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# 1 You have your logo only as jpg or png file ( uff ... ) and have no clue how your website shall look like (see also this video ). # 2 You don’t know your corporate colours. Of course not, you don’t have any. # 3 The colour on your business card is different than the colour on your letterhead. # 4 Your business card looks very different to your employee’s one. # 5 Your website is designed in a blue-grey tone, whereas your business cards are designed in a green-yellow tone. # 6 There is no way for you to find out what font to use on your new flyer. # 7 Your logo shows always the same icon, however different fonts on your business cards, website and flyer. # 8 There is no indication of how your new brochure shall look like. # 9 You don’t know what line spacing to use in Word when you write a letter. # 10 Your business is perceived as "unprofessional" or "not trustworthy". # 11 Your website looks cluttered. # 12 The copy in your brochure is difficult to read. Of course it is due to the lack of a good typography concept. # 13 You hire a designer to create a flyer and cannot answer his/her question "Can you please send me your style guide?". # 14 Different freelance designers work on different projects for you: one designer creates a flyer, whilst another one cares about the website, whilst another one illustrates an infographic. (A corporate design makes sure that everything has the exact same look and feel. Nobody from outside will see that you hired different designers.) # 15 Your business card shows another font than your website than your flyer than your brochure etc. # 16 Various materials are designed at different times: the website and business cards in 2015, a flyer in 2017, the car sticker design in 2018, an infographic in 2020 and an advertisement for a local newspaper in 2022. # 17 You are not successful finding a sponsor or investor. # 18 You don’t want to make yourself dependent on one designer or design agency. (A corporate design incl. style guide makes sure you stay independent so you can work with different designers and agencies. The design concept is documented in the style guide.) Take a look at some inspiring examples of brandings and send me an email . I’m looking forward to discussing your project! #logo #corporatedesign #webdesign #brochure #flyer #infographic

In the course of creating the interactive and multimedia app magazine versions of "connecting comPETence" for PETnology/tecPET (Pielenhofen, Germany) three times a year (since 2015), I regularly face great advertisements from the print edition. In this blog post, I want to share advertisements of two companies with you, because I find them simply great! KHS This advertisement of KHS is about 50 % less packaging. You can spot the missing letters in "50 % less packaging". A very interesting fact that I already talked about in this article on my website, was used here: If you leave out all vowels and only keep the consonants as well as the starting and ending letters of a word, the human brain can still correctly read the word. I also made use of this trick in the logo design for G.R. Kostenmanagement GmbH. OTTO HOFSTETTER Otto Hofstetter is a Swiss company and consequently communicates the claim "Totally Swiss". The well-known quality image of Switzerland is communicated here excellently. Of course, some stereotypes also play a nice role here ;-) . "Connecting comPETence" is a leading international special interest magazine for the PET industry and is read in 128 countries worldwide. You can download the app "connecting comPETence" for free for your tablet from the Apple App Store (iOS) or the Google Play Store (Android). #advertisement #app #digitalpublishing #magazine

In this blog article, I’ll show you the A to Z of a graphic designer’s daily routine (or my routine). Enjoy ;-) A …. like Adobe . The US software giant has been setting the benchmark in the graphic design industry for years, with programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and more. B …. like briefing ; probably the most important and most detailed talk between the client and the designer/agency, which serves as the basis for any upcoming design work. C …. like copyright . Copying logos is an absolute no-go and can cost companies a lot of money. Here you find out more about a sincere case. D …. like digital publishing . Nowadays, it might be a really good idea to offer innovative rich media magazines as an app . I work with the Belgian software solution Twixl for this purpose. E …. like editorial design . Designing print products like brochures and magazines is part of my regular business. F …. like flat design , which can be seen everywhere since Windows 8. In this blog article from 2014, that was also featured on marketingfish.de , I talk about the flat design trend (even though it was five years ago, it’s still relevant today) > the article is available in German language only. G …. like