Graphic Design and More

The Psychology of Color in Logo Design

A customer’s first impression of a product or service is inevitably through the logo. No matter the quality of one’s offering, a poorly-designed logo sours that first impression as much as a limp handshake or bad breath.

Anyone serious about promoting a product or service cannot afford to ignore the psychology of color in design. Here are a few facts of which you should be aware in order to make the best first impression you can.

Green

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The green of shade trees, public parks and playgrounds is a very popular decorating color right now. Green calms, and evokes our natural environment, making its presence indispensable for anyone marketing an organic or earth-conscious product.

Good health, exercise, nutrition, and the outdoors are all important associations of this color.

Purple

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The color of royalty, purple has acquired a strong connection with children’s entertainment. For anyone looking for associations with the world of dreams, and imagination, purple is an essential choice.

It may seem like the ideas of royal power and kids at play are contradictory, but perhaps the image of a king reflects the emotional security we want for all of our children.

Orange

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Quick, fiery, active, and energetic, orange is a color of communication. Important messages of caution are marked with the orange of traffic cones and life-vests.

While some find the color too aggressive, if you have a warning that must be seen, or a service that deals with security, orange is the color for you.

Pink

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Pink was once considered a masculine color. It is only in the past hundred years that blue has become for boys and pink for girls. However, pink has another important quality.

Jail cells painted pink have been shown to pacify prisoners. Locker rooms painted pink have weakened football teams. Use with caution.

Yellow

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Bright like the sun, yellow is considered to be the most luminous color in the spectrum. This is a color of happiness. After all, who hasn’t heard the phrase ‘a sunny disposition?”

Even so, it is also to be used with caution. Too much yellow can really irritate the eyes.

Red

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A color of fire and energy, use red when you need to create associations with work, strength, combat, and exertion.

It is a color strongly connected to medicine. Hospitals often marked with the red cross. Because we all need to eat after working hard, it is used in many restaurant logos.

Blue

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The most liked color, the blue of skies and peace is also associated with productivity. Think of how many workplaces you have seen where blue predominates.

Weightlifters note an increase in performance when surrounded by blue. Use blue when you need to show how solid, reliable, and hardworking your company is.

Black

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Of course, black has sinister associations. However, black also stands for elegance and sophistication–the little black dress, the black luxury sedan.

Use black for these associations, and if you wish to project power, stability, and seriousness.

Grey

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Sometimes you don’t need to show anything exciting. Instead, you may wish people to notice the neutrality, impartial, or detached nature of your product or service.

Consider how often computer technology is packaged with greys, and you may see the use of this humble color.

White

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Purity, marriage, cleanliness. We like to see white in kitchens and in hospitals. A white shirt is a common feature of male formal wear. A white dress is worn when a bride walks down the aisle. We take our notes and print our reports on white paper.

When cleanliness and purity are important associations, you may want to incorporate white.

 

These are a number of associations that colors evoke in the mind of the viewer. Take some time to consider them, whether you are presently drafting a logo for your start-up, or if you have an established business that needs a fresh face.

Wow! 7 Billion People on 1 Webpage....

This brilliant idea was developed and implemented by Worldometers.

They believe that this special webpage carries strong philosophical, symbolic, and aesthetic attributes.
Even the mathematics behind the implementation of this page is deeply fascinating.

7 Billion people so beautifully displayed together on a single webpage is a visual testament of the human condition of every single one of us, and all of us together, on our planet earth.
It is available on the internet for everybody in the world to watch at any time, adding to the feeling of sharing something in common.

It is also a snapshot of an extraordinary moment in history: the exact instant when we reached 7 billion people on earth, captured on October 31, 2011 at 5:49:16 GMT.

 

More informaton: 7Billionworld.com

How to Survive a Bear Attack: An Illustrated Guide

 

Via Art of Manliness

Doctor's Receipt... An Explanation

Hello Europe!!! Brilliant idea!

 

Watch, share and join!

This awesome experiment in responsive typography uses face detection to adjust font size

Responsive design has recently become a buzzword, and for good reason: it captures the idea of displaying your content beautifully on each and every device. Responsive typography has also received attention, and various techniques have emerged to encourage type legibility across devices: like displaying different font weights to compensate for Retina displays.

Now, an experiment by web designer Marko Dugonjić has taken the concept of responsive typography to a new level: using face detection, Dugonjić calculates the proximity a user is from his or her screen, and then adjusts font size accordingly.

