brainstorming magazine Salke Lagumdžije 3 71000 Sarajevo Bosna i Hercegovina p: +387 33 956 517 p: +387 61 107 832 w: www.brainstorming.ba e: info@brainstorming.ba
Publisher DDS Idea is all Salke Lagumdžije 3 Hadžisulejmanova 10 71000 Sarajevo Bosna i Hercegovina p: +387 33 956 517 p: +387 61 107 832 w: www.ideaisall.com e: info@ideaisall.com Editor: Rusmir Arnautović | rusmir.arnautovic@brainstorming.ba Review editor: Ena Matković-Arnautović | ena.matkovic@brainstorming.ba Cover illustrator: DDS Idea is all “idea is all” is an digital design studio located in the Sarajevo area and serving clients worldwide. We have experience in Branding, Identity Design, Web Site Design, Graphic Design, Multimedia and Print Production. Our work has been recognized by a number of clients in various industries for exceptional performance, expert advice and quality services in the fields of design, information architecture, branding and development. INFO: http://www.ideaisall.com
We`re always on the lookout for new artist as well as established creatives - so if you`re interested in contributing to the magazine, please send some examples of your work to (e.) samples@brainstorming.ba
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Welcome Rebranding has become something of a fad at the turn of the millennium, with some companies rebranding several times. The rebranding of Philip Morris to Altria was done to help the company shed its negative image. Other rebrandings, such as the British Post Office’s attempt to rebrand itself as Consignia, have proved such a failure that millions more had to be spent going back to square one. In a study of 165 cases of rebranding, Muzellec and Lambkin (2006) found that, whether a rebranding follows from corporate strategy (e.g., M&A) or constitutes the actual marketing strategy (change the corporate reputation), it aims at enhancing, regaining, transferring, and/or recreating the corporate brand equity.
Meet the artists Elena Savitskaya
Maroto
I am a Graphic and Web Designer, based in London. All of my life i had a passion about design, psychology and marketing.
I was born in 1979 in a family of elegant playdough wolfes. Soon two old women would teach me the ninja art of dot to dot drawing.
Pawel Nolbert
Tanya Moseeva
Illustration, Design, Art Direction
Naming, Advertising, Copywriting
Tom Hussey
Jacque Solivar
Photohraphy
Photohraphy
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Contents MARCH
14 Community & Networking Sites For Designers And Creative Types
REBRANDING Rebranding is the creation of a new name, term, symbol, design, or a combination of them for an established brand with the intention of developing a differentiated (new) position in the mind of stakeholders and competitors. Far from just a change of visual identity, rebranding should be part of an overall brand strategy for a product or service. This may involve radical changes to the brand’s logo, brand name, image, marketing strategy, and advertising themes. These changes are typically aimed at the repositioning of the brand/company, sometimes in an attempt to distance itself from certain negative connotations of the previous branding, or to move the brand upmarket. However, the main reason for a re-brand is to communicate a new message for a company, something that has evolved, or the new board of directors wish to communicate. Rebranding can be applied to new products, mature products, or even products still in development.
There’s probably hundreds of community and networking sites out there but only a few focus on the design and creative community. We went ahead and selected 14 of the best sites for designers and creative types. Dribbble is a show and tell for designers where you can show the world what you’re working on by uploading 400x300px screenshots. Dribbble is all the rage these days, most likely because the site is invite-only but also because the work showcased on Dribbble is of great quality. Nonetheless Dribbble has a great community of extremely talented designers – if you’re a designer and haven’t been ‘drafted’ yet, you can still join as a spectator.
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5 Tips for SEO & User-Friendly Copy You hear it time and time again: content is king. It’s king because it’s what users want, and it’s king because of SEO – i.e. if you don’t have good content, you’re not going to rank. Of course, not all content is created equal. While overoptimizing content for search will make it less than userfriendly, focusing too much on usability can compromise its searchability. So how can your content walk the line between SEO and usability? Well, there are 5 easy tips you can follow when trying to walk your content down that fine line between SEO and usability.
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A Look Into: Fonts Used In Logos of Popular Brands Do you find yourself staring at other designer’s logo and immediately try to decipher what typeface they are using? If you are a designer, it is probably an inevitable habit. There are no hard and fast rules to help you determine which typeface you should land on for your logo. And due to the fact that we are showered with thousands of free fronts on the Internet, deciding on the ideal font to use can be a challenging task. If you have experimented hundreds of fonts but they just don’t work out right for you, suffering from design block where you don’t what font to use or you are just curious on what fonts others are using for their logo, this article is for you. Today we have analyzed some top brands of their respective industry and reveal the font they used in their logo. They may give you some raw ideas for your next logo design; try not to replicate :)
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Artist, Illustrators, Photographers, News Vienna Paint
Art Directors Club Young Guns 9
Situated in the very heart of Vienna, the company was founded as a twoman mission in 1988 by Andreas Fitzner and Albert Winkler ...
The Young Guns program is open internationally to creatives age 30 and under who have been working for at least two years, full-time ...
Yum Yum
Julian Hibbard
Yum Yum are Beth Algieri and Jonny Plummer, two directors / designers with a common passion for creating new and exciting things.
Julian’s enigmatic images reflect his interest in storytelling, memory, subjectivity, exile and desire. His photography has been exhibited ...
Xavier Thomas
Milad Sahafzadeh
A part of the images I did as Communication Art Director and Artist for the communication of the first two games including box art, covers...
Advertising, Web Design, Photography
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.danbusta.com
Dan Busta
Photographer
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.elenasavitskaya.com
Elena Savitskaya I am a Graphic and Web Designer, based in London. All of my life i had a passion about design, psychology and marketing. I come from a Marketing Management background and when it comes to Graphic Design i have my own definitions of goals that designers need to achieve in their work. In my opinion, it’s not all about “pretty graphics”. When pictures got printed on product packaging for the first time, the idea behind it was very simple: boost sales.
e v i t a e Cr s k r o w
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Rebranding is the creation of a new name, term, symbol, design, or a combination of them for an established brand with the intention of developing a differentiated (new) position in the mind of stakeholders and competitors. Far from just a change of visual identity, rebranding should be part of an overall brand strategy for a product or service. This may involve radical changes to the brand’s logo, brand name, image, marketing strategy, and advertising themes. These changes are typically aimed at the repositioning of the brand/company, sometimes in an attempt to distance itself from certain negative connotations of the previous branding, or to move the brand upmarket. However, the main reason for a re-brand is to communicate a new message for a company, something that has evolved, or the new board of directors wish to communicate. Rebranding can be applied to new products, mature products, or even products still in development.
