This is a guest post by Ellee Parker

Logos have long been a part of the business world; however, now that more professionals are joining the mass pool of information known as the internet, it is important for websites to have logos as well. But why is this so? Why should a website need a logo, of all things?

Why It Is Necessary

A logo has the ability to show a potential visitor and customer base that the website is serious. Making a logo gives off the idea that the business or individual is willing to take that extra step, and that they truly care about what they are doing. This automatically gives them an advantage over people that choose not to have a logo on their site, and that fact alone can make the investment worthwhile. It should be noted, however, that depending on the quality of the logo, it can actually hurt what they are trying to do.

Successful websites are not just about using the right web hosting or having an easy to remember domain name. A logo can also make a site more memorable. This is because the logo will be prominent, and people will remember a site with a logo over one that is simple and does not have anything. Because the internet is vast and brand new websites pop up every day, standing out can be near impossible, especially depending on the website’s subject. As stated, a logo can help in the process of making it more memorable to visitors, prompting them to come back at a later time.

How to Design a Logo

Logos should be simple in their design. They should not take more than a few seconds to look at in order to take in every detail; this is because complicated logos will overwhelm people and cause them to have difficulty remembering them.

A suitable amount of time should be dedicated to coming up with the logo. Something that was thought up in five minutes will not work, as the logo will appear unfinished and sloppy. This can make a website look unstable, unprofessional and undesirable to any potential visitors or customers.

Colors used for the logo should not be overwhelming. No matter how much the webmaster might love neon colors, this would not work for a logo. Looking at the logo should not be painful or near impossible, and this is especially true if the target group is of the older age set. No matter how many good hosting companies the webmaster has checked out, it will not make a difference where their site is being hosted if they cannot get people to visit, and revisit.

Ellee Parker hails from the west coast, loves anime and the eastern
culture in general. She could sit for hours surfing the net and provides
hosting reviews and guides. You can follow her at @elleeparker.

Related articles

• 60 Highly Clever Minimal Logo Designs (matamala.wordpress.com)
• Distinguish between logo and brand (theglobeandmail.com)
• An Interesting Roundup of How the Famous Logos Will Appear If They Told the Truth (logosdesignblog.com)

I have Flash turned off on my browser. I use Flock and have a few addons that I can’t live without. But it kept slowing down on me, so I trimmed a few things. I learned how to use about:config and turned off all Flash until I click the play button to start it. It wasn’t until then that I realized how many Flash ads are out there.

And some people build their whole sites out of Flash. If you’re a designer, photographer, or your site is only supposed to be a business card floating in the ether of the internets, Flash was probably a good choice, but if you expect your site to get read for content, look elsewhere.

Plus if you are looking to add a few interactive element to your site, AJAX is probably a better choice. It’s fast and doesn’t rely on third-party plugins.

So up to the last week, my basic opinion of Flash was that it was worthless to me and I am never going to give it another thought, similar to my opinion of Facebook. I can do without. If I am handicapped by that choice, so be it.

But then I ran into a few online apps that kicks any other apps ass. And I ran into them literally in the last week. And they run in Flash. And they are as complex as some downloadable software.

Many online apps are really trimmed down. I use Picnik because it does what I need while I am using it, but I still have to go to Photoshop to slice an image for a theme. And Google’s apps, please. Then I found a few apps that could potentially replace some of my desktop software. Don’t believe me, check out these (if you want to, you can request a beta invite from each. I got right in all of them):

Blist

Database software. I am a data junky. Didn’t used to be. When I thought I had the time and money to get a degree, I wanted one in computer science. When I checked out pay, database developers made the most. Boring! No going to do it.

Then I realized the power of data. It’s through the use of data we get contextual ads. It’s through the use of data, you can build huge sites from scratch with totally unique content as long as you know how to fit all the data together in a new way. It’s through the use of data that I was able to finally cut the time I spend affiliate marketing in half. I track it all and have for about a year now. I know where hits come from, how long visitor’s stay, and how long it takes them to purchase.

