How to select a WordPress theme

I just started my business and can't afford a professional design yet. I've been told that there are a lot of great WordPress themes out there that I could use to get started. Could you help me understand how to select a WordPress theme?

A web presence has become a critical asset to any business, so it is good that you're dedicated to trying to put your best foot forward, despite your limited resources. If you've started searching for themes, you probably already know that there are thousands and thousands of WordPress themes available to you. However, not all themes are created equal. We recently attended a WordPress Grand Rapids meet-up where they addressed this topic, so we'll recap a couple of guidelines they had mentioned below.

Stay away from free themes

If you Google "free WordPress themes" you'll get thousands of results. Ignore all of them. While I'm sure not every free theme is bad, many many of them may contain malicious code that will become part of your site if you install the theme. These themes often embed their malware with something called Base64 encryption, which to an untrained user (and maybe even a somewhat-trained one) is undetectable. For more information on this, you can read this highly intimidating post on wpmu.org.

Purchase themes from a reputable source

After reading that, you should be starting to understand that you get what you pay for. So if you are going to use a pre-designed WordPress theme for your site, you should make sure you are selecting one from a reputable source. A quality theme tends to cost about $75 or more, so keep that in mind as you shop. Once you've located a theme you're interested in purchasing, you can go ahead and check the comments on that theme and do a little Googling before you buy to see what people are saying about it. Here are a few theme sources that are known to be quite reputable:

• Press75

• The Theme Foundry

• Woothemes

• Okaythemes

• Themezilla

• StudioPress

• Organic Themes

Themes provide aesthetics, plugins provide functionality

When you start searching for themes, you're going to notice a lot of themes that tout all kinds of functionality they offer. This can be dangerous because if you choose a theme with built-in functionality, any data that you would integrate with that functionality will be useless if you choose to change to a different theme in the future. This is why it is recommended to choose a theme that offers a bare-bones, aesthetics-only approach, and doesn't try to provide a lot of additional functionality. Functionality is best added through the implementation of plugins in addition to your theme.There you have it, a basic list of dos and don't for selecting your first theme. Hopefully this little post will help you avoid the pitfalls of a sub-par theme, and make a great decision on a theme that can get your new business up-and-running online.

What can I expect from my logo design project?

When I first started my business I made my own logo in MS Publisher. Now I'm thinking it is time for something more professional. Can you tell me about what I can expect from the logo design process?

Hiring someone to design or redesign your logo can be a pretty overwhelming thing. In my experience a logo design is like a business owner's baby, so it is a big step to trust someone to help you redesign it. Your logo will be a fixture in your business for years to come, so it makes sense that you will want to truly understand the process of designing it. The good news is that we follow a simple 4-step process, and understanding these steps will can help you feel more confident throughout this duration of the project. Here's how a logo design or redesign unfolds:

Step 1: Research and discovery

During this first step, we'll take some time to talk with you (either in person or via phone or email) to learn more about your company audience, competitors, values and personality. We'll also talk about your ideas, inspirations and goals for the logo so that we can be sure to take those items into consideration once we start the design. After our meeting, we'll review our notes, and might have a few follow-up questions over the next day or two. The typical timeframe for Step 1 is a couple of days.

Step 2: Research, brainstorming and sketches

Once we have a clear idea of your business, its culture and what you are looking for in your logo, we'll take some time to research your competitors (so we don't accidentally create a logo that is similar to them) and start searching out inspiration and brainstorming and sketching ideas for the logo design. These sketches are a quick, rough way to flesh out many ideas before moving on to creating high-fidelity design concepts. The typical timeframe for Step 2 is about 1-2 weeks, depending on your timeline.

Step 3: High-fidelity mockups

After we've brainstormed lots of ideas and refined our favorite sketches, it is time to start working on the actual designs! We'll take the strongest design ideas we've brainstormed and start fleshing them out digitally. For each sketch we decide to build, we'll do 6-10 variations of before determining whether one of the variations is strong enough to present to you. We'll go through this process for our top 3-4 ideas and will present to you the top 2 or 3 concepts (whichever quantity was agreed to in the estimate). We'll present these concepts to you in both color and black-and-white configurations, and will usually create a walk-through video (typically 15-20 minutes long) that will carefully explain the ideas that led to each solution. The video format is nice because it gives us the ability to actually talk to you about our ideas for each solution, but takes any pressure off you to provide instant feedback. The typical timeframe for Step 3 is about 1-2 weeks, depending on your timeline.

