August 6, 2019 — Being a blogger sounds like fun, but not when you are staring at an empty calendar you have committed to filling with content. April will walk you through planning your content for the next 12 months, so you always know what you are writing about. Walk away with a solid plan and the confidence to start creating great value for your readers.

Takeaways:

A Content Plan
Ideas for repurposing content
Ideas for delegating content tasks

August 6, 2019 — Typography is a pillar of good design. Good typography is legible. We’ll go over some of the design fundamentals for typography. Then, we’ll go over the concepts of fluid typography and using dynamic units to set your typestyles.

Takeaways:
Typography basics for legibility
Fluid web design
Differences in web and print typography

August 6, 2019 — In my 15 years of overall web dev experience, 10 years of direct WP work, I still see the same mistakes being made. Image sizes. In my opinion, this is one of the quickest ways to bring a great website to its demise. So I’d like to highlight the importance of web-sized and dimension photos, the impact it has on your hosting server, and how to better handle uploading pics moving forward.

Takeaways:
What images to use where
Image dimensions and sizes for websites
Server load and overall website processes attributed to loading images

August 6, 2019 — SVG may have been overlooked in the past due to poor browser support, however, SVG1.1 is now fully supported in all evergreen browsers. SVG is crisp on any screen, responsive by nature and is seriously cool, with nifty features like grouping, stoke and fill, and filters. Oh and the ability to easily animate, Who doesn’t love a good SVG animation?

Even if you’ve never used SVG before, come learn how to get started with this amazing element. We’ll see what all those features actually do, we’ll look at how all that code in an SVG file draws a shape and best practices for formatting your SVG code.

Takeaways:
In this talk, we will discuss the why, when, and how of using SVG’s (Scalable Vector Graphics) in your project. At code42, we decided to exclusively use SVG’s for iconography and logos across all our production websites. I will share what we learned throughout this process, the use cases, edge cases, best cases, and worst cases. Also, we will take an in-depth look at the anatomy of an SVG. Finally, we will compare capabilities SVG vs .png, CSS, JavaScript. You will leave this talk excited and prepared to implement SVG’s in your next project.

August 6, 2019 — Do you use photos on your website and social media? Are those photos helping or hurting your business? Join us as a professional photographer, Maryann Davidson reveals the subconscious messages we send potential clients with the photos we use. Your photos can turn people away or inspire them to connect with you. The right photographs can actually give you a competitive edge.

Takeaways:

Learn how the photos you use on your website and social media can CONNECT WITH and ENGAGE your target audience
Make your marketing strategy more EFFECTIVE
Communicate your value, and give you a COMPETITIVE EDGE.

August 6, 2019 — This session will cover several tools available in the GSuite that can be used to manage your business including strategies on how to manage client information, prepare and gather the website content, even how to manage your phone calls! I’ll go over the Gsuite in general and also add in some tips and tricks with Google that will BLOW YOUR MIND!

Takeaways:

Overview of Gsuite and how it can be used for business Tips to let Google work for you and save you timeAh Ha Moments to make you realize GSuite is awesome

Presentation Slides »

August 6, 2019 — How to design websites for both search engines and for your customers.

Takeaways:
We will cover the importance of wireframing, site speed, mobile-first design, branding, clarity of marketing messages and CTAs, ADA compliance, competitor research (and using analytics), user personas, journey mapping and earning trust thru specific guidelines to improve your UX.

Graphics Expertise: the design, exportation, and use of scalable vector graphics (also .png .jpgs) files, for both retina display and faster load times. Learn about .svg codes – displaying logos with nothing but code!

Presentation Slides »

August 5, 2019 — Lightning talk. Lessons learned from working remotely (mostly with WordPress) while on a two year road trip.

August 5, 2019 — There is a lot of talk today in the WordPress world about using a content-first approach to design. And, while that is one reason to use a content-first approach, it is not really the most compelling reason. In this session I will share how to implement a content-first website development approach that prevents project delays, increases project productivity, and thereby increases your overall project return on investment.

Takeaways:

How to structure a project to prevent the client from holding it hostage over content.
The 5 Steps of Content Collection
6 Content-First Best Practices

Presentation Slides »

August 5, 2019 — If you can never seem to find time to redesign your own website or launch a new service because you’re too busy with client work… you’re not alone, and this talk is for you!

Takeaways:

Better understanding of why it’s so hard to move our businesses forward when we’re busy with client workA clear strategy to address this very common issueThe motivation to make it happen!

Presentation Slides »