I know we have all made typos, it happens.  When it is on your own personal project…you fix it and move on.  When it's on a clients project…you risk giving the wrong impression.  You risk the client thinking you might not be as professional as they thought.  

So…what do you do?  Well.  Spell check is nifty.  Almost everything has it.  There is also this incredible tool, it's been a trusted resource for centuries and can give you the confidence to say, "Yes it is spelled n-e-c-e-s-s-a-r-y!"  I'm talking about the dictionary.  It's simple, we all know how to use it and we even have an online version to make our life even simpler.  

Dictionary.com has a Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, and Reference section.  It's like your very own virtual library.  

So, when in doubt about the spelling of a word, or when you are trying to prove that you are right, check out dictionary.com.

P.S.  Don't bother checking for typos in my article on typos. LOL  I double spell-checked it already   

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How many times have you scoured through font books, dug through discs of fonts or just wished you could figure out what font that other guy used in his design?  Well, you can stop pulling your hair out.  I know two sites that will identify your font and it only takes a few minutes.  

My preference is What The Font? from myfont.com .  You upload a picture of the font you want and it tells you what it is. Easy!

The second is Identifont.com and identification involves a dozen questions about various letters in your desired font.  Not exactly hard either. 

Enjoy your new found time to spend on actually designing instead of searching for fonts! 

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Someone was asking about CSS tutorials in one of the forums I frequent, and after sharing this with them, I thought it might be nice to share it here as well.  http://www.dezwozhere.com/links.html

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a big part of web design.  Knowing it is essential if you want to be able to do fast, site-wide updates or changes.  Minor design tweaks and major layouts are also possible with CSS.  

I don't agree on sticking to either all CSS or all tables design layout.  As with everything in life, I feel there should be a healthy balance of the two.  Using tables for layout and CSS for formatting is the method we use here, it allows for our clients to not have to be CSS-savvy just to be able to update their own sites.  And, given the track record at SEOFox, the argument that CSS works better for SEO just isn't valid.  We've tried it.  Tables mixed with CSS works just fine.  And we have loads of happy clients to prove it. 

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While Photoshop may well be the industry standard for graphic designers to edit images for the web, not everyone wants or needs such an extensive and expensive application.  If your needs are primarily to edit banners, buttons, and insert images into your existing website, then you won't need to spend $800 to do it.  GIMP offers the basic functions that Photoshop does, but it's free!  

As an open source application, GIMP is constantly being made better by the people who use it.  It's a great tool for basic image manipulation, I suggest you at least check it out.  

You can get more information as well as download it from here:  gimp.org

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Have you ever wondered exactly which size banners are standard?  Are you putting together a package of banners for a site and aren't sure which sizes you should make?  This chart of standard banner sizes will help: Designers Toolbox Standard Banner Sizes Chart

The chart includes standard sizes as well as common but not standard sizes used.  Keep in mind that you can make a banner or button any size you choose.  The space allowed, as well as the rules of the website where your banner will show, determine the sizes you should use. Always check with the website you plan to advertise on for banner sizes allowed.  While you are checking, see if animation or Flash can be used or not, and get a list of rules and restrictions so you can be sure to comply with the website's rules.

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