Step 4: Iteration and finalization

Once you've had some time to digest the video presenting the logo concepts, we can talk at your convenience and walk through any revisions you might like to see. We'll provide revised proofs to you in PDF form along with notes via email. Don't forget that the revisions included in your estimate cover modifications to the presented concepts, but not entirely new concepts. If needed, we can absolutely create additional concepts, but will need to re-estimate those concepts as an addition to the project. Once we've iterated the logo to its final state, we'll create a final package of your logos in several color formats (spot color, 4-color and black and white) as well as several types of logo files, including vector .eps, .ai and .pdf files, as well as raster .jpg and .png files. The timeframe for Step 4 is tough to estimate, because it depends on the number of revisions included with your estimate, and how much time needed to review each set of iterations and provide feedback. In most cases, this revision and finalization takes right around a week.From start to finish, the total timeframe for a logo design or redesign project typically takes about 4-6 weeks, depending on the amount of iterations and the duration of the feedback loop.

In addition to these steps, there are a handful of other things to keep in mind throughout this process. Understanding these items will keep the process moving smoothly and help you set healthy expectations for the finished logo design.

A logo should be an identifier of your business, not of what you do

The purpose of a logo is not to literally portray what your company does, but rather, it should be a visual hallmark that sets the proper tone for what your company is about at its core. It should set the right tone for what it feels like to work with your company.

Your logo should be technically usable

There are technically no hard-and-fast technical rules of logo design. However, the way a logo is crafted can either save or cost you money when it comes to reproducing it across print, web, and interactive media. A technically usable logo should be available in vector format (.ai, .eps or possibly .pdf), should work in all black (or one color), should remain legible when used at a small size, should not use too many colors and should form a solid shape. For more information about these criteria you can check out our post about what makes a good logo.

And that's it! We know that a logo design or redesign is a big step for any business, so we do our very best to make it as clear and easy for our clients as we can.

Can you create a sample design to give me a better idea of what you can do for me?

Before I decide whether or not to get started on my project, would you be able to whip up a sample design so that I can get a better idea of what you can do for my project?

While we understand why it seems sensible to ask for a sample design, we really can't do any work unless we're contracted for the project. The industry term for sample work is called Spec Work, which basically means doing work without any guarantee of payment. There are a host of reasons we can't perform spec work. We'll talk about each below:

If we work for free, we'll soon be out of business

Since design is the product we sell, doing spec work would basically be giving our product away for free. Design is a very subjective product, which seems to make people think there is a different set of business rules for a design firm than for other service firms. Let's take our industry category (design) out of the picture and put another industry in its place. Would you ever ask a builder to start on your home before you decide to hire them? To tear down a few walls and start building before you commit? Probably not. How about a plumber. Would you have a plumber fix a leak or pipe or two before you contract them to do the full repair? When it is put like that, it seems silly to ask a designer to start working on a project before they are hired. If those comparisons don't help, take just a few minutes and think about whether you would go to work each day if you didn't know if you'd receive a paycheck for your time and effort?

Spec work usually equates to uninformed work

When someone requests sample or spec work, they are typically under the impression that a design can be put together quite quickly. However, in order to do a project well, there are several discovery, research and inspiration steps that need to be completed to lay a proper foundation for the project. These phases can take many, many hours. Without going through each of these phases, we would just be guessing at how to solve your design challenges. And we would never want to offer you guesswork as a basis for your judgement or selection of our studio for a project. On the flipside, doing free spec works takes us away from our paying client work, which just isn't fair to them. You can imagine how slighted you might feel if you were a paying client and found out that your designer was being sidetracked from your project by free speculative work. As you can see, this just wouldn't be a fair way for you to judge our work and it wouldn't be fair to our existing clients.At this point you're probably thinking, if I can't see some sort of sample work, how do I know if a designer is right for my project?

