Please use our blog to communicate and network with us and other users of this site for information and tips on website design and development. We’re actually a graphic design company called The Creative Workshop and are based in the south of England just outside the village of Goudhurst in Kent, close to: Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone, Ashford, Hastings, Eastbourne, Tonbridge, Sevenoaks, right in the heart of the south east.
We’re an easy to talk to company, our business has grown organically over the last fourteen years, based on a good solid working relationship with our customers and suppliers, so feel to join our online community.
So if you have a question regarding any area of graphic design for print or web, please use our blog.

Please use the comments link directly below to leave us feedback and messages. We’d love to hear from you.

If you’re starting a new business, we have a great and affordable ‘Business Starter Pack’ which will assist you in setting up a new company logo, stationery (including business card and letterheads) and website. For further details, call Colin on 01580 212676.

Turn your printed magazine, newsletter or catalogue into a unique online digital version without it eating into your profits.
An interactive PDF is a dynamic and cost-effective alternative to the mainstream, with no hosting or contract costs for your publication or organisation – keeping your costs to a minimum.

We are offering 50% off your first conversion. Example: 70 page magazine conversion is normally only £119.00, offer price would be an amazing £59.50.

We convert your traditional printed product into an attractive digital version, giving your subscribers the flexibility to access your publication content wherever they are. Follow the link to view a sample.
Interactive PDFs benefit from being accessible by just about any computer or modern hand-held device. Just like a web page you can include a navigation menu or click-through options, which is a simple way to get your reader to interact with your content, leading them to be more inquisitive about what you have to say and offer… read more

An update to the earlier icon pack, now with a glassy theme in vector available free from Kent based Creative Websites 4u.

Here are just a few icons we hope may help to enhance your website, please feel free to change the colours to suit your design style and use for your own creative website design.

Here’s a small preview of what’s available in the pack:

You can download the icons as SVG and EPS files from here

Due to the poularity of downloads of the footballer halftone theme we’ve decided to expand on this a little with a larger pack for your use. Here are a total of 6 jpg halftone files to use as you please. We hope you find these useful.

Here’s the preview:

Download all 6 JPG halftones here

Continuing with the halftone theme…

These free generic mono halftone images can be used in a number of ways to create a dynamic background or image layer. You can download as many as you want completely free…

Here’s a quick preview:

Download the complete pack of 9 different halftone patterns here

Download free web icons that you can use to help promote your organisation and services.

Here are just a few icons we hope may help to enhance your website, please feel free to change the colours to suit your style.

Here’s a small preview of what’s available in the pack:

You can grab the Vector file and SVG from here

Download free web banner backgrounds that you can use to help promote your organisation and services.

Advertising on any web page can be challenging, getting the viewer to visually acknowledge your advert is crucial. We’ve put a few banner backgrounds together that are aimed at being colourful and attractive, yet easy to overlay your logo and message.

Here’s a sneak preview:

Grab the SVG and Vector files here

If you’re about to join the online community and need to produce a website, I’m sure you have many questions and reservations. We’ve listed below our top 25 tips hoping this will lead you in the right direction.

1 Define your goals
Why do you need a website? What do I want the website to achieve! It’s important to know exactly what your goals are. Have a clear strategy of exactly what your intentions are.

2 Know your audience
Try to imagine yourself as a visitor to your own site, be critical, does it work! If you can’t find what you need, how will a new visitor.

3 Register your domain
Choose your domain carefully, does it reflect your company identity or what your selling. You can buy your domain before creating your website, so if your chosen domain is available, buy it, don’t wait.

4 Design
If you have a company or organisation style, use this as a basis to the design of your site. This will easily be recognised by visitors who are aware of you already.

5 Style – how you look does matter
Make your site look professional and well thought out, it only takes a second for a visitor to not be impressed and move onto another website.

6 Don’t hide what you sell
What you do or sell is important so don’t hide crucial elements behind unimportant pages, make sure the user doesn’t have to spend time finding what they want, they will move on.

7 Good content
The first few words on your website are critical and a short statement containing keywords will help the search engines find you easily, improving your search engine performance.

8 Easy to read
Most people browse over website content so make it easy to read, straight to the point.

9 Avoid too much text
Don’t be tempted to write a novel, keep it short and sweet.

11 Keep images small
Images are great, but keep them small. They can slow down your page loading, visitors hate it and so do search engines.

12 Easy navigation
A well thought out navigation is essential for visitors to find their way around your site.

13 Contact details – make them clear.

14 Make hyperlinks easy to identify
Display hyperlinks in a consistent manner throughout your site, so visitors quickly get a feel for how it works.

15 Speed
Ensure your website loads quickly, visitors will quickly loose patience and move to another site. Search engines don’t promote slow to load sites.

16 Email mailing list
Encourage visitors to subscribe to an email subscription for latest news/products – this customer opt-in facility will generate a database for you.

17 Links
Have links to informative sites, search engines like genuine links and will help with your ranking.

18 Browser compatibility
Make sure all your visitors see the same information correctly. Check your website works in all the popular browsers and their relative versions.

19 SEO – no tricks, follow the rules
There’s no quick fix or cheat, use the SEO guidelines properly, continually working at keeping your site up-to-date and finding out what your potential visitors will be asking the search engines and adjust your content.

20 Web analytics – look at how people will find your site
Use analytic software to view how people arrived at your site and what they asked the search engines.

21 Encourage browsing
Encourage the visitor to go further into your site with promotional hooks and benefits. Make them inquisitive to find out more.

22 Test your site
Before going live test your site with friends and people in your network. Get feedback.

23 Keep your content updated regularly
Update your content regularly, returning visitors will want to know what’s new and search engines promote well kept and updated sites.

24 Be confident
Plan out your goals, look at your competitors, learn what works and what doesn’t and get started.

25 Getting started
Strike while the iron is hot! Call us on 01580 212676 and let’s get started on your new website