Logo Lounge Logo Trends

I found this great article from logolounge.com regarding logo design trends in 2007. Take peak at http://www.logolounge.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=540. The above is an image from the "Flora" trend section of their article (I love this style).

chris bolmeier's work

My aunt emailed me today with a link to her blog. I was so moved by this particular work she painted. I think the subject matter is so sincere, yet candid. Plus I really enjoy the irony of the cherries resting on the nose in contrast to the cigarette in the mouth. Beautiful piece! To see more of her work, click on the title of this post or navigate to the links palette of this blog.

food for thought

Here's a great quote I saw today from artist Scott Adams: "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."

I was also very moved by this one:
"It's not a matter of painting life, it's a matter of giving life to painting." -Pierre Bonnard

when it comes to family & friends

Every Tuesday I partake in my local area Chamber of Commerce Leads Group. Only one professional from each field is allowed and we discuss each other's services and try to pass referrals. It's a great way to get my company's name in the public eye and to have a few colleagues who know who I am and what my company is all about. From time to time, we tend to get astray and chit chat about random trivialities.

Today, we got on the topic of doing business with family and friends. Someone had pointed out that they stay away from offering their services to their nearest and dearest all together because it never quite works out. Another individual then spoke up and stated that when working with family and friends, she never receives her worth. In other words, when choosing between a job with a random business client and a family member who expects a discount on services, she would go for the business client.

Why is it that our close friends and even extended family members are so proud of us for being entrepeneurs and so excited to refer us, but when it comes to needing a service or a good themselves, they somewhat discredit us by wanting it for less? Is that ethical?

From the flip side, as a small business owner, I have to be honest and say that I would feel terribly guilty if I didn't give a discount to friends and family. While I'm not concerned that they would see me as cheap or greedy if I didn't, it would be me who felt like I was doing something wrong. This is what bothers me- that I feel guilty for asking for my going rate. I don't think I should have to work for less based on who the client is. All clients should be charged the same rate. But is that fair to our friends and family then, after they have been a great source of support and refferals?

What's all this talk about SEO?

So, a lot of people ask me about SEO. What is it? What does it do? How can people get traffic to their website?

Pretty much SEO is a short little acronym used for "Search Engine Optimization." All this really means is fixing up your site on the back-end (in the code) to be more compatible with search engines. What does this mean?

First, I am by no means a certified expert in Search Engine Optimization or Sumbission. However, I do know that there are some gorgeous websites out there and a lot of people don't even know that they exist. This is simply because when someone types in a search on Google, Yahoo search, etc., their site isn't popping up. These search engines "crawl" through sites on the Internet looking for a match to what the user typed into the search.

How come some websites aren't being found and others are? There are many answers for this. One, is that the website is not search engine optimized. To do this, a web developer or programmer simply adds key words or phrases to the code of your website. This is the first place a search engine, like Google, will look for a match. If it can't find anything there, it then crawls through the whole site looking at content on pages, link and button names, etc. Anything it can find to make that match. If keywords and content are not written to properly help a search engine out, then it makes your site harder to find.

Another reason, is that websites that are made entirely in Flash are difficult to discover. Previously, I had said that the computer looks in the actual content of your site for matches to what the user typed into the search engine. Since Flash websites are made in an extenstive animation program and are not built using text and code, search engines cannot "crawl" through them to look for the key matches.

There are many other possibilities your site may not be showing up as much as it should. Remember, there are millions of sites to compete with so even a fantastically optimized site may have a hard time. The best way I have found to get traffic to your website is to print your web address one everything - your business cards, brochures, the signature of your email, the footer of your contracts, etc. Any way that you can get your web address in front of people is beneficial to your traffic flow.

Design by Committee

I was visting one of my favorite design blogs today, Speak Up, and found a very interesting article right on the homepage. It talks about the concept designers refer to as "design by committee" (a.k.a. working with two or more clients that take such an active interest in the graphic design process that they offer their "helping hands").

While many designers, including myself, view the client's input as a valuable tool and seek it out, others may feel that they are not being allowed to use their creativity to the fullest extent; that the client is simply "holding them back." The following is an excerpt from Speak Up's blog:

"Realistically, they are the group of people you work with, to varying degrees of involvement, from the start of a project until the end. Whether they are note-takers, brand managers, vice presidents or CEOs, they are the people that you talk to and e-mail with, they are the ones that brief you on the project and sit through the presentations of your work, they are responsible for informing your process and ensuring that the work is beneficial to their organization… they are the ones you celebrate with once the project is completed. They are real and they make or break your days, weeks, months and years. And this is why using “designed by committee” as an insult or an explanation for poor work, even if meant as a joke, is detrimental to our profession, and perhaps an underlying thread of why graphic designers are less prone to be taken seriously — if we don’t respect the decisions made by those we work with, why would anyone want to respect ours?"

I find it rare to see an article like this. Sadly, many design magazines and blogs promote the opinion and expertise of the designer and downplay the thoughts of the client. While clients may not be trained in the field of design, they are trained in their occupation and in their business. How can designers design if there are not clients with a thorough enough understading of their position/company to relay this information to us?

I recall being told by a college professor once that if clients are unhappy with a design and are resorting to "tweaks" such as, "make this bigger", "move this to the top", "can we use a darker red?", that the cause is usually one of two things. One, there is something wrong with the design. It's noticable to them. They just can't quite put their finger on it, or don't know how to say it. Tweaking is their remedy.

The other cause may be that the client isn't getting the right "feeling" about their business/service from the material. It lacks a warmth or a sense of class, for example, that should be there.

While I believe that it is the designer's job to visually communicate the client's objectives through design and that the client should trust these abilities, I also believe two heads are always better than one. And if you, as the design professional, can communicate effectively enough with your clients to have them understand your concept and rationale, then the process shouldn't be a headache. It should be an enjoyable challenge to find the design solution with your client.