Trust is paramount to the design process

With that being said, the best way for you to choose a designer is to select someone who you really trust. Good work simply cannot happen without trust. Ultimately, this matters more than any design sample a designer could create for you. Many designers can produce nice-looking work or can copycat the samples they are shown, but to get truly great work from your designer you need more than a sample to prove they are the right choice. More than anything else, you need to go into the project believing that your designer understands your mission and having confidence that they are experts in their craft and that have your best interest at heart (even so much as to challenge your requests because they won't be the best choices long-term).

Communication is key

Similar to trust, you absolutely must have good communication with your designer. It is important that your designer truly listen to your wants and needs and be able to reflect that back to you—that they take the appropriate time to explain things and make you feel comfortable and confident. This doesn't necessarily mean that they should follow your requests letter-for-letter. After all, you are looking to hire a designer because design is not part of your own skillset. However, your designer should listen keenly to you, and you should be able to tell through their emails, conversations and suggestions that they are hearing you, internalizing your opinions and processing them into the type of advice and solution that moves in the direction of solving your business problem. They may divert from your requests, however, if they do so, they should point it out and clearly explain why they chose to make the diversion. It is also important that their communication is timely and that you always know where your project is at. If they're flaky from the beginning, they'll probably be flaky throughout the process. Some people might be ok with this, but in our opinion, this is never ok.

The proof is in the portfolio

Finally, you'll want to look honestly at their portfolio. While many designers have a broad range and no portfolio shows every single thing a designer is capable of, you can get a very good idea of their style from the work showcased there. For example, if you are looking for a complex, intricate design, but your designer's portfolio is very simple and straightforward, this might not be a good fit, because it is quite obvious that this designer's specialty is clean, crisp design. Likewise, if you are looking for an illustrative solution, but your designer has no illustrative work in it, it might not be a good fit unless you are open to other ideas. If you're ever in doubt, remember that communication is key and simply have a conversation with them about whether they feel capable of creating the type of design you are hoping for—you never know, they might have done that kind of work in the past, or they might open your eyes to a completely different idea or perspective you'd never even thought of!

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More information about this topic

Hopefully this was helpful in clarifying the reasons why sample or spec work is not a good idea. If you want to read more about this topic, there are several additional resources available to you (it's a pretty hot topic in the design industry!). Check out the links below:

• The American Institute for Graphic Arts' (AIGA) stance on spec work

• A collection of articles about spec work by WeeNudge

• NoSpec initiative to educate the public about spec work

What is the lifespan of a logo?

I had my logo designed many years ago, and lately I've been wondering whether I should have it redesigned. How long does a logo usually last before it needs to be redesigned?

It's great that you are taking the time to consider whether your logo and brand image needs to be updated. It is good to consider this from time-to-time, because you are correct that after a while, even great logos need updating. Thankfully the life of a logo tends to be much longer than the life of a website these days, so you won't need to reconsider your logo near as often as you website. As with all things branding and marketing, there is no hard and fast rule about the lifespan of a logo design. However, often you'll find that a good, professionally designed logo should last you about 10 years. Keep in mind that this is the guideline if you'd had your logo professionally designed. If you have more of a do-it-yourself logo design from when you were first starting out, you will probably want to consider having it redesigned as soon as you are making enough profit to make the investment. But before you get started, there are a few things to consider before redesigning your logo.

How much equity is in the logo?

Before redesigning your logo, you'll want to consider how much equity—or recognition—you have in your logo. If you redesign your logo, it will take your audience some time to get used to the new logo, and to recognize you by it. This means, you won't want to undergo a logo redesign on a whim. However, if your current logo is giving your audience the wrong impression, this readjustment can be just the shift that you need to help your audience to start seeing you in the light you wish to be seen in.

How extensive will the adoption process be?

Another thing to consider will be how tough it will be to remove instances of the old logo and replace them with the new logo. Things like business cards, stationery and packaging can be much more affordable than things such as signage. So you'll want to consider the extended cost of redesigning the logo. If a logo design would require more extensive changes, such as signage or office decor, you may wish to align your logo redesign with another company milestone, such as moving offices, renovating or reordering your packaging materials. This way, you can roll your logo changes into these other events, making the logo redesign feel like a natural progression alongside your other steps toward progress.