Corporate rebranding Rebranding has become something of a fad at the turn of the millennium, with some companies rebranding several times. The rebranding of Philip Morris to Altria was done to help the company shed its negative image. Other rebrandings, such as the British Post Office’s attempt to rebrand itself as Consignia, have proved such a failure that millions more had to be spent going back to square one. In a study of 165 cases of rebranding, Muzellec and Lambkin (2006) found that, whether a rebranding follows from corporate strategy (e.g., M&A) or constitutes the actual marketing strategy (change the corporate reputation), it aims at enhancing, regaining, transferring, and/or recreating the corporate brand equity. According to Sinclair (1999:13), business the world over acknowledges the value of brands. “Brands, it seems, alongside ownership of copyright and trademarks, computer software and specialist know-how, are now at the heart of the intangible value investors place on companies.” As such, companies in the 21st century may find it necessary to relook their brand in terms of its relevancy to consumers and the changing marketplace. Successful rebranding projects can yield a brand better off than before. Due to the tremendous impact that renaming and rebranding a company can have, it is critical to take the client through the process with great sensitivity and care. The new company identity and brand should also be launched in a subtle and methodical manner in order to avoid alienating old customers, while aiming to attract new business prospects. There is no magic formula. However, there is a methodical process that involves careful strategy, memorable visuals and personal interactions, all of which must speak in unison for a customer to place full trust and invest their emotions in what is on offer. Marketing develops the awareness and associations in consumer memory so that customers know (and are constantly reminded) which brands best serve their needs. Once in a lead position, it is marketing, consistent product or service quality, sensible pricing and effective distribution that will keep the brand ahead of the pack and provide value to its owners (Sinclair, 1999:15).
Potential reasons for corporate rebranding Corporations often rebrand in order to respond to external and/or internal issues. Firms commonly have rebranding cycles in order to stay current with the times or set themselves ahead of the competition. Companies also utilize rebranding as an effective marketing tool to hide malpractices of the past, thereby shedding negative connotations that could potentially affect profitability. Corporations such as Citigroup, AOL, American Express, and Goldman Sachs all utilize third-party vendors such as Lippincott that specialize in brand strategy and the devel14 | ISSUE 01 | REBRANDING
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opment of corporate identity. Companies invest valuable resources into rebranding and third-party vendors because it is a way to protect them from being blackballed by customers in a very competitive market. Dr. Roger Sinclair, a leading expert on brand valuation and brand equity practice worldwide stated, “A brand is a resource acquired by an enterprise that generates future economic benefits.”[7] Once a brand has negative connotations associated with it, it can only lead to decreased profitability and possibly complete corporate failure. Rebranding due to a need to differentiate from competitors Companies differentiate themselves from competitors by incorporating practices from changing their logo to going green. Differentiating from competitors is important in order to attract more customers and an effective way to draw in more desirable employees. The need to differentiate is especially prevalent in saturated markets such as the financial services industry. Rebranding a company’s brand image should be supported by tangible actions to give substance to the message: otherwise, the company is not delivering on its promise. As explained in Kreative Rebranding, a book by Montrealbased rebranding agency Les Kréateurs: “Concrete actions allow you to distinguish yourself from competitors that don’t walk the talk. Rebranding due to a need to shed a negative image Firms rebrand intentionally to shed negative images of the past. In a corporate sense, rebranding can be utilized as an effective marketing strategy to hide malpractices and avoid or shed negative connotations, and decreased profitability. Corporations such as Philip Morris USA and AIG rebranded in order to shed negative images. Philip Morris USA rebranded its name and logo to Altria on January 27, 2003 due to the negative connotations associated with tobacco products that could have had potential to affect the profitability of other Philip Morris brands such as Kraft Foods. In 2008, AIG’s image was damaged due to its need for a Federal bailout during the financial crisis. AIG was bailed out because the United States Treasury stated that AIG was too big to fail due to its size and complex relationships with financial counterparties. AIG itself is a huge international firm; however, the AIG Retirement and AIG Financial subsidiaries were left with negative connotations due to the bailout. As a result, AIG Financial Advisors and AIG Retirement rebranded into Sagepoint Financial and VALIC (Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company) respectively to shed the negative image associated with AIG.
Product rebranding As for product offerings, when they are marketed separately to several target markets this is called market segmentation. When part of a market segmentation strategy involves offering significantly different products in each market, this is called product differentiation. This
market segmentation/product differentiation process can be thought of as a form of rebranding. What distinguishes it from other forms of rebranding is that the process does not entail the elimination of the original brand image. Dexxa computer mice are rebranded Logitech devices sold at a lower price by Logitech in the low-end market segment without undercutting their mid-range products. Rebranding in this manner allows one set of engineering and QA to be used to create multiple products with minimal modifications and additional expense. Following a merger or acquisition, companies usually rebrand newly acquired products to keep them consistent with an existing product line. For example, when Symantec acquired Quarterdeck in November 1998, Symantec chose to rename CleanSweep to Norton CleanSweep. Later on, the company chose to reposition its entire product line by grouping products into a bundle known as Norton SystemWorks. Symantec is not the only software company to reposition and rebrand its products. Much of Microsoft’s product line consists of rebranded products, including MSDOS, FoxPro, and Visio. Another example is the rebrands of GeForce 8-series GPU into 9-series by nVidia. The reverse can also happen, as when AlliedSignal acquired Honeywell, Southern Railroad of Long Island acquired Long Island Rail Road, and Chemical Bank acquired Chase Manhattan Bank. In such cases, the acquiring company rebrands itself with the acquired name. Another form of product rebranding is the sale of a product manufactured by another company under a new name. An original design manufacturer is a company that manufactures a product that is eventually branded by another firm for sale. This is often the case with international trade. A product is manufactured in a place with lower operating costs, and sold under a local brand name.
Small business rebranding Small businesses face different challenges from large corporations and must adapt their rebranding strategy accordingly. Rather than implementing change gradually, small businesses are sometimes better served by rebranding their image in a short timeframe – especially when existing brand notoriety is low. “The powerful first impression on new clients made possible by professional brand design often outweighs an outdated or poorly-designed image’s weak brand recognition to existing clients”. A change of image in a large corporation can have costly repercussions (updating signage in multiple locations, large quantities of existing collateral, communicating with a large number of employees, etc.), while small businesses can enjoy more mobility and implement change more quickly. While small businesses can experience growth without necessarily having a professionally designed brand image, “rebranding becomes a critical step for a company to be considered seriously when expanding to more aggressive markets and facing competitors with more established brand images.
