Is Logo Design Magic?

It's true and in fact it is a beautiful thing: a good logo can seem magical. Here is the plain truth about logo design: a good designer will spend tens of hours (or more) in developing a company logo. A respectable logo requires research, brainstorming and a great attention to craft. Design firms charge about $125 an hour for creative and freelancers charge around $75. People must begin to understand the value of good design and the work that it requires. Please go to http://www.logosarea.com to get your Logo designed.It simply costs that much to run the business with good designers, competent support, decent facilities/equipment and come out of it with a fair profit. If hiring a good design firm or freelancer is still too much for you to swallow here's another option – go to a good book store and pick up a good logo book like: "Design Your Own Logo".

Though you might get it for $4.98 but how can one learn a skill that has taken others years of schooling and experience to grasp? Unlike an icon or a button designed to go on your website, a logo is intended to be used on everything a company owns and produces for the next decade or so. It represents the company. It should be clear and simple but at the same time be rich with meaning. It should reference some aspect of the company though at times it may be too abstract for the viewer to immediately make the connection. Please go to http://www.logosarea.com to get your Logo designedA good designer will begin by spending a significant amount of time researching the company, it's industry and the competition. This will be followed by dozens upon dozens of pencil sketches. There's nothing magic about it, the process takes a significant amount of time. In 1986 Paul Rand designed the logo for Steve Jobs Next Computers for $100,000 ( Playing by Mr. Rand's Rules ). That means that he potentially spent 1000 hours in developing that logo. Don't get me wrong, the hours involved may seem long and tedious but a logo to me is by far one of the most enjoyable kind of projects to work on. Most designers go through their own variation of what I believe is basically the same process. It begins with research. Research is crucial -- among other things it should involve learning about the company, finding out who their audience is, what the industry is like and what type of imagery might be appropriate for inspiration.

Following the research I like to just let my brain spill -- I do dozens of really bad pencil sketches, generating as many unique ideas as I can. When I feel that I've explored as many possibilities as I can bear I then select several of my sketches and I turn to the computer to rebuild and refine them. From those I then chose 2 or 3 that I like enough to spruce up and present to the client. These first concepts are designed in black and white only. I feel that this is important, it's a kind of "lowest common denominator" insurance.

Somewhere down the road nearly every company is forced to use a black and white version of their logo for something. If the design is first good in black and white then it can only get better with color (well that's the theory anyhow). After this first presentation the client has to chose which of the 2-3 logos is working or showing promise for them. 2-3 rounds of refinement (add color) and edits follow. Please go to http://www.logosarea.com to get your Logo designedNever limit your design options. Swooshes or any other visual devise should be explored and embraced -- but only if and when they are used in a unique and meaningful way. Designers need to step up and help clients better understand what good design is. Often working with a client means teaching them about craft, making it clear that your design decisions are based on knowledge and boldly expressing your opinion. Design is not magic. It is largely a demonstrable process that takes most designers many years to develop .

A logo is pretty crucialOften it will be part of the first or only impression that someone might get of your company -- on a business card for example. It will be present on almost every product, package, piece of company literature, and property a company may have. Your logo delivers a message to people -- a poorly designed logo can speak volumes about the quality of your services or product.

A bad logo can often mean that your potential customer is much less likely to take you seriously. A well researched and finely crafted logo on the other hand can have a very positive influence on how your audience perceives your company. The quality of the logo is not always proportionate to the quality of the company, product or service that it represents -- but not everyone out there will know that. Please go to http://www.logosarea.com to get your Logo designedSo what are you going to opt for? A cheap, quick-fix short term logo? Or a relatively expensive, well-thought, attractive, log-lasting one? The ball is in your court.

