![\"08website-TDS1\"](\"http:\/\/www.simpletwig.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/08website-TDS1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOur first website in 1998, complete with ‘roll-over’ buttons. ‘The Drawing Studio’ is now SimpleTwig Rendering.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Today SimpleTwig has a very robust web presence and making it work wasn’t an accident. \u00a0The core of our network is our Architecture and Rendering portfolio websites. \u00a0Branching off these core components are several other components that make up the entire network, some branches important and encourage participation, others less important by relevance.<\/p>\n
Our second website. 2002. ‘The Drawing Studio’ is now SimpleTwig Rendering.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For instance, on our ‘today’s’ website we encourage people to find us on SimpleTwig FaceBook Page and subscribe to our blog\u00a0(links in the right column, by the way, please like and subscribe :). \u00a0Both these avenues provide an opportunity for visitors to enjoy updates and get information on topics that are related to architecture and are interesting. \u00a0Therefore these high-priority links are ‘at the top’ and easily accessed. \u00a0Secondary components include our forum, twitter, youtube, vimeo, pinterest, flickr and LinkedIn accounts\/profiles. \u00a0These secondary accounts are fundamental ‘foundation’ accounts that allow us to disseminate information towards our primary targets, our website, FaceBook and Blog.<\/p>\n Of course these accounts are linked. \u00a0That is, if I upload a video to YouTube, it gets automatically announced on FaceBook and on Twitter. \u00a0The same goes if a topic is created on our Forum. \u00a0Why have a forum? \u00a0A forum is a great place for someone to come and discuss various topics, or for us to coordinate with large clients and consultants privately\u2026 to share documents, concerns, problems, solutions.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n NYSR (New York Society or Renderers, Inc.) website design by SimpleTwig:<\/strong><\/p>\n 2001 website design for NYSR by SimpleTwig.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Understanding Hierarchy: On the NYSR website above, you’ll notice that member names are put first, and equally, on the front page. \u00a0This gives each member and equal opportunity \u00a0to be discovered and encourages visitors to try each link. \u00a0The NYSR center image changes to individual member images once a link is clicked.<\/p>\n You’ll notice in the current version of NYSR this hierarchical relationship still exists although the N, Y, S, R organizational component of member images was lost.<\/p>\n Updated NYSR website 2004 is the foundation for todays NYSR website by SimpleTwig.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n (continued\u2026)<\/p>\n Our Blog allows us to pre-assemble articles for release at a later date. \u00a0All articles that are released get automatically feed to our Twitter and FaceBook accounts.<\/p>\n So what’s so important about the Blog? \u00a0Well for one, we have our blog hosted at simpletwig.com. \u00a0This means when Google, Bing and others send a bot to see ‘what’s new’ they discover new content when an article is released. \u00a0This is important for getting one’s company name to appear higher in search results. \u00a0Lets face it, if your company doesn’t appear on the first page of a search then you probably will not get a phone call from that potential client. \u00a0This is also why there’s a FaceBook feed directly on this blog: new content. \u00a0Besides doing these obvious things, one also has to insert Google code into one’s website host in order for Google to verify that you are the real owner of a particular site, and thus a legitimate website worthy of scanning.<\/p>\n NYSR blog by SimpleTwig Web, 2012.<\/p>\n Website Functionality:<\/strong> \u00a0It’s important to make one’s website easy to navigate. \u00a0Despite the robustness of our website we think we have succeeded. \u00a0Our core, architecture and rendering, is each situated on 3 pages with links to each page at both the top and bottom, so one can easily view our previous work. \u00a0There are no thumbnails or extra navigating required by the user. In fact, besides the splash page (an intersection leading to the separate roads of architecture or rendering), the first page of each website is the portfolio itself. \u00a0No need to click on ‘portfolio’ and thus one less link to click = easy navigation. \u00a0Further, while each core, architecture versus rendering, is similar in layout, the architecture website has a white background while the rendering has a dark theme (more appropriate for renderings), thus clearly distinguishing between both sites.