In our continued effort to provide a gallery of tutorials for WordPress users, we would like to share the tips around adding images and video to your blog posts. Adding images and video can help enhance the design and appeal of your content. Static content heavy sites are often ignored even if the content is valuable. Using some of these easy tips, you wil be able to add images and video in the admin area of WordPress without knowing any HTML. CPD will continue to release tutorials on WordPress via our YouTube channel, so be sure to check back soon for more info.

Inspiration often comes from those who said it best. Our industry is filled with graphic designers, website designers, and other artists who all have a creative viewpoint (and often philosophical) on their work. Quotes can often give you a different viewpoint on how to achieve your goal. We have put together the top 10 quotes that relate to design and the work we do everyday.

You know you’ve achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away.

~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

~ Albert Einstein

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

~ Steve Jobs

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We have two great promotions running this month at CPD. The first is 1-free month of website hosting on all new accounts setup during the month of November. Learn more about our hosting packages. The second is a $50 discount on business card design. Get a two sided full color design for only $100 (discounted from $150). We will be happy to help work with printers as well based on your needs. For additional detail about these promotions, feel free to give us a call at 858-352-6292.

At CPD we love contemporary art and are always fascinated to see what can be done with the use of existing art techniques like spray paint and new technology. This video is a great representation of the power that graphic design can have in the modern world. What was once looked at as an old warehouse is transformed into a work of art by the work of Bliss N Eso. Check out the behind the scenes look at creating  this video.

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CPD is creating a series of tutorials for beginners using WordPress. These tutorials will be posted on our blog on a weekly basis and will all become available on our YouTube channel. The types of useful tutorials you can expect will include: creating blog posts, adding images and videos to posts, managing page content, creating categories, managing users, etc. Check back soon for more tutorials.

All website designers need a source of inspiration. Often it comes in the form of browsing the web and looking at other designs. Perhaps industry competitors or some of your other favorite designs will spark an idea for the design of a new website. There is one book above all others that I recommend to website designers looking for ideas. The book The Web Designer’s Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Themes, Trends, & Styles in Website Design by Patrick Mcneil, is one of my favorites.
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If you are a website designer, graphic designer, photographer or artist you should get on the Behance Network. Behance is an up and coming social media site that allows creative experts to show off their portfolio of work through a variety of online platforms. Very often, graphic designers and photographers don’t have the web skills to create an online portfolio that has a professional look. Behance allows you to create a portfolio without writing any code and share it with friends.
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Are you spending money in sponsored search? Adwords is Google’s product for managing sponsored search campaigns through pay per click advertising (PPC). If so, Adwords campaigns need to be nurtured and have a daily focus in order to achieve top results. When managing a budget in Adwords, it is important to test various campaigns and settings. Here are a few tips to help improve the success of your online sponsored search campaigns:
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We recently completed a makeover for our good friends in Celebration, FL for The Spas at Celebration. The challenge of this project was to create a unique website that represented two locations that offer similar services and common specials and events. The spas are known as The Spa at Mirasol & The Spa at Front Street.

The importance of user experience can’t be stressed enough. People should be able to navigate a website quickly and easily.
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There are many stock photography sites out on the web and it has always been a challenge to determine which one to use. Web designers and graphic designers like share the challenge of searching for that perfect photo for their vision. Sometimes there is more time spent scrolling through stock photography online than is actually spent coding a website or laying out a template (not kidding). Here are a few sites to consider during your next photo-hunt.
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