Do you really need a full redesign?

Another thing to consider is whether you really need a full redesign, or if you can do with more of a retouching or realignment. A logo retouch would mean that the concept of the logo stays in tact, but it is refined in some other way to polish and tighten it up. This might mean updating the color palette, the typeface, or simply reworking the existing composition to be tighter and more solid. For companies that feel they have a good amount of equity in their existing logo, this can be a good way to update without making too drastic of changes.

How to prepare for a business photo shoot

For many businesses, photography can be such an important part of putting your best foot forward. However, many people don't take proper considerations before taking their photos. Here are a few tips for how to prepare for a business photo shoot.

Professional photography makes a huge difference. I can't tell you how many times I've heard clients say "I have a nice camera, I can take my own photos." Unfortunately, what makes a great photo has very little to do with the equipment. What makes a fabulous photo is the consideration of composition, lighting, framing, angles and many other elements that take the skilled eye of an artist to capture.Although it is tempting to think you can do this step yourself, take a look at the comparison below to see the difference between a photo I took myself and one taken of the same subject by a professional photographer. The photo on the left was taken by myself with my high-res digital camera. The photo on the right was taken by local professional photographer, Wendy Martinez.

As a designer I have a good eye for layout, and you'd think I could take a decent photo, but when you compare my photo with a professional's photo, you can see how much more the professional photo captures the spirit of the subject and how it is technically much better in terms of composition, framing, lighting, etc.

“What makes a fabulous photo is the consideration of composition, lighting, framing, angles and many other elements that take the skilled eye of an artist to capture.”

Consider orientation

Although a photographer has the ability to take amazing photos, they can't possibly know where you intend to use them, so you'll want to have a discussion with them about the type of photos you need and where you intend to use them. When you are having this discussion, make sure you talk about whether you need your photos taken at vertical or horizontal orientation. You'll want to consider where you want to use your photos. For example, if you are looking to use your photos in the large main image area on your website, you'll definitely want to make sure you get lots of horizontal photos. However, if you are looking to use the images in more of a brochure-style context, vertical orientation might be what you need. If in doubt, make a point to ask the photographer to shoot each shot type at both orientations just to be safe.

Get close up—and far away

Likewise, you'll want to consider how closely zoomed the images should be. Lots of people—especially photographers—love zoomed-in photos because they are very artistic and intriguing. However, you need to consider how you'll be using the photos to know how close is appropriate. Let’s use the example again of a photo that would be showcased in a horizontal band on your website home page. This area isn't usually as tall as the images a photographer would take, which means you'd have to crop some of the image off the top and/or bottom of the image. If the image is zoomed in too far, the image could end up looking too abstract. It is important to consider issues like this and communicate them to your photographer before the photo shoot in order to get the most useful photos possible.

Make a list and check it twice

Although a professional photographer might be incredibly talented, they aren't a mind-reader. Make them a list of the different photos you need them to take. This is called a shot list. Doing this will help give the photographer good direction and will ensure that you get the images that you need for your marketing materials. Compiling a list helps you mentally catalog what photos you'll need and gives your photographer a roadmap of what images should be taken. If you forgo compiling a shot-list to guide your photographer, they may take that to mean that they should just take images of what they feel is interesting, which may produce disappointing results if these images are not the photos you need. A simple shot-list would look something like this:

• Head-on view of the building front

• 3/4 view of the building front

• Multiple angles of sign

• Front desk with receptionist working

• Front desk with receptionist posed and smiling

• Candid action shots of your CEO working

• Posed shot of your CEO at their desk

• And so on...

Less is not more

If you know me at all, you know I'm a big fan of the adage, 'less is more.' However, when it comes to a photoshoot, less is not more. Make sure you plan an adequate amount of time for your photoshoot and request that the photographer takes lots of variations of the photos you need. You never know when an angle you never considered will be exactly what you need to make your business or product shine.

Keeping these items in mind will help make the most of your photoshoot and give you lots of flexibility for how you could use the images captured. If you're in need of a professional photographer and don't know who to call, feel free to reference this handy list of photographers I know and love.