gifographic . A gifographic is a gif-animated infographic and can be used in many different ways . H … like hand-lettering , the art of drawing letters by hand. In a typography workshop conducted by Vienna-based Typejockeys , organised by WEI SRAUM Innsbruck , I made my first steps in drafting and drawing letters of my own font. I …. like Indesign ; a software to design great print products (brochures, magazines, flyers, business cards etc.) - of course by Adobe. J …. like jpg ; the probably most common picture format for pixel-based images. If you don’t want to have pixels, please scroll down to the letter V. K …. like kerning ; a term in the world of micro-typography to visually balance out the gaps between letters (example: AV instead of A V). L …. like logo ; a symbol representing an organisation. By the way: Here you see 8 things that make a good logo. M …. like mindmap ; a great tool to sort thoughts and let your ideas flow into different directions. N …. like notepad . Every logo idea and logo draft gets brought down onto paper with a pencil. This allows for a maximum of flexibility and your creativity is really "flowing". O …. like opacity ; a term in the printing industry. A paper’s opacity indicates how much the printed backside of a page is visible through the front of the same page. You don’t see any of the text on the backside of a page shining through, when paper with good opacity is used. Here you can find more information on paper selection for magazines. P … like Pantone . Pantone color fans are crucial for a continuous color system across various communication materials. The Color Bridge fans in particular have really proven to be very handy when working for print and digital purposes (like I do). See more about it here . Q … like questionnaire . In the course of the briefing, a set of specific questions should be asked. To find out what kind of questions I ask my clients in the course of the briefing, head over to point 5 of this interview . R … like RGB . The RGB color mode consists of the colors red, green and blue (RGB). All three colors have a value range from 0 to 255, which means that there are maaaaany different color possibilities. The RGB color mode is used for everything digital, whereas the CMYK color mode (four cartridges) is used for everything printed. S … like start-up . All newly found companies need a corporate design in order to professionally communicate with the outside world. T … like typography , the world of fonts. Watch this video to see how powerful typography really is. U … like UX/UI or "user experience / user interface" design. This is all about a possibly high user friendliness in the digital world (on websites and within apps). V … like vector . A vector file ends with ai, eps or svg and does not have any pixels (unlike jpg files). Vectors are dots that are connected with lines. Thus, a vector file can never pixelate and can always be scaled up endlessly without any quality loss. This is one of the reasons why a logo must never be made in Photoshop . W … like web design . I have been creating websites with WIX for many years. A good decision! X … like Xcode . Xcode is a software to sign apps in order to deliver apps to app stores. When I work on app magazines , Xcode is an essential element in the background. Y … like yellow Cyberduck . The yellow duck is a handy tool to transmit data via FTP servers. Z … like Zoom . Zoom is a video conference software that I sometimes use for meetings with colleagues and business partners (a great alternative to Skype). #adobe #indesign #wix #ux #photoshop #logo #inspiration #infographic

In spring 2018, the somewhat abstract "monster" named GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) kept entrepreneurs in the entire European Union busy - in an administrative and costy way. I am definitely FOR data protection, keeping one’s privacy (also when surfing the internet!) and the sensitisation for the topic as such. However, I have to say that I don’t know one entrepreneur who doesn’t roll his/her eyes when mentioning this topic. But it gets even worse: This abstract "monster" named GDPR (please excuse my fond language here) is reaching out its tentacles. WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? On 1 October 2019, a delicate case of violation of data privacy by the German online gaming platform Planet49 led to a judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union which has a huge impact on websites in the EU. You can read the press release here . Since that judgement, placing cookies on a website visitor’s device is only legal AFTER explicit consent . Meaning: a simple banner informing about the usage of cookies that can be (but doesn’t have to be!) confirmed by clicking an OK button violates data privacy and is, hence, illegal. The CJEU judgement distinguishes between "technically required" and "technically not required" cookies. "Technically required" cookies can be placed also without the website visitor’s explicit consent (without those cookies, the website would not be functional). "Technically required" cookies make sure that a website runs smoothly (i.e. navigation, language selection, automatically displaying a website’s mobile version on a smartphone etc.). "Technically not required" cookies relate to Google Analytics (or other tracking tools), marketing related services (like Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn tokens, data for Google AdWords and Google Retargeting, Youtube, rating services, social media plugins …) etc. Interesting: On October 14, 2020, Google Analytics introduced a cookie-free service with GA4. The pressure on the internet giant was probably too big. