Graphic Design and Website Design

I laced up my hiking shoes, grabbed my day-pack and hit the trail. I packed my powerbars, trail-mix, emergency supplies and filled two 12 oz water bottles. My goal was simple, to get away from work and enjoy the great outdoors. That also meant no phones, computers, cars or crowds. Just me and nature. Together for six hours on a round trip day hike to the top of Mount Baldy and back. It just does not get much better than that. Fresh air. Sun. Trees. Ahhhh, the good life. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not pretending to be a poster boy for Environmental Heroes. I’m just your average guy, working too much and playing too little. So when I do get some free time I like to spend it outdoors. That being said: I don’t drive a hybrid, I’m not a vegetarian and I don’t own any hemp clothing. I guess my “green-ocrisy” only goes so far, but I’m doing my best to keep the environment clean.

When at home, shopping and working, my wife and I try to do the green-thing. Our trash service offers a small recycling program, so we separate our plastics from the other trash. We also try to support manufactures and products that are earth friendly, just our little way of doing our part.  When I am at work, I try to offer clients earth friendly options. For example, instead of using a vinyl banner, a client might want the option of using a 100% cotton banner. If a client is going to press, I try to offer products like: recycled paper, eco-friendly based inks and soy based solvents. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Starting on Saturday, June 13th at 12:01am EDT, Facebook will begin allowing individuals to select facebook usernames. Also, in an effort to thwart squatting, Facebook is providing rights’ holders with the ability to prevent the unauthorized registration of usernames by submitting their brands.”

What You Need To Know About Facebook

Earlier this week I noticed Facebook was going to be starting to allow “vanity” urls. I thought, “that will be nice.” As the story goes, I noted the date, but the time-line did not sink in (I was doing too many things at once) …in other words, it is happening this weekend! So here I am giving everyone a shout-out to make sure they know this will be taking place. Read the rest of this entry »

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Submitting To DMOZ – The Open Directory Project

Open Directory Project (DMOZ)

If you are going to submit your site to the DMOZ directory (Open Directory Project), it will require studying the DMOZ rules on how and where to submit your site. When I say study, I mean …STUDY. This is no exaggeration! Sure the DMOZ dragon (Their Logo) looks cute, but don’t be fooled. This little DMOZ dragon will eat you up, spit you out and never look back after rejecting your website.

So if submitting to the Open Directory Project is such a terrible experience, why bother? Who cares? Is it just pride and bragging rights, or are there other reasons? Yes, pride and bragging rights are always motivation, but there are a other (perhaps more important) reasons why submitting to DMOZ is worth your time:

• Search engines, like Google, use it as part of their ranking system that can help grow traffic to your site.
• Organizations take advantage of free access to the directory’s content to populate their websites, providing additional exposure across niche communities.
• A listing in DMOZ will get you listed in the Google Directory.
• And yes, bragging rights.

Is Your Site Listed In DMOZ?

Since it is not my goal to unnecessarily torture you, before you begin this process go to DMOZ to search for your domain. To do this, search from the DMOZ home page for your domain excluding the “www”.

If your site was not found, but you are still interested in getting your site listed in DMOZ, the first thing to understand is DMOZ is a human edited directory. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you don’t tweet, you may want to start. Why? On May 6, 2009  CNET news reported on Twitters efforts to improve their search engine. Specifically the news article reported:

…in a one-on-one discussion, Jayaram [Twitter's new VP of Operations who until recently, was VP of Search Quality for Google] confirmed that Twitter Search, which currently searches only the text of Twitter posts, will soon begin to crawl the links included in tweets and begin to index the content of those pages.

cnet logo

The New Twitter Search

This improvement to Twitter Search will have two effects.

It will keep the existing users tweeting and it will increase the number of new users. The bottom line is, an improved twitter search will make Twitter more valuable at a time when Twitter and Social Networking are seemingly everywhere.

Twitter Search

Tips on Using Twitter

There are a lot of ways to use Twitter. Read the rest of this entry »

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Blogging and Affiliate Marketing

I want to start by stating the obvious, to make money blogging you need visitors. But once you get visitors what is the best way to make money? One method is to provide relevant ads on your site. You can do this by using affiliate marketing programs and advertising marketplaces. These services pay publishers based on:

• When an ad gets clicked (CPC)
• Or, when an action is performed (CPA)
• Or, an ad gets displayed a certain number of times (CPM)

There are a number of different services available that use different methods. Some offer video advertising, while others use images, banners or in-line text that a publisher can use to advertise.

