It's back to the design school drawing board! We decided that it would be beneficial to revisit the key logo design considerations if you are planning to have a new logo developed, both as a refresher for us and as a guideline for you if you're after a distinctive and individual result.

The logo design process is regularly a very emotive journey where the outcome has to satisfy the needs of both you - the client - and your customer audience, even though you may have differing subjective viewpoints.

Fundamental to this is a good understanding between you and your designer, because ultimately it could take a lot of work and revisions to get the across the finish line. Without a good rapport the result will most likely end in compromise.

What's the point? Logo design considerations

Effective logos allow clients to connect with and recall the values of a business and brand. To be successful a logo should be recognisable, and therefore needs to factor colour, style, typographic and size considerations into a unique device. Establish a concept and find an individual and original way to visually communicate it.

Avoid overused imagery

It's VERY difficult to communicate your individuality with a jigsaw puzzle piece (i.e. 'we are the missing piece' concept) when it's one of the most overused graphic images EVER. There are many established themes in logo land and you would be wise to avoid having something that you like re-worked because you think it's a good fit. Instead consider the basis of your business, its unique qualities, its personality and individuality, what it means to your customers … and question how this might be communicated with graphics and words.

Don't just decide on price

You know we would say this. Corner cutting is a necessity in the first months of any new business, but we (as almost certainly every other design agencies has) have seen clients who unfortunately have realised that their off-the-shelf, cheap-o design doesn't meet the needs of the business 18 months in. A lot of clients already know this, and are acceptant of the fact that someday soon they'll get the logo redesigned. What they don't always comprehend are the implications of not just reproducing new materials, but the problems of having to effectively communicate the update to their customers with the new identity, especially if there is a new name too.

Consider scalability and reversal

With a mind-blowing plethora of media to apply your logo to, it's important that a design is legible in the smallest available space (think web page favicon)  and that it will look schmicko on that Flinders St digital advertising space that you've been promising yourself once you've make your first million. So don't just look at your prospective logo design in isolation. Question where it's most likely to be seen and how it might look in those environments. The perfect result will provide you with a seamless translation of your brand across a wide variety of different platforms

Simplicity is the key

A famous designer once wrote that 'Design is so simple. That's why it is so complicated.' In light of each nugget of advice that we've outlined above, the overwhelming opinion is that simplicity really is key when it comes to recalling your logo design.

There are of course an infinite list of considerations when navigating the logo design process and these are just some of them, albeit the most important ones. To discuss your logo design Brisbane needs, call us now on 07 3300 6308 and we'll take the journey together.

The process of creating and visually representing information, once known as data visualisation, has recently become more popularly known as 'infographics' or 'data viz' if you're really cool. These intriguing visual representations of report findings, data or knowledge have become very popular in the business world, and when you examine the various reasons why, it’s not surprising.

Infographics allow complex content to be communicated quickly, clearly and often memorably.

Far more eye-catching, interesting and visually engaging than pages and pages of data, their rationalisation down to a number of key indicator statistics, combined with the use of images, and brief bursts of summary text, done effectively, can give an injection of life to even the most snore-inducing report findings.

So if you are considering using your latest report findings to create a stunning graphical representation, exactly where and how can your business benefit from this investment?

1. Searchability

In a world where we now use the internet to constantly search for answers to questions, detailed information neatly packaged as an infographic is hugely eye-catching. Having made your content easier to identify, examine and digest, especially for a search hungry public with a very short attention span, infographics are search result gold, guaranteed to get click-throughs to YOUR site, rather than to your more verbose, less visually striking and possibly even boring competitors.

2. Shareability

By being attractive eye candy, easy to find on the web, and extremely helpful, infographics are also immensely shareable. An extremely effective way of driving traffic to your website, they are great attractors of backlinks from online articles, promoters of link sharing, and generators of embedded links to other websites. People that find them, talk about them and share links to them with their social networks, the net result of which is increased traffic to your website and improved search engine ranking.

3. Credibility

The businesses that create and publish infographics increase the stature of their own corporate profiles by doing so. Companies that publish and promote industry specific information are perceived as credible authorities by their peers. Doing this with meaningful and reader friendly visuals generates credibility … with bells on.

4. Printability

Data visualisation has always been popular in corporate annual reports brisbane, in the form of graphics such as bar charts and graphs. Infographics are becoming even more so; representations of data as meaningful graphics make report content far more communicative, and even more impressive and, dare we say it, put a positive spin on results which might suggest otherwise.

Such has been the impact of infographics originally commissioned for digital use, that we get also regularly get requests to produce the artwork as posters and graphics for boardrooms, offices and exhibitions.

The long and short of it is that infographics rock. They're the zeitgeist, they're here and now … and they work wonders.

Contact our Brisbane office today and we'll gladly email you examples of the infographics we’ve produced for the likes of Intel, NineMSN and GE.

Why is it important to write your copy in a specific style for websites, as opposed to print or other media? It has been shown that reading habits on screen vary greatly from reading habits off screen. People are much more task-oriented online, and read at least 25% slower on screen. It's a good idea to write about half the amount of text for a web page that you would ordinarily write for an offline document.

Successful website design is about keeping all your information organised in bite-sized chunks, tailoring your content to your audience, and presenting information in a way that can be easily scanned and searched.

1. Present Information Concisely

Visitors want information in bite-size chunks, and they want it now. Usability studies have shown that very few users (around 15%) actually read the text on a web page word-for-word. Rather, the vast majority of users scanned the content looking for keywords or phrases that either contained the information they wanted or possessed some relevance to their interest.