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Every website that is made for EU citizens must display a banner to actively ask every website visitor for explicit (thus, manual) consent for technically not required cookies when entering the website. A standard pre-set consent (= all check boxes automatically ticked) to all cookies is illegal since the CJEU judgement. In addition to that, every website visitor must have the possibility to change his/her consent at any time. WHAT IS THE BEST SOLUTION? As you can maybe imagine, this situation causes quite a stir in the entire business as it leads to technical (and thus financial) challenges for every website owner/operator. After consultation with the Austrian trade association, in-depth information from Heinrich Partner lawyers in Germany and talks with other relevant entrepreneurs within the industry, I decided to use a specific cookie consent service. I thoroughly tested this service and ran several technical tests to make sure this is the ideal solution for my clients and me. That cookie consent service acts like this: No cookies, which are technically not required, are placed on my website visitor’s device unless he/she manually ticks the specific check boxes and clicks the OK button (no matter if desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone). I have already implemented this legally compliant cookie consent solution for the majority of my website clients. New website clients are offered this too. DO COOKIE CONSENT SERVICES AFFECT MY WEBSITE IN A NEGATIVE WAY? No matter what cookie consent service you use > If implemented correctly, a website visitor is only tracked in Google Analytics (or another tracking tool) after the website visitor explicitly (!) says "yes" to the statistic cookies in the cookie bar. If a website visitor does not grant consent or simply leaves the cookie consent banner open without saying "yes" or "no", he/she is not tracked in Google Analytics at all. Uff, that’s hard news. Some online marketing agencies even speak of the "death of Google Analytics" or the "death of online marketing". Well, I wouldn’t go that far for now. But time will tell. MY CONCLUSION As so often, the European Union affronts many people and many website owners feel forced to do something and invest money. Even though, there are not so many GDPR dissuasions yet, you should not neglect this topic. A dissuasion can cause severe financial damage to your business. This is why I highly recommend implementing a legally compliant cookie consent banner on your website.

November is not really my favourite month of the year. It gets cold, wet, grey and ugly outside. And as the year 2019 hadn’t allowed me to take some holiday time out for myself, I thought I simply needed to recharge my batteries with fresh energy again and get away from that typical Central-European November weather. So I thought: "Off to the land of pharaos, off to Egypt!" Let me invite you to day-dream a little and show you a few shots I took with my Nikon D5100 at TUI Magic Life Club Kalawy in Safaga (a good hour’s car drive southbound from Hurghada). As you see, it’s possible to chill and relax even in an All Inclusive club. Most of all, I enjoyed the delicious food, a splendid lagoon at the Red Sea and the diverse sports program. (Remark: I was not paid for this blog article. I wrote it simply for sharing positive vibes. / Copyright photos: Helene Clara Gamper). #holiday #photography

In spring 2019, I created the new corporate design for A CASA , a 4 star group renting out holiday apartments in and around Sölden (Tirol). This re-branding should visually communicate the big shift from the middle class segment to the premium segment. The continuously rising success of A CASA luxury apartments is resulting in more and more holiday destinations for Tirol lovers. Consequently, I was hired to design the logo for a new apartment house half a year after the re-branding (in October 2019). As the A CASA logo system had been set up in a flexible way from the start, designing the logo for the new "Lakeside by A CASA" house was not a big deal. This is the beauty of a flexible logo system > visual harmony, less time effort, less financial effort. In addition to that, the "Restaurant Ischia" opened its doors in one of the A CASA houses, and I was asked to design the logo for this restaurant too. It was important to show that Restaurant Ischia belongs to the A CASA group. Fancy to get your own flexible logo? Click here . #logo #corporatedesign #branding #hotel