Ebay Auction Tips

Buying things in an auction is the most affordable way to obtain the item a person wishes to have. That is why even the Internet had provided such sites like eBay in order to provide more affordable items than what the typical market has to offer. Best of all, net auctions sites like eBay can provide a number of potential profits for the small time entrepreneurs who want to, in some or way or another, earn extra income. Through eBay, sellers do not have to build a site just to sell. In fact, there's no investment capital needed in order to start the business. There just simple things a seller has to do in order to come up with a good sale.

Here are some things the seller has to know before putting up a sale:

1. The Market Value It's a must for every seller to do some homework first regarding the price of the item in the market. This is to enable the seller to come up with a price that is reasonable enough to compensate the purchasing power of the buyer and the much-needed profit of the seller as well. The seller may also look for the other sites that offer the same item so as to give him or her an insight on how he or she should stipulate the price.

2. The item description. It is important for a seller to come up with a detailed description of the item. That is, the seller should be honest enough to put everything that depicts the items actual state and appearance. It should be based more on information and not just propaganda.

3. The photograph. Pictures are enough to sell the item. But it takes skill to get the right angle and the perfect aura of the item so as to illustrate the best point of view. If the item is clear enough for the buyer to see its specifications, chances are, the buyer will purchase it.

4. The seller's requirements. It is an essential thing for the seller to state his or her payment requirements. It's best for the sellers to include everything especially the additional charges that will apply like shipping fees.

5. The customer service. In order for the seller to close a sale, he or she must be well adept on customer service. That is, the seller should know that it is important to reply on a buyer's inquiry, to answer whenever there is confusion, and to do some follow-ups even if the transaction is finished. As they say, a happy buyer makes a happy seller.

Web Flash

Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a proprietary, robust graphics animation/application development program used to create and deliver dynamic content, media (such as sound and video), and interactive applications over the web via the browser.

Flash is not a standard produced by a vendor-neutral standards organization like most of the core protocols and formats on the Internet. Flash is much more restrictive than the open HTML format, though, requiring a proprietary plugin to be seen, and it does not integrate with most web browser UI features like the "Back" button unless a hyperlink is programmed to link a new html page from the Flash file, in which case the animation of the previous page would reset. However, those restrictions may be irrelevant depending on the goals of the web site design.

According to a study, 98% of US Web users have the Flash Player installed, with 45%-56% (depending on region) having the latest version. Numbers vary depending on the detection scheme and research demographics.

Many graphic artists use Flash because it gives them exact control over every part of the design, and anything can be animated and generally "jazzed up". Some application designers enjoy Flash because it lets them create applications that don't have to be refreshed or go to a new web page every time an action occurs. Flash can use embedded fonts instead of the standard fonts installed on most computers. There are many sites which forgo HTML entirely for Flash.

Other sites may use Flash content combined with HTML as conservatively as gifs or jpegs would be used, but with smaller vector file sizes and the option of faster loading animations. Flash may also be used to protect content from unauthorized duplication or searching. Alternatively, small, dynamic Flash objects may be used to replace standard HTML elements (such as headers or menu links) with advanced typography not possible via regular HTML/CSS (see Scalable Inman Flash Replacement).

Flash detractors claim that Flash websites tend to be poorly designed, and often use confusing and non-standard user-interfaces. Up until recently, search engines have been unable to index Flash objects, which has prevented sites from having their contents easily found. This is because many search engine crawlers rely on text to index websites. It is possible to specify alternate content to be displayed for browsers that do not support Flash. Using alternate content also helps search engines to understand the page, and can result in much better visibility for the page. However, the vast majority of Flash websites are not disability accessible (for screen readers, for example) or Section compliant. An additional issue is that sites which commonly use alternate content for search engines to their human visitors are usually judged to be spamming search engines and are automatically banned.

The most recent incarnation of Flash's scripting language (called "ActionScript", which is an ECMA language similar to JavaScript) incorporates long-awaited usability features, such as respecting the browser's font size and allowing blind users to use screen readers. Actionscript 2.0 is an Object-Oriented language, allowing the use of CSS, XML, and the design of class-based web applications.