<\/p>\n While the secondary links to outside resources are important, so are tertiary links like our ‘legal,’ ‘usage,’ and ‘privacy’ terms. \u00a0These, along with the Forum, FaceBook, Twitter, Blog and even our graphics services called SimpleTwig Web all require special coding that allows those links to open in a new window.<\/p>\n For instance, this is the normal code for a button link:<\/p>\n <a href=”https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SimpleTwig” onmouseout=”MM_swapImgRestore()” onmouseover=”MM_swapImage(‘Image33′,”,’architecture_images\/z_top_links\/images\/05-on-facebook.gif’,1)”><img src=”architecture_images\/z_top_links\/images\/05-facebook.gif” alt=”facebook” width=”99″ height=”64″ id=”Image33″ \/><\/a><\/p>\n In order to add the function of opening this in a new browser window, one must add\u00a0\u00a0‘target=”_blank”‘ in the correct spot within this code for it to work properly.<\/p>\n <a href=”https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SimpleTwig” onmouseout=”MM_swapImgRestore()” onmouseover=”MM_swapImage(‘Image33′,”,’architecture_images\/z_top_links\/images\/05-on-facebook.gif’,1)” target=”_blank”><img src=”architecture_images\/z_top_links\/images\/05-facebook.gif” alt=”facebook” width=”99″ height=”64″ id=”Image33″ \/><\/a><\/p>\n And of course, this code is also a roll-over so that visitors recognize there is a link. \u00a0This image shows you some of what we do for the hundreds of pages and images we create to make a robust website, all fully functional without mistakes to ensure the website preforms on all browsers, IE being the hardest to ‘fix’ to make work.<\/p>\n Roll-overs are an important component of any website. \u00a0Many can be done easily with text, like, in the image above, the words ‘Residential,’ ‘Commercial,’ and ‘Art’ are simple text rollovers, done in Adobe’s DreamWeaver under Modify>Page Properties>Links by selecting the link colors. \u00a0Still, when on a page, and in the example above you can see we are on \u00a0the ‘Commercial’ page because the word is highlighted, it is a bit more tricky to remove that ‘Commercial’ link (because the user is already on the page so doesn’t need a link) and then ‘color’ the word using CSS so that it becomes highlighted, thus informing the user which page they are looking at and which pages they still need to visit to see the entire portfolio.<\/p>\n At the top of the page, one sees ‘image based roll-over links.’ \u00a0This is accomplished by making two images, one that’s ‘on’ and one that’s ‘off.’ \u00a0Again, when the user is on the page in question, one needs to remove the link and highlight the word, thus removing the roll-over. \u00a0This too can be tricky and is basically a time consuming effort to place each ‘button’ individually so that all mouse-overs and links work properly without interfering with it’s neighbor.<\/p>\n While Adobe’s DreamWeaver is a robust program, it’s usefulness\u00a0depends on the users knowledge of the program. \u00a0It’s important to layout a design for the website and be sure to understand it’s hierarchical relationships with other pages, and it’s purpose driven functionality to the end user. \u00a0Then, one can create a template either using Photoshop > DreamWeaver, or do a layout directly in DreamWeaver adding Photoshop component images as required. \u00a0A template is the foundation for a working website, as it ensures that every page will function \u00a0the same way as a previous page without having components ‘bounce around’ when a new page loads.<\/p>\n Robust means inserting ‘extras’ into your website: \u00a0Here you can see we’ve even created a Google Map that shows were all of our projects are located around the world. \u00a0Some are Architectural (yellow) and some Rendering (purple). \u00a0For SimpleTwig this map is important to convey an idea, that we are sought out by people from around the world to work on their project, no matter the program.<\/p>\n This is because we see ourselves as ‘real Architects’ that can look at almost any program and all the best solution to evolve through the design process.<\/p>\n Copyright and Protection:<\/strong> \u00a0We learned a lot about protecting oneself with those early websites. \u00a0I abandoned the company name ‘The Drawing Studio’ (http:\/\/drawingstudio.com<\/a>) in 2010 because too many people were ripping us off, taking our images, our client list and attacking (hacking) our site with malware (it’s clean, take a look, if you get a warning let us know).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n