Many years ago, when I used to work as a DJ, I toured through India three times within one year. In the course of my India tours, I met Shubham (alias DJ Arsenik ) from Dehli. We here and there worked together, became friends and stayed in touch over the last approx. ten years. In autumn 2019, I was happy to hear that he moved to Dublin. So I thought I’d visit him and he could show me around in the Irish capital. This is how I simply fell in love with Dublin in January 2020 - what a wonderful city! THE CITY TOUR At first, I wanted to get a rough overview of the city. So I jumped on the hop on hop off tourist bus . Dublin’s famous Samuel Beckett Bridge, that looks like a harp, "plays" many beautiful colours at night which makes it look even more spectacular! My city tour ended at the EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum . This is a place where storytelling is executed perfectly! A lot of multimedia and interactive features are offered to the visitors in order to learn more about the Irish identity and the reasons why they emigrated to the whole world. A great museum that you simply must see when you visit Dublin. MUSICIANS AMONG THEMSELVES We could scent some rock’n’roll air in the Irish Rock’n’Roll Museum Experience . The fact that many rooms in the museum are still being used as rehearsal rooms for bands today, inspirits this museum even more. And even my very personal music hero Michael Jackson recorded some songs here that are still unpublished. Michael Jackson even bought a house in the neighbourhood of this museum. By the way, the museum had to return the original sound recordings to the Jackson family. Until today, there are still discussions going on about who owns the sound recordings and if the songs will ever be published or not. Shubham and me > a DJ and a former DJane at the decks. Remembering the good old days! MY PERSONAL HIGHLIGHT My very personal sightseeing highlight was The Little Museum of Dublin . To be honest, I don’t even know where to start to describe this lovely museum. It’s small, cute and full of funny things that were donated by real Dubliners. It’s a museum to laugh in, to be amazed by and to leave with a grin on your face. You’ll discover the true Dublin from a very different perspective. Absolutely worth a visit! The photos speak for themselves. I’ve never seen such a cute museum before! Alfie Byrne (1882-1956) might have been Dublin’s most famous mayor ever. His nickname was "The Shaking Hand of Dublin". He was known for his hard work and willing to serve as many people as possible. For example, he wrote 15,000 letters within his first year in office. And as he shook so many hands, visitors of The Little Museum of Dublin could even shake Alfie’s hand themselves - only a plastic one, but still. Our guide Brenda did a fantastic job. "A pint of plain is your only man" is something like the Irish national quote in which a beer is referred to as your last, best friend when times are hard. SCIENCE Last but not least, I attended the scientific exhibition about plastic at the Science Gallery , Naughton Institute at the Trinity College Dublin . The exhibition was called "Can’t live with it, can’t live without it" - what a true statement. A very interesting piece was this tricycle: Thomas Hoogewerf (Netherlands, 2019) designed this tricycle made of recycled plastic that has already caused quite a stir in Mexico City too. The artist is aiming at demonstrating the potential of recycling, inspiring people to re-use plastic waste and exploring new business opportunities. The bike’s design and blueprints are open-source, making it accessible and rebuildable anywhere. The artist believes that access to affordable, environment-friendly and high-quality transportation is a human right. A pinboard in the exhibition invites visitors to contribute their ideas for future exhibition topics. FOOD AND DRINKS As I don’t drink alcohol, I simply skipped visiting the Guinness factory and the Irish Whiskey Museum. There was something else that much more caught my interest: scones! Scones are similar to muffins, I would say, but much more delicious in my opinion. They are served with butter, jam and sugared whipped cream. And that is how it came that I tried my very first raspberry scone at Queen of Tarts . Splendid! Later on, we went to Temple Bar where we had great live music, tasty burgers and drinks (alcohol-free for me of course, hehe). Apparently, Temple Bar was the first pub in Ireland. Well, I have no idea if that is true or not. However, it sounds good in the tourist guide. CONCLUSION To sum it up: For me, Dublin is an international (student) city with an extremely high level of cuteness. Definitely worth a visit!

