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At first glance, the profession of a graphic designer seems to be the most attractive for creative people. However, the freelancer’s path brings specific challenges you must be prepared for. Today we will discuss the main hardships of freelance graphic designers’ careers.

Graphic designers are among the top most in-demand professions in the internet industry. Designers work with many objects, such as advertisements, websites, apps, book designs, storefronts, press, etc. In addition, graphic designers engage when clients need to design a brand style, logo, and visual concept.

More than talent is needed to build a successful career as a graphic designer. Professional skills and soft skills are equally important. 

Anyone with creative ability can start such a career. However, there are some challenges to overcome and find solutions. 

The path of a designer is winding and thorny, full of uncertainty. Every year the requirements for professionals are increasing. They need to be able to do a lot, understand the product they are creating from beginning to end, and at the same time, have time to find projects for themselves. 

Freelance Graphic Designers’ Operational Challenges 

Time Management

A flexible work schedule is undoubtedly convenient, but only if people can manage their time. Unfortunately, the creative nature of graphic designers can cause them to lose track of time, extending an entire day on tasks that could have taken one hour to complete.

Being creative and passionate about a task is fine, but the clients always want their orders on time. Meeting deadlines is a vital part of a freelancer’s job in any field. Irrational use of time becomes a stumbling block. 

Improper organization of one’s work time results in sacrificing personal needs, boundaries, and physical and mental health. Or on the contrary, the other extreme – is not being able to fulfill the client’s contract in a quality and timely manner. Both options harm their careers.

Tip: Use time management software, and create time limits for your work-time to keep your life and work balanced. Use tools to manage projects and communicate with clients.

Organizing Work

Designers working on their own must understand that they must deal with more than just creative tasks. Freelancers have to advertise and offer themselves, especially in the initial stages. To build a serious career, they must be able to draw up contracts, and documents, make payments, and conduct business activities legally. 

Projects are created in different ways, so every time, freelance designers need to organize and negotiate the time to complete, the cost of services, and the terms of cooperation in detail.

Tip: Study legal business practices in your country, carefully draft specifications and contractor agreements, and study convenient payment and invoicing methods.

Organizing Finance

Designers don’t have to be accountants, but they must understand how payments for services are made and conducted, how to pay taxes, etc. Another challenge in finance is the difficulty in estimating the cost of designing services. How not to inflate the price and scare away the client, but at the same time not to work for a cookie?

First, the salary depends on the graphic designer’s market – the USA, EU, Asia, or CIS countries. Also, the salary level increases in proportion to experience.

Tip: Carefully study the pricing policy of the market and the cost of competitors, exchanges, and stocks. From your experience, compare how much time it takes to complete UI/UX design tasks and how much you can spend on them in the future. Study the models of cooperation “pay per hour,” “pay per result,” etc.

Competition

The competition among graphic designers working from home is very high indeed. The availability of technology for remote work has allowed many professionals to move away from office work to free-floating. In addition, the demand for designers in the traditional industry has decreased. It is much cheaper for companies to hire a designer for a project than to keep him on the staff.

The growth of competition is also conditioned by the appeal of the occupation for young people. On the one hand, they can work creatively without submitting to the strict conventions of the offices, and on the other hand, they can earn decent money. However, as we know, high competition leads to lower fees.

Tip: Work hard to create the best portfolio that shows off your talent and makes you stand out from the competition.

Graphic Designers Career Challenges

Service Promoting

Like any product, graphic designers must promote their services. Often there are difficulties with this since it involves more than just the design of their website, business cards, or contextual advertising. In addition, designers must learn how to communicate with potential clients or collaborate with platforms.

Lifetime Learning

A designer’s career always has room for development and learning. Moreover, keeping up with trends and new technologies is not a privilege but a necessity amidst fierce competition and ever-increasing demand. A designer’s growth can be linear: beginner-experienced-virtuoso, etc. Interestingly, many years of practice do not automatically mean experience growth because one can draw icons for five years or pass from icons to branding. Transitioning to every new level requires increased complexity, knowledge growth, and evolution toward new directions.

