SEO is short for "Search Engine Optimization." At the very root, it would appear to be something invaluable to a business. Using SEO a website, theoretically, can manipulate its place in search engine rankings. Unfortunately, abuse of SEO by unscrupulous businesses over the years has caused it to go out of vogue.
In the past, a web designer could use meta tags in his code to show search bots exactly what his web site deals with. Abuse of these tags by inserting popular search terms (like "sex") to boost search engine ranking has led most search engines to ignore meta tagging. Instead, A List Apart suggests coming up with the keywords most relevant to your audience and being sure to insert them into your body copy. Insuring that your site usage and search results come organically is the best way to secure your space on search pages. Be subtle! If you're too aggressive, search engines will consider you a threat and bump you from their results pages.
These days, the most popular search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google, don't shed much light on their search algorithms to ensure that there is no abuse. Google itself makes it quite clear that there is no magic way to make your site appear as the number one search result. Overall, SEO is tied into accessibility. If you ensure that your website is clear, concise, and relevant, your users will both thank you and be able to find you easily. Their traffic will be what ensures your search engine standing.
3.30.2010
3.23.2010
Evansville Bowl for the Cure 2010
Two posts in one day, I know! But this one is shorter, ok?
One of the coordinators for Evansville's "Susan G. Komen - Bowl for the Cure" works in our school's fitness center. They're trying to get more college students to participate, I guess... So they're looking to have some colleges students design their new logo. Because she works at our school she allowed us to have a crack before any other area colleges :) I think, currently, our class's logos are being looked over by the folks down in Dallas. Maybe one of us will get picked, eh?
This one needed a quicker turnaround than any other project we've done so far, so I didn't go for any sort of amazing innovation. Our client mentioned that this was their 11th year for this event they possibly wanted to play off of that. Other than that we had free reign.
I just stuck with my typical hand-wrought style when it came to my final designs. (Yes, the font is made by moi) I figured that if they were aiming for a younger audience, it might work. Right?
I think I finished this assignment with maybe 15 minutes to spare. Whew!
One of the coordinators for Evansville's "Susan G. Komen - Bowl for the Cure" works in our school's fitness center. They're trying to get more college students to participate, I guess... So they're looking to have some colleges students design their new logo. Because she works at our school she allowed us to have a crack before any other area colleges :) I think, currently, our class's logos are being looked over by the folks down in Dallas. Maybe one of us will get picked, eh?
This one needed a quicker turnaround than any other project we've done so far, so I didn't go for any sort of amazing innovation. Our client mentioned that this was their 11th year for this event they possibly wanted to play off of that. Other than that we had free reign.
I just stuck with my typical hand-wrought style when it came to my final designs. (Yes, the font is made by moi) I figured that if they were aiming for a younger audience, it might work. Right?
I think I finished this assignment with maybe 15 minutes to spare. Whew!
3.22.2010
The Ageless Aesthetic Institute
For this assignment we had to redesign the logo of an existing company, and then create a stationery package for it. I knew I wanted to do The Ageless Aesthetic Institute because it was girly and I can do girly, lol.
First, I did about a million sketches. I really had no idea what sort of logo I wanted to go for. Just a simple mark would've been best since I wanted to communicate a dignified and clean aesthetic... But what about a neat logomark?
Click to visit the sketch page
Eventually I settled on five logos that I felt somewhat successfully communicated what I wanted:
I was hung up on using these geometric shapes to represent the first letter of each word, and trying to organize them in an interesting way.
I really liked the little sundial logomark I came up with, so I introduced that. It's the only hand-drawn logo out of my solutions.
I really liked this little "hourglass" too. Another play on the "Ageless" thing. But one of my classmates thought the top of the glass looked like an asscrack. Or perhaps the crack in front XD So I definitely didn't feel like pursuing that one.
The "eyelash" mark was simple but effective, I thought. Here I present it with a more dignified font.
I ended up settling on this one, which has a bit more "modern" font. I used a system font and just made it super-thin by messing around with the strokes.
Now that I had my logo, it was time to design the stationery. I wanted to keep the teal and brown theme they had going on their site, I thought it was effective. I tried to go simpler than I tend to do on these things, so I basically just used the "eyelash" in different permutations. I liked the idea of making it sort of "go off" the paper and come back into it.
In the case of the envelope, you can see where my line of thinking was going. This template is off of Designer's Toolbox. A really neat site that a classmate pointed out to us. It looks super neat when it's printed out and nicely folded.
On the back of the business card, you can see the connection between the two "lashes," which I carried over into the brown blocks of color on the thank you cards. The dotted lines around the corners of the business card indicate that I wanted it to be a round die-cut. There is a design on the back of the letterhead, too.
Here's a photo of the real deal!
First, I did about a million sketches. I really had no idea what sort of logo I wanted to go for. Just a simple mark would've been best since I wanted to communicate a dignified and clean aesthetic... But what about a neat logomark?
Click to visit the sketch page
Eventually I settled on five logos that I felt somewhat successfully communicated what I wanted:
I was hung up on using these geometric shapes to represent the first letter of each word, and trying to organize them in an interesting way.
I really liked the little sundial logomark I came up with, so I introduced that. It's the only hand-drawn logo out of my solutions.
I really liked this little "hourglass" too. Another play on the "Ageless" thing. But one of my classmates thought the top of the glass looked like an asscrack. Or perhaps the crack in front XD So I definitely didn't feel like pursuing that one.
The "eyelash" mark was simple but effective, I thought. Here I present it with a more dignified font.
I ended up settling on this one, which has a bit more "modern" font. I used a system font and just made it super-thin by messing around with the strokes.
Now that I had my logo, it was time to design the stationery. I wanted to keep the teal and brown theme they had going on their site, I thought it was effective. I tried to go simpler than I tend to do on these things, so I basically just used the "eyelash" in different permutations. I liked the idea of making it sort of "go off" the paper and come back into it.
In the case of the envelope, you can see where my line of thinking was going. This template is off of Designer's Toolbox. A really neat site that a classmate pointed out to us. It looks super neat when it's printed out and nicely folded.
On the back of the business card, you can see the connection between the two "lashes," which I carried over into the brown blocks of color on the thank you cards. The dotted lines around the corners of the business card indicate that I wanted it to be a round die-cut. There is a design on the back of the letterhead, too.
Here's a photo of the real deal!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
