The State of Blogging Industry & The Ultimate Beginners Guide on How to Create a Blog
by Megan of Websitebuilder

Working with a graphic designer is a lot like working with a contractor to build a house. Most folks may build a house once in a lifetime, or if they're lucky, they may miss the whole experience altogether. It's unreasonable to expect that you would know the industry lingo and how best to work with a contractor.

The same can be true when working with a graphic designer. You may have successfully avoided the experience to date, but now you've found yourself in need of a website, brochure or even a business card.

All graphic design projects are a team effort. It's a co-creation from the initial concept ideas to completion. You are central to the success of your project. You may save time and money by flipping through my Project Management 101 presentation to familiarize yourself with the lingo and what questions to ask before you get started. Keep in mind that every designer works differently and this is my own personal style.

Give a second or two for the presentation to load below to 'flip and read' online.

General iPhoneography Tips
1. Getting a better camera won't make you a better photographer.
2. Any iPhone is good enough for creating great photography. I've seen amazing photos taken with iPhone 3G. You really have no excuse.
3. Consistent practice is the best way to improve your iPhoneography. Keep practicing even when you're out of ideas, and you'll eventually create something amazing.
4. Treat your iPhone camera as if it was an expensive DSLR. If you only use your iPhone to take quick snapshots, you'll never get anything else out of it.

Taking Great Photos
5. First learn how to take great photos. Only then it makes sense to master editing.
6. Become an observer of light. On a very fundamental level, photography is all about light, so the better you understand light, the better photographer you will become.
7. Learn to predict how the scene is going to change in the immediate future. Will that person briefly appear in the reflection after a few seconds? Be prepared when that moment comes.
8. The best photos convey a strong emotion or tell a great story.
9. Mystery is the best way to tell a story in your photos. The best stories are already in the mind of the viewer, so if you create mystery, the viewer can fill in the blanks and create a story that's uniquely theirs.
10. Always take a few seconds and pause before taking a shot. Is this really the best angle and the best composition, or should you try something else instead?
11. The easiest way to improve your photography is to work on the angle and composition.
12. Learn the fundamentals of composition, get comfortable using them, and then learn how to break them. You must know the rules before you can break them.
13. Turn on the gridlines until you start thinking about any scene in terms of the grid.
14. Practice composition with simple photos that have a lot of empty space. Large open areas are perfect places to start with iPhone photography.
15. Always ask yourself what the main subject of your photo is, or what is the first thing that the viewer will notice. If there is no subject, is it really worth taking that shot?
16. Your composition should emphasize the main subject or subjects. And no, your subject should not be in the center of the frame.
17. Placing your subject even slightly off the center will greatly enhance most photos.
18. Think about photos in terms of balance. If you put your main subject in one corner of the image, you also want to have something of interest in the opposite corner to keep the composition balanced.
19. Turn on HDR for landscape photography and when sky takes up a large part of your photo.
20. Don't use HDR for photos of movement and when you need to take many photos quickly.
21. Shoot against strong backlight (e.g. sunset sky) to create silhouettes.
22. Learn to quickly adjust focus and exposure - and how to lock it by holding down your finger.
23. Never use digital zoom. Zoom with your feet or crop your photos afterwards.
24. Use volume buttons for a camera-like shooting experience.
25. Use the volume buttons on your headphones for remote shutter release - or to stay discreet when taking photos in public.
26. You should be able to take the iPhone out of your pocket, turn it on, and open camera from the lock screen in two seconds or less. You don't want to miss that perfect shot.
27. There are some great iPhoneography accessories on the market, but you don't really need them to take great photos. Buying cool gear won't make you a better photographer.

Editing And Apps
28. No editing can turn a bad photo into a good one.
29. The easiest way to ruin a good photo is to mindlessly apply strong vintage filters.
30. If you are going to use filters, make sure you adjust their strength. The default filter strength will almost always be too strong and result in terribly overedited photos.
31. Your editing should enhance what is already great about the photo, and perhaps add a certain feel that complements the message of that photo. Everything else is unnecessary.
32. Learn the essential adjustments such as brightness, contrast and saturation first. Only then you should look into more advanced effects and filters.
33. Don't download 50 photo apps. Only get a few and make sure you know how to use them.
34. Snapseed and VSCO Cam are great (and free) apps to start with.
35. Don't add text on your photos. Text is distracting and never looks good.

Photo Management
36. Always have a backup of your entire photo library. And another one.
37. Despite technological advancements, external HDD is still the most practical way to back up a large photo library. Just don't keep it in the same bag as your laptop.
38. iCloud Photo Library is perfect for automatically syncing all your photos across all your devices.
39. Keep your edited photos in a separate photo album for easy access.
40. Don't take multiple identical photos. Avoid the pain of deleting them later. Instead you should change the angle or composition and then shoot again.

