Archive for December, 2007
Monday, December 31st, 2007
The source site for this is: http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html
When it comes to Holidays, Google knows how to pass on the spirit. Their logos celebrate throughout the year with their design. If you are trying to get ideas to holiday-up your logo, there is a great place for inspiration, the google holiday logos gallery. You will find all their logos organized by year, starting from 1999. Check them out here.
Have A Happy New Year! Be Safe.
Posted in Logos | No Comments »
Saturday, December 29th, 2007
The source site for this is: http://www.chairslippers.com
Billboards scream their messages to the passers by, some obnactious, some quietly hinting and some simply stating a fact. We see colorfull graphics, photos and black and white designs which are “programmed” to get our attention in their own unique way.
Some websites are the same way, like this one. It is simple, you see a tennis ball in focus, up front and a chair blurred in the background on the right. At first I wondered what this site was about, tennis balls, the wording “slippers”, then after looking around I realized it was slippers for chairs. They take a tennis ball, make a hole in it and slide it onto the leg of the chair so it doesn’t mark the floors.
I love the upper design of layered waves, the logo is very nice and the way they placed the buttons. Very clean and simple. This is a good example site for a billboard style page.
Posted in Headers, Layout/Design, Logos | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
The source site for this is: http://www.actionhead.com
I like the way the background is on this website. The design and the fixed style. This is a good example for this kind of design. Here is a CSS code for making the background fixed, so it doesn’t scroll with the page.
body {
background: #ffcc66 url("graphics/bg.jpg") no-repeat fixed;
margin: 0 0 50px 0;
}
Posted in Backgrounds/Patterns, Programming | No Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
The source site for this is: http://www.ollyhite.com
Airy and hippie yet modern and stylish is what comes to mind when I look at this website. A simple crest design is used here, even looks like it was taken from a clipart collection. Surrounded with some quality design, color and effects the crest becomes a part of the overall header design and a stylish logo.
Posted in Headers, Logos | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Nice leafy background from www.ollyhite.com. Make sure you check out the site and see how it works well with the overall design of the website.
Posted in Backgrounds/Patterns | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
The source site for this is: http://www.inhabitat.com
Ahh, there…I sneaked away for a few minutes to say Merry Christmas! While doing a quick search on Google for a picture of a Christmas Tree, I stumbled upon this one, it’s from inhabitat.com.
Anyway, I hope everyone is having them selves a Merry Christmas. And I hope your’s is a white one cause mine is not. We had about 6 inches of snow 2 days ago and then yesterday, (or was it the day before?) it rained and all the snow has melted. Now we got mud.
I also wanted to thank everyone that reads my rants here. I am open for critisism and your comments. Tell me how I can make this blog more fun/usefull for you in the coming year.
Alrighty, have to get back to the Christmas duties. (Cooking)
Posted in Other | No Comments »
Monday, December 24th, 2007
After discussing what goes into a good logo, I thought it would be fun (and possibly controversial) to put together what we think are the 10 best and 10 worst logos out there. In this first article, I am going to tackle the harder list first. That’s right…the 10 worst logos!
So, here are the picks:
10. This is the brainchild of the London 2012 Olympic committee. Where do you start here? Apparently it comes in a variety of colors. I wonder if a different color will make it easier to see that they are talking about the Olympics occurring in the year 2012! Read more about the ‘inspiration’ behind this logo here. I also came across some information that this logo came with a price tag of $900,000 US! Can anyone verify this fact? Holy cow! I’ll create a new one for them in Paint for 10% of that cost! Ok, I’ll do it with my eyes closed for 5% and I guarantee it will look better!
9. The Big Apple settled on this??! It’s a font nightmare. NYC is full of ‘high design’ and widely considered a marketing supercenter. So, why is THIS the winning design? Check out some of the other submissions displayed at the New York Times blog (I like the Lady Liberty design much, much more than this dull thing).
8. I remember the first time I saw a Pathmark supermarket. Honestly, my impression at the time was…what a stupid logo. 17 years later…I still think the same thing. Pretty boring…
7. I had to include this logo simply because it is so popular on the Internet (or should that be unpopular?). It is consistently listed in everyone’s lists of bad logos. Most of the time it holds the number one slot. By the way…this company is located in Arlington, MA and not in Arlington, TX. I had to protect the great state of Texas. From a simple glance, one can see why it is included on everyone’s lists. It’s terrible!
6. This one just hurts my eyes. This is the logo for Brand Union (I know, you had just as hard of a time trying to recognize those words too). Astonishingly enough, this is a global company. It’s a shame they have such a hard to read logo.
5. Trivia Question: This is the logo for what national sports team? You don’t know? Well, neither would I except that I found it on the NBA’s website. It’s the logo for the Portland Trailblazers. Huh? Would someone kindly enlighten us all as to the history of this terrible logo design? The best association I can come up with is that it sort of looks like a hurricane symbol from The Weather Channel. But, I can’t see any associative properties for the Portland Trailblazers. Foul!
4. Sports logos are a ‘target rich environment’ when it comes to bad logo design. There are only a handful of them that are real, quality, standout logos. This isn’t one of those standouts. First of all, Charlotte was the Hornets. When they moved, they should have undergone a name change (in turn, causing a logo change). What exactly is intimidating about a blue, two toned hornet? How is it associated with New Orleans? Is New Orleans famous for blue hornets?