As my mug approaches the screen, text gets smaller.

Of course, this isn’t an exact science; there are varying opinions on how large body type should be for proper legibility, and the eyes of the user plays an important role (that’s difficult to calculate).

We’re particularly interested in seeing Dugonjić’s ”on load” setting in action, which calculates the proper type size once (on load) and then sticks to that size indefinitely. Dugonjić also created a “realtime” setting, which adjusts the type dynamically as the user moves away from the screen.

See it for yourself via the link below, and feel free to share how you think this tech should or shouldn’t be used on the Web!

[Via:  Mike Rundle)

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Breaking bad business card beliefs

There’s been a steady trend toward creating business cards that are designed to get you noticed but ultimately don’t do a thing for you. Let’s step back for a second and remind ourselves the purpose of a business card – they’re simply meant to help your customers find your quickly at a later date. If don’t you make keeping the business card around for future reference the goal, you make the entire card obsolete.

For example, if you’ve ever gotten a crazy business card from someone, do you remember who it was? Can you find that card right now? Is it stored with the rest of your business cards? In most cases the answers to the above are no, no, no, and no.

A few rules that can ensure your information is available when your customers need it include:

• Standard size: there’s a reason why business card printing companies always make 3.5″x2″ the standard size

• Avoid gimmicks like odd folds – they make it tough for your customers to store your card in card holders or a Rolodex (yes, these are still very much in use).

• Keep your contact information on the front so customers can quickly find your info

So here are a few business cards that are definitely interesting, intriquing, and exciting, but fail to make it easy for the customer to keep your card available. Use these examples to inspire you to creativity but know what NOT to do if you want your card to be one that contacts can easily store for future reference.

Self Dialing Business Card

This may be as extreme as it gets – the card will actually dial your number on a standard land line. While this is a very cool, very techy card design, it’s completely impractical for your clients to store. From the fragile design (that this card designer says should be embedded into a card), to the risk of needing a client to actually use a land line, this just doesn’t do you much good.

Balloon Business Cards

Once again, we have a really innovative, fun idea with this balloon business card, but is this practical? I say no. Would you want your clients to have to store this balloon in their desks, have to inflate it, read your info, and then deflate it? I wouldn’t! Also, considering this particular example is for an asthma doctor, I think they have the idea backward – you don’t want asthma patients to have to depend on blowing up a balloon to find you!

Oddly Shaped Cards

This card design is all over the Internet and it’s a wonderful design concept – that doesn’t work in context. These cards won’t fit into a standard business card holder due to the odd dimensions. A little bit smaller and the design works. Make sure to keep the dimensions within the 3.5″x2″ range.

The same goes for this type of design. This is impossible for clients to store in a standard business card holder – add to the fact that it’s metal, so can’t be forced or folded into a card holder. No, your clients are NOT going to add your business card to their keychains…

I love this leaf design – if it were a flyer or a brochure, but not as your primary business card. Again, the dimensions are all off. You can’t store this design anywhere you might normally have business cards sitting around. While it’s a cool first impression, it’s not going to last.

In this last example of oddly shaped cards, I want to use this really nice design of a cupcake business card. The design is so on point, but the card just won’t get kept. Not without folding it or cutting it, at least. Don’t make your cards get man-handled so they can be stored. 9 times out of 10, clients just won’t keep them.

Business Cards Made with Odd Materials

These matchbox cards are very cool and even include a sample of food. But, based upon our earlier point about practical business card design, do we really think the client will keep this for future reference? It’s very unlikely.

This is a very cool and very expensive business card design. The details are amazing and the metal materials are very memorable. But I’d be more likely to use this as a weapon than to keep it in my business card folder. Another concern is the small parts on the neck of the violin – they’re going to be prone to breaking off which could cause all kinds of problems from injury at the worst to a mishapen design at the best.

This is an interesting concept, but clearly falls into the impractical materials category. Customers are MUCH more likely to discard this design – or accidentally use it as a tissue! I like the texture and design, but the materials are all wrong for something you want your customers to keep around.

Unless your customers are HUGE fans, they’re not likely to decorate their bodies or other things with your business cards. These rubber band business cards are not going to pass our test of storability or practical use. While I love the idea, it’s not going to be around next week, much less two months from now.

And last, I couldn’t resist poking some fun at this business card on a rock. My theory about this design is that you can get a lot of long-term leverage by throwing this through a client’s office window so that it becomes part of the evidence against you, getting you long-term storage in the local police department. Otherwise, avoid this design – and using a Hotmail email address on your card, if at all possible.