The Top 20 Mistakes Marketers Make When Rebranding — And How to Avoid Them Smart marketers evolve their brands over time to keep them relevant. Some do it well, while others become the target of cynical bloggers. To gear your next rebrand for success, sidestep these all-too-common mistakes: 1. Clinging to history. Rebranding well means staying relevant. Assumptions made when the brand was established may no longer hold true. Analyze changes in target markets when exploring opportunities for brand expansion, repositioning and revitalization. 2. Thinking the brand is the logo, stationery or corporate colors. Brands encompass everything from customer perception and experience to quality, look and feel, customer care, retail and web environments, the tone and voice of communications, and more. 3. Navigating without a plan. Effective rebrands rely on a creative brief to keep everyone focused as the project progresses. Include sections for a situation analysis, objectives, target markets, budget and resources, timeframe, point person, known parameters, approval structure, stakeholders and metrics for assessing results. REBRANDING
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4. Refusing to hire a branding consultant without industry experience. It’s ok to consider an agency that hasn’t worked in your specific industry before. Sometimes it’s ideal – especially if you’re serious about a turnaround. Smart companies recognize the value of a fresh perspective. 5. Not leveraging existing brand equity and goodwill. Dismissing brand equity when rebranding alienates established customers, while unnecessary overhauls can irreparably damage a brand’s perception. Consider the needs and mindset of the target market carefully before digging into the process. Sometimes a small evolution – or a new coat of paint – is all that’s needed to rejuvenate and make a brand relevant. 6. Not trying on your customer’s shoes. Simply calling your own 800-number or receptionist may reveal challenges customers face and inform your rebranding strategy. Take the time to navigate your own website, buy your products and return something. Better yet, ask a friend or family member to do so and learn from their experiences. 7. The rebrand lacks credibility or is a superficial facelift. The rebrand’s story must be believable given the existing brand experience and customer perception. It must also hold credibility internally. If employees who live the brand day-to-day don’t believe, the target audience won’t either. 8. Limiting the influence of branding partners. Good branding consultants are more than graphic designers. The best ones help develop new products, expand demographic focuses and even streamline business operations. Rein them in when needed, but don’t limit their areas of influence. 9. Believing rebranding costs too much. Good thinking doesn’t have to come with a multi-million dollar payout. You can get good thinking and solid strategy from small and talented branding agencies, consultants and in-house talent. Consider university students or small firms for cost-effective results. 10. Not planning ahead for adaptation.
languish on hold for inordinate amounts of time. If your invoices and contracts are written in 7-point legal jargon, the brand experience declines. Keep all customer touchpoints in mind when rebranding. 12. Not calling the call center. Often ignored in brand strategy sessions, customer service and other front-line staff can yield valuable information. This is the proverbial buck – the place where customers are the most honest, no matter what research indicates. 13. Forgetting that people don’t do what they say. (They do what they do.) Use caution when basing rebranding strategies on focus group-type research. Unless you’re physically in the customer ’s environment observing them using your product or service, you’re not getting the full story. Actual observation, while not perfect, will get you a lot closer to the right solution. 14. Getting strong-armed or intimidated by consultants. It’s the client’s responsibility to reel things in when necessary. You still know the most about your brand and organization, the value of a non-immersed, fresh perspective notwithstanding. 15. Putting the wrong person in charge. Assuming you’ve hired capable-to-outstanding branding consultants, the quality of the work delivered depends on sound, knowledgeable project management. Make sure your internal point person has the skills, time and resources to drive the agency to its most effective work yet. 16. Strategy by committee. Too many opinions delay the rebranding process and diffuse the focus needed to achieve ROI. Keep those with critical approval authority to an efficient shortlist, and assemble the smallest, most essential project team possible. Include a mix of levels – not just executive. 17. Rebranding without research. There’s a lot of lip service about customers, but in brand strategy sessions they’re often forgotten. Current and prospective customers should be front and center when creating solutions. After all, the customer will be your ultimate test.
It’s tempting for team members to walk away after the final presentation, however this is just the beginning of the final stretch. The implementation process may require adaptation as the rebrand rolls out. Acknowledge the need to keep the team and consultants together throughout implementation.
18. Basing a rebrand on advertising.
11. Bypassing the basics.
19. Tunnel focus.
The value of perfecting your physical environment, marketing materials, website, etc., is decreased if your customers
Focusing solely on your own industry can be limiting. When rebranding, cross-pollinate your thinking with what leaders
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An ad campaign and a slogan do not equal brand positioning. Brand strategy should lead advertising – not the other way around. Sometimes the most effective rebrands don’t include traditional advertising.
in other industries are doing in regard to customer experience, retail experience and customer care. Pull in thinking from different industries and encourage your agency to do so. 20. Believing you’re too small to rebrand. Every brand needs refreshing to stay relevant as markets evolve. Smaller companies and non-profits are not immune. Like larger brands, they too have brand positions that need to be enhanced. Define your brand or be defined.
With „RE*Branding“ to new customers and higher sales
manufactures, but also very negatively influences capacities of BH economy (income, employments, prospects of future investments etc.) RE*BRANDING / Bosnia and Herzegovina is a project of Mark IN communication agency aimed at improving the visual and marketing communications BH manufacturers, and thus their successful positioning in relation to foreign competition in the market of our country. “As a domestic agency specializing in the field of marketing communications, we want to use our knowledge and services to help Bosnian producers to become more competitive in the market. The project will be implemented in several phases and in cooperation with the Association of “Buy and use domestic”.
I must emphasize that we received selfless support of the leading media in BiH. Their participation clearly demonstrates a desire to work with us to help and educate BH manufacturers to improve their visual and marketing communications. The more successful BH producers become, more successful all of us will be. We are ready to be the ones that reach out first
and offer support in partner passed relationship of mutual growth and development.
Same cannot be said for retail chains in Bosnia and Herzegovina, neither foreign nor domestic ones, who have ignored our invitation to participate in this project
which clearly signals how much they really do not support domestic producers”
Boris Cigler, Managing Director of Mark IN communication agency.
said
In comparison to foreign competition, BH producers and manufacturers, unfortunately, pay very little attention to modern packaging design of their products and other visual communications. This automatically places them in a disadvantageous position in the eyes of consumers. Inadequate and outdated design, significantly contributes to consumers’ preference for foreign products of same category whose packaging communicates higher quality but also justifies, usually, higher price.