3. I included this one simply because of its popularity on the Internet too. Apparently it was designed by the CEO’s 6 year old daughter (really). However, as a father myself, I can’t imagine making it the centerpiece for my company. Perhaps it would be a wall hanging in my personal office space where it would function as a great conversation piece, but not as my corporate identity.
2. I’ve included them not only because their logo is incredibly boring, but simply because they are scoundrels. You’d think that with the billions of dollars they gouge out of us, they could at least give us a good logo to look at while we’re paying $3.00 per gallon to pump their fuel into our vehicles.
1. Our final trivia question: To which NFL team does this lovely helmet belong? Yes, it’s the Cleveland Browns. Dull, boring, and incredibly uncreative are the first things that come to mind with their logo (or lack thereof?). What do you think of it?
As with any top ten best or worst list, there are other opinions. This list is not in hierarchical order. They are merely grouped together as 10 really bad logos. So, please let me know what you agree or disagree with on the list. If you have other logos that you think outrank any of these choices, please let me know (there are plenty of lousy logos out there)!
Posted in Logos | 4 Comments »
Friday, December 21st, 2007
It’s very subtle but if you really think about it and actually pay attention to this kind of thing you will notice that Macys.com is very easy to use. While looking for a gift for my wife I couldn’t help but notice it. It’s simple and white. It makes me feel like I’m taking a walk in one of their super mall stores, with the smell of fragrances throughout. Looking at the sweater I can almost feel the cashmere. They must have put a lot of research and development hours into this masterpiece. I know, some might say, this site is boring but you have to remember, the purpose of this site is not to be exciting but to make the user want to, or not even think about the choice of not buy something. It is designed to make you want to buy something before you even know what it is you were doing on this site.
The background is simply white. Makes it transparent, non-existent, don’t-even-think-about-it perfect. Topped at the head of the site is the header and navigation. Very simple, no complicated graphics, bare minimum necessary information.
Main categories or departments are set as the navigation at the top. No hover effects to keep the users attention on buying instead of exploring the effects. Then you have the site search. It is one of the most important features an e-commerce can have. Don’t make the customer that knows what he wants browse, give him exactly what he wants, let him buy and be on his way. The faster this process is completed, the better the customer will feel about the transaction and will most likely come back again and again.
Looking for some towels, pillows, a mattress maybe in your future? The category menu on the left lets you quickly find where to click to get to what you want. They went with a small size font with higher line spacing to be able to list as many category options as possible to keep the clicking to a minimum for the customer. The menu is very clean and easy to look at and use. I think this can be the rule-of-thumb menu for ecommerce sites.
Right in the top center of the main body is where most visitors will look first. If you have something to say, this is the place to say it. But say it quick, short and sweet, in a sentence or two. Yes, that’s all you have to grab their attention. In this example they divided the main area of the page into three mini-areas. The top message area then the large main graphic ad and the featured categories box on the right. This works great, the message box at the top tells the visitor what’s new, up or a’crackin’. “There’s still time!”, this one says and goes on into the details, all in one to two sentences.
Feature a product in the main ad area, this should be a nice, crisp photo or a graphic, it should attract, invite, make the visitor crave what’s in the picture. This is where you focus the user’s attention and go for the sale. The whole idea is to focus the entire page to do one thing, sell a product. If you notice I said “a” product. Focusing the page to sell one specific product, all the strength of the page pointed at it. This is how you make the sale. If the page is not focused but just randomly spread all over the page, the user will not know what the purpose if the page is. If you tell them why this page is here, what is offered and why they need it and can’t live without, they will realize it and will become a customer.
Quietly bringing in other offers like they did here with the Featured Categories can help to steer the ones that decided that the emphasized product is not for them. Featured categories can be any of the related products. I would recommend including the more profitable first, then easiest to get, and so on. Think though every element on the page. Optimize it, make sure that there is a reason for each image, or product you include on a page and no other would be able to replace it. I know this is crazy but we’re trying to design the perfect page and this requires hard work.
Looking at websites like Macy’s.com and other established companies will give you the insight into the research and development of the user behavior and psychology behind the design. I heard that Amazon.com has invested large amounts of dollars into testing and optimizing their website for better conversions. We will have to take a look at Amazon.com next time. For now there is plenty of things that we have learned from Macys.com.
Let me know in the comments if I missed anything or if you have a different view on any subject we covered here. All feedback is appreciated.
Posted in Layout/Design, Navigation/Menu, Resources | No Comments »
Thursday, December 20th, 2007
The source site for this is: http://www.darrenalawi.com/blog
I found this nice image effect tat looks like the logos are laying on a soft, padded background. The way this look is a chieved is very simple. Just apply a soft outer glow in white or some light color and bam, it’s done. Of cource there are many other ways and many other situations where this by it self will not work and you might need to do more adjustments but for majority of the situations this should do the trick.
Posted in Images/Photos | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
A fun one from thesneeze.com. I loved it from the first sight. Gray circles a?d squigly lines is a fun background pattern. Don’t forget to checkout theSneeze.com.
Posted in Backgrounds/Patterns | No Comments »
