Just got my copies through  the post and they look great

Covers

A5 to A3

Map Illustrations

Leaflet 2 closed and unfolded

Matching maps to give a feel of consistency…

Another lovely project finished, this time its 2 leaflets for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. We created a A5 leaflet that folds out to A3 with maps of the reserves and the kind of wildlife you can see at each…

A nice little site for London based music producer Aakash Andrews.

Working with Click Design Lab has been a revelation. Their design, enthusiasm, attention to detail and professionalism has made our web site stand out from the rest. The web site compliments us and the price is unbelievable for the impact we got”

Bryan Marriot
MD Expose Designs

Its a bit late but Mr Pumpkin Head has finally ended up in the bin! fun while it lasted…

Hello, I am guesting on the blog today. I am Chris and I am working with Dave on a project for Transaid. We have been asked to produce some graphics for 2-4 articulated lorries that will promote their charity work. We are working to a budget of zero, and quite a tight deadline, which is placing quite a few restrictions on what we can realise as our final output.

Transaid are a charity that run transport based projects and provide logistics training and consultancy for developing countries. They tackle the unglamorous side of aid and support, but, think about it, you can have a lorry full of food supplies, but what happens if the lorry driver is a teenager with no experience and he crashes the lorry, spilling the contents of the truck across the road?

They also run cool projects like introducing bikes with trailers to transport people, such as pregnant women, to hospital, saving them walking 20kms, which I am sure when you are about to give birth, is a little too far!

So, yesterday, we started brainstorming ideas, which was a fun afternoon talking and throwing ideas back and forth. I have found it a bit hard, trying to come up with ideas without thinking about the budgetary and time constraints. We have realised that we cannot produce anything based on photos, due to the size the images will need to be reproduced at. The graphics have to be 13m x 3m, which is slightly bigger than A3!

We have looked at the themes we need to get across, and the message we need to convey and I worked on roughing something up last night. Predictably, I created something in my usual style, so we have put that on the back-back burner for the time being. We have a few more ideas, but our biggest hurdle is going to be the illustrative nature, due the time it will take and the finish we want to achieve. However, it is an awesome project and I can’t wait to see what we come up with and to see the lorries on the road.

We’ll show you our work in progress and hope you enjoy seeing our process.

For now, thanks for reading.

Chris x

We have just finished the brand new Superb Stickers website, Its taken a little longer than planned but we are super happy with the out come, we think its one of our best! Check out the site at: www.superbstickers.co.uk.

and this is what they had to say about us:

“We had been looking for nearly a year to find a professional, competent web design firm (without any luck) that understood fully what we required for our new website, and after David was recommended to us I knew pretty much from our first phone call that David could easily full fill the brief.

Click design more than surpassed our expectations of how we thought the site would look and work, they recommended many things for the site we hadn’t even thought of, hence they are now going to begin work next month rebuilding another website for us.

I would absolutely, without hesitation, recommend David and his team to any business looking to improve their image, website or corporate identity, thanks again David”

Cant really say fairer than that!

A little present from a friend! Click Design Lab t-shirts for the whole family. (what a good looking bunch!)

Heres a little something my daughter knocked up at the weekend I’d wear it!

Designing websites that are simple to use can be a difficult process. Whilst the end result may be a usable and effective site that appears very basic and minimal, a lot of thought has to go into the goals of the interaction experience and the way in which it is presented to the user.

In this article I discuss the importance of simplicity in website design and why we should always strive to make our designs as simple as possible (whilst ensuring they are still effective).

Before starting though, I should clarify what I mean by a “simple website design” – it’s essentially a design where only elements that are are absolutely key to the goals of the website are included.

There are no extra widgets, effects or elaborate artistic elements added to the site – the focus is not on creating an original “piece of art”, but on designing an interaction that is as effective as it can be through using as few interface elements as possible.

The Benefits of Simple Website Designs

One of the key benefits of a simple site is that removing all unnecessary components and elements from a design also removes potential distractions that may stop users from doing what you’d like them to do.

For example, if you have a site where you’re primary goal is to sell an ebook (or some other product), but you have lots of text on the page, cool widgets, animated effects, other books that you’re promoting as an affiliate, etc. – this all adds noise to the interaction and will likely result in the user not doing what you’d like them to do (i.e. click the “buy now” button).

Simple designs provide a range of interaction benefits – they are typically easier to navigate as they have fewer pages and less content to consume. This enables users to more easily browse sites and gain a quick understanding of the site’s structure.

A focus on simplicity can also prove helpful to developers – this is because simple designs are normally easier to slice, code, validate, and make consistent across all browsers. They’re also easier to debug and update in the future if the site needs to be adapted in any way.

Also, given that simple designs typically have less elements on the page, they are normally smaller in size and therefore load much faster. This enhances a user’s experience on the site and can also save on bandwidth costs with particularly popular websites.

Why Designing Simple Sites Is Hard

Creating simple website designs can be hard as there’s always a lingering urge to want to do more – to be more creative, original, and to stand out from the crowd.

I think there’s also a sense of fear associated to this as well – if you’re building a site for a client you may worry that a very simple/minimal design may be perceived as too simplistic and clients may think of it as a waste of money.

The temptation can then be to add extra details and interface elements just for the sake of it, so that you make the site appear more substantial. This normally has a detrimental impact of the effectiveness of a site.

When working on the same sorts of designs every day over a long period of time it can result in a desire to do something different – however, creating original and “out-of-the-box” designs is often counterproductive.

You can have the most beautiful site ever designed, but if it doesn’t help users achieve their goals it’s essentially just a piece of art.

Interface Design Conventions Exist For A Reason

Yes, rules are there to be broken at times, but good usability and design guidelines help us to create interaction experiences that are effective and familiar to users.

When you feel the urge to add more complexity to a site – whatever the reason may be – resist it! Keep in mind the main goals of the site and design a simple solution that helps to facilitate those goals.

Also remember that the users who will be visiting the site you’re designing probably wont be designers – they’re not really interested in how beautiful the site looks – what matters most to them is that they can find the information/project/service that they’re after as quickly and efficiently as possible.

How To Achieve Simplicity

Making your designs simple can be hard work – it involves making numerous difficult decisions about what to include in your designs and you may have to leave out things that you really want to include.

However, the time spent making these decisions is certainly worthwhile and increases the chances that you’ll produce a good design.

When trying to make your designs simpler, there are some useful questions that you can ask yourself – for instance, look at each element in your design and ask – does this part of the interface enhance the design/interaction? Is it absolutely critical to include? If it’s not critical you need to take it out.

Of course, you don’t always know from the outset what is essential and what isn’t – this is where user testing comes in. Sometimes you’ll be convinced that something is absolutely critical, but find that when you test the site with users they have no interest in it whatsoever.

In such circumstances you have to put your personal preferences aside and listen to what users are telling you.