Metafluence

Guest blogging on MiLienzo

I’ve been thinking about ways to branch out in the blogosphere and a friend suggested that I do try guest blogging. In case your unfamiliar with the concept, guest blogging is where a blogger writes for someone else’s blog, usually both blogs and their authors reciprocate. Having been a long time reader and fan of Aaron Russell’s blog, MiLienzo, I emailed him with just such a proposition. Well, today my post, “Web Design: managing a client’s expectations” went live on his site.

Here’s a snippet from that post:

Starting a site’s design before the content for that site is fully developed can be a costly mistake. It often leads to designs that are sub par or that don’t fit with the final content. Knowing that is only half of the battle. The other battle is helping clients understand that, which is where this post comes into play.

I often refer to my approach to design as ‘content driven design‘. Louis Sullivan would have said, “form follows function”. No matter how you express it, using language in the beginning that defines the design as dependent upon the function/content of the site helps establish a precedence. But, simply saying you subscribe to the ‘content driven design’ school of thought isn’t enough to prevent a client from saying, “Can’t we just make a design and then put the copy and pictures in when it’s done?”

Head on over to MiLienzo for the full post: “Web Design: managing a client’s expectations“. While you’re there, check out some of Aaron’s other posts on MiLienzo. He writes about graphic and web design, the creative industry, and multimedia.

Big thanks to Aaron for the opportunity to guest blog!