Career Uncertainty

Uncertainty follows freelancers along until they establish their permanent client base. Graphic designers often need more stable orders and consistent income. In addition to the lack of stability, career growth is also in question. How to measure it? How to make it move forward? 

To grow professionally as a freelancer, designers need to get a lot of experience, build a steep portfolio, post their work on websites like Behance and Dribbble, follow trends and innovations, learn new tools and software, and jump over the top.

Soft skills should be taught more. And this is almost half of the necessary knowledge. So first, it is important to get the technical background, theory, and observation, then a lot of practice, and then to supplement this luggage with “flexible skills”: plan the work, present a solution, and so on.

Difficulties When Working With Freelance Designers

Low-quality Design

Anyone who has mastered a graphic editor can become a designer. Unfortunately, the conditionally low threshold of entry into the profession leads to many “professionals” on the market not having the best creative, professional, and personal qualities. 

Before choosing a particular designer, research the market thoroughly, review the candidate’s portfolio, and ask for feedback from previous clients.

Unfixed Price Tag

A lousy expert doesn’t know the actual cost of the job because he needs help understanding and estimating the tasks and scope of the job. As a result, he can name one price that seems adequate, but the price tag can increase significantly during the work.

Write the cost and scope of work in the contract, stipulating all the requirements and deadlines.

Lack of Communication

Often freelance designers choose the “take-order-give-order” position. And this can lead to unsatisfactory results. Ideally, the client should seek a system of communication and interim reporting from the performer to ensure the result is consistent with the goal.

Use collaboration tools where you can track the project’s progress and make adjustments in time.

As a designer or as a client of a designer, what problems have you encountered? What solutions have you found? Please share in the comments.

The post Biggest Challenges Of Freelance Graphic Designers appeared first on noupe.

If you’re a creative entrepreneur or content creator for a business, service, or advocacy, you’ve probably experimented with several mediums to get eyes on your social media platforms. It’s a tough job, and competition is fierce. Everyone and their grandmother is taking advantage of the latest content creation tool, whether Instagram filters or AI images, as soon as it drops.

As new tools proliferate, the content from those tools becomes more ubiquitous and homogenized, and then it’s off to find the next magic button out there. This is why it pays to have some hard designer-y skills under your belt. One of the skills that design students or anyone tech savvy with an artistic bent are quickly adopting these days is 3d rendering. Once relatively niche and primarily used in the gaming and VFX industry, working with 3d today is as accessible and inexpensive as picking up Photoshop, thanks to software like Blender 3d, Unreal Engine, and the online community built around these programs. 

3d rendering (or 3d production, to be a little more accurate) takes some effort to learn, but the rewards are worth it. By working in 3d, you can build a vast library of different materials that you can mix, match and place in front of a virtual camera to come up with captivating pieces of content for your socials, and in much less time than you’d think. In this article, we’ll look at the philosophies at play in the medium of digital 3d, and go through the process of creating an exciting piece of content from start to finish. 

Core Advantages of 3d

A Logistical Dream

The primary advantage digital 3d has over other media is that it has all the perks of working in a (simulated) physical space without the constraints you might experience working in the real world. Consider, for example, a post meant to promote a product- a new soda brand, let’s say. You might schedule a photo shoot with your photographer, travel to the studio on the agreed day, wait for post-processing and then finally have your content, only to realize that perhaps an outdoor setup would have been more appealing. With a digital 3d representation of the product, this sudden change of mind would not be as expensive.

An example of the aforementioned fictitious soda brand

With a digital 3d representation of the product, you can act on your creative whim immediately and, within half an hour, have an alternate shot ready!

Proceduralism

Modern 3d programs have proceduralism as a major focus since creatives from any industry benefit from being able to work faster. There are too many features to discuss at any length in this article, but here’s a glimpse of how a 3d project might be drastically altered just by fiddling with sliders or pressing buttons.

