Design Media FAQs

A client who has the design of their website completed in some form or another, such as in a mock up, computer generated or hand drawn, can shave a lot of time off the initial design process. Even a list of websites that you like certain elements of that you would like in your own website can too save a lot of time. For the more accomplished designers, then a photoshop document (.psd) complete with well organised layer comps ready for action will save money. For maximum cost reduction, have all graphics, images, video etc already optimised for web. For those of you who have a good understanding of the design process but not with optimising for the web, we can guide you through this process to hep you save as much as possible. Another area where money can sometimes be saved is by being flexible with deadline. Often a business will pay us more to complete a project quickly, so we even that out by saving money for our more flexible clients.

Understandably this varies enormously from client to client, depending on how large the construction is, if the project is to be released in stages, how many different elements there are to be designed, whether you have content prepared for the website, how many other projects we are currently working on etc. Once your tastes and objectives have been established, then we will quickly begin the elimination process of different design ideas and begin closing in on what works best for you and your business. Once that point has been established then it will not take long, (usually within 1 week) to produce the design. How long it takes to reach that point is down to each individual client.

For roughly 90% of projects a meeting is not necessary atall, but for some projects a meeting is either beneficial or in some cases absolutely necessary ( particularly big projects with many different people working on them from different companies ). In most cases phone calls and internet communication are perfectly sufficient. Besides which, for many projects a meeting makes little sense financially adding a substancial percentage in comparison to the total cost of the project, particularly for foreign clients.

In almost all cases content can be sent to us online, either by e-mail attachment or by uplaoding files to a temporary server so we can download and retrieve them. If this sounds complicated then do not worry, we can either talk you through the process or if you feel more comfortable then you can post them on DVD or mini flash drive etc.

Text can be sent in any format you choose, we have even recieved hand written content and made do. Typically by an email or in email attachments in files such as a Word document, Open Office document, a notepad.txt file etc. For more data based content any spreadsheet software file extension is fine.

This depends on many factors which will be assessed before sending and if needed we can guide you through the process. Photographic images that require any kind of editing or preparing for web should be sent in its rawest state, preferably the source file. Or a .Tiff or a .psd, or if not then the highest quality .jpeg.
Photographs that have been prepared ready to go into the web site should be in either .jpeg, .gif or .png, depending on a number of things which again will be assessed and discussed before sending. Photographs can also be sent as prints also, we have excellent scanning facilities which has proved very useful compiling businesses old Projects and Portfolio photographs and digitising them to prepare for web, and more often than not preparing high quality digital image files for other design based projects the client may have now or in the future. We can also professionally enhance and if necessary salvage old images when required.

This depends on many factors which will be assessed before sending and if needed we can guide you through the process. Graphic images and vector files that require any kind of editing or preparing for web should be sent in its rawest state, preferably the source file.
Graphics that have been prepared ready to go into the web site should be in either .png .jpeg, or .gif, depending on a number of things which again will be assessed and discussed before sending.

This depends on many factors which will be assessed before sending and if needed we can guide you through the process. If any editing or formatting needs to be done then we would ask for the source file if it is available, or the highest quality alternative. If you are producing the web ready versions yourselves then it will depend on whether the video is to be streamed or embedded or downlaodable. We are likely to still ask for the video to be rendered in a few different formats. This is the area of the web that is changing most drastically, flash has long been the preferred platform, but things are changing. This is why keeping the source file is even more important than with any other form of media for the web.

Streaming allows the user to begin watching the video shortly after clicking the link. You are requesting it as you watch it, and buffers can be applied to make sure that the user watches uninterupted footage. Different buffer settings can automatically be defined based on a users connection speeds or operating systems.
Embedding video is usally only recommended when either the footage is short in length and low in file size, or the footage is looped. Looped video is a great way of displaying high quality on-going footage without the need to stream. A good loop should be seemless so that to the naked eye it appears as a continuous piece of footage.
Manually downloading a video means that you must wait until the whole file is copied locally before it is ready to be viewed. With modern internet speeds constantly improving, this practice is becoming less common, or it is being used as an alternative. However, if you have a full sized high definition video that requires maximum quality then it is stil worth considering, atleast as an alternative.