Thursday, December 12, 2013

What Is the Difference Between Web Design and Web Development

Differences Between Web Designers & Developers

Sometimes people use the terms “web designer” and “web developer” interchangeably, but they actually have two different meanings. Web designers usually involve with the design and front-end of a website, while web developers work with back-end of a website.

Web Design Processes

The front-end of the web covers two processes: the designing of a website and front-end development. The design can be developed by graphics program such as Photoshop, Illustrator, or Fireworks to reflect the look and feel. Also concerning about usability of a website to help users easily to navigate and want to return back. The front-end development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript combination to code all elements needed. These include things like images, font, color, buttons etc.

The back-end of a website covers two parts: a database and a server. Let’s say, if you use online banking, you usually interact with the front-end. Once you’ve entered your information, the website or web application stores it in a database which was created on a server. All information stays on the server so when you log back into the website your account information still there. A web developer uses server-side scripting languages such as ASP.NET, C or PHP to make this work.

A web designer is a graphic artist who styles elements on the web. He or she typically has a creative mind set, while a web developer usually thinks logically. Because of the difference mind sets, it’s hard to find a good web designer who is also good at back-end development. On the other hand, web developers probably find it hard time to create an appealing website.

When you’re looking for someone to develop your website or web application. The best way is hiring a web design company since you can get both on the designing and programming. We, Alaska Web Design, have web designers and developers to help you meet your goal on the next project.

NWDS Alaska Web Design

About NWDS - founded in 2003 by six software engineers, NorthWest Data Solutions (NWDS) provides custom computer programming and systems design services. NWDS creates many types of software, including e-commerce, financial, defense, engineering, logistics, aviation and more. www.nwds-ak.com

Friday, November 15, 2013

How to Create a Facebook Cover Photo

Facebook cover photo is like our account representative. We would like to have nice and aesthetic in order to draw attention from audiences. These are some processes to help you to create the nice one.

1. Select image

Your photograph needs to have high resolution so you can work on it with Photoshop or your favorite software photo editor. I usually use Photoshop to adjust brightness and contrast before uploading, also when I play around with saturation can get more interesting look.

2. Dimensions

Cover photos are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. If you upload a smaller size image it will be stretch to fit these sizes. For the best result is having your image with the exact same size of Facebook’s dimensions.

It’s a little bit tricky sometimes when the image sizes don’t fit. I always resize the width first to be the exact number I need. Then I crop the image by using the width number I already got and the height I need. So I’ll get the width and height with those numbers.

For the profile picture sizes are 180x180 pixels. If you want to have a white space around the image, you can design it to be smaller but sit on white background that have the profile size need.

NWDS logo

3. The design

Please keep in mind when you design the cover photo. On the bottom left corner will be hidden by profile image. So it’s better to avoid to put something important or text on that area.

To add or change your cover photo:

Log in to your Facebook page
Go to your timeline
Click Add a Cover if you haven't have a cover photo yet, or hover over your current cover photo and click Change Cover
Choose a new photo from your computer
Click Save

Please check out our Facebook page

5 Things We Need to Know Before Designing Your Website

The early process before starting to build your website is gathering requirements. The more we know about your requirements the best we can build website to suit your needs. These are some basic information we expect to get from you.

1. What is the purpose of your website?

The first question we would ask you is the purpose of your website. It is crucial since it will determine how we will develop it. If your website is for selling products online, you will need ecommerce website that needs a shopping cart.

2. Target audience

Target audience is to decide how your website will look and feel. If your targets are children, we will design to have different appearance than website for adults. Different colors have a significant effect to visitors. Web designer can choose the colors according to your target audiences’ flavor.

3. Your logo

The logo of the website is the element that has to be created first. If you already have your logo, you should submit it to your web designer before web design process starts. The logo is another key element of colors and the whole design will be created around it.

4. Your content

Content is the important part of your website. Your visitors will come back again if they get what they look for. It is all about what you are providing and what you should say to your visitors. We cannot write your content but we can help guide you to write the effective one.

5. Your keywords

The web developer will need keywords while programing your website. Your keywords should be defined as you want your website to appear in search engines.

SMS Pro Logo - Airline/Airport SMS Software Logo

SMS Pro logo in different sizes and color.

This logo is available for airlines and airports using Web based aviation safety management system software called SMS Pro.

1. Size 200 x 39 px.

Color.

