5 Qualities that make a great website design client

Clients form an important part in the lives of every web designer. They basically work as a linchpin to every project, as the very existence of the projects depend on their presence. Most of the time, they can give you a hard time completing projects. But more often than not, there are clients that are fun to work with. To help you spot these clients with the heart of gold, here are the five tell-tale signs that you have a great client:

1.       Realistic Budget Expectations

Most clients have no idea on how an ideal website should cost. Unfortunately, they are the bulk of the clients that you will face in your web designing life. But there are some who understand that great websites require great budgets. Good clients know that spending money for their website is a good investment; so they don’t mind shelling out to give designers enough funding to ensure that their website will be nothing but great.

2.       Open for advice

Clients know what exactly what they want, but most of the time, what they really want does not work for their website. Once that happens, you have to tell them about it. Good clients will listen to advice, after all, they hired you to give you the best web designs in the first place.

3.       Trusting

A good client is not concerned with how you will do your job. In fact, they will even let you do it on your own. Good clients know where and when to participate, and if they aren’t they trust you to complete the project without trouble. Because if they couldn’t trust you, why would they hire you in the first place?

4.       Quality before quantity

A good client is worried more about the quality of the people he hired to do his project than the price he needs to pay for them. Actually, as long as you can deliver, money will never be the issue. Only bad clients think about the money he has spent and will spend for his websites.

5.       Punctual with payments

This is probably the most obvious dead giveaway. If your current client is paying on time, consistently, then he is a real good client. There are clients that will drag the project on by delaying payments. But a good client will just say nothing, pay on time, and let you do your stuff. 

5 kickass Websites that offer epic Free Stock Photos

Finding the right stock photos for your content can be a pain. And if you manage to get one, it will even cost you a lot of money. Nowadays, getting free stuff, legally, is hard to find. That is why, I am here to share to you some great quality sources that you can derive pictures from for free.

1. Unsplash.com

This is one of the hidden gems you can find in Tumblr. As its description says: it’s a free do-whatever-you-want image source site. You are also allowed to submit photos. It consistently publishes 10 photos every 10 days.

2. MorgueFile

MorgueFile is an image source archive that offers its massive collection of photos for free. It also allows you to search for images in other stock photo source sites like Getty and iStock. You can also upload images to expand the archive of the website.

3. New Old Stock

The New Old Stock offers high quality old timey photos for free. All photos are free of copyright restrictions, allowing you to use them to your heart’s content. This is a good place to rummage through if you are looking for something that will help the vintage look and feel of your website.

4. Gratisography

Defined from the portmanteau of the Latin word “Gratis” and the word “photography”, which literally means “free”, Gratisography offers free high resolutions photos that you can use for any purpose. There are new pictures added every week, and all of the pictures are taken by Photographer, Ryan McGuire of Bells Design.  

5. Refe

Another gem from Tumblr. Refe provides free high resolution stock photos that you can use in either of your commercial or personal projects. What’s more surprising is that all pictures offered by this site is taken from a mobile device.

These websites will definitely help you in your next web design project. With these arsenal in your hands, you can stop worrying about where to get good images for free. After all, we should always keep our eyes out for freebies out there.

6 Epic fonts for your next web design project

Fonts will make or break your web design, as your font choice will decide the voice and tone of your website. And since font trends change from year to year, it’s important to keep yourself abreast with the latest style trends to take advantage of the people’s appeal. We, from the Starfish Web Design Philippines are always on the lookout for the choice fonts in web design. So without further ado, here are some trendy web designs that you can use for your next website project. You can check out up close and download the fonts in the links provided at the title.

1.   Mohave Typefaces

This font is an all caps display typeface. This font is designed for large points setting, making it good font choice for headlines and notices. The font contains three different weights: regular, semi bold, and bold with italics.

2.    Simplifica

Simplifica embodies both elegance and sleekness. It slightly resembles sans seriff, but Simplifica had a sexier appeal to it than the former. The inherent high positioned capsheight and ascender evokes legibility, allowing you to convey your message in a clearer manner, without losing elegance.

3.    Barbershop

A hand drawn font that evokes quirky and personal appeal to your design. You can make use of this font style to instantly evoke that ever-so-elusive “wow” factor in your web design.

4.    Marianina Extended FY

2014 is perhaps the year of flat design, and the trend paved way to a growing number of flat-design leaning fonts. Marianina Extended FY is one of those fonts. Hailing from the expanding Sans Serif family, this contemporary font is perfect for either small or big text sizes.

5.    Pacific Northwest Letters

A handwritten font, Pacific Northwest Letters exudes the artistic and personal feel that is close to home. The font set comes in two styles: regular and rough, and as well as lower case letters.

6.    Libre Baskerville

This is a no nonsense font that speaks the language of credibility coupled with elegance. This is a choice font for literary websites or anything that is both artistic and academic.