I have been working in my home office for more than ten years. No matter if the Corona virus crisis (COVID-19) has forced to make you work from home or if you have other reasons to establish your home office > in this blog article I'll share my personal tips for making working from home enjoyable and successful. TIP #1: SEPARATE WORK AND PRIVATE SPACE The most important thing is to have a clear distinction between work mode and private mode. I live in a spacious 3 bedroom apartment and have no children. That means, that my 3rd room is my office. I’m aware that most people don’t have the luxury of having a separate spare room just for office use, but still: Have a determined work space that is reserved for your work only. If you have to work at your living room desk because you lack the space, clear your desk from everything private when you work and clear your desk from work stuff when you finish your home office day. TIP #2: PUR YOURSELF INTO (A MENTAL) WORK MODE In order to work efficiently and get stuff done, you must make sure that you can concentrate. Stay focused at work and put your smartphone aside. Put work clothes on. It might look weird to sit in your home office wearing a suit and a tie for example (or what else you would normally wear for work). So what? Who cares? Nobody sees you. But you will definitely sound different on the phone to clients and do your work more professionally, trust me. TIP #3: SET SPECIFIC WORK TIMES In order for yourself to be in a mental work mode and in order for your clients to know when they can reach you best, it’s good to set specific work times and stick to them. It helps to get a work routine into your daily business. This also includes getting up early in the morning. Get up as if you had to get up to drive to an office elsewhere. Don’t sleep in! I always get up at 7 am, also when no paid client work is booked in (which is not often, but still happens of course). Then I do administrative things like book-keeping, blog writing, calling clients I haven’t talked with for a while, marketing planning, content creation and so on: all the things that I don’t have time for when I’m really busy with paid client work. TIP #4: CREATE A HEALTHY WORKPLACE Computer screen: Make sure you look straight into your computer screen. In case you work with a laptop, put it on a specific laptop stand, so you don’t have to look down. If you constantly have to look down you will definitely run into painful neck problems that will lead to headaches in the long run. I had this problem in the beginning of my entrepreneurship and it made me nuts. I now work on an iMac that is straight in front of me. I look straight and never have any neck problems. Office chair: Sit up straight! What sounds like an order from back in the day at school, has a serious background. Having a good chair to sit on is very (yes, very!) important. I used to have a cheap chair which once caused me a huge back pain that forced me to call the emergency because I could not move any more, I was in so much back pain. In hospital, I was given an injection and I was sent to a physiotherapist for a few weeks who helped me get out of pain and told me to buy a better chair and move more during the day. I then spent 300 Euros on an office chair which is the minimum amount you should spend on a good chair, I think. Additionally, I spent another 20 Euros on a special seating cushion that I have been sitting on for a few hours every day ever since. Sitting on that cushion makes my back automatically work its muscles to sit up straight. I sit on it for an hour, put it away again for an hour, sit on it again for an hour and so on. This way, I make sure that I won’t get back problems any more. Watch this video at 4:00 to see my seating cushion: Daylight: Computer screens are back-lit, so they make your eyes tired easily. Make sure, you are surrounded by daylight. In the evenings or when it’s dark, switch a second light source on (the light from your computer screen is not enough), so you won’t get tired so easily. TIP #5: GIVE DISTRACTIONS NO CHANCE In order to work efficiently and get stuff done, you must make sure that you can concentrate. Hence, any distractions are bad and cost you time, nerves and energy. Studies have shown that every single distraction costs up to 20 minutes of concentration time to mentally get fully back into your project you’re currently working on. Stay focused. How to achieve this in times of WhatsApp? Make sure you get no notifications on your phone (no sound and no notification banner popping up on your screen when you get an email, a Facebook or WhatsApp message). It should be an extra effort for you to check WhatsApp on your phone so you don’t check it so often. The best thing would be to have times during the day where you force yourself not to check WhatsApp or social media. Example: no social media and WhatsApp from 9 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 6 pm. Believe me, you will get so much more done at work. You think that’s not possible? Think again. Are you an emergency doctor? Will the world end if you don’t reply to an email, WhatsApp or Facebook message straight away? Unless you are an emergency doctor, the answer is: no. So focus on your work and put your energy and time into what brings you food on the table and pays your rent: your work. TIP #6: BE CONSEQUENT Be consequent with yourself and people around you. After ten years of working from home I have come to the conclusion: Unfortunately, many people think that working from home means holiday or something like that. This compared with the (how I call it) WhatsApp mentality nowadays, can be a big problem for your business as you will lose a lot of valuable time and concentration what in the end causes you a lot of stress. Remember: Every single distraction costs up to 20 minutes of concentration time to mentally get fully back into your project you’re currently working on. If you give in and answer every private message or phone call during your set work times at home, you will find yourself in a position of not having finished your work by the time you are supposed to finish it, which then leads to working long evenings and having no free time any more to recover and clear your mind. Over time, this can become dangerous and even lead to a burnout scenario in the worst case. So be consequent with yourself and others. If people around you don’t understand you actually work from home, it’s their problem, not yours. They don’t have to understand it, but they have to accept it and you have to make them accept it by setting the right signals. Enjoy working from home! I’m curious to hear your experiences with working from home. Simply share them on my social media channels or in the comments box under this blog article.