Black

White

2. Size 265 x 52.

Color

Black

White

3. Size 370 x 72.

Color

Black

White

Thursday, November 7, 2013

How to Create Geometric Graphics in Adobe Illustrator

I’ve seen many images made out of geometric shapes and really like this idea. So I decided to create one for SMS Pro to use on Google+ and Facebook.

1. Import photo with File-->Place (choose photo) then lock this layer.

2. Create new layer.

3. Zoom into the spot to start working.

4. Choose the Pen tool and make the fill transparent (none), the stroke has weight of 1 pixel with any color.

5. Start creating the shape with pen tool. These shapes should surround an area of the photo that has same color. Make sure that each geometric shape has its own outline so you can fill in color later.

6. Draw the geometric shapes cover the entire photo. It takes time and be patient.

7. Now it’s fun part, I use Eyedropper tool get the color from photo layer in a geometric shape then fill inside the shape on the working layer.

8. Change the stroke to be none.

9. After filling color, you can delete or hide the photo layer.

10. It's done!

Friday, August 30, 2013

The Nice Trip in Seward, Alaska

Hiking is definitely not my favorite sport, but it sounded very interesting to visit the abandoned Word War II sites especially here in Alaska. I've never known about any World War II battles that took place in Alaska, however I found a number of places when I Google about it.

Caines Head State Recreation Area was a historic World War II fort that is known for its scenic trails. It was the transportation center during the war. But in order to accomplish this adventure I have to do something I don’t like much—hiking.

This 6,000 acre recreation site can be accessed by boat or foot from Lowell Point Seward. The three mile coastal trail from Lowell Point to North beach can be hiked at low tide only. With a lot of camping and rain gears we decided to take a boat. We took the boat from Miller’s Landing to Derby Cove beach then walked about 600 yards in rain to the cabin.

We examined surrounding area nearby on the first day. It had a small waterfall just a few yards next to cabin. We climbed up about three hundred yards to explore more and saw a roughly fifteen-foot tall waterfall. Our friends’ kids had made their own fridge by placing a piece of wood in the creek to create a small dam, and placed their drinks in the cold water. The cabin was tucked into groups of spruce and hemlock trees within the rain forest.

When we went out to see the beach it was low tide. I noticed the rocks were really flat and had grey to dark color, as did the ocean. There were several boats out there trying to catch silver, but we didn't because we still have some reds in our freezer.

The next day we explored the historical site’s abandoned buildings. We took off from our cabin fully outfitted in rain gear along with backpacks for lunch and water. It was a rainy and foggy day with temperature about mid-50s. We hiked across the hill headed south to the entrance of Fort McGilvray trail. After 20 minutes of hiking in rain on a muddy trail we reached the North beach.

The north beach was a wider open area with a closer look at Glacier and mountains. There were some people camping, a group of kayaks, and fishermen along the beach. From here we could see the ruined Army pier which was built in 1941. It survived the 1964 Good Friday earthquake and tsunami but the land dropped five feet. We spent some time taking photos before hitting the trail.

It’s about a 5 miles round trip hike from here up to Fort McGilvray which was sat on 650 foot rocky cliff. Along the trail we could see some abandoned underground army buildings and artifacts all over the place.

The main building at the end of the trail was too dark inside to take photos, but luckily I had a flashlight so I could wonder around. There were approximately twenty rooms in the maze of underground passages in the T shape building. The other two entrances had the old military stronghold guns. The width roughly was 16 feet diameter. Later search, I learned that it was a 6-inch gun battery designed to sink enemy ships.

There were stunning view as it overlooked the bay and mountains which was worth a million dollars to me who had never hiked this far!

It had been raining most of the time we were there, but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. I enjoyed being surrounded by nature, appreciated what our Army did for this beautiful land, and fulfilled with the energy for my design work again. Like I mentioned earlier, hiking is not my preferable activity but I have to admit this was one of my favorite trips.

Sources:

Division of parks & outdoor recreation

Alaska state trails program

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Medical Transport Service Contracts

Our Aviation SMS software has variety of modules to help users on their safety policies. We strongly believe that the aviation safety software product, SMS PRO ^TMcan provide many helpful tools for air ambulance and medical transport services to manage their aviation safety requirements.