[Via Designer-Daily, written by Tara Hornor]

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Dove's phoney Photoshop action targets designers

 

Dove's advertising campaigns in recent years have focused on celebrating what the skin care company calls 'Real Beauty' - railing against the blemish-free, unscrupulously Photoshopped images of super-slim models used in rivals' ads and magazine covers.

Now Dove has sneakily gone on the attack with this guerrilla marketing campaign targeting art directors, graphic designers and photo retouchers. The company has created a fake Photoshop action that claims to add skin glow to portraits but actually undoes manipulation.

The phoney action has been made available through Reddit and other channels frequented by the design community, but regardless if anyone actually is fooled by their prank Dove will feel its point has been made.

 

Thoughts on Working Remotely

Great article by  David Walsh!

The big news hit recently that Yahoo! gave remote workers an ultimatum:  move to Yahoo! offices or find a new job.  I was shocked that a company like Y! would ever do such a thing.  I've worked remotely for the past three years and I wanted to share some thoughts:

• I've been much, much more productive working from home than the five years I spent in an office.  In an office environment, you get interrupted by coworkers, blitzed with phone calls, caught up in office gossip, pulled into long business lunches, brought into meetings you have no business being in, and waste time driving to work when you could already be working.  None of the above is productive, yet it's all I remember of the office environment.

• There's not more depressing than a cubicle.  When I started working from home, I vowed I would never work anywhere without big windows.  Today I sit by my huge living room window and every time I get frustrated, I look outside, see a neighbor walking their dog or playing with their kid, and I instantly feel happier.  It's amazing what seeing the big picture, if only for a moment, does for your work.

• Whenever I tell people I work from home, the first thing I hear is "I could never do that  -- I'd probably get lazy and stop working all together."  That's really not the likely scenario -- in fact, I probably work too much due to the ease of access to work email, laptop, etc.  Luckily I love my job at Mozilla and a little extra work is a joy.

• The amount of money I save on gas and food (due to escaping to get lunch outside of the office) is massive.

• During my office days, I was once forced to drive to work in more than a foot of snow despite having everything I needed to work at home.  I narrowly avoided two accidents, slid into a ditch, somehow got out, and just about ended up in another ditch.  On the way home, I was forced to make the decision to slide into a another car or slide into a ditch again, so I jacked the wheel and got stuck in the snow.  All that so I was working in an office, so people could call me and stop to ask me a question?  Insane.  I'll never do that again.  It's also incredibly unfair for an employer to make their employees go through that.

• Painters paint best where they're most inspired and writers write where they feel most productive -- why should that be any different for coders?  Web designers and developers have, arguably, the least reason to go to an office -- after all, if we can connect to a server, we can get what we need.  Put people in the environment they're most productive, with the tools they need, and they will work wonders.

• Admittedly one drawback to working remotely is the feeling that you never know where you stand.  Am I doing well enough?  Was this completed quickly enough?  Does my boss or coworker have faith in me?  You never quite get over that when you work remotely, so you simply need to do your best and you'll be fine.

• When you are on deadline or forced to work late, the office worker usually goes into a daze thinking "I can't wait to get home."  The remote employee thinks "Let me hammer this out so my spouse stops glaring at me."  What an incredible difference in motivation.  :D

• Let's face it -- we'd all prefer to be contacted via email or IRC/chat instead of having someone stop by our desk and chat up our ear.  We can back to them on our own timeline and will likely provide a more detailed answer.  Even better:  you can always reference what you wrote and received.

• I'm not ignoring the business side completely;  I do understand that there are issues relating to state tax, insurance, and more.  Let me make that clear.  The amount a business can save on office space, office amenities, and more can help offset those costs.

• Happy developers are productive developers.

Those are just a few thoughts on working remotely and how it's very much to the advantage of both businesses and developers.  Am I wrong?  Am I right?  Share your experience!

[Via: David Walsh]

Poses: I always wanted to be a model (Yolanda Dominguez)

“Poses” is a direct criticism of the absurd and artificial world of glamour and of fashion that magazines present. Specifically, the highly-distorted image of women that they transmit through models that do not represent real women and that avoid all those who are not within their restricted parameters.

The aim: to make it clear how ridiculous, and at times harmful, it can be to follow these models that the world of glamour impose on us.

 

[Website: yolanda dominguez]