These articles and tutorials are handy guides.
Yes we know! This has nothing to do with SEO, PPC, or anything else we do here at Tastyplacement. But we’ve been doing posters for a local racing series (Michael David participates), and we wanted to make a pure 1980s style racing poster based on a video game.
We’ve got 8-bit design elements, like low color count (it’s 8-bit after all), and the Joystix font to make it look perfectly Namco. Enjoy.
The task at hand was to create a new logo for a prospective client. The Logo Jam, as Michael calls it, is a race of sorts to see who can create a logo in roughly 30 minutes. There are a few things to take into consideration when designing a logo. For starters, there are a couple of different kinds of logos. There are font-based logos which emphasize type. Brands like Sony, Google, and YouTube all use font-based logos. Abstract graphic logos showcase a symbol or single image that is linked to a brand. Nike’s swoosh logo is the most popular type of abstract graphic logo. A logo is someone’s first impression of a company. The abstract graphic logo really only works after someone becomes familiar with your brand since there is no text or description. It takes a lot of time and money to build the association between your brand and an abstract graphic logo.
Great font-based logo with clear message and excellent functionality.
Other quick things to think about when making a logo are logos of competitors in your industry, the message you are trying to convey, and functionality. You obviously need a logo that sets you apart and makes you memorable. Does your design show that you are a serious brand? Can your logo be used on a business card, billboard, or promotional materials? Check out this infographic we did a while back about fonts & colors that drive the world’s leading brands.
Wonderful use of the color palette on this logo.
Back to the Logo Jam. Given no prior introduction to the company but a URL link and a color palette, the team set off to create a logo. Below are the products of frantic clicks and the application of years of schooling. It’s interesting to see that all but one logo followed the same font-based format. All logos chose to use a Canadian maple leaf because of the client’s existing logo. Which logo best represents the client? Any suggestions or critiques to offer on any of the designs?
Have you ever wondered how many 800 x 600 website viewers are still roaming the internet? More than you might think. More importantly, have you ever wondered about the monitor sizes of the viewers of your own site? The capability to discern your own user statistics (monitor sizes, and a lot more) is well within your grasp–in fact, you may already be missing it.
It’s helpful to know the monitor dimensions of internet users generally; this lets you plan your designs to deliver a good experience to website visitors. W3Schools keeps a running tally of monitor sizes that visit its website but the statistics do not appear to account for mobile websites, so just remember that you need to account for mobile website visitors separately.
For 2012 (January through November) we see the following statistics on about 73,000 visitors:
A few details are worthy of mention. First, recent years have seen a proliferation of browser/monitor sizes. We see a nearly endless “long-tail” of single instances of very unusual browser sizes like 1795×1011 and 1540×963, just to name a few. These odd sizes make statistical analysis a little foggy. Generally though your top 10 or 15 monitor sizes are going to give you a fair sense of who’s visiting.
Now, just for reference, the statistics above are a far cry from what we reported in 2008:
| Screen Resolution | Visits | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |
1024×768 |
383 | 37.73% |
| 2. |
1280×800 |
147 | 14.48% |
| 3. |
1280×1024 |
114 | 11.23% |
| 4. |
1440×900 |
82 | 8.08% |
| 5. |
1680×1050 |
59 | 5.81% |
| 6. |
1280×768 |
50 | 4.93% |
| 7. |
1920×1200 |
42 | 4.14% |
| 8. |
800×600 |
38 | 3.74% |
| 9. |
1152×864 |
35 | 3.45% |
| 10. |
1280×720 |
11 | 1.08% |
Since we first wrote this post in 2008, Google Analytics has gone through a few redesigns–GA still offers the capability of showing your website visitors’ browser size, it’s just a little harder to find.
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Handy, huh? And don’t be surprised if you see a few 800 x 600 viewers still kicking around.
I like to play around with Way Back Machine – the site that archives screen shots of websites in years past. We’ve put together a little tour of early versions of now-ubiquitous websites. We think you’ll enjoy this little web tour. So, put on some Pearl Jam (they were hot in 1998) and set your browsers to 640 by 480 and relax:
This incarnation of Google was still hosted at Stanford University and featured an index of 25 million pages, but was “soon to be much bigger”.
We love this early Apple design, only about 400 pixels wide. This site would fit on most cell-phone browsers.
An early version of online retail giant Tiger Direct.
A fine-looking site from 1998, from President Clinton and the man who invented the internet.
A pre-Google version of Infoseek…