Here is another fictitious post for a fictitious courier service. Let’s assume the client isn’t too happy with the figure’s layout and the orange accents on the runner. Fortunately for us, the graphics were made in a 3d program.



On the right of this image is the 3d model’s material, which affects its color and surface properties. The colored rectangles on the panel correspond to the different colored areas in the character’s suit. 

We made the changes in a matter of seconds by simply clicking on these fields and choosing a new color.

Likewise, we could reposition our camera and adjust the lighting streaks by adjusting the sliders on the modifier panel on the right.

This is the essence of proceduralism in digital 3d. You can set up a workflow that frees time to work on the bigger picture instead of getting lost in the minutiae of a larger project when the time comes to respond to feedback. You can automate smaller tasks and focus on things like your composition, colors, and storytelling. Some parts of production in 3d are already procedural, but virtually anything can be set up to work procedurally – even creating models in some cases. 

Abundance of resources/ Community

Well and good, you might think, but not everyone has the luxury of spending a few days learning the ins and outs of digital 3d. For the busy designer or anyone with time constraints, there are many resources to shorten or even bypass the learning curve for some 3d tools:

Asset providers like Kitbash 3d, Sketchfab, and Polyhaven have a large collection of pre-made models you can use in your projects instead of creating everything from scratch.

Developers create plugins or modifier setups that can simplify arduous but necessary tasks. Gumroad is a great repository for such things.

Channels on Youtube or aggregate websites are perfect for keeping your ear on the ground for the latest game-changing tools.

All images thus far contain CC-0 or CC-BY assets, generators, or plugins available online. While some resources are free to use with no restrictions, others are for sale or require you to credit the original creator. As in any form of digital media, it is always wise to read carefully the terms of use for anything you might use in your work.

In-Practice Example

The examples above were for static images, but where 3d can really shine is in animation. Halloween is just around the corner at the time of this writing, so we’ll go over (in very broad strokes) how I created an animated skit for GarageFarm.NET that would suit the occasion.

Concept

GarageFarm.NET is an online render farm that allows 3d artists to meet their deadlines and save time by distributing the render process of a project over a host of high-powered computers. I decided that the skit would be about the Grim Reaper coming to claim a character only to realize that it had been beaten to it by long render times on a single workstation (a common pain point that 3d artists trying to meet short deadlines face). I used Blender 3d – an open-source 3d program available to everyone. 

The final result was completed within a total of 14-16 hours. You can check out the final video here.

Collating Assets

To manage this time constraint, I used a combination of assets that I had saved from previous projects and assets that were shared in online hubs like BlendSwap and Polyhaven – limiting my hand modeling to elements that would take less time to create than to search for online. 

The opening scene layout consists of a few elements from the talented artists who contributed to Polyhaven arranged around planes that would serve as the walls and floor of an interior setting.

The skeleton asset was from an older post I made years ago. I used clothing from a human generator plugin for Blender called HumGen, available on BlenderMarket.

Staging the scenes

Animation

With everything prepared, all that was left to do was animate the characters. I used a pointing animation from Mixamo to animate the Grim Reaper, which left only the cameras, the door, and the skeleton to think about.

Mixamo is a library of motion capture data that allows users to choose animation and quickly transfer that animation to their custom 3d character.

Sound

For the Grim Reaper’s voice, I used Replica, a program that reads text input using a selection from a library of AI voices.

And I used the YouTube Studio sound library for the music and sound effects. 

Conclusion

To go into more detail would require its own article, and I am by no means suggesting that you can pick up 3d software and instantly create something like this. Still, with dedicated study and practice and the modern tools available, I believe any creator can leverage 3d to create diversity and more interest in their social media content within a year or two. 

Whether you’re considering learning 3d or are an experienced user, I hope this article gave you a glimpse of new possibilities and inspired you to try something new. Best of luck, and happy creating!

The post Why 3d Rendering is Perfect for Creating Captivating Social Media Content appeared first on noupe.