The project was supported by the business and investment portal eKapija.ba, Business Magazine, Sarajevo-x.com portal, Media Marketing magazine, BBI center, in front of which will, upon completion of the project, an exhibition of all the re-branded product manufacturers will be held. More about the project can be found on: http://www.rebranding.ba
It is this fact that causes lower sales of, often higher quality, domestic products on our market, which directly undermines the competitiveness of domestic producers and REBRANDING
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Creativ Humorous Photo
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Logo Design A to Z - F We’ll always be searching for logos in these galleries: Logopond, Logo Faves, Logo Moose, Logo from Dreams, Logo Gala, WS Logos, The Logo Mix and Wolda. If you know any more galleries or logos, or even if you own one and wanna be listed here as a source for our series, please drop us a link! We’d love to hear from you. We hope you all enjoy our selection of F logos! Cheers. ;)
Fuel
Farmdog
Foster
Fairwaypark
Flipside
Freedom
Fire Ftish
First Heritage
Fido Express
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Fine Lady
Francis Manor
Freak Chic 3
Fruit Chocolate
Freeman`s
Futuris Health
Flamingo
Fridge
Fleet
Full Single
Friends in Places
Funny Cars
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Ways to Keep Yourself Focused at Work
Here is an occurence you see too many times before – you start of your day by telling yourself that you will get (insert amount) of task done today. As determined as you are, you might end up having blunt conversation with your friends, replying and sending out e-mails and of course, get really busy on social outlets – just like most of us here. So how do we avoid all these evil attention seeking, unnecessary task and make sure we accomplish what we should be accomplishing on the day itself? Our minds are easily wavered and affected and it becomes extremely hard to realign your focus with goals at job task. Today we are showing you 5 ways to improve your focus at work and how you can possibly discard activity that can divert your attention. Now these tips can be subjective but it may be effective for you!
tant that whatever genre you decide to listen to, to make sure its music that can be easily filtered out while keeping the work ethic at full throttle. For myself I can not listen to music that makes me think about the words or sucks me into wanting to fall asleep, both of which becomes a distraction. Finding the happy medium will increase your drive immensely and will make the day fly right by.
1. Work in chunks
If all else fails and you just cant seem to get away from the Facebook and pesky co-worker emails, you have to hide yourself. Go invisible on the instant message clients, set the away message to “BUSY, DON’T BOTHER ME”. And for those workers who love to stop by your desk, throw on those head phones so they dont feel inclined to spark up a conversation. I often have to hide from being annoyed from others. It seems the moment one person starts talking to me that the floods of people come. I’ve learned to never put myself in conversational positions while trying to be focused or make sure that i’m in control if I am in those situations.
It’s a scientific fact that our brains can only be attentive on a limited amount of information for a limited amount of time. Making sure the appropriate information in mind is the one that lines up with our duties at work is where the difficulty is. To lighten the load on your brain, it is better to segment your work into small manageable pieces. The idea is you do not want to spend an entire day working on one task non-stop. Breaking it up allows your brain to ‘breathe’ and it will reward you later with effective work. So work in small portions then leave your desk and if your lucky go outside breathe in mother nature.
2. Reward yourself for your determination It’s not really a bad thing to visit sites like Facebook, Meebo, or Twitter to get your social updates, but it’s important to not spend huge amounts of time on them, especially when your work is not complete. What I tend to do is create a set of tasks that I need to complete before I can visit any of those sites or leave my desk. I will work awhile, complete a task, then reward myself with some time catching up with a friend. This strategy relies on sheer perseverance and strong will. If you cant stick to goals that you set try another one of these methods.
4. Go Incognito
5. Be interested/passionate about your work. Finally the best way to be productive is to truly enjoy and be passionate about what your working on. We go to great lengths and hours of work for things that interest us. Yet we lose focus instantaneously if what we are doing is not important. It might take sometime finding interest in the work you do, you might have to just think about the big picture or maybe focus on impressing those around you (possibly a boss) to stay on track.
3. Find the right Music
As for me there is no way that I can push through an entire work day of coding or designing without the appropriate music to keep me motivated. For me its either intense techno or alternative music that sustains me throughout the day. I can be wrong about this but I believe its imporREBRANDING
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Most Creative Ads Series
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Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.bambinomonkey.com
Maroto
I was born in 1979 in a family of elegant playdough wolfes. Soon two old women would teach me the ninja art of dot to dot drawing. When I was finaly able to come out to the street I befriended a monkey, a tatooed girl, a robot with a moustache, and a giant potato. From that moment on I should draw nothing else...
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.vmikepiscitelli.com
Mike Piscitelli
Spawned from the San Fernando Valley, Mike Piscitelli dropped out of ninth grade to pursue skateboarding, hardcore music and teenage girls. He ended up working as an assistant on porn films, which spurred his interest in photography and film. At age eighteen he moved to New York and proceeded to shoot editorials for Dazed & Confused, Another and i-D magazine. He went on to direct the SoCal Summer Campaign for MTV, which earned him a coveted Art Directors Club Award. In 2003, he moved back to Los Angeles to focus on film work and surfing. He soon found himself directing music videos for Iggy Pop, John Frusciante, Linkin Park and The Walkmen, among others. In 2006 he won Pitchfork Media’s “Video of the Year” for Bonnie “prince” Billy and Matt Sweeny’s “Superwolf”; in 2007 he was voted one of Print magazine’s New Visual Artist. He is currently finishing work on a feature length documentary about Ozzy Osbourne, as well as shooting various editorial, advertising and personal projects.
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.theotherstream.com
Richard Roberts Richard Roberts is a freelance illustrator and designer, currently based in Milwaukee, USA. He has been illustrating digitally for over five years and has had the pleasure of being featured in publications and working with clients world wide. Richard specializes in digital illustration and photo manipulation, but is a very diverse artist using an array of different styles, and works on a wide variety projects. If you have a project or idea that would be suitable for him, he’d love to hear from you.
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.behance.net/bearvodkaballet
Tanya Moseeva Naming, Advertising, Copywriting
Lego StarWars Make your own story Advertising School: Escola Cuca, Sao Paulo, Brazil Art Directors: Diego Mourao, Gustavo Dorietto Copywriter: Lucas Mohallem
Join the global conversation. The Economist Advertising Agency: Memac Ogilvy, Dubai, UAE Executive Creative Director: Steve Hough Creative Director: Ramzi Moutran Art Directors: Mel Harvey, James Purdie, Gregory Yeo Copywriters: Dylan Kidson, Steve Hough, Sascha Kuntze Designer: Leonardo Borges
A Look Into: Fonts Used In Logos of Popular Brands
Do you find yourself staring at other designer’s logo and immediately try to decipher what typeface they are using? If you are a designer, it is probably an inevitable habit. There are no hard and fast rules to help you determine which typeface you should land on for your logo. And due to the fact that we are showered with thousands of free fronts on the Internet, deciding on the ideal font to use can be a challenging task. If you have experimented hundreds of fonts but they just don’t work out right for you, suffering from design block where you don’t what font to use or you are just curious on what fonts others are using for their logo, this article is for you. Today we have analyzed some top brands of their respective industry and reveal the font they used in their logo. They may give you some raw ideas for your next logo design; try not to replicate :)
Zopa.com Many top websites are trending towards gray color schemes with bright color splashes. The Zopa logo and overall image is a perfect example of this trend. Font used: Frankfurter medium
Shutterfly Shutterfly’s modern logo is simple, refined and playful. This image shows that life is too fast to take it too seriously. Their use of bright colors is consistent with the latest website trends and is effective at enhancing their overall image. Font used: Frutiger
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NewsGator Multi-colored logo fonts are all the rage these days as shown in NewsGator’s logo. Font used: ITC Bauhaus
Shoutwire Many caution against excessive capitalization in logo fonts. However, Shoutwire’s use of a font in all caps shows that those who caution against this trend can be wrong. Font used: Agency Bold
Shozu This is an ultra-modern design consistent with the styles of current top websites. When your font is paired with playful colors, you are sure to grab the viewer’s attention. Font used: FF Cocon Bold
Facebook Elegant and straight-sided characters on the dark-blue background are easy to recognize: Facebook is the perfect example of minimal, yet most recognizable logo! Font used: Klavika
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Twitter Light-blue letters with rounded corners:here you go! Now you can spoof the famous Twitter logo!