The ongoing Corona crisis is hitting the world incredibly hard - in terms of health, private and social life (#socialdistancing), emotions and economy. Even though all this is terrible, there are still some positive and interesting aspects worth mentioning. THE TREND INDICATOR FOR THE ECONOMY The economy is marching towards dark times. DAX and Dow Jones, for example, are suffering from massive losses. 9 March 2020 is called the "black Monday" among stock exchange traders . However, it’s interesting to see a very slow and hesitant recovery of the stock exchange market since many governments worldwide put drastic measurements like a ban on going out into place. Of course, the stock exchange is still miles away from looking positive again though. The commencing economic crisis is hitting particularly entrepreneurs, businesses and freelancers very hard. Ongoing projects are cancelled or being put on hold by clients, new business is breaking away altogether. Especially freelancers have it extremely hard these days , as they are often the first ones whose contracts get cancelled. Uncertainty is poison for the economy. And the longer the Corona crisis lasts, the worse. The mood among most entrepreneurs is somewhat like this: "If all this is over after three or four weeks, it’s no drama. If it lasts longer, however, we are running into a huge catastrophy." OSTRICHES, BUTTERFLIES AND BLINDERS What I find very interesting these days: I currently see three totally different moods among entrepreneurs. There are ostriches, butterflies and people with blinders - this is how I would call them. Let me try to describe this: THE OSTRICHES There are the ostriches. Of course they are suffering from their economic basis of existence partly or fully breaking away. For sure a massive problem. A solution? Ostriches don’t want to deal with that. They are too much into their habits and into the things they have always done. Ostriches rather moan and bathe in their self-pity. They bury their head in the sand, bury themselves and, probably, their own business - if only temporarily (in the very best case). Ostriches bury their hand in the sand and leave it like that. THE BUTTERFLIES Butterflies find themselves in the same severe situation like ostriches. However, they quickly learn how to fly and are flexible enough to adjust to wind flows. Butterflies are now investing even more into their own businesses and work on things that they might not have had time for in the past, in order to fully start back into business without (or with hardly any) losses after the Corona crisis. You want examples? Here we go: Where businesses used to have only personal contact with their clients, there are now coachings, consultings and meetings via video conference. Or look at fitness trainers live streaming their sport lessons via Facebook , Instagram etc. to the public or to existing online groups. They add dietary advice and offer recipes, put all that into a package and put a pay button on it for voluntary donations. This way, they are scaling up their business and offer their services to a wider range of potential customers for more profit in the long run - thanks to Corona. I see all this and more in my immediate surroundings. Butterflies are flexible, agile, innovative and keep their chin up. They will very much likely survive and be even stronger after the crisis. There is a word for this: evolution. PEOPLE WITH BLINDERS People with blinders are (currently) not really affected by the crisis. Work continues as always as if nothing has happened. They just work from home at the moment, that’s all. No business is breaking away, there might even be more new business coming in since Corona. Take a look at IT businesses offering WIFI solutions for home offices. Bingo! WHAT IS POSITIVE ABOUT THE CORONA CRISIS? Some entrepreneurs and freelancers who are usually super busy enjoy the imposed pause right now to relax a bit. I have the impression, the mood is "wait and see": Finally there is some time to do things that you normally don’t have time for. I think this is good for many people. New business opportunities will come up. Just think about the daily balcony concerts. They might continue even after the crisis. A creative head will think about a monetization model, I’m sure. I guess more people will start their own business. Now we are forced to have a break from our daily routines. Creative people that have been thinking about starting their own business now have the time capacities and - most of all - the economic necessities for a new start. Change! Awakening! Yes! HOW DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE? How