Using a variety of advertising methods is usually the best way to make money blogging.

As a “publisher” (someone who puts an ad on their website) signing up is usually free, fast and easy. Once you sign up for an ad network or affiliate advertising community, your site is reviewed for approval as a publisher. If approved you can pick advertisers and how you want to display the ads that you feel fit your content.

This list of affiliate programs and advertising marketplaces is provided with short descriptions and links for more information on each advertising network and their advertising programs.

CPC ads / Text link ads / Image ads

Google Adsense
Google’s AdSense is probably the most used advertising network on the internet. To start publishing ads all you have to do is sign-up. It is free, fast and with a little knowledge placing the code into your website or blog is easy. Website publishers of all sizes can display relevant Google ads on their website’s content pages and earn money. This is a pay per click type ad that pays you as visitors click the links.

Chitika
Chitika is another popular ad network for making money on your blog. Sites looking for an AdSense alternative or AdSense compatible solution can use Chitika for their full-service on-line advertising network. One cool thing that Chitika offers is the ability to only “…display an ad when a visitor finds your site in a search engine”.  So if a repeat visitor comes to your site via a bookmark, or they type in your domain name directly, the Chitika ads will not be displayed.

text-link-ads
Text-Link-Ads supports websites that use server-side processing. You can use it on a static site (htm), but TextLinkAds is really well suited for any site that uses PHP, ASP, PERL, Ruby on Rails, etc. To ensure that only relevant links appear on your website, you can choose to approve or deny any Text Link Ad prior to the links being published on your website or blog.  You can display Text Link Ads on the same page with Google AdSense, Yahoo! Publisher Network, and… Read the rest of this entry »

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Logo Design

It is always interesting to see a huge company like Kraft Foods change their logo. But for the first time Kraft has also added a tag line. This new addition to their brand is,  “making today delicious“. For a company like Kraft, a change in their logo really reflects a new company image and brand. In this case, the new Kraft Food’s logo is much lighter, softer and sleeker. The new Kraft logo has a much fresher feel, with a burst of flavor at the end. I’m suspecting this is to parallel a more healthy, delicious selection of products.

So why change this iconic logo? Not only was the BIG BLOCK font and BOLD RED outline not current and hip, but it was heavy. Heavy and bold are two descriptions that are juxtapose to today’s attempt at health healthier. After all, Moms don’t want BIG BLOCK kids eating heavy food. They want healthy, sleek children eating nutritious and natural food. So does this new Kraft logo achieve all this? Will we start to see a new line of products hit the shelves? My guess is the new logo design is just the beginning of a big marketing and advertising push that will be in full swing come summer. There will be more TV ads, radio ads …and yes, internet marketing. I’m sure we will soon see a Kraft Twitter account filled with tweets about nutrition and information on healthy eating. Today a new Kraft logo, tomorrow a healthier, more delicious Kraft product.

Now do you think the new Kraft logo is a copy of the Yoplait logo?

logo design -Kraft Logo and Yoplait Logo

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Social Networking

Social networking is changing the way people work and play online. Social networking sites are nothing new to the internet, in fact you probably heard of Geocities and Usenet, two early social networking websites. But unlike Geocites and Usenet, today’s social networking websites like: mySpace, facebook, digg and the recently popular LinkedIn and Twitter, appeal to a broad range of users that go beyond teenagers.
From the graph below you can see a sharp increase in “social networking” based on search volume.

Social Networking Trend - source, compete.com

What is social networking?

Generally a social networking website is an online community that is based around either professional or personal relationships.