Font used: Pico Alphabet
Digg Unlike the above font, this one has no rounded corners at all: everything is sharp and diagonal here giving the perfect feel of the original logo. Font used: Pico y
Cork’d A very cheerful font with attention to details in every letter – it makes a perfect fit for the Cork’d logo. Font used: Triplex
Vimeo A bold italic font somehow resembles handwriting. It is almost a universal font that can match any interface easily.
Font used: Black Rose
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Last.FM A very elegant narrow characters with rounded borders makes a great fit for the music-related website.
Font used: National
Technorati Technorati logo sports a very minimal readable font which might lose identity when taken out of the context. Font used: Neo Sans Medium
Flickr Named after its designer, Adrian Frutiger, the font is used in frequently used in various logos and advertising campaigns. What makes it stand out in Flickr logo is the famous blue/ pink color combination. Font used: Frutiger
Youtube A straight diagonal font on a red background is one of the easiest to spoof.
Font used: Alternate Gothic No. 2
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Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.jacquesolivar.com
Jacques Olivar
Photographer
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.hellocolor.com
Pawel Nolbert Illustration, Design, Art Direction
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.tomhussey.com
Tom Hussey
Photographer
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.viennapaint.com
Vienna Paint
Situated in the very heart of Vienna, the company was founded as a two-man mission in 1988 by Andreas Fitzner and Albert Winkler, a time when digital post production and image manipulation were terms only used by a few visionary insiders. But being one of the most innovative, Vienna Paint worked its way from the first institution creating paintbox artworks in Austria to one of the best known creative agencies worldwide, offering exclusive knowhow combined with individual service creating the most realistic unrealistic images fooling clients as well as competitors in the best way possible.
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.yumyumlondon.com
Yum Yum
Yum Yum are Beth Algieri and Jonny Plummer, two directors / designers with a common passion for creating new and exciting things. We make Animation, Illustration and Design. We would love to work with you. Why not get in touch and say hello? Contact Beth or Jonny anytime.
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.creeze.de
Robert Hellmundt
My name is Robert Mundt Hell, I’m currently 19 years old and will soon begin at the Bauhaus University Weimar my studies in visual communication. My “career” as a designer starts hopefully correctly, the first steps in the direction I did, however, quite early with some smaller projects such as a page for the German Hip Hop, for which I then entertained a deep affection.
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.denada.de
Andreas Krapf
Digital Art, Illustration, Character Design
14 Community & Networking Sites For Designers And Creative Types There’s probably hundreds of community and networking sites out there but only a few focus on the design and creative community. We went ahead and selected 14 of the best sites for designers and creative types.
Dribbble Dribbble is a show and tell for designers where you can show the world what you’re working on by uploading 400x300px screenshots. Dribbble is all the rage these days, most likely because the site is invite-only but also because the work showcased on Dribbble is of great quality. Nonetheless Dribbble has a great community of extremely talented designers – if you’re a designer and haven’t been ‘drafted’ yet, you can still join as a spectator.
Forrst Forrst is a community of developers and designers. This is a great place to get critiques and feedback on your work and connect with other designers and developers. Like Dribbble, Forrst is also an invite-only community
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LoveDsgn LoveDsgn is a new social site for designers and other creative types. Like Dribbble and Forrst, LoveDsgn is inviteonly. This is another great place to get feedback on your designs and connect with like-minded designers.
Drawar Drawar is more of a discussion forum than a networking site, but it definitely deserves a place in this post. On Drawar you can discuss design, development, business and pretty much anything else that has to do with being a web-designer. If you’re looking for a place to express your opinions or ask other people for theirs, Drawar should be your first stop.
Behance Network I’m pretty sure that all of you know of the Behance Network. While Behance is more of a showcase-meetsportfolio site, there is a huge (and very active) community on Behance. Simply create your profile, upload some of your work and discuss designs and give feedback on other people’s work. You can also become a part of groups, post in the forums and even find a job.
DeviantArt DeviantArt is probably the largest online community for artists and creatives. I don’t think DeviantArt needs any introduction :)
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DesignersCouch DesignersCouch is an invitation-only community where you can network with other designers, post some of your work in a portfolio, read articles and connect and collaborate with other designers.
DesignRelated DesignRelated is another invitation-only community site where you can find inspiration, create a portfolio and network with other members.
Typophile For all of you typography lovers out there, Typophile should be a daily stop for you. Interact in the forums, read news articles, find great resources and learn about type and design with their TypoWiki. Definitely a great place to hang at.
SitePoint SitePoint deserves a place on this list in part because of their huge community. Of course they offer more than just discussion forums. There’s blog articles, products to buy, courses, podcasts and a marketplace. SitePoint is like a one-stop shop for all things design and web business.
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ColourLovers The ultimate community for artists looking to get color inspiration and get feedback on their professional or personal projects. You can search user-created color palettes and patterns, create your own and share them with the community, interact in the forums, join groups and read articles.
DesignBump While DesignBump is not exactly a networking site, it’s still totally worth visiting to keep up with all the latest design and development articles and news – a daily stop for me.
TheWebBlend TheWebBlend, much like DesignBump, isn’t a networking site, but it’s another great resource to stay up-to-date with all the latest design and dev news.
CSSGlobe CSSGlobe is a community of designers and developers with a focus on CSS and development. While there’s no networking features, CSSGlobe offers a great range of web development links for all of you web-designers and developers out there.
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Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.seedsevenstudio.com
Xavier Thomas A part of the images I did as Communication Art Director and Artist for the communication of the first two games including box art, covers...