When either starting your website from scratch or being online for many years, you have to consider many things when you are developing your website. One of the main problems developers encounter is optimizing for different devices.

Your traffic can come from several sources:

• Desktop
• Smartphone
• Tablet
• Smartwatch
• Etc.

It is cardinal that your website provides the same experience everywhere. Let’s see what cross-device friendliness is all about!

What is Cross-Device Friendliness?

When you are developing your website, you have to make sure that no matter where people come from, they receive the exact same experience (or almost), and that’s what cross-device friendliness is all about.

Of course, you have to take into account many various aspects because each has its own different parameters and functionalities, but if you can adjust your website to these criteria smartly, you can be sure that your site will be a multi-device success.

Factors to consider on different devices

Cross-device optimization has gained more and more significance when we talk about website development. The popularity of mobile devices has skyrocketed in the previous years – there are over 5 billion unique mobile phone users all around the world. But when we are talking about website optimization for both mobile and desktop, many different aspects should be taken into account. That could be:

• Traffic volume
• Screen size
• Cross-platform journeys
• Content placement & interactions
• Page load time

Traffic volume

Through the years, the age of desktop dominance has faded away. Of course, that doesn’t mean people are not searching the web from a PC, but since 2017 more than half of website traffic has come from mobile devices, and it’s constantly increasing.

Nowadays the linear “only desktop optimization” mindset is not enough. If you want to provide the ultimate experience for your visitors, mobile-friendliness is inevitable. On the other hand, you shouldn’t just head into making everything practical for mobile and ignore your desktop web development. Find the balance between these two mediums 

Screen size

When smartphones came into the spotlight, every website was only optimized for desktops and it caused a lot of inconvenience for mobile users – a full-size website was thrown to the mobile user’s tiny screen. Users had to constantly zoom in-zoom out to see the content they want, and because of the shortening attention span and patience, visitors leave way earlier with frustration (and might not return).

Another problem that might occur in these situations is related to images. If you optimize images to desktop monitor screens and mobile visitors load your page, they won’t be able to see the whole picture normally. They might zoom in to see the content normally, but then the whole image might not be visible, and that constant resizing could be really uncomfortable.

Cross-device journeys

Visitors arriving to your website from different sources don’t necessarily mean that they are all new, unique users. People tend to make cross-device journeys before reaching the desired action, e.g. buying a product from your site. They usually browse your site through their smartphone, and if they find something interesting or want to fill out a form, they usually swap to a laptop or desktop for easier completion.

So as you can see, dividing visitors into separate groups might be misleading when it comes to conversion. Synchronizing the different events (e.g. checkout process, newsletter signup) for either singular or cross-device could be a key point to making your website the most suitable for your audience.

Content placement & interactions

The available space differs from device to device, so having a well-structured website is a crucial point. To reflect on our previous “Screen size” point, how people can see what’s on the site is quintessential. For example, you might have an article that is perfectly readable from the desktop’s monitors, but on the phone scrolling, a lot and resizing constantly to make every detail readable could be annoying for users.

Another pain point comes from CTA interactions. If the interactive buttons are too small or it is not clear where to press them, it can be difficult to execute certain actions, like closing a popup or signing up for a newsletter. One more problem that might occur with buttons is placing them right next to each other – if you can’t clearly separate them with e.g. borders, that could result in rage clicks, hence missing out on customers.

Page load time

In today’s rushing world, everyone wants to get access to all kinds of information immediately, and if they have to wait more than a few seconds, they will just leave your website behind. As with many other things, page loading time also differs from device to device.

While desktops have direct internet access via ethernet cables, mobiles only have a remote connection. It is important to have each of your pages on top speed everywhere – you can imagine how slow content loading must be on mobile if it’s already slow on the desktop.

Solution – Optimize User Experience

If you want to achieve the ultimate customer satisfaction on every device, then you should focus on optimizing user experience.

User experience is the overall experience of a user on your website – that could mean how they can navigate through your pages, how they can complete certain events (like visiting a product, then putting the item to their cart and completing a checkout), or how they felt during their session on your site.

