Online Guides

Are you building a small business or design firm? Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned pro, learning about current trends and figuring out the basics of running your own company takes time and focus.

The internet is full of information, but what you need to get started in design and run a small business is scattered across multiple locations and is difficult to track down. If you’re like us, you’re too busy to spend countless hours browsing for information only to find sources that aren’t really helpful. We’ve put everything you need in one location so you can refer back to these guides anytime you need a bit of extra help with these topics.

Designerly’s online guides cover topics for designers, marketers and small-business owners. Although we regularly offer content such as articles on similar issues, our guides go a bit more in-depth and cover things from a variety of angles. Spend some time browsing through our guides and gaining new skills. Bookmark this page so you can revisit it from time to time and remember the more advanced concepts.

The Small Business Marketing Guide

Small business owners face unique challenges in marketing their companies. You’re likely on a tight budget and can’t afford to hire a team, but without marketing your business won’t grow. Our The Small Business Marketing Guide starts with basic knowledge, such as what marketing is and isn’t, technical concepts, and terms such as bounce rate, inbound marketing and webpage friction. You’ll then move into intermediate tips, such as networking with other marketers, experimenting with techniques and getting more involved in your local community.

Finally, we’ll teach you some expert methods such as analyzing data, offering freemium services and working with influencers.

After you’ve read through our marketing guide, you’ll have the basics needed to run a campaign on your own or the tools to direct freelancers added to your team.

The UX Design Guide

When you first created your website, you may have thrown together something quickly and not really known what you were doing. Perhaps you did not have a clear vision of the business’s mission. As companies grow, their websites must do so along with them. Experts predict 1.92 billion people will buy something online this year, with 80 percent of those on the internet in the United States making a purchase. If your website isn’t keyed into what buyers want, you risk missing out on the growing number of sales available. Design guides can help with this.

The UX Design Guide takes your website to the next level, going beyond just visually pleasing designs and delving into the experience of users (UX). Understanding the way different features on your site impact visitors is a skill worth building. It allows you to stay ahead of your competitors and keep traffic on your page.

The UX Design Guide delves into the history of UX design and why it’s important for higher conversion rates. It’s estimated that by 2050, the number of workers in UX will grow by 100 percent. The guide lays out the difference between UX and user interface (UI) and explains how the two work together for better buyer participation. Finally, good UX has eight basic elements, which are covered in the guide, along with tips for how to achieve each type.

The Font Series

If you’re a designer, you might think you know all you need about fonts. However, using different types is an art form, and you should never stop learning. The Font Series delves into why you need to have a firm understanding of what is available and when to use each one. We start with a history of fonts, taking you back to the origin of the world from Middle French and what it originally meant. We then look at serif and sans-serif fonts and how they were used even before digital graphics became a thing.

Once you have an understanding of the history of fonts and where we get many of the terms and basic structures of today, we look at the different types available. This includes the script and decorative fonts. You can then delve into information such as which ones are used most frequently and what is used in different design work. The right font evokes a specific emotion or mood.

Are you intrigued by the idea of a font creating emotion in the viewer? Then, you’ll love the look at fonts such as Times New Roman, Georgia, Comic Sans and Didot, among others. Dig into details about each specific one and learn the history of the font, who created it, how other designers have used it, the emotions evoked by it and some ideas for where it might be best utilized. Once you finish our font series, you’ll be a pro at picking the perfect kind for each project.

How to Use These Online Guides

The online guides are broken into easily scannable sections. If you already know some of the basic information, feel free to skip over it and go to the more advanced material. Designerly’s online guides are made to deliver the info you want in the best possible way to digest it. Make sure you bookmark this page and check back often, as we add to our guides frequently and will also add new ones in the future.