I have used mysql a while. I was hoping someone was going to come up with a better UI for it. Do get me wrong, coding from scratch will build faster apps, but I just want to move data around sometimes and don’t need all the flexibility.

I am really excited to see where Blist goes, if it can become as flexible and useful as Filemaker. Or maybe it could interact with a mysql database for a website. If so, watch out database developers. Pretty soon the average person may have the same power as you.

Aviary

I mentioned that I use Picnik for simple editing. Aviary pretty much kicks Picnik’s ass. Not only that, it kicks it through the uprights and out of the stadium.

I am currently a beta member of the Phoenix tool, but just take a look at all these tools. There is not only graphics software listed there, but video and audio editors. I was going to list them here but there is a lot.

Okay, Phoenix doesn’t have any slicing functions, but there are layers and just about anything you would see on Photoshop, just trimmed down a little. In fact, Photoshop can be intimidating and Phoenix is just about right for what I use Photoshop for. It has layers and filters. I just wish I could slice things, but maybe that functionally is in Owl, another one of the amazing amount of tools Aviary has developed.

Sprout

Building a sprout is easy. Choose from dozens of pre-built templates or start from scratch. Drag-and-drop shapes, text, images, video, and more. Then add components such as slideshows, jukeboxes, and countdown clocks, as well as interactive services such as chat (Meebo), phone (Ribbit), fundraising (ChipIn), and more. Once you’ve got your content in place, use advanced editing and navigation tools to perfect your sprout.

This thing is freaking awesome. Create your own widgets by dragging and dropping. Instant access to countdown timers, calenders, etc. that you drag to your widget. And when you go to create a widget, you can choose a template from a list of commonly used sizes, like Adwords blocks or create your own size.

It took me about 5 minutes to create this widget. It doesn’t really give you an idea of the potential of this tool, but it does show how quick and easy it is to use.

So if you have an idea for a widget that you think can go viral and have no idea where to start, start with Sprout.

And if any of you have spotted more of these cool desktop killer apps, make sure to comment.

I swear that one of these days I will have something useful to do with this Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, but for now it’s like having a million colored pencils in one. Want a rough gradient instead of a computer generated one, then draw it, changing the color and the pencil size gradually as you go.

I have to admit I think that most computer generated images are a little too perfect for my liking. It’s unnatural. Nothing in nature is perfect and computers can only generate simulated imperfections. I like a old fashioned hand drawn cartoon every once in a while. But it seems no one does this any more. Everything is computer generated.

Ever since the first post on the Bamboo Fun tablet, I have been getting questions as to what I would use it for. I think it’s perfectly viable for creating art, real art. It almost takes the software out of the way when you use it with Photoshop. It’s just you and the pen. No fighting with a mouse. No perfect computer drawn lines. You can draw and only allow the computer come into play when you switch colors or brushes.

Or something like this could be used to create some awesome themes or logos, with a human touch. We’ve had the shiny, flashiness phase of websites. We’ve had the web 2.0 design style. Maybe a tool like this can create a new natural drawn style. Or maybe thoughts are just spilling out onto my laptop.

It is also useful for mindmaps. For some reason, I cannot disconnect the free-flowing nature of a mind map from the free-flowing nature of a pen on paper. Typing it into a bubble and hitting enter to create a new node just seems too tech for a mind map. This pad will bring that back.

I will be exploring future uses and am damn sure I with be creating a totally hand drawn theme once or twice. And more doodles like this one. I forget exactly which filter I applied at the end, but I was just playing.

Back to work.

I don’t know if images help or detract from the content. I think I like them and have been adding them to most posts lately. I have also been bugging a lot of bloggers about how to streamline the process of adding pictures to a blog post. I know there is a Flickr gallery plugin for WordPress that will make the process I am about to describe quicker. It apparently adds a tab to your posting box that is linked to your Flickr account. But it has issues in my installation and only gives fatal errors

First, at least get familiar with the licensing terms a photo can have. Some require attribution to the photographer. Some cannot be used  for commercial purposes. Others are public domain. Those are the best. You can do just about anything with a photo that’s in the public domain.