All of the previously mentioned points have an impact on the user experience of your site. If visitors don’t find it easy and clear to browse through your website, customers will leak out of your funnel. The good news is that with a few adjustments, you can make wonders on every medium.

Mobile-first perception

Kicking off your web development process with mobile development first could make your life much easier. It would be more time-consuming to figure out and then tailor all the functions that are not compatible with smartphones. Mobile designs usually require a more minimalist approach, so designing for a smaller screen and then filling up a bigger one with content can be a time-saver solution. 

In addition, mobile-friendly solutions usually turn out to be perfect for desktops. Take the famously used hamburger menu as an example – they worked out so well more websites started implementing it to desktop monitors, but minimalism has also started conquering the different types of computer screens too.

Accelerate page loading time

As we mentioned earlier, having a quick-loading page is a top priority factor when it comes to user experience. With a few clever tricks, you can save some extra seconds in your loading time.

Firstly, with CSS media queries you can set in what order your web page’s assets should load. This way, you can save up time by loading the text first so users can start reading the important content while images load later. Secondly, compressing images for mobiles can also save some quality time and you can also keep the same quality of your images. Also, optimizing your HTML-CSS-Javascript codes by tailoring the unnecessary part of your code out can decrease waiting time.

Lastly, keeping your website’s plugins, themes and other add-ons up-to-date is another way to keep up with the pace. These tools are constantly under development to provide a better, more user-friendly experience, so doing a regular update on them can also have a positive impact on your site.

Responsive web design

For the ultimate multi-device success, responsivity is a quintessential factor for your website. Responsive web design means that your website automatically adjusts to different screen sizes and platforms. That involves scaling images and fonts on your site, but you can influence whitespace between contents too.

You can use the earlier mentioned CSS media queries here as well to achieve overall device responsivity. With just a little knowledge, you can easily create a cross-device-friendly website. That not only means that it saves tons of time in your web development because you don’t have to optimize for every different screen one by one, but also keeps your website aesthetic on all platforms. 

Encourage cross-device usage

Sometimes having fewer functions on different devices isn’t necessarily a problem. We usually use different platforms for different purposes. We usually use our phones for browsing and accomplishing bigger tasks on desktops.

Finding how these different mediums can complement each other is the key to success. A well-optimized mobile interface can set up a later purchase when your visitor has more time to fill out the checkout form. Don’t compete for different devices against each other, ally the different forces!

Fitting your content on different devices

To provide nearly the same experience on both mobile and desktop, reorganizing the same content on different devices is a must. On desktops, the column-organized content placement works perfectly. For example, there’s a navigation bar on the top of the page, in the middle you can find the article, and on the right, there are related topics, articles, or other widgets. The main concept is to separate different contents clearly.

For mobiles, it’s a bit tricky because you have much smaller space to work with. Organizing your content to a well-centralized column and placing texts and images alternately rather than putting pictures and fonts next to each other is a much more pleasant view. Interactive buttons, such as the navigation bar or search field can be placed on each side of the screen to prevent misclicks. This way you can provide the nearly-same experience on different mediums.

Forms & popups are in the same shoes. Although they might feel annoying sometimes, optimizing them well causes less trouble for users. Fitting them side-to-side and placing easily accessible CTA-s for different interactions can prevent visitor frustration (like zooming out and looking for the close button) and create a more fluent user experience.

Conclusion

There are many factors to consider when it comes to cross-device development. It is a critical point to optimize your website for every medium – users come to your site from different sources, but a single visitor can find you in many ways. If there are bottlenecks on any of your interfaces, you may not reach one of your platform’s full potential. Stop traffic leakage now and make the best version of your website everywhere!

The post Why You Should Optimize for Both Mobile and Desktop When Developing Your Website appeared first on noupe.

Shutterstock is a renowned global marketplace for designers and creators to sell royalty-free images, footage, illustrations, and vector graphics. With a huge contribution all over the world, its library of more than 200 million stock photos, illustrations, and vectors make Shutterstock one of the best vector websites to find design elements in the creative community. 

