Drew Coffin - Practical Ecommerce

Articles by: Drew Coffin

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Drew Coffin

Drew Coffin is editorial coordinator for Web Marketing Today. He is also an experienced graphic designer who has worked freelance on a number of web projects and currently manages GLHF Apparel. In addition to his design work, Coffin studied Integrated Marketing Communications at the University of Idaho and is currently studying Theology at Whitworth University.

Design & Development
Psychology and Web Design

August 15, 2013 • Drew Coffin

Our psychology affects how we interact with websites. Designers can use this to their advantage. Here are a few ways to use psychology when designing your site.
Platforms & Apps
4 Comment Systems: Pros and Cons

June 27, 2013 • Drew Coffin

In “What to Look for in a Comment System,” I described features like comment moderation, analytics, social integration, and dashboard settings. In this post I will review four popular comment systems and discuss the highlights of each.
Schools & Resources
10 Examples of Storytelling in Web Design

March 15, 2013 • Drew Coffin

In "Storytelling in Web Design," I explained the three most basic aspects of storytelling — character, setting, and action — and offered ways to begin including storytelling in web design using basic design elements. In this article, I will examine ten sites that use storytelling and list the character, setting, and action found in each story.
Schools & Resources
10 Creative Contact Pages

February 21, 2013 • Drew Coffin

Contact pages facilitate questions from visitors, and otherwise help prospects locate your business or connect via social media. A well-designed, creative page with easy-to-find information encourages interactions, which can lead to sales. Here are 10 creative contact pages. Lionway...
Design & Development
Color Psychology and Ecommerce

February 6, 2013 • Drew Coffin

Color affects our moods and states of mind. It can influence customer buying habits, making color psychology an important part of ecommerce. This article will address color psychology basics and ways you can use color psychology with your ecommerce efforts.
Design & Development
Using Creative QR Codes

January 29, 2013 • Drew Coffin

QR codes can be used to display text, store product information, or direct users to websites. Most smartphones can scan QR codes with a built-in camera and a barcode scanner app. This makes QR codes an effective way to connect with customers. The problem with QR codes is they are often bulky and unattractive.
Design & Development
6 Tips for Newsletter Subscription Forms

December 21, 2012 • Drew Coffin

An email list is one of the best ways to connect with shoppers, announce new products, and promote sales. A key part of building a mailing list is having a compelling newsletter signup form. While different sites display newsletter signup forms in different ways, examining newsletter signup forms from around the web reveals several common practices.
Schools & Resources
Learning from Bad Web Design

September 14, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Recognizing bad web design is often easy. But it can be difficult to know what makes it bad. In this article I will give you examples of bad web design and explain what good design practices could be used instead. Note that many of these examples are extreme cases of bad web design and there is more than one mistake in each example image.
Design & Development
18 Websites Featuring Beautiful Illustrations

July 24, 2012 • Drew Coffin

In "10 Web Design Trends for 2012," I listed large illustrations as a growing trend in web design. Website illustrations can add personality to even the smallest sites and invite visitors to stay awhile and explore. Here are 18 websites with compelling illustrations.
Marketing & Advertising
13 Sites with Personalized Social Media Icons

June 29, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Many online merchants use social media icons to link their storefronts to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. While basic social media icons will get the job done, some merchants choose to customize their social media icons for a more personalized user experience. Here are thirte...
Design & Development
15 Personalized Shopping Cart Icons

May 28, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Custom icons can help a site design and personalize the online shopping experience. Shopping cart icons are some of the more popular icons to personalize. Here are 15 sites with ...
Schools & Resources
10 Photoshop Skills for Beginners

May 14, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Adobe Photoshop is an incredibly powerful program that allows you to do professional grade image manipulations and adjustments. Whether you want to work with product images or design website layouts, Photoshop has the tools you need to get the job done. However, Photoshop is so powerful...
Conversion
10 Ways to Improve Product Photos

April 3, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Online stores do not have the shelves filled with products for consumers to touch and examine like physical stores do. This makes the use of compelling product images important for online merchants. Here are ten ways to improve your product images. 1. Start With Good Photographs You c...
Design & Development
25 Great Corporate Logos

March 9, 2012 • Drew Coffin

A company logo is often the face of the business. While logos come in a variety of styles, a strong logo will adhere to certain basic principles. Strong logos are unique, balanced, easily identifiable, simple to understand, and easy to read — if they include text. Logos should also be ...
Schools & Resources
Managing a Design Project When You’re Not a Graphic Artist

March 5, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Ecommerce merchants wear many hats. One of them is designing graphics for their websites. In my experience as a freelance graphic artist, I've adopted steps to help me become efficient and productive for each graphic project. I've listed those steps, below, hoping they can help non-pr...
Design & Development
Optimizing Images to Reduce Load Times