There is no downloading or uploading involved in this process. Here is what you need:

• The Google Toolbar, so you can do the next step.
• Yotophoto searches multiple sites for free pictures. Go to Yotophoto, right click in the search box and choose "Generate Custom Search" from the menu. This will add a button to the Google toolbar that will allow you to search Yotophoto from the toolbar. I have four custom searches: Yotophoto, Delicious, Bloglines, and Google Reader.
• Sign up for Picnik. This is a great tool for photo editing. I have Photoshop, but Picnik loads faster and when all I am doing is looking to resize or crop a picture, I might as well go with a quicker tool. Install the browser plugin.
• Get a Flickr or Photobucket account. I have Flickr. i can’t vouch for how this will work with Photobucket. I just know that Picknik connects to Photobucket also.

Now, when you need a picture, use the Google toolbar to search for it and click the Yotophoto button. When you find the picture you want, right click and choose "Edit in Picknik". Once Picnik loads the picture, resize it or crop it as needed. Then choose "Save and Share" from the Picnik menu. From there you can move your picture to whatever online photo account you use. I then go to my Flickr account and right click on the picture to get the url for my blog post. The above plugin would take this last

copy and paste step out , if you have better luck than I did.

I have the Fck Editor plugin. It allows me to float the picture how I want in the post without having to write css. It’s good to have some sort of a margin or padding around your picture. The test on this them used to bump up a little to closely to the images.  It just didn’t look right and interfered with reading the post.

Here I am opening my big mouth again waiting for the real photographers to come along and prove me wrong. But when you are trying to get products online quickly, there is really no time to wait around for a photographer or Photoshop expert to do everything perfectly.

I have taken over 1000 pictures over the last year. It’s part of the daily grind at All About Doors. Some of the products have never been put online. This is the reason why much of our photographs get hotlinked and show up in Google images first, even though we have never really optimized the images.

I wrote this because I realized there is a lot of tutorials on taking pictures online and a lot pf photoshop tutorials, but nothing really basic. At least, nothing as basic as we do it.

The setup for taking the pictures doesn’t need to be much. In fact, none of the stuff we use could be called cutting edge technology. For lighting, we have six tungsten desk lamps arranged around a long table with tissue paper taped over the ends to soften the light. For a backdrop, we use some blue paper we got at an auction. And the tripod is held together with duct tape. The camera we use is older than mine, the one I took this picture with.

Here are the tips:

• Find the tungsten light setting for your camera if you are using these type of bulbs or your colors will be off.
• Use macro mode if you are taking detailed close up pictures.
• Don’t use a flash. Use lights and a tripod.
• Use manual focus for shiny objects.
• Learn this menu in Photoshop: Image->Adjustments->Levels. I played around with a lot of things until I found this. It is a miracle for pictures that are too dark. Just slide the slider until the colors look right.
• For scanned pictures of line drawings, first use Levels in Photoshop to take out the dirty spots. This may wash out the picture. Then you use contrast and brightness to bring the lines back up. The dirty spots will stay hidden.

Really that is about all. I wish I had known some of these tips when I was an Ebay seller.

Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics » Check Mate: Google Images I think it will be a while before Google can actually crack down on this. For one thing, until they have an algorithm to tear the image apart and decipher what it is, about all the data they have to determine the contents of an image is through the words and tags that surround it. Now, I read in Wired about a month ago, about a guy developing software to do this exact thing, but developing is the keyword. I guess they can determine the value of the site itself and then give rank accordingly to image results, but not all authority sites are above reproach, hello WordPress and New York Times. I think it is just a issue worth investigating.

tutorialicious : Community driven Programming and Photoshop tutorial links

My type of site. I have learned more about programming by online tutorials than textbooks.

WebSnapr – Website Thumbnails For Your Site

I was about to write a blog entry on how to cache webshots from webshotspro.com and save them to a directory on your site dynamically and then I ran into this site. Easy.