will the world look like after Corona? Less CO2 emissions, less pollution, less toilet paper hoarding? More respect for each other, more satisfaction despite financial worries? I am convinced that companies will offer their employees even more likely to work from home after the Corona crisis. Simply because they see that it works - even though there is room for some adjustments and improvements here and there. This is good for the environment, saves money and it’s good for finding a better balance between work and family, as home office allows for a more flexible time management. The basic mood of many people is somewhat like: "The crisis will be short but fierce. Afterwards, it will go on even better." How this "better" will look like in particular? Futurologists like Horx or the Zukunftsinstitut are publishing their theses. And what about private life? The Corona crises (like any other existential crisis) sharpens our view on life. This is the good thing about the crisis for us as human beings. HOW MORE CREATIVITY CAN HELP US I work in the creative industry. Creative thinking is my bread and butter. This is why I simply know: creative thinking can help us all. Honestly. Beforehand: Creative thinking of course does not substitute a vaccine or other medicine, it does not fill up your bank account with fresh money and it does not take away your worries about your loved ones’ health. Still, creative thinking is the vitamin vaccine for the economy - especially for the time after the health crisis for which many experts are predicting a severe economic crisis. How about new business models? Can you sell my products and services online? Digitalization is massively helping us here. And who is falling behind in this aspect, has now even more valid reason to make up for it. As I said, there might be new business models, new products, new services coming up thanks to the Corona crisis. The current situation can bring as many great things. You just have to (want to) see them. There are certainly businesses that are not helped with digitalization or innovative and creative thinking because the economic basis of existence is really breaking away altogether. However, I’m convinced that this does not have to be the case for many businesses and many ostriches are making their lives only worse by moaning and not doing anything at the moment. I can’t hear all this moaning any more. Roll up your sleeves, actively inform yourself (Information is the best medicine against fear!), think thoroughly, make use of support programs your government might offer you - then many ostriches can become beautiful butterflies. This article is promoting creative thinking - and acting. Now more than ever before. Creative thinking allows for more flexible actions. This is an important ingredient for success in all areas of life, not only in the Corona crisis. And one last thing: Please stay at home. It can, and it will, save lives. Aaaand, I have something really useful for you: My 6 personal tips for making working from home a real pleasure.

On 28 and 29 February 2020, Martin Grödl from Process - Studio for Art and Design OG (Vienna, Austria) held an exciting workshop on generative design in the WEI SRAUM Designforum Tirol . As I’m a big fan of data visualization (in a private and business aspect!) and create great infographic designs for my clients , that workshop of course caught my interest within a second. WHAT IS GENERATIVE DESIGN? I personally would describe the term "generative design" most probably like this: Data is visualized systematically based on design parameters you define. Those definitions happen via programming in JavaScript or other coding languages. The data can be displayed in a static or interactive way, you can for example hover the mouse over an element or click an element. We learned some basics of P5 which belongs to the Processing coding language and created some simple designs. A few of my very first P5 sketches can be seen below. Please click on each image to open it in a separate window to see the interactive animation work. Hover over with your mouse and have fun! I’m most proud of my smilie that I came up with during a break (please click on the smilie) : Nothing compares to having some fun while programming, right? ;-) MY CONCLUSION The workshop was well received and fully booked. That once more shows how important data visualization has become. This is not surprising thinking of the amount of data being generated, stored and processed daily worldwide. Martin Grödl and WEI SRAUM gave us workshop participants some great and hands-on insights into generative design with P5. Thank you!

