design project at http://www.adobe.com/type/- There are over 2,500 fonts to choose from in many different categories. You can search for fonts using their keyword search tool or use the Font Finder to locate the perfect font by classification, style, use and more. Another way to find fonts is by categories, collections, by font designers. I’m looking forward to using this nice tool from Adobe in the future. I also have my eye on Adobe Font Folio 11. Ooh, that makes me excited! There are over 2,300 fonts from the Adobe Type Library in OpenType® format. Font Folio 11 is a great selection of typeface for print, web, video, and electronic documents that has true cross-form compatibility.

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

First, a client needs to do their homework on what type of designer they want and what that designer’s experience or credentials are. Do they only work with certain hosts or systems? There are many solutions for a website design. For example, one CMS or shopping cart isn’t right for all businesses. Next, the client must know their budget, realistic time frame and what their business model and goals are. Without a solid understanding of a client’s own business model and goals for the business, developing a website for that business can be challenging. The next most important thing is for a client to understand that the design firm they decide to hire is a professional business, the same as a law firm or architect. Designers (again firms large and small) have set hours they work by and they need to be respected. Also, these firms and studios have professional design contracts and have to be accepted by a client before they can do any work. Finally, don’t expect that a graphic, illustration, website or logo can be created in one day (or week) unless you are willing to pay a hefty fee.

Another main point to consider when hiring a designer is that most design firms won’t accept the request to do work or develop a design but only be paid if the client “likes it” or “accepts the design”. That scenario is considered speculation. Most design firms are strong NO!SPEC supporters. I’ll save the working on speculation post for another time, but you can read more about what it is at NO!SPEC.

If you’re not familiar with working with professional web or graphic designers, these are the typical steps that are taken by most design firms before you get to the actual design phase of a project.

1. You submit a request for quote from a design studio.
2. The designer responds with a proposal, outline of the project as well as a quoted price.
3. You either accept or don’t accept. Don’t leave the designer hanging; let them know even if you choose not to accept their quote.  Designers have schedules to keep and you’re not going to hurt anyone’s feelings for declining their proposal.
4. Feel free to negotiate the pricing (as long as you’ve read that designer’s terms about pricing).
5. When you accept a proposal, expect to be given a contract to sign. Read it thoroughly and ask questions.
6. Know exactly what you want when getting to this step, your designer can’t read your mind. Asking them to create hundreds of drafts in hopes that you might know what you want when you see it is very unrealistic.
7. Your designer will provide you with a brief about the steps they will take in completing your design project.
8. You must work with the designer by providing clear direction and decisions for your business website, illustration or graphics project to achieve optimum results.

You can also read a more in depth article from the AIGA to help you with your next design project - A Client’s Guide to Design: How to Get the Most out of the Process. This will help you understand the standard practices that most design firms (like Sweet Boutique Design) follow. You will learn about getting the most out of the process, finding the right designer, the design brief, budgeting and managing the process, AIGA standards of professional practice and more. This is a very informative article for anyone who is searching for a web designer, is currently a web designer or wants to become one.

Stephanie Fredrickson of Sweet Boutique Design, LLC. is a member of the AIGA - the professional association for design and adheres to their standards and practices for professional design and has been in business since 2007.

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

A scummy feed scraper stole my entire blog feed and has posted all of my images and feed on their site without my permission. It’s one thing to link to someone’s blog post because you think it’s cool or you want to show your visitors something they could really use. But, come on, my entire blog was on their site. I know I have some cool stuff on here, but really, my entire blog? That’s ridiculous!

This is the offending party - http://www.web2designer.org. I’m not giving them an actual link because I don’t think they deserve it.

If this has happened to you, check this site out -http://www.jtpratt.com/how-to-keep-feed-scrapers-spammers-and-splogs-from-stealing-your-content. I found it in a Google search. There’s tons of good information on what to do if someone steals your content and posts from your blog. The quickest thing you can do is block the offending IP address (if you know it). This article also gives a nifty tool to find out a sites IP address - http://www.zoneedit.com/lookup.html.

I’m in the class of people I guess that still get amazed when someone steals something from my site. I don’t understand why people do it. But, hopefully, this post will help someone else who’s had their blog posts scraped and posted on some site. By the way, this is how you correctly link to a blog post on another person’s website.