Page titles and meta descriptions are used by people and search engines - make sure they are relevant and concise and help to lead the user to the information they're searching for.

Here are some tips for keeping your content brief:

• Write concise sentences.
• Keep paragraphs short.
• Use subheadings to break up content
• Provide a summary or overview of key points for longer articles before providing the details.
• Provide clear, concise calls to action.

2. Use Bullet Points

Titles and bullet points are the most-read copy on the page. Lists are preferable to paragraphs because they are easier to read and scan, and also carry an implication of succinct information. Make sure that your bullet pointed information is concise, and not just your descriptive text with bullet points applied!

The following list shows which words tend to be read on a bullet list ("word" is read content; "ignored" is ignored content):

• Word word word word ignored
• Word word word ignored ignored
• Word ignored ignored ignored ignored
• Ignored ignored ignored ignored ignored
• Word word ignored ignored ignored
• It makes sense to write your bullet points then reorganise their placement according to importance.

3. Write Search Engine Optimised Copy

The content of your website is critical to its success on many levels; it can have an effect on your website Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) rankings (Google places emphasis on sites with well-structured content). Search Engine algorithms are made up of many factors and complex calculations. Why not make the most of the one factor that you have complete control over - your content?

Overall, good SEO copy has:

• A minimum of 300 words per page.
• Between 7% and 9% keywords per page.
• One principal topic per page.
• Links to other relevant pages on the website.
• Succinct, page and paragraph headings that are also rich in keywords.
• Summary bullet points.

4. Formatting

Keep your formatting clean and tidy. Most users want to find information succinctly and won't have time to appreciate a plethora of font styles, colours and sizes.

• Use the same font across all pages. A web-standard sans serif font such as Arial or Verdana is easy to read and ensures that your text will be viewable across all browsers and to all users.
• Underlined text is the standard convention to differentiate links form other text. Don't underline text if it isn't a link as this confuses and frustrates users.
• Use bold text to highlight important words or phrases.
• Avoid using all capital letters, even for headings - it is the web equivalent of SHOUTING!
• If you intend to use images or graphics in the content area of your site, make sure they are of a consistent style, and do not detract from the content itself.
• It's a good idea to ensure images are resized so that they don't increase page download times. If you want users to have an option to view a full size image, have the low resolution web version on the page, and then link that image to the higher resolution version.
• Remember to use a caption for each image - alternative text is an important usability aspect for users who have images turned off or who are using assistive devices (such as screen readers).

5. Provide Content For Offline Reading

Sometimes you may have a lot of information that your users need to read in full: case studies, white papers or reports for example. Allow your users to choose whether they want to read it online or offline. Rather than uploading the content of a long document, you can create a link to the document so it can be downloaded for offline reading. PDF documents are generally accepted as the web standard - they also look more professional and Acrobat Reader is free to download. Finally, ensure the document is titled appropriately for your website (rename the working file title if required).

6. Check Speling, Grammer And Punktuation

A website with content that contains grammatical and spelling errors can lack credibility and doesn't cast the business in a favourable light. How thorough and focused on quality do your potential clients think you will be if you haven't taken the time to check your website copy that is made public internationally?

For any further information or resources about content writing for the web, please contact Will Nuttall on 07 3300 0494 or solutions@absolutemedia.com.au

Q: What use is your website if prospective customers can't find it?

A: Nowadays, when we need a quick answer to something, more often than not we chuck the words into a search engine such as Google or Bing to see what solutions are offered.

Every day, searches are being made for the products or services that you sell, in your area, and when they are, is your website featured in the results? If it is but it's beyond the first couple of pages, then you are missing out on potential new business.

If you want to improve your search result position for search terms specific to your business, then you need Search Engine Optimisation or SEO as it's known in Brisbane!

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of improving your website's ranking position in the organic, non-sponsored listings area of a search engine results page and when done effectively, it's like having a salesperson working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is now also considered to provide the highest return-on-investment of any kind of online marketing.

The factors affecting a website's ranking position include its design, its content and its level of 'endorsement' by other credible websites. Whilst the concept of improving your website's position with a search engines result pages is relatively simple, it is the strategy, and the implementation of actions specific to your business to achieve this goal, which are a bit more complex.

Absolute Media have been optimising websites for more than 10 years, which is a long time before someone invented the mouthful of a phrase that we now all know as Search Engine Optimisation. Brisbane has many 'SEO specialists' that will happily lock you into a long-term contract and charge you much more than is necessary to do a good job. But that's just not our way of doing things.

So if you want to:

• Increase visitor numbers to your website
• Convert website visitors into customers
• Grow your business online

… contact us today to organise a no obligation assessment.

We are delighted to be basking in the afterglow of Absolute UK’s success this week, having received a ‘Commendation’ at the prestigious Mi Awards in the “Best Sport or Leisure Marketing Strategy” category, for their work on boxer Amir Khan’s official website.

The Mi Awards reward and celebrate the UK’s best marketing businesses and effective strategies.

Absolute’s award winning website for Amir Khan, the former two-time world champion and former unified WBA and IBF Light Welterweight champion, received nominations for numerous prestigious awards and was trending as ‘site of the day’ on the internationally recognised www.awwwards.com website following its launch.

UK Managing Director Chris Hodgen explained, “Our success is actually Absolute Australia’s success too. We share developer resources on larger, more complex website development and digital projects and the team involved with Amir’s website design have also worked on numerous large ecommerce websites for our Brisbane studio’s clients in recent months.”

“Of the four nominations in the category Absolute were up against some tough competition so it is a fantastic achievement for our work to be recognised at this level.”