What has been leaking through for a few years and what I have been taking into account in all my website projects for my clients from the very start, Google now officially puts into practice: mobile first indexing is coming in September 2020. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Whereas Google crawled and ranked a website’s desktop version in the past, Google will use a website’s mobile phone version to crawl, index and rank a website from September 2020 onwards. Hence: If content A and content B are important for you and you have A and B on your website’s desktop version, but only content A on your website’s mobile version (due to space limitations maybe), your website will be found for content A, but NOT for content B any more. Your website ranking in the Google search will go down because of that. Let me quote Google here: "WARNING: If it’s your intention that the mobile page should have less content than the desktop page, you can expect some traffic loss when your site is enabled mobile-first indexing, since Google can't get as much information from your page as before." IS MOBILE REALLY AS IMPORTANT AS EVERYBODY SAYS? Sistrix mentioned in a recent blog article that Google already switched to mobile first indexing automatically for about 70 per cent of all websites as the Googlebot found out that websites already fulfill mobile expectations and standards. On the other hand, that means, that approximately 30 per cent of all websites are not ready for mobile yet - we’re talking about millions of websites here that will have to be worked on in the upcoming months. However, it’s wrong to believe that most people visit a website using their smartphone. Simply take a look at your Google Analytics or other tracking tools. There are massive differences between B2C and B2B as well as regional discrepancies. Checking your website’s analytics will give you more insight on that. However, mobile first indexing is definitely a very important aspect to consider for all web designers and website owners. HOW DO I KNOW IF MY WEBSITE IS OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE OR NOT? The Google Search Console gives you the answer. If you have no idea what this means, simply ask your web designer. The following screenshot shows what the Google Search Console has to say about my website www.hcg-corporate-designs.com : "Nutzerfreundlichkeit auf Mobilgeräten > 0 Fehler". That’s German and translates: "User friendliness on mobile devices > 0 errors". That’s how it should be and how it definitely MUST be by September 2020 if you want your website still to be found, indexed and ranked by Google. WHAT HAS TO BE DONE? Same content on desktop and mobile version! This is the key. And I’m not only talking about the content (copy and images), but also titles, meta tags and ALT text for images for your SEO optimization. The best content on your website is useless if it can’t be found on mobile and won’t be seen and indexed by Google. The challenge is to use the small space of your smartphone display wisely and place as much content as possible on as little space as necessary. Well, happy designing, I would say! If you want to skip the headache, hire a professional to create your website which is 100 % fit for mobile first indexing.

Since the CJEU judgment of October 1, 2019 (see my blog article about its effect on all websites in the EU), the term "cookies" is associated with headache among web designers and online marketers. I implemented a legally compliant cookie consent banner solution for my customers. This means that all website visitors are informed about the type and use of cookies right from the start and have the option of only accepting technically necessary cookies or additional cookies for preferences, statistical and marketing purposes as well. In the data protection section of the website, the visitors are also informed which cookies are set specifically and how long they are stored. In addition, every website visitor can change his or her cookie settings easily at any time. COOKIES AND GOOGLE ANALYTICS Since the use of legally compliant cookie consent banners, user numbers shown in Google Analytics have of course decreased. Not because there are fewer website visits, but because they are no longer tracked due to the lack of a cookie consent on the part of website visitors. This represents a massive problem for online marketers, who often feel threatened in their right to exist and therefore often ignore the cookie consent obligation and thus run into legal issues. Well, it's a dilemma: "Google Analytics in combination with a legally compliant cookie consent banner is like buying a Lamborghini and sneaking through the city at a speed of 30 km/h.“ MORE AND MORE COOKIE CONSENT BANNERS Over time, you notice that more and more companies are becoming aware of their duty and are implementing legally compliant cookie consent banners on their websites. Fortunately, this goes hand in hand with a higher acceptance of cookies on the part of users, as I hear from online marketers. SMART COOKIE BANNER DESIGN I use Cookiebot for the legally compliant cookie consent solution for my website customers. For a few months now, Cookiebot has been offering more options for buttons in the cookie consent banner, which my customers benefit from. Up until a few months ago, preference, statistics and marketing cookies had to be selected separately and be confirmed by a click on the "OK" button. At this time, the cookie consent topic was still relatively unknown and many users felt overwhelmed, which is why there was hardly any user consent. Hence: hardly any tracking in Google Analytics. More options in the Cookiebot backend now allow for a much easier user consent: there are two buttons - one for "only technically necessary cookies", which I design in a subtle way, and one for "allow all cookies", which I design prominently for preference, statistics and marketing cookies altogether. If I take a closer look at the backend in the cookie consent solution on my customers' websites, I can see a significant increase in user consent (in green below). The user consent to all cookies (green) now exceeds the user consent to the only technically necessary cookies (red). CONCLUSION A smart cookie banner design significantly increases tracking in Google Analytics and thus helps your website analysis. Your online marketer will be delighted.