For this project, I would like to share how I created the design. First of all, I searched for proper images for the design. After getting all images, I cropped the images to be circle shape with Adobe Illustrator. Most of the time, I use Photoshop to crop images but only use the square shape. Here are some steps to crop images with illustrator:

Open image with illustrator
Draw rectangle or any shape you prefer around the area to be cropped
Change the stroke to be any color, change fill to be none to be able to see the image underneath
Adjust the shape and size if needed
Select both layers (image and shape)
Go to object > clipping mask > make or ctrl+7
Save image as png file

Now it needs to be cropped by Photoshop or other software tool, in order to get rid of space around the cropped image and save it.

I would like to deliver a message as a hospital is the hub of all events from different medical transport companies. So I put all images on the canvas and tie them with thin lines and arrows. And find out the appropriate font and color for it.

Anchorage Web Design for Medical Transport Service

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Use Geometric Concepts to Create Alaska Web Designs

The Alaska Web Design Company, NorthWest Data Solutions has an "Incubator Program." The Incubator Program is the project that NorthWest Data Solutions has for stimulating Alaska business development. When it comes down to the design of this program; it should be something that has a visual of strong, solid, and attractive design.

First, I searched for what the design trend is and came up with geometric design that fits my perspective project.

Source: http://designspiration.net/image/285723192714/

Source: http://weheartit.com/entry/9529151

I used Adobe Illustrator to create this design since my requirement needs to have geometric shapes. I started with several triangle shapes in black color, then moved them around until I got an interesting look. (By creating several objects in same size I hold alt key when drag the object from one spot to another. Or I can click duplicate layer on the right corner layer panel.)

From here, I added color to give some character to them. I usually use COLOURlovers site to pick out the one I like. After I had my starting color, I'd copy hexa number of the color then paste on ColorHexa in order to get different shade and tone. Also add more dimension to the design by adjusting opacity of some shapes.

Next, it needed to have some text to show what this graphic is about. Moved text around to make it readable, stand out and get along with the whole design. Lastly, I added two lines to draw the audience's eyes to get more information for this project.

Idea Incubator Program for Anchorage Alaska Businesses

Anchorage Alaska Web Design

Thursday, August 1, 2013

SMS PRO Logo - By Alaska Web Design Company

Facebook and Google Plus are the great tools to communicate with our customers about Alaska Web designs and other business projects. Logos used for Web design are important tasks for every business, and it is equally important to create a logo for Facebook page or Google Plus. Because we already know that the place holder for these logos is pretty small, we needed to adjust our logo to fit in.

We developed SMS PRO as a web based SMS application that supports an organization's overall through safety reporting, safety documentation, safety risk management and safety assurance. Our Alaska Web design team uses their skills to support this in-house product.

Our SMS PRO logo is quite large so we decided to create one for Facebook and Google Plus' purpose. In order to have same character as our regular logo, I have to create something which has similar look and feel. With this project, it can be done by using either Photoshop or Illustrator. But I prefer Illustrator since best results for logo design are accomplished using vector graphics to maintain quality when the scale can be made.

I started from using the same font we used for our SMS Pro logo, then duplicate them before stacking the text up. I moved text around until got the result I like, after that I changed color to be our logo scheme color. I got the 3Ds look!

The size for Facebook logo is 180x180 px. I would like to have white space around the logo so I resized text to be 134x156 px. For Google Plus its size need to be at least 250x250 px.

Visit our Facebook page: SMS PRO , NWDS Alaska Web Design
Visit our Google Plus page: SMS PRO , NWDS Alaska Web Design

For more information about Raster vs Vector graphics.
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2012/08/12/how-to-explain-raster-vs-vector-to-your-clients/

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Anchorage Alaska Web Design Company

Web Design by Alaskan Designers in Anchorage Since 2003

(907) 227-1676

More Info: Anchorage Alaska Web Design

Email: sales@nwds-ak.com

Phone: (907) 227-1676

ANCHORAGE ALASKA WEB DESIGN COMPANY SERVING REAL BUSINESSES

Develops highly scalable Alaska Web designs for online business solutions

CUSTOM ANCHORAGE ALASKA WEB DESIGN SERVICES

Serving Alaska since 2003, our Web Design & Development team is dedicated to working with you to achieve results you desire.

Custom Alaska Web Design
SQL Database Design
Web & Database Integration
Design & Develop your Web Site by supplying great content
Specialize in content management systems
Internet marketing (search engine optimization targeted for Anchorage, Alaska)
Internet Products and Services
Affordable Alaska Web Design with Support

Our goal is to use our Alaska Web Design & development knowledge, and experience to help Alaska businesses succeed.