February 10, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Not is only a site's load time factored into its search-engine rankings, the longer it takes to load the more likely it will lose visitors. A large percentage of bandwidth usage — especially for ecommerce sites — comes from images. As such, image size is an important component of a site...
Schools & Resources
SVG Images: Sources to Download, Create

January 30, 2012 • Drew Coffin

In "SVG Images: What Merchants Need to Know," I explained the difference between raster and vector images and explained how SVG images use XML to generate perfectly scalable graphics. From that article, recall that raster images can accommodate many more color variations than vector, b...
Design & Development
SVG Images: What Merchants Need to Know

January 17, 2012 • Drew Coffin

Many online merchants are unaware of the benefits of scalable vector graphics, or SVGs. This article will provide a basic overview. Vector vs. Raster Before looking at SVGs, we first need to understand what a “vector” graphic is. There are two types of web graphics: raster and vector....
Design & Development
Creating Color Schemes for Web Design

January 5, 2012 • Drew Coffin

The color-concept terms I discussed in “Understanding Color Theory,” my previous article, will come in useful here while learning about color schemes in web design. First I am going ...
Design & Development
Understanding Color Theory

December 22, 2011 • Drew Coffin

Last month, I wrote about color psychology and its effect on emotions, in "Color Psychology and Online Marketing" and "Color Psychology Showcase." In this article, I am going to discuss color theory, including the terms that describe color. Understanding color theory is useful whether y...
Design & Development
Color Psychology Showcase

November 29, 2011 • Drew Coffin

In “Color Psychology and Online Marketing,” I addressed how different colors and color combinations send different messages. In this article, I’ll list some sites that illustrate this principle. Red Collision Labs Collision Labs ...
Design & Development
Color Psychology and Online Marketing

November 14, 2011 • Drew Coffin

Colors and color combinations send different messages. Oftentimes for websites, colors intuitively create a mood or atmosphere. Color psychology takes this intuition and identifies common themes among certain colors. These color signals can be used to send stronger messages online. Col...
Conversion
Website Showcase: Designing With the Fold

October 31, 2011 • Drew Coffin

In “Designing ‘Above the Fold’ Necessary?,” I offered my thoughts as to how the 600-pixel top "fold" should be viewed today. I also highlighted the importance of site hierarchy — regardless of whether you are designing with the fold. In this article, I will showcase ecommerce sites that...
Design & Development
Designing ‘Above the Fold’ Necessary?

October 18, 2011 • Drew Coffin

Ensuring that customers can easily find important information on a site should be a priority for online merchants. In the past, you may have heard of “designing above the fold” as a way to present important information. While this strategy might have worked in the past, the traditional ...
Typography & Fonts
How Browsers Manage Fonts

October 3, 2011 • Drew Coffin

Last month I wrote “Typography 101: The Basics,” which explained rudimentary aspects of general typography. In this article, I will explore typography on web browsers. In other words, how exactly does a browser handle fonts? Web Safe Fonts First, I want to address web safe fonts. In m...
Typography & Fonts
Typography 101: The Basics

September 20, 2011 • Drew Coffin

Text is the primary method of Internet communication, making web typography important for merchants to understand. This article will cover some of the basics of typography and provide some things to consider while working with text. I’m going to assume that readers are familiar enough...
Schools & Resources
4 Free Photoshop Alternatives: Sources to Learn

August 30, 2011 • Drew Coffin

My suggestions for free Photoshop alternatives we published earlier this month, in “4 Free Photoshop Alternatives for Image Editing.” I described four free Photoshop alternatives — GIMP, Paint.NET, Aviary, and ...
Design & Development
Image Formats: What’s the Difference Between JPG, GIF, PNG?

April 15, 2010 • Drew Coffin

Editor's Note: Ecommerce merchants use complex technologies in their businesses. Merchants do not always need an expert's knowledge of these technologies, but a working, "need to know" understanding can help. To address this need, we've launched our "Need to Know" series, whereby we'll ...
Design & Development
Tutorial: Create Multiple Product Views with SimpleViewer

April 14, 2010 • Drew Coffin

Ecommerce merchants frequently want to display multiple photo views of their products. Many services are available that allow merchants to do this, but often at a price. In this tutorial, I will walk you through setting up and customizing SimpleViewer, a free alternative for creating a...
Design & Development
Tutorial: Removing the Background from Product Photos

March 29, 2010 • Drew Coffin

If you are an online merchant who manages your own product images, knowing the simplest way to remove the background from an image can be helpful. In this video tutorial, I will show you how to quickly and easily isolate a product image from its background using both Adobe Photoshop CS...