If you visit a social networking website, you will find the majority of sites are created around Read the rest of this entry »

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Logo Design and Branding

The internet is a lot of things. It is social networking. Online marketing. Websites. Blogs …and more. But did you know that the internet is a great tool for promoting your brand? I’m not just talking about your logo stuck in the top left corner of your website. No. I’m talking about thousands of people seeing your logo every day! Of course to do this you will need a few things, starting with a logo. Next you will need an avatar and logo icon. And finally you will need a favicon. If you are not familiar with an avatar, logo icon or favicon don’t worry, I will show you what they are …just keep reading. As for a logo, I am going to show you why investing in a custom logo is worth every cent. I’m not going to talk about colors, text or symbolism of using blue vs red. For a business person you need to know how and why a professionally designed logo is better than a free logo. So, today I’m going to show you five ways to market your brand online and how a custom logo will increase online branding options in ways a free logo does not. Speaking to the business person, this means more profits. So lets get started.

With the help of a logo the internet can become a conduit for boosting a brand. This is especially true when a logo is incorporated in an avatar, logo icon or favitar. What all this amounts to is more real estate in more places.

To begin taking complete advantage of the internet and online marketing,  your internet branding campaign will require three tools:

1. A LOGO- a logo is the first tool a business needs in order to take advantage of online branding opportunities. With the aid of screen shots I will demonstrate that online marketing can boost your brand to incredible heights. Furthermore, you will see why a logo requires a professional graphic designer whom understands the internet and how a logo design can be applied to an avatar, logo icon and favicon; something a free logo design software does not provide …and this is a huge disadvantage when using free logo software.
2. LOGO ICON and AVATAR – Compared to a logo, the logo icon and avatar are usually smaller. As a professional graphic designer when I design an avatar or icon logo I focus on a small part of the logo that carries over some specific and recognizable element in a usually small area.
3. FAVICON – Simply put a favicon is an avatar for your browser. It is usually very small so it needs to be designed with one recognizable element from your logo.

With this simple explanation of how an avatar, logo icon and favicon are based off a logo, lets go over how they are used in an online marketing campaign, social networking, blog or website. Read the rest of this entry »

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Typography is art.

Typography has become very popular among graphic designers, website designers and artists. Why? Because typography is an effective method of drawing a viewer into a layout, while keeping the design interesting. The power behind typography is the use of fonts, colorful text and twisted punctuation; and the combination of these elements is what makes typography an art. In addition, typography works well across multiple mediums. Examples of typography and can be found on: posters, magazine ads, newspaper ads, and brochures; but this is just the beginning. Other examples of typography can be found on buildings, signs and posters.

I did not design either of these two samples.

Here is an example of typography being used in a poster (visit: bridgerun.com).

Example of typography used in a poster

The next example uses typography in a layout (visit: Skirt! Magazine, march 2009)

Typography Ad

Typography is an art that has no bounds. With twisted puncuation, change in colors and interesting fonts, the combinations are infinate. As typography brings creativily to both graphic designers, website designers and artists, the power of typography to create fun and interesting layouts can also be a great method of holding a views attention.

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Blogging Tips

The sad truth is your website might be hacked and you don’t know it! That’s right, hackers will hide the links that are only visible in the source code. What this means to most people is thousands of spammy links are generated from a hacker’s script that is hidden in your code. This is not just annoying, but Google will penalize a site with these hidden links! Your ranking for keywords will drop and all the while you may have never see any signs as to what was causing it.

To find out if your blog or website has hidden links, or parasites, here is a link to a free blogging tool that will scan your code and let you know if you have been hacked. Just go to: Unmask Parasites

If your Wordpress blog has been hacked, here is a article on how to find and remove the script: remove hackers script. It is also has some good tips on prevention, so I suggest taking a look even if your site is clean.

Next, make sure to back up your database regularly. I use a Wordpress plugin that I set to automatically email me a backup of my Wordpress database once a week. I also set my email client to filter the email into a folder I created, this way it is out of my way; but there if I need it. There are quiet a few Wordpress Backup plugins, but here is the one I use – Wordpress Backup

Finally, here is a site that has some good posts on Blog security. It also touches on other social media websites that might have a security hole. Take a look at – Blog Security

Checking to make sure your blog is clean of hidden parasites that a hacker puts on your blog or website, is easy. The challenging part comes if your site has been hacked. However removing the parasites are crucial to improving your site’s performance and organic ranking. So, if your site has been hacked, take a deep breath and follow the links I provided, they will help you find the hacker’s script. Once all is clean, back up your Wordpress database on a regular bases and from then on it is just a matter of keeping up on the latest hacking schemes and security holes.

Hope this helps –happy blogging

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