The first box of crayons you ever got probably had the basic eight: black, white, red, yellow, blue, purple, brown and orange. And at that time, this was all you needed every shade in the world fit into one of these categories. And then you discovered pink and you had to get the new box with sixteen colors. Your palette expanded. Gray, peach, silver before long, you asked for the big one. The mother of all crayons. The 64 count set with the sharpener on the box. Surely now you had them all; every color was in your grasp. 

Color is an important form of nonverbal communication. From the clothes we wear to the food we eat, color influences our choices. Our perception of the world is affected by color. Likewise, the way the world perceives us is also affected by color. In fact, color, many times, is the most significant feature of an item. Designers, therefore, cannot afford to treat color lightly. 

When mixing and matching, it helps to know a little color theory. Back to kindergarten and that box of eight crayons. One exercise you likely completed was a color wheel. The wheel is made by placing the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue, if you are working with ink) equidistant from each other on a circle. By blending the primaries you get the secondary colors: red and yellow produce orange; yellow and blue produce green; blue and red produce purple. Further blends of adjacent colors produce tertiary colors, and so on.

You don't need a Ph.D. in color theory to know that relationships exist between adjacent, complementary, clashing colors. Our perception of color is affected by the surrounding colors as well as the proximity of other colors, and the amount of light. Furthermore, certain colors and combinations evoke emotional responses, which, depending on your background, you probably already intuitively know. 

It is the designer's business to create a visual experience which is pleasing to the eye. The elements of visual harmony are simple to explain, yet much more difficult to practice. Harmony engages the viewer and creates an inner sense of order, a balance. Combinations fail to harmonize if they are so bland as to bore the viewer. At the other extreme, chaotic, overdone combinations will be rejected as something which the mind cannot organize or understand. Simply put, the designer must strive to achieve the balance between under-stimulation and over-stimulation. This is harmony, a dynamic equilibrium. 

Adjacent or analogous colors are those next to each other on the color wheel. These are harmonizing hues, since they each contain of a little of each other in themselves. They work well together, although they can appear washed out if they are too close to each other on the wheel. Adding black or white to one or both colors (creating tints or shades) can create higher contrast, solving this problem. 

Complementary colors are separated by one color on a twelve part color wheel. While this combination of colors creates higher contrast, it also causes undesirable visual vibrations which puts physical strain on the eyes. This effect can be alleviated if complementary colors are separated on the page by at least one other color. 

Direct opposites on the color wheel are called contrasting colors. (Sometimes direct opposites are also called complements.) When used carefully in designs, these combinations have high contrast and visibility along with a sense of harmony. 

In choosing color combinations, designers often look to nature as a reference. This exercise delivers interesting and unusual combinations that can evoke similar responses to the actual experiences. While all colors have dual symbolism and have both positive and negative associations which change over time, their meaning in nature is constant and universal. Blue, as it is related to the sky on a clear day, will always create calm. Green, as the color of plants, will always bring new life to mind. Yellow is associated with the radiant brilliance of the sun, and so on. Designers are smart to take advantage of a color's association with nature.

In addition to these basic formulas, designers must be aware of associations to colors due to cultural references, gender, age, and class differences. It is important to understand how the color has been used in a political and historical context as well as how it has been used in past and current trends. Religious and mythical implications can also effect the use of a color. Even linguistic usage (i.e. phrases like 'in the red, and moody blues') will affect how people view a color.

Sample Design Sites that Use Color Effectively:
Webmaster Templates - http://www.webmaster-templates.net
Logo Search - http://www.logo-search.com

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So you have a fantastic website but no one ever visits. You may ask? Why? Your website should be designed with search engines in mind. Too many web designers are graphic artists that excel at image manipulation, but lack a basic understanding of search engine optimization. Web design and search engine optimization (SEO) should not be mutually exclusive. Webmasters should have a clear understanding of both design techniques and how the search engines work. 

Incredible graphics on a website without any traffic, will do little to fill the coffers. Follow these basic guidelines to ensure that your website will be visited and attractive. 

1. Navigation
Both humans and crawlers (search engines) need to be able to navigate your website. Avoid using technology that prohibits the search engine's ability to spider web pages. The majority of search engines have the ability to follow the links on a website if you use standard HTML. Observe normal convention and make the links obvious and available to all website visitors. 

2. Easy to Read
Fonts should be legible and webmasters should utilize white space judiciously. Text on the web page should be easy to read. 

