Logo intro

A logo is an iconic symbol designed to represent a company, organization, product, service, and sometimes certain places.

The word "logo" is derived from the original word "logotype". In the days before means of mechanical typesetting were invented, compositors in printing offices used to assemble, or "set" type into a composing stick, picking up individual letters as they went. An idea to save time and effort resulted in commonly used words such as "the", "and", etc were created onto a single body of type and this composite piece of type was called a Logotype. Later on as technology improved the same idea was used to create a design, or symbol representing the identity of a company or institution.

Distinct aspects of a complete logo:

• Logotype/Wordmark/Lettermark: text or abbreviated text
• Icon: symbol / brandmark
• Slogan: description of the company
  

The uniqueness of a logo is often necessary to avoid confusion in the marketplace among clients, suppliers, users, affiliates, and the general public. To the extent that a logo achieves this objective, it may function as a trademark, and may be used to uniquely identify businesses, organizations, events, products or services. Once a logo is designed, one of the most effective means for protecting it is through registration as a trademark, so that no unauthorised third parties can use it, or interfere with the owner's use of it.

There are several elements of a good logo. An effective logo—

• should be unique, and not subject to confusion with other logos among viewers
• is functional and can be used in many different contexts while retaining its integrity
• should remain effective whether reproduced small or large
• can work in "full-color", but also in two color presentation (black and white), spot color, or halftone
• should be able to maintain its integrity when printed on various fabrics or materials (where the shape of the product may distort the logo)
• displays basic design principles (space, color, form, consistency, and clarity)
• represents the brand/company appropriately

Design practices that your website can't live without

Your website is where your business resides -- it's like the headquarter of an offline company. Hence, it is important to practice good design principles to make sure your site reaches out to the maximum number of visitors and sells to as many people as possible.

Make sure you have clear directions on the navigation of your website. The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion.

Reduce the number of images on your website as they make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.

Keep your text paragraphs at a reasonable length. If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into separate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

Make sure your website complies to web standards at www.w3.org and make sure they are cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks horribly in Firefox and Opera, you will lose out on a lot of prospective visitors.

Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information because of that.

Use CSS to style your page content because they save a lot of work by styling all elements on your website in one go. It is one of the most powerful tools to employ into your website. CSS has too many benefits to list, but imagine redesigning your entire website at the click of a few buttons on your mouse, or change all of the fonts and colors on your entire website? Since it's inception, CSS has generation a lot of chatter and is now a tool website's cannot compete without.

I need a new template

I think, i need a new template for this blog.

I know maybe some of you think "a new template!? you just change your color scheme a few days ago".
No, it's not all about my mood, since i'm not a moody person.
I need a new template for this blog since it's getting crowded here, almost every day there's something new on my sidebar.
I think i'll switch to 3-column template to provide more empty space on this blog.
Sadly, i have so many college works to do now. It seems that i have to stick with this template for 1-3 more weeks, when i have done all my college works, you'll see a new face on my blog.