Art Directors Club Young Guns 9 The Young Guns program is open internationally to creatives age 30 and under who have been working for at least two years, full-time or freelance. Eligible entrants can submit a combination of professional and personal work in graphic design, photography, illustration, advertising and art direction, environmental design, film, animation, video, interactive design, object design and typography. Full details are available at www.adcyoungguns.org. Online entries will be accepted starting on March 15, 2011 (entry fee: $135, $110 if submitted by the early bird deadline of April 18), with final deadline of May 16, 2010. Late entries will be accepted through midnight EST May 30, 2011, with the addition of a $35 late fee. Past ADC Young Guns include then-rising stars who went on to become leaders in their chosen fields, including ADC board member Rei Inamoto (interactive), Stefan Sagmeister and James Victore (graphic design), Deanne Cheuk (illustration), Jeremy Floto and Cassandra Warner (aka floto+warner, photography), Alexander Gelman (advertising), Mike Mills (film and video), Alex Trochut (typography), Todd St. John (animation) and others.
http://www. adcglobal. org/adc/ events/calendar
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.julianhibbard.com
Julian Hibbard
Julian’s enigmatic images reflect his interest in storytelling, memory, subjectivity, exile and desire. His photography has been exhibited in London, Scotland, Santiago de Chile, NYC and Los Angeles. In May 2008, he exhibited at the prestigious Fundación RAC Gallery in Pontevedra, Northern Spain.
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.filtrestudio.com
Filtre Studio
Filtre Studio’s primary focus is high-end creative image retouching. We work with advertising agencies, design firms and photographers to artistically enhance images, or in some cases create them from scratch. Projects we work on range from simple color correction to complex multi-image composites, combining 10 or more images.
Interview with: INFO: http://www.ndesign-studio.com/
Nick La RESOURCE: http://www.designinterviews.com
Would you, please, introduce yourself telling us a bit about your background and when you got started as a graphic/web designer? My name is Nick La. I’m the creator of N.Design Studio, Web Designer Wall, Design Jobs on the Wall, and Best Web Gallery. Ever since I was a kid, I alway liked art (such as drawing, painting, etc.) and design in general. I was introduced to Adobe Photoshop by my high school art teacher and I fell in love with it instantly. From that moment, I knew I wanted to be a graphic designer. You’re mostly self-taught. Still you attended Humber College for a two year Advertising and Graphic Design program. What factors should students consider when choosing a school? When choosing a school, I think it is very important to find a school that can provide a balance of technical and theoretical training — both are equally essential. 80 | ISSUE 01 | REBRANDING
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On a basic level, what skills does a job of a graphic/ web designer demand? Creative thinking plus good technical skills. How does one create a good portfolio? Select the best pieces that reflect your style and capabilities. How did you come up with an idea of Web Designer Wall? The idea of Web Designer Wall actually came from my room. I draw a lot of doodles and often tape them on my wall. This was how I got the idea for the name — a wall of ideas. You talk about web design trends on your blog. Which ones you find most inspiring and long-standing now?
I find the grungy and collage style are the most inspiring and long-standing. Also, web design is getting very graphical — designers like to use large photographic and texturized background. Is blogging helping your business? Are there any clients among your blog readers? Yes, blogging does help my business. In fact, a few of my big clients are brought from Web Designer Wall. What are the key principles you follow in your daily work? Be yourself. Create original and quality work. How do you usually get yourself in the productive
state of mind? What are some of your productivity tips you could share? Go out more. Don’t lock yourself in your room or office. How do you sharpen your skills? I always read tutorials, magazines, and blogs to keep myself up-to-date. Managing Best Web Gallery enables me to recognize the current trends. On my free time, I do experimental work and write tutorials. What accomplishments are you most proud of? What would you still like to accomplish in your career? Now, I’m very happy that I can enjoy what I do and at the same time make a living out of it. Hopefully, in the future I can showcase my vector illustrations in my own exhibition. What’s the typical day of yours like?
Being a freelancer, my working schedule is very flexible (somewhat unhealthy). I don’t have a fixed schedule; some days I get up at 10am while other days I get up at 1pm. After breakfast, I usually go to Starbucks or book store and work on my laptop. I don’t like to work at home because the outdoor environment often brings me fresh ideas (things that you can’t find on the web). Then at late night, I continue to work on my laptop until 3 to 4am. Where one can find you in your spare time? What are you usually doing? On the weekends, you can find me spending time with family and friends in a restaurant or lounge. Who are some of your artistic influences? What is it about their work that inspires you?
I don’t have particular artists/designers that I like. But, Japanese/Chinese watercolor art and complex/abstract vector art inspires me the most. What web design-related books and online resources would you recommend to a newbie? I don’t have particular books to recommend right now (I read mostly online), but here are some online resources: LogoPond, Smashing Magazine, A List Apart, ComputerLove, W3Schools, CSS Play, PSDTuts, and NetTuts. What advice would you give to a beginning graphic designer?
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Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.temujin.cz
Tomas Muller My mainpoint of interest is commercial visual art and art directing. I specialize to creation of advertising visuals, concept art and matte painting. The cooperation with the top photographers in area of advanced photomontage and photorealistic visuals is another of my scopes. I use experiences gained during the studies at High School of Art and also various expressions and forms like digital airbrush, 3D graphic or classical painting in my artworks
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.Msahafzadeh.com
Milad Sahafzadeh
Advertising, Web Design, Photography
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.rebecasaray.com
Rebeca Saray Gude My first photography and digital art book is “Feelings” and my second photography book is “In Requiem” all published by Norma Editorial (Spain)
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.guillermovega.com
Guillermo Vega
Guillermo was appointed General Creative Director of Y&R Argentina in 2004. Under his creative leadership, the office was honored as a Top 10 Agency in the 2006 Gunn report. In 2007 he became Regional Creative Director and currently oversees Latin America from Y&R global headquaters in New york, where he works closely with Tony Granger and other global leaders.
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.seventhstreetstudio.com
Mike Campau
Current Creative Director of a design and digital imaging studio in Michigan. Love what I do, do what I love.
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.shinybinary.com
Nik Ainley Nik Ainley is a UK based illustrator who produces both personal and commissioned work. He rather bizarrely taught himself Photoshop in his spare time while gaining a degree in physics at Imperial College in London. He enjoyed it so much he ditched physics and moved full time into design and illustration.
Interview with: INFO: http://www.pokedstudio.com
Jonathan Ball RESOURCE: http://www.designinterviews.com
1. Hi Jonathan! Would you please tell us shortly about yourself? What is your background? I was born in Cardiff Uk in 1974. I didn’t take up art and design properly until I was around 28, at which point I decided to get a degree in graphic design. I gradually slanted more and more toward being an illustrator. 2. What was your favorite game when you were kid? Did you have an imaginary friend? No imaginary friend around here. Favorite game, well I loved video games and had a few local chip shops and taxi ranks that had the latest arcade game sin them, game like bubble bobble, ghost ‘n goblins and pacman. 3. Where you fond of drawing? Yes I always drew when I was a child but stopped completely in my late teens and early twenties 94 | ISSUE 01 | REBRANDING
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4. What was your favorite cartoon? Ren and stimpy was great! 5. What was your first graphics editing program you worked with? I think it was photoshop, though could have been freehand MX, which I still rates as being better than illustrator in many ways. 6. Do you find formal education necessary for becoming a good web designer? No, but it helps. Most the best designers are self taught to some level. There’s only so much you can learn in college or university. The most important things you’ll learn are probably learning the design process for client based work.