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

There are currently no openings for any custom design work until late August 2009. You may submit a request for a custom design project by July 1, 2009 for it to be considered for late August and Fall scheduling.

Due to the large number of inquiries I receive, I can only accept and schedule a limited number of projects. Only serious inquiries are accepted and I don’t do any work on speculation. If you are serious about getting a fabulous website or blog design started, please Request a FREE quote. I can help you with almost any type of custom design project that you need, whether it’s a boutique site design, professional design for your small business, personal blog, or custom illustration.

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

This is my contribution for Illustration Friday’s topic this week “craving”. All I can think about are cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Maybe it’s because I’m trying not to eat so many sweets and really stick to healthy eating. These cupcakes are on a pedastal for a reason. I crave what I can’t have. This was drawn in Illustrator CS3.

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Classy Sudz® is a recent boutique web design project I’ve just completed. Cathy wanted an eCommerce store to sell her handmade soaps as well as a matching blog to keep her customers informed of her newest products.

I always have so much fun designing such girly and pink sites Classy Sudz® is a handmade soap company. You will find many wonderful and yummy soaps for all occasions.

Client: Cathy from Classy Sudz®

Project: eCommerce web design, custom blog theme, custom graphics and logo design (see image to left). Using Adobe Illsutrator and Photoshop CS3 for all graphics and logo design.

Platform: WordPress and Option Cart.

Launch Site: http://www.classysudz.com

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I’m so excited to announce that I have premade illustrations available for purchasing.  I’ve started with a brunette girl and will be adding many other characters to my site.  We now have hand-drawn premade girly illustrations for web use. You can use them for your website headers, blogs, advertising banners and to give your website that extra special feminine touch.

What you get when purchasing

• 1 premade vector illustration as shown in picture, brown hair, pink outfit, transparent background.
• .png file sized 800px

This is not a customized graphic and it’s sold as shown. If you need a custom character illustration, Contact Us for pricing and scheduling.

Premade Illustration You Receive When Purchasing

Licensing:

Personal Use: Single-Use Personal License. For personal website use. Not for web designers or print use. Not for redistribution or resale.

Commercial Use: Single-Use Commercial License. If you wish to use this in a commercial manner (if you’re a website designer), you must purchase a license for each site or individual design you will be using this graphic on. If you do purchase the commercial use rights to this illustration, you will receive the illustration with a transparent background. If this illustration is used on any website, personal or commercial, a link back to Sweet Boutique Design, LLC. must be included in the website credits.  Not for redistribution or resale.

Extra Information

Legal: Please note this image is copyrighted and when purchasing, you understand that you cannot claim this illustration as your own, re-sell or re-distribute in a package or alone. It is against the law to misuse the licensing for this illustration and you will be liable for any damages or royalties due to Sweet Boutique Design, LLC. for infringing on our terms of use.

Delivery: Your image will be delivered via email to the email address used when purchasing within 24-48 hrs. (weekends and holidays not included). You will be asked to respond to our email with a confirmation of delivery to ensure this image has reached you. Please respond to the email that is sent with your image and add our email address to your safe list as soon as you receive the checkout receipt.

To purchase, please visit http://sweetboutiquedesign.com/item_28/Premade-Girly-Character-Illustration.htm

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Sale is Over Sorry

Completely Style your boutique for under $100!

We’re having a temporary SALE for 1 week, ending Tuesday June 9, 2009. ALL Premade templates are 40% OFF and are all priced below $40.00 and you can still purchase a matching WordPress theme for $25.00! Installation for WordPress is available if you don’t currently  have it installed on your server. So, now you can have the whole package of a boutique web template, matching blog theme and WordPress installation for under $100! You can’t find a better deal to give your business or personal site some style (without the use of tables - CSS only templates).

Sorry, customizations are not available on our premade templates to keep costs low for all buyers (yes, even fonts changes).  You must schedule a custom design if you want a customized template.

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.

This is my interpretation of Adapt for Illustration Friday. How do we “adapt”? By making the best out of everything that comes our way,even if it’s stupid lemons. When crappy things happen. I’ve always tried to follow that philosophy. I know it’s the most generic ways to show how we adapt in life, but it’s the most simple and was fun to draw This illustration was drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS3.

©2009 Sweet Boutique Design's Blog. All Rights Reserved.