After a week (and a bit) I’ve decided on the design for MyNewReg.com. Congratulations go to the designer, Luke Burns. I’m really looking forward to getting on with turning the design into real HTML. It’s a bit step in the right direction. Hopefully I can’t implement the design myself, we’ll see when I get the final artwork.
Tag Archive for '99designs'
As I’ve mentioned before I think it’s critically important to give off a good impression and that’s my approach to this business. I’ve already created a logo for MyNewReg.com 
but I’ve given up on the complicated web design bit. So I’ve just put up a competition on 99Designs, so in 7 days I’ll hopefully have a design that satisfies my fussiness and I’ll only £280 worse off.
Yesterday I spent about £40 on 250 high quality business cards from Whitesparks. It’ll be nice to have something tangible! I decided to use Whitesparks as I’ve used them before for SIE flyers and posters. I’ve had bad experiences with both the DIY and certain low cost printers that advertise by flyer inside books bought from Amazon. I’m also not going to go down the route of those machines you see at train stations. My friend Rob tried that and they were rubbish. You get what you pay for and I want to give the best impression (doesn’t everyone?).
Talking of giving a good impression, I’ve also done an email signature so if you get an email from [myfirstname].[mysurname]@mynewreg.com hopefully you’ll be impressed with the legal jargon and the fact I can spell my name correctly.
I was reading the FSB (no, not that FSB, the other one) magazine Business Network and noticed a bit of research commissioned by Microsoft. Apparently of the surveyed people 53% said they were more likely to use a small business if the have a professional website and email address. 41% also admitted to shunning local firms which use a personal email address.
I appreciate none of this means anything unless I can tie it up with a business but before you build a house you must lay the foundations (and other annoying metaphors like that).
After a discussion with James Barlow, CEO of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise at the weekend I think I’ll use a website called 99designs to contract the actual site design out. I’ve had a few goes myself and while I think it’s getting better, I’m getting more bored/frustrated with my lack of talent. This is the latest attempt:
99designs looks like a great place to get a value for money design. It’s not just about web design, you can get logos, business cards and even t-shirt designs. I haven’t done it yet but it works by someone putting up a request, designers submitting their creations and the client choosing the one they like. The major benefits are the competitive nature that keeps the cost down whilst getting excellent quality and the ability to choose from a number of different designs. I’ll give it a go and let you know how I get on.