Sharing And Social Networks
41. Share your work on social networks to stay motivated and get feedback.
42. Follow other photographers whose work you admire to stay inspired and get new ideas.
43. It's OK to copy someone else's style for the sake of learning. You'll eventually discover your own unique style, so you don't have to worry about copying someone else initially.
44. Don't try to be active on 10 different photo sharing sites. It will drive you crazy. Just pick your favorite and do a good job there. I only post my photos @iPhonePS on Instagram. 
45. Don't use Instagram filters if you want to stand out on Instagram.
46. Always respond to people who took the time to comment on your photos. Simply saying "thanks" can make a huge difference.
47. Don't tag your photos using every single hashtag you know. You don't want to look like a spammer, do you?
48. Don't watermark your photos. Watermarks are ugly, and nobody is going to steal your photos anyway.
49. Only share your best photos so that your feed looks great. Quality always beats quantity.
50. Digital photos are transient. Print your best work to make it timeless.

Want an email that looks awesome and converts like crazy?

We joined forces with the talented crew from Really Good Emails to take the guesswork out of designing an excellent email with this email design guide and checklist that’ll make every email you send more awesome.

In this guide, we’ll cover email design best practices for all the different elements of your email campaigns and have a bonus checklist for you at the end. So let’s get to it.

While not a traditional “design element” your subject line is considered one of the most important factors in getting your email opened so your subscribers can see your sweet design so make it engaging, personal, and relevant. Remember, that overuse of CAPS and unnecessary punctuation, as well as some words, can trigger spam filters so respect your subscribers and don’t go there. Use these words instead.

Bonus: CoSchedule has an excellent Headline Analyzer that could also be applied to email subject lines.

When it comes to email subject lines longer isn’t necessarily better. It’s important to keep in mind that your subscribers use a variety of different browsers and email clients as well as mobile devices to consume your emails.

According to data from Return Path, 65 characters seems to be a sweet spot for email subject lines, which is about 15 characters more than the average subject line. When subject lines are 61-70 characters long, they tend to get read. However, most email subject lines are between 41 and 50 characters.

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” may never be more true than when it comes to emoji. And emoji in email subject lines can have a major impact. Not only can they take the place of words, be attention-grabbing, and add a definite charm, they can increase your open rates. A report by Experian noted that fifty-six percent of brands using emoji in their email subject lines had a higher unique open rate. Consider us 👍.

If an emoji isn’t supported in the email client, the recipient may see a ☐ character instead.

Remember: Gmail has to have some extra special considerations when using emoji. You may notice in Gmail when you use emoji in the subject line the icon will look different in the inbox view and after the email has been opened. This is due to the inbox view using the Android version of the emoji, meanwhile, the opened email view uses Google’s own emoji style. While the emoji basically look the same, it’s still worth testing to make sure the same sentiment is expressed in both versions.

In addition, for Inbox by Gmail, it’s currently not possible to insert emoticons in Inbox messages using the browser versio

Your preheader can be visible in the inbox preview and in the body of your email, or just in the preview pane if you want to save email real estate. Preheaders add valuable context to your subject line and can help your open rate. Keep it short (between 40-70 characters) and to the point. Use this space to help your customer know why the email is useful to them. Your subject line and preheader text should work together.

Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. Go beyond just using your subscriber’s name in the subject line and use other data you have to fuel super relevant messages.

Adding company name, last purchase, or other information helps you to personalize the email in the perfect way for each subscriber. But really good personalization involves more than just injecting a first name. Think about how you could completely change the email based on someone’s information.


Stop thinking of emails as one-to-many and think about them as one-to-one—where each email is customized to each subscriber.

Your email layout should help the viewer know what they should check out first, and where they can go from there. They should be able to scan the email quickly using a logical hierarchy with large headlines and images focusing the attention. Use layout to break up space and help create chunks of content.

Inverted Pyramid
We’re big fans of the inverted pyramid model. It’s essentially a framework for structuring the elements of your email campaigns (headers, imagery, buttons, etc) so they work together to draw people in, deliver the key messages of your campaign and get them to click-through.

By guiding a subscriber’s eye down the page to your CTA, you’ll encourage them to click through to explore more of what you have to offer, resulting in better brand awareness, more web traffic, and ultimately more sales.

This is an awesome article on how to design effective newsletters. Take a moment and check out the full version.

Simple and free email tracking for Gmail.

1. Track the emails you send with Gmail
   
2. Know when they're opened
3. Take action