But as the stock image market grows, there are more and more websites and platforms that also provide high-quality and even free images. It’s no doubt that when it comes to design, having more options, and more inspiration is never wrong. In this post, I am going to list the 10 best vector websites to find and download free illustrations as Shutterstock alternatives.

Shutterstock: Pros and Cons

There are many advantages of Shutterstock that we can mention, including:

• High-quality and various resources of many kinds (images, videos, sound effects, music, templates)
• Enhanced licenses are also provided to use the content for distribution to a large audience or on merchandise. (of course, except editorials) 
• AI-powered search with truly impressive results 

However, together with some pros above come several cons that we might want to search for other platforms instead.

• Difficult for beginners or amateurs: so many choices regarding types of resources and packs of subscriptions make it more difficult to use, especially for those who are not really Internet masters. I believe that even for those who are experienced, it takes time to read and fully understand their licenses and other useful guides. 
• Too expensive: subscriptions come with limited numbers of image downloads monthly and enhanced licenses do cost an arm and a leg even for single users. 

In terms of simplicity and affordable pricing, I suggest the 10 following best vector websites and platforms as Shutterstock alternatives.

illustAC

Compared to Shutterstock, illustAC has some advantages below.

• Simple to use: this is about illustrations and vector graphics – no other distractions. You visit the site, start searching for the illustrations you want and download them. You need to sign up or log in to download, but no card info is required when onboarding as free users. 
• Simple and affordable subscription packs: Monthly for 12.2$ and Annually for 132$
• NO download limits: unlimited download times for premium users
• NO attribution required 

Other advantages:

• Bulk download for premium users: from search result pages, you can choose file types you like,  add them up to the download folder and download up to 10 files at a time. 
• License for commercial uses at a reasonable price: offer an Extra license at 29.99$ per license to cover the usage of the images as the main element for products that will be sold to multiple clients. No limitation in the number of distributions and time of use.
• Download one format at a time: Shutterstock and some other platforms will let you download all files in a pack. Usually, it’s not really necessary to download such heavy files. On illustAC, we can choose what type of file format we want to download. You DON’T need to unzip or check any licenses within – SIMPLE and EASY in a single click.
• Unique content: illustAC offers various types of free vectors including brushes, templates, graphic backgrounds, etc. But the truly special one is that you can find real Japanese tastes here, from sushi illustrations to bold Japanese decor patterns that you can see from nowhere else. 

Freepik

Compared to Shutterstock, Freepik has some advantages below.

• Simple and affordable subscription packs: Monthly for 15EUR (~14.72$)  and Annually for 108EUR (105.98$)
• Free downloads both for guests and free users: you don’t need to sign up or log in to download images you like. Guests can also download up to 3 free illustrations per day. If you want more, free users can download up to 10 images, and premium users for 100 downloads a day.
• Trendy and up-to-date content: just like Shutterstock, Freepik is a house of millions of creators around the world, you can always find trendy content there. 
• Other embedded platforms for UI designs: Flaticons and Storyset are two other platforms from Freepik where you can find and download free icons and illustrations for user interface design

Vecteezy

Compared to Shutterstock, Vecteezy has some advantages below.

• Simple and affordable subscription packs: Monthly for 15$ and Annually for 108$
• Free downloads for both guests and free users: you can download a lot of free content on Vecteezy with download limits of 3 images for guests and unlimited for free users. Of course, attributions are required in this case, just the same as Freepik. Pro content can only be downloaded when upgrading.
• Licenses are easy to understand and compare: Vecteezy doesn’t challenge users with difficult terms when it comes to licensing explanation and comparison. It won’t take long to fully understand what they offer.

IconScout

IconScout is all about illustrations of all types (flat illustrations, icons, 3D illustrations, and animations). Compared to Shutterstock, it has some advantages below.