7. What is your attitude towards plagiarism? For we’ve seen some examples that could be fairly called plagiary of your artworks. Getting inspiration from other worksis fine, as is copying for you own personal use or to understand a technique. Passing off something you have copied as your own work is not good. If a work heavily references another why not just mention it? 8. Is it important to develop your own style? Yes very, people employ me around 90% of the time because they want “my style”. You can be very technically skilled or a hard worker but if you have no recognizable style it is difficult for potential employers to identify a need for your work. 9. What inspires you most? Having a good night sleep is the best, I’m always far more creative after a good rest. Sounds a cliché but I get inspiration from all around. I
just keep a lot of stuff in my head and let it all out when I draw. 10. Have you ever been involved in street art? Not really, did a bit of graffiti at school, but nothing more than that. 11. Where do those creatures you draw come from? Somewhere deep in my head, where I jumble every thing up and then spit it out. Difficult to say, it just that some shapes and form really appeal to me. 12. Do you believe in wonders? I wonder? 13. What advice would you give to beginning web designers? Learn everything you can, be persistent and always seek to improve. It you are not turned on b great design yourself then do something else. If you love design then you will find a way to do it.
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Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.reynoldsandreyner.com
Reynolds and Reyner
Reynolds and Reyner is united team of two designers: Alexander Andrews and Artemy Kulique. We work in CG advertising agency (Ukraine, Kiev) and do the design. We truly believe in the power of design and it’s ability to make people believe in brands. It’s not about making modern or just good design. It’s an approach to process, which result will serve as basis of communications. The enthusiasm, energy, hard work and understanding of people can make any project into an successful effect to the world of consumers.
Ramasil Unigota Glue
Advertising Agency: Lowe Ginkgo, Montevideo, Uruguay Chief Creative Officer: Gabriel Román Creative Directors: Fernando De Clemente, Sebastián Mir Art Directors: Agustín Acosta, Pelayo Soria Copywriters: Jorge González, Gonzalo López Balinas, Diego Román, Mateo Vidal, Daniel Ketchedjian, María Florencia Barré Account Director: Patricia Román Photographer: José Pedro Urrestarazu Published: February 2011
Obey your instinct. Protect yourself against skin cancer. Advertising Agency: Y&R, Peru Executive Creative Director: Flavio Pantigoso Head of Art: Christian Sรกnchez Copywriter: Daniel de Leรณn Art Director: Renzo Vรกsquez Agency Producer: Malena Mellado Account Supervisor: Manuel Ahumada Photographer: Luis Miguel Otayza Retoucher: Frank Delgado
10 Tips for Decreasing Web Page Load Times loading ... Patience is a virtue, but for many, it is often a difficult concept to practice. That is especially true for web users visiting a website that takes a long time to load. Users are enamored with speedy websites, and when a site responds slowly, visitors lose their patience and are less likely to come back. Improving the speed of your website is important not only to users, but to 100 | ISSUE 01 | REBRANDING
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search engine rankings as well. Last April, Google announced that they are now including website speed in their search ranking algorithms. While this inclusion doesn’t hold the same weight as many of Google’s other ranking signals, it is still something that should be considered when planning out your website’s SEO efforts.
The following are some tips for decreasing your web page loading times. 1. Check the Current Speed of the Website The first thing you will want to do is to analyze your current page speed. This allows you to track your improvement and ensure that any changes you make positively improves your page load times. There are many free tools out there for checking how long it takes to load your website. Here are a few of them: * Pingdom offers an easy-to-use site speed test that mimics that way a page is loaded in a web browser. * Page Speed is an open source Firefox add-on that helps you assess the performance of your web pages. It also provides suggestions on how to fix performance issues. * Web Page Test is another great tool that shows you the speed and performance of your website in different browsers. 2. Optimize Your Images Know when to use the appropriate file format for your images. Changing to a different file format can dramatically decrease the file size of an image. * GIF is ideal for images with few colors like logos. * JPEG is great for images with lots of colors and details like photographs. * PNG is the choice when you need high quality transparent images. 3. Don’t Scale Down Images
6. Put Script References at the Bottom Browsers can only download two components per hostname at the same time. If you add your scripts towards the top, it would block anything else below it on the initial loading of the page. This makes it feel like the page is loading slower. To avoid this situation, place script references as far down the HTML document as possible, preferably right before the closing <body> tag. 7. Place JavaScript and CSS in External Files If your JavaScript and CSS are directly in your HTML document, they are downloaded every time an HTML document is requested. This, then, doesn’t take advantage of browser caching and increases the size of the HTML document. Always place your CSS and JavaScript in external files; it’s a best practice and makes your site easier to maintain and update. 8. Minimize HTTP Requests When visiting a new web page, most of the page-loading time is spent downloading components of that page (e.g. images, stylesheets, and scripts). By minimizing the number of requests a web page needs to make, it will load faster. To reduce HTTP requests for images, one thing you can do is to use CSS sprites to combine multiple images.
Avoid using a larger image than you need just because you can set the width and height attributes of <img> elements in HTML.
If you have multiple stylesheets and JavaScript libraries, consider combining them to reduce the number of HTTP requests.
If you need a 100x100px image and you have a 700x700px image, use an image editor like Photoshop or one of these web-based image editors to resize the image to the needed dimensions. This lowers the file size of the image, thus helping to decrease page loading times.
9. Cache Your Web Pages
4. Compress and Optimize Your Content The task of compressing your website content can have a huge impact on reducing load times. When using HTTP compression, all of your web page data is sent in a single smaller file instead of a request that is full of many different files. For more information, see this Wikipedia article on HTTP Compression. You can also optimize and compress your JavaScript and CSS files by combining them and minifying the source code. 5. Put Stylesheet References at the Top Moving your stylesheet references to the <head> of your HTML document helps your pages feel like it is loading faster because doing so allows your pages to render the styles progressively. In addition, it doesn’t hurt that it’s the W3C standard.
