beauty & functionality balanced

Paul Sveda Photo Blog - My photography is a critical reflection of my environment & culture, through the view finder I get a chance to step back from being the designer and study the world designed around me, both by God and man. My blog is chance for everyone to step back and see beyond the client list & portfolio to the individual…

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Work Philosophy

Beautiful & Functional Website, Multimedia & Print Design

A number of core beliefs & personal directives drive the way I work for and with all of my clients and on all of my projects. These are always at the fore front of my mind and I’m personally confident that it shows through the work and solutions I provide.

A Hybrid Belief

Traditionally advertising agencies have been the experts at the art of Business Advertising, while design firms have been entrusted as the ‘keepers of the brand’ and finally in the new business landscape the third player has become the Information Technologies department who’s reign extends into the unseen world of digital data. Unfortunately these disciplines – which should be intertwined – are often dealt with by three completely different companies with little or no shared communication. That’s what sets me apart, my projects are developed on the hybrid-belief that advertising, design and IT are all part of a strong and effective communications strategy. This way the results for my clients, regardless of the medium used, are compelling, interactive and creative projects.

User Centerd Designs & Solutions

A user centered focus is something that should get factored into every design process out there and at the end of the day does get factored into every process in here. From your hand held blender, to your newspaper, to your car, everything requires a natural and logical approach to the way it will be handled and interacted with.

However it all-to-often the case that designers & developers neglect to think about their audience, and choose to sacrifice usability objectives to cut corners, save pennies or display un-warranted eye candy. The fact is that you can’t force your audience to use things in a particular & unnatural fashion; they are bound to get frustrated and vote with their wallets elsewhere.

Standards Compliance

I often hear designers & developers say that they choose to design for what ever happens to be the dominant platform or approach during the build of the project, Be that for one specific operating system, a specific browser or even a specific method to traditional media it is still an attitude that can lead to problems if standards aren’t followed. The dominance of one approach or one technology over another is not guaranteed and sometimes things can shift direction very quickly. Which is why my projects stick to the compliancy standards set out by organizations for web, print and media. By sticking to the standards I greatly reduce the risk of a released project having problems in the future and an unhappy client having to deal with frustration & rebuilds.

Why Bother with Standards?

That’s a very valid question and one that remains difficult to answer considering the two big problems with technology and developers of technology.

  • The truth is that a project built in accordance with standards will take longer to develop and/or design than something slapped together in an off the shelf WYSIWYG development or design application. (WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get).
  • A percentage of the technology used by your audience to view your information doesn’t conform to the standard compliance rules set forth.

So why should you bother? To counter the second point the good news is that with upcoming releases & updates developers are observing the standards set forth and becoming fully compliant. This means your standard compliant technology & projects will be experienced by your audience across multiple platforms in a consistent fashion. Also there is a growing awareness of the importance of standard compliance in the business world since it will almost definitely result in time and cost saving in the long run. Its just becoming smart business.

WYSIWYG applications will remain with us for the foreseeable future and while they are improving their need to remain flexible will always result in products that need to be reviewed and tweaked to be fully compliant. The fact is that the majority of WYSIWYG designers & developers is the result of short term thinking that focused on profit maximization over product quality.

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