• Simple and easy navigation: if you want to search for illustrations, IconScout is easy to navigate. 
• Simple licenses to understand and compare: IconScout provides 2 kinds of licenses (digital license and physical unlimited license) which are clearly explained and compared in simple words. 
• Free assets to download with attribution
• Affordable subscription packs (annually only, no monthly packs): Yearly for all assets will cost 179.99$ and for icons only will cost 155.99$.

Manypixels

Manypixels is a platform providing design solutions for businesses, entrepreneurs to cooperatives. Together with design services, it also shares free illustrations and free icons resources to download. 

Although these libraries are limited in the number of content available, compared to Shutterstock, it still has some advantages below.

• The content is all FREE for commercial and personal uses: you don’t need to pay to download illustrations and icons on Manypixels. You can 
• NO download limits: you can download any content you like without sign-up / log-in and no limits. 
• NO attribution required

Drawkit

Drawkit is also another platform that offers both free and premium illustrations and icons. It is a good alternative for Shutterstock in terms of good pricing, free downloads, and simple licensing. 

• Free download: Drawkit offer free content with SVG & PNG formats
• Good pricing: Premium content is offered by different themes. You can pay for each pack you like.
• Simple licensing: Drawkit’s license is easy to understand (not for merchandise or included in digital design templates, for example)

Other Open Sources and CC0 Platforms

The websites below surpass Shutterstock in terms of no download limits, simple licenses, and no requirement for attribution.  

• NO download limits: you can download whatever you like with no limitation (but of course, there are fewer options to choose from, and most of them are suitable for UI design)
• FREE for all non-commercial or commercial uses EXCEPT redistribution
• NO attribution required

However, the number of resources available on these websites and platforms is limited. If you want to have a wide range of free illustration options, you’d better try the stock and royalty-free illustrations platforms mentioned above. 

Conclusion

Here we’ve mentioned the top Shutterstock alternative vector sites to download free illustrations. Each of these sites has its own usage guides, licenses, and type of resources. Before downloading the images, make sure to check out their terms and conditions to avoid any unwanted copyright infringement.

We hope that with the list of best vector websites above, you can save time and costs when you need to find illustrations and vector graphics for your next projects. 

The post Shutterstock alternatives: Best Vector Websites to Find Free Illustrations appeared first on noupe.

There’s a lot to think about when building a website, here we explore the importance of creating a site that’s accessible to all. 

No matter what type of website you run, whether it’s an e-commerce store or a one-page business showcase, you’re going to want to attract as many visitors as possible. 

The way to do this is to ensure your website is accessible. An accessible web design enables everyone to access your website and content, taking into account the needs of those with a disability.

According to the World Health Organisation, there are over 1 billion people in the world living with some sort of disability. That’s a lot of people you’re excluding from your website if it isn’t accessible. 

In this article, we’ll explore the importance of an accessible website, the design features that work together to ensure your website is accessible to all, and how you can test your website’s accessibility. 

What is an Accessible Website?

An accessible website is one that can be accessed and viewed by everyone, regardless of how they are surfing the web. 

Website accessibility refers to the need for websites to utilize various tools and technologies in order to ensure visiting, navigating, understanding, and contributing to content is the same experience for every user. 

The user journey of your website should be of the same standard no matter how a user is accessing your content. 

Accessibility is a crucial part of the user experience. Not only does it refer to ensuring your website is accessible for users with disabilities, but it also involves taking steps to make sure your website is compatible with different devices such as desktop computers, smartphones, and tablets.

Why Should Your Website Be Accessible?

When building your website, accessibility should be a key part of the process and not an afterthought. 

Firstly, an accessible website ensures as many people as possible can visit and enjoy your website. The last thing you want after you’ve designed and built a great website is to discover you’re blocking potentially hundreds of visitors. 

Plus, Search engines such as Google simply won’t rank a website that isn’t accessible and doesn’t offer a strong user experience. A great user experience and strong accessibility can both impact your search engine performance. 

What Makes a Website Accessible?