3. Speed
Avoid using overly large graphics that are slow to load. Remember you only have mere seconds to capture the visitors attention, do not waste precious seconds with web pages that are slow to load. Search engines too will become impatient and give up on your website if it takes too long to view the content. As a result you should avoid using free hosting services that might be unreliable or slow to respond if you receive any web traffic surges. 

4. Consistency
Your website should maintain a consistent look and feel. In other words, all the pages on the website should have a similar look, color scheme and navigation. 

5. Above the Fold
The most important information on the your web page should appear above the "fold". This means that the website visitor should be able to view the most important content without having to use the scroll bar. 

6. Contact Information
Include corporate contact information on the website. This lends your company credibility, anyone can pretend to be anyone or anything. Including contact information on a website shows that you are a serious and legitimate business entity. 

7. Avoid Javascript /Ajax
Javascript and Ajax are cool, but they are not search friendly. It is best to stick with good old HTML. Search engines at this point are unable to spider the website contents that are displayed using Javascript. This is also true of websites that are dynamically updated with Ajax. Chances are the body of your website will help your website rank well; do not waste the search engine opportunity by using Javascript or Ajax. 

8. Meta Data Matters
Each and every web page on the website should contain a unique title and description. Many search engines extract meta data from the website header and use it to classify and categorize the web pages listing. The web page title and description should relate to the webpage contents. 

9. Keywords Naturally
Use website keywords and keyword phrases in the web copy in a natural way. Search engines are starting to discern unnatural text, machine generated content and content that is cobbled together by a bot. Write your website's content for humans not search engines. 

10. Web Page Focus
Each web page on a website should focus on one or two keywords or keyword phrases, no more no less. The keywords should be incorporated into the meta tags, and web copy. 

An optimized website can bring search traffic and visitors who have a natural interest in your product or service. Optimization should be part of the design process. Before hiring a web designer make sure they understand both your design needs and search engine optimization.

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It is difficult to have a conversation about technology these days that does not involve RSS. In the age of the Internet, communication is expected to be instantaneous. RSS offers instant real-time distribution in an on demand world.

What is RSS?
RSS is a standard format for syndicating information or content over the Internet. Once a visitor subscribes to an RSS feed, they receive the new information each time the feed is updated. 

RSS Does Not Equal Email
RSS is not email, nor is it designed to be a replacement for email. RSS is a supplemental communication channel that can be used to deliver content. Email newsletters have had an increasing problem with spam. Email open rates have plummeted, filtering systems have become increasingly complex and with the complexity and volume even "approved" messages have been unable to get through. 

RSS feeds are opt-in, and in most cases subscribers need not provide any personal information to subscribe. RSS is simply an alternative method to communicate with your audience. 

Use RSS to supplement email. RSS technology is a great supplement to email communication, it will allow you to avoid spam filters and quite possibly reach a new audience that is leery of providing personal information to subscribe.

RSS does not have the problems that are inherent to email marketing. Email filters, do not prevent the message from going through. RSS does not have any costs associated with list maintenance. With RSS, the sender is known, compliance with the CAN SPAM act is not an issue. RSS is 100% opt-in, there are not any worries of misdirected email or customers not receiving the information due to spam. 

RSS and email are not mutually exclusive. While it is true that there are significant benefits to RSS that are not inherent to email communications. RSS has not yet reached the tipping point. Therefore it is best to offer both RSS and email as options to customers. 

RSS Does Not Equal Blogs
Many assume that RSS is only for syndicating the contents of blogs, nothing could be further from the truth. Blogs and online journals have rocketed to popularity in the last few years, and many bloggers use RSS as a means to distribute and syndicate their blog posts. Subscribers receive information each time the blog is updated. However this is NOT the only use for RSS. RSS can deliver any kind of content, including forum posts, discount coupons, newsletters or press releases. Blogs are just one type of information syndicated by RSS feeds. 

Blogs may be syndicated using RSS, but do not assume that content found in an RSS feed is from a blog. 

How is Podcasting Related to RSS?
Podcasts are simply RSS feeds that contain audio content in the enclosure field. Over the last year the term podcast has expanded to include RSS feeds that contain videos as well as audio files. Podcasts use the RSS specification to deliver the rich media.

In the short time RSS has been around, many misconceptions have been formed for a surprisingly simple concept. RSS is simply a standard for syndicating information (any type of information) on the web. Users opt to subscribe the information in an RSS feed.

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