If you use a content management system that dynamically generates your web pages, you should statically cache your web pages and database queries so that you can decrease the strain on your server as well as speed up page rendering times. When you cache your page, it saves a static version of it to be presented to the user instead of recreating it every time it’s requested. 10. Reduce 301 Redirects Every time a 301 redirect is used, it forces the browser to a new URL which increases page-loading times. If possible, avoid using 301 redirects. Conclusion Web page speed is a metric that should not be ignored if you are concerned about providing an optimal user experience. Want more information on decreasing your website’s page load times? Read Google’s section on page speed, which provides tools, articles, and community feedback regarding website speed. Good luck and happy optimizing! REBRANDING
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5 Tips fo User-Frien You hear it time and time again: content is king. It’s king because it’s what users want, and it’s king because of SEO – i.e. if you don’t have good content, you’re not going to rank. Of course, not all content is created equal. While over-optimizing content for search will make it less than user-friendly, focusing too much on usability can compromise its searchability. So how can your content walk the line between SEO and usability? Well, there are 5 easy tips you can follow when trying to walk your content down that fine line between SEO and usability. 1. Length of On-Page Content The ideal minimum length of page copy for SEO purposes is 250 words. So where your user experience permits, you should have 250 words (or more) of actual inline content – i.e. not headers, not sidebar content. That being said, 250 words is just a minimum. As a general rule, the more content the better. In fact, I’ve personally noticed that when a page has 1,000+ plus, it has a much better chance of ranking for the keywords that it’s optimized for. Of course, there are pages where it doesn’t really make sense to have so much content. In such cases, 250 words 102 | ISSUE 01 | REBRANDING
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of content would disrupt the user-experience and push interactive features below the fold. Some examples of this are a category pages on blogs or ecommerce sites. In these cases, you might want to optimize the categories for a certain niche/vertical of keywords, and added 250 words of text at the top of the page would help. But from a usability standpoint, categories exist so that users can navigate/browse products or content within a category. So adding 250 word of text would disrupt the user-experience by pushing those product/article links below the fold. A decent compromise in such cases is to insert a bit of static content at the top of main-content area of your category pages. Generally, 300 characters (about twice the length of your page’s meta-description) is enough to (1) get some descriptive keywords on the page, but (2) keep the category links/listings well above the fold. 2. Scanable Line Paragraphs Knowing that you want at least 250 words on each page, how do you make that content as usable as possible? That is, how can you make it scanable so that users are deterred from actually reading it? As a rule, you should aim for 3-4 line paragraphs (2 sentences). Of course, in some circumstances, a paragraph warrants more than 2 sentences. But by keeping paragraphs within 3-4 lines (5 lines max), you can create a text-experience that users can easily scan, making them more likely to actually consume the content. 3. Headers Now, what do you do if you have more than 250 words on a page? If you’re talking about more than one product or
or SEO & ndly Copy service? How do you keep the user engaged? Well, you do that by structuring your content. Basically, you should section off your content using header tags (e.g. <h2> and <h3>). This will create a break in the content that (1) makes it seem easier (i.e. ‘not as long’) to read, and (2) provides visual cues to pull the user’s eye through the content. From an SEO perspective, moreover, the keywords in headers help you clue search engines into what your content is about. For example, three headers might tell search engines that three different (but related) topics are being discussed on the page. 4. Keyword Density Keyword density is how often a keyword appears on a page. Depending on who you ask, the ideal keyword density is anywhere from 2%-5%. The only problem with this is that even at the low-end, this can make for unnatural prose. For instance, if a keyword makes up 3% of all words on a page, the user will probably notice that that keyword appears quite often. In fact, it will make your copy seem robotic, non-compelling, and generally spammy. Where you can fit in these extra keywords, however, is in your header tags. Indeed, by using keyword variation to draw up optimized header tags, you can gain an extra 1% of keyword density without making the actual copy seem contrived and unnatural. 5. Bullet Lists One of the biggest copy tradeoffs between usability and search is bullet lists. While bullet lists help make content more scanable, search engine regard them as “broken content” – meaning that they don’t quite count as much as
other page copy when it comes to their keyword density. There are two ways to get around this. First, you can use a bullet list at the top of the page to outline the page’s content. This will help cue the user into what they can expect as they read through the page, which will help them better navigate the content. If you do go this route, however, make sure that (1) you have 2 sentences/3 lines preceding the bullet list, (2) you have another 2 sentences/3 lines following it, and (3) there is a minimum of 250 words of “unbroken” content on the page. This will not only put the bullet list in context for user, but it will help ensure that search engines properly index the page. Alternatively, you can simply place a bullet list further down in the content, as part of the one of the subsections. If sufficient content precedes a bullet list, that bullet list is less likely to factor large into how that page is indexed. Content: Kings & Jesters at Court A general rule to mitigating tradeoffs between search and usability is developing content for humans, not for search bots. After all, at the end of the day, search engines are out to provide users (real human beings) with the most relevant content available. If you take every possible step to optimize your site for search, chances are you’ll produce some rather non-userfriendly content. And the paradox there is that the less user-friendly content is, the less engaging it is, and the less likely it will be to attract backlinks or go viral. So you should always think of the user before you think of the search bots. But always keep in mind that there are some elements you can add to a page that both increase usability, and help optimize your page for SEO purposes. REBRANDING
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We’ve Arrived! Welcome to the inaugural Core77 Design Awards! For the past 16 years we’ve been celebrating outstanding design and designers across a wide array of disciplines. Now we’re proud to provide a global platform that honors the very brightest, boldest and most impactful work on an annual basis. We hope to set new standards for design awards by leveraging online scale, increasing transparency and decreasing plane fuel. We’re opening the field to 15 categories, recognizing the emerging disciplines of Design for Social Impact, Design Education Initiatives, DIY and our intriguing “Never Saw the Light of Day.” The submission process is online and allows designers the opportunity to show off their pitching skills by uploading a 2-minute-30second video as part of their entry (it’s optional but advisable). Our jury system also gives the judging process a new twist. Rather than put each jury member on a plane and fly them to one location, we have selected a head judge for each of the categories (we call them “Jury Captains”). Based in different cities around the world, each captain will select four local experts (within train, bike or jogging distance) to join them in the evaluation process as a unified jury team. Not only that, these teams of jurors will reveal their winning choices via live web broadcasts. With jury teams in time
zones as diverse as London, Tokyo, Sydney and Ahmenabad, we’re looking forward to announcement parties at all hours of the day and night. Meanwhile, the design team of Rich Brilliant Willing are hard at work making an award as innovative as the awards program itself. Thirty trophies will be awarded in total; one each of the Professional and Student winners of each category. Stay tuned to Core77 over the next two months as we document the evolution of this year’s trophy! So tell your friends, compile your materials and enter the work that you’re proud of. We’re ready and waiting! http://awards.core77.com/
Meet the Artist: INFO: http://www.blackleash.com
Maciej Robak
Digital Art, Animation, Design