Luckily for website owners, there are official guidelines that you can refer to in order to ensure your website is accessible. 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were created to set a universal standard that all websites worldwide should aim to meet in order to make their web content accessible. These accessibility considerations can be applied, not only to website design but to wider digital content like email marketing or social media. 

There are also four key principles of accessibility that form the foundations for any content created and published online. They are:

• Perceivable – this refers to all aspects of the website being perceived by the human senses so that no aspect is hidden or inaccessible. For most users, this will be through sight but for those with a visual impairment, it may be sound or touch.
• Operable – all interactive aspects of the website such as navigation and buttons should be able to be operated by all users.
• Understandable – every user should be able to understand the content and its purpose.
• Robust – web content should be able to function across a variety of technologies and devices.  

So how can you ensure you’re building a website that’s accessible? We’ve listed some of the key design features and principles you should consider below.

Use High Contrast Colours 

Some users may have difficulty viewing your content if you opt for low-contrast colors. Using high-contrast color combinations such as black and white or black and yellow ensures everyone can read your content. 

Enable Keyboard Navigation 

In order for a website to be considered accessible users should be able to navigate it without a mouse. Clicking on links and accessing new pages should all be able to be done via a keyboard if necessary. 

Add Captions to Videos 

If you feature any video content on your website, be sure to include captions or transcripts so that users who are hard of hearing or even those whose devices have no sound can enjoy your content. 

Include Alt Text on Images

Alt text is text that you can add in your image settings to describe the image to users who cannot see it. This way, all users are able to enjoy your website content.

Breakup Your Content with Headings

Using headings helps to break up your content to make it easier to digest for users. Clear headings also help screen readers to navigate through your webpage and interpret your content.

Ensure Your Website is Mobile Friendly

There are an array of different devices that people can use to access your website. Ensuring your website is optimized for mobile makes sure that your website will adapt no matter what the screen size.

How to Check if Your Website is Accessible 

It’s important to regularly check your website for various performance issues, including how accessible it is. 

There are various ways you can monitor the accessibility of your website in order to ensure it’s offering the best user experience possible for all visitors. 

Use an Online Accessibility Checker – online accessibility checkers such as WAVE are tools that can evaluate the accessibility of your web pages. To use accessibility software you simply enter the URL of the page you want to check and you’ll receive a report flagging any potential issues. 

Manually Check Your Website – a manual accessibility check will be more time-consuming than other alternatives. Use a checklist to ensure you’re conducting a thorough assessment of your website and view every page with accessibility as the priority. 

Hire an Accessibility Expert – if you’re dedicated to making accessibility a core principle of your online brand then hiring an accessibility expert is a good idea. An accessibility expert will audit your site and provide actionable feedback and recommendations. 

Website Accessibility at Every Step

An accessible website isn’t just to meet the needs of your end user either. Everyone from business partners and stakeholders to web developers and external consultants needs to be able to access your content. 

Accessibility should be the priority at every step of your website build. Whether your site is a simple landing page or a full software product, adhering to accessibility standards helps you ensure that all users can engage fully. So, if you’re working in-house or are outsourcing digital product development, providing clear guidelines to your developers and designers is essential.

The ease with which people can access your content will have a major impact on your brand positioning.

Think about it, if a user struggles to explore your website or engage with your content what does that say about your brand? You want to be positioned as a brand that cares, not as one that doesn’t think about others. 

Similarly, site audits should analyze accessibility whilst keeping up to date with the latest technologies and tools will ensure your website is staying ahead of the competition. 

Make Your Site Accessible To All

The fact is, you simply can’t afford to not prioritize building an accessible website. 

The good news though is that making a site accessible has never been easier and you have the potential to reach as many people as possible, even those who may have struggled to access websites in the past. 

In this article, we’ve explored everything you need to know about why an accessible website is so important and the steps you can implement to ensure your site is up to scratch. 

Incorporate website accessibility into every aspect of your web design and maintenance and you should have no problem welcoming an array of visitors to your site. 

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