We shouldn’t judge a book by its cover… but unfortunately, we do. All the time, every day.

Hardwired for survival, we look at what’s around and make snap judgments. Is this safe? Will it hurt me? Can I trust it? In a split second, our brains hand back the answer.

Yes. Or no.

It’s as simple as that.

While we like to think we’re more evolved than primal survival mode, the truth is quite different. We don’t have to worry very much about being eaten or slain in a split second these days, but no one changed our brain wiring accordingly.

So we still make those snap judgments. Only nowadays, we make them about situations. About people. About businesses.

That’s why your website design is crucially important. The second a new visitor sees your site, those snap judgments occur, whether you like them or not.

And your site design had best be ready to handle it.

What we judge has altered a little through time, though, to better fit our modern-day lifestyle. And the questions our brain answers look more like these:

Is this website credible? Does it look professional? Can I trust this business?

Yes or no. Simple as that.

If the answer is yes, your new visitor will hang about. He’ll read some copy and look for clues that reinforce his original judgment. Nice design. Well-written copy. Professional, credible looking business.

Great. You’re in a very good position to earn a new client and a sale.

If the answer is no, you’re in a bad position… one where you lose customers and dollars faster than lightning strikes.

Because that visitor will leave. Click! Just like that. His brain told him he should, because your website didn’t pass the test.

Not credible. Not professional. Not trustworthy.

Bad design or a poor website are business killers, and sadly, I see them all the time. It’s part of my job. When potential clients ask if I think their website needs a new look, I do the new-visitor test.

I click, I look, and I listen to my gut.

Does this website look credible? Does it seem professional? Does it convey trust?

Yes or no. It’s that simple.

The new-visitor test is the very first chance a website has of helping a business survive. Fail the test, and the business might fail along with the site, sometimes miserably. (If you’re very lucky, your business might not fail but sort of just limp along.)

Don’t believe me? Try the split-second test yourself. Surf the web, clicking links to sites. Don’t read them. Don’t analyze them. Just look.

And listen, the second you land. Your gut will tell you the answers you’re looking for.

Then go to your own website. Do the same split-second test. Judge YOUR book by its cover. And listen to your gut.

What do you hear?

If you heard yes, congratulations. Pat yourself on the back. You’re one of the few businesses with a website that’s working hard in your favor. (Or you’re in denial. That happens too.)

If you heard no, then it’s time to rethink your website and its ability to help you succeed. Help it help you – and give it what it’s begging for. You may never has to beg for sales again.

Need help with your web design? You’re in luck. There’s a solution to your website woes – one that’ll potentially revolutionize your business for 2012.

Click here for more details.

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Post by James Chartrand

James Chartrand is an entrepreneur, a pro copywriter and the founder and CEO of Men with Pens and Damn Fine Words, the game-changing writing course for business owners. She loves the color blue, her kids, and ice skating.

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Does Your Website Pass the Split-Second Test? first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

This year, opportunity knocked-… or rather, John did.

John’s a rather fantastic man who said he’d be honoured to have me and my family become part of his life. And while I liked the life I had just fine, I decided the upgrade he offered sounded pretty good. So I took advantage of the moment, packed up my belongings and my family, and we moved in.

There’s really nothing better than a love story with a happy ending, after all.

Now my place of residence sits squarely within the urban-modern section of town, where brand-new homes line trim, neat streets. They’re all model homes, nearly identical, of course. It’s all the rage out here. People might have blue shutters instead of green, a garage instead of a terrace, or two steps instead of seven, but the structures were built with the same general shape and style in mind.

And as I gazed around the neighbourhood the other day, the row of nearly-identical houses reminded me of all the nearly-identical websites that exist. One site might have a white background, a pink flower and an extra sidebar, but it looks a darned lot like another white-background site with a blue cloud and just one sidebar.

And that’s fine. Really, it is. If being just a little bit different from your competition attracts people who like blue versus pink, and you want blue-liking people as clients, then go you. You’ve succeeded.

On the other hand, relying on those tiny little differences to stand out in a marketplace and pull in clients isn’t going to get you many sales.

It’s kind of like the way every person who visits me first gets lost because they can’t tell my house apart from the next. I’ve told them we have beige stone (not the grey) and a three-gable style (versus two) and that we’re second house from the corner, but it’s no use.

“The houses all look the same,” one friend pointed out. “Only way I found your place is because I recognized your car. It’s the only black Protégé on the whole street!”

Thank god for Mazda.

Of course, every single person noticed the three-story, bright yellow, red-shuttered house down the street. You can’t miss it. It stands out proudly amongst the beige and grey stone and draws the eye before you can say sunshine.

Some people like the house. (It’s fun and fresh.) Some don’t. (It’s pretty garish.) But whether they like the house color or not doesn’t matter.

What matters is that every single person notices that yellow house because it’s different.

And no one forgets it.

I’ve even overheard someone using that home as a point of reference to give directions. “We’re to the left of the yellow house with the red shutters.” (I winced. Imagine if you had to point out someone else’s specialness because you had none.)

All this talk of houses comes down to one thing: If you want clients and customers to notice you, then your business, your branding and your website need to stand out on the web, just like that yellow house stands out on the street.

Your business should look different. Your branding should be memorable and remarkable. Your website should be bright, stunning, and full of wow.

Just imagine. Imagine what you could achieve if your website was the best looking site on the web. If it was stunning and memorable. If it drew eyes and comments and attention. If it stood out as different, credible, better.

Imagine the results you’d get if by looks alone, your website pulled in customers hand over fist.

After all, it makes sense. The way people perceive you is in direct proportion to your results and success. And if visitors think your website is plain, subtle, or nothing special… well, those are the kind of results you’ll get.

Plain. Subtle. Nothing special. Like any other house on the street.

Is that really what you want?

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Post by James Chartrand

James Chartrand is an entrepreneur, a pro copywriter and the founder and CEO of Men with Pens and Damn Fine Words, the game-changing writing course for business owners. She loves the color blue, her kids, and ice skating.

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Does Your Website Look Like Any Other House on the Street? first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

They’re all small business owners.

When I spoke with them about their business, they all had one common question: “Why is having a website such a big deal?”

Most people asking this question smile and nod when you tell them they really need a website, but most of them are thinking, “This person is trying to sell me something I don’t need. I’ve been doing fine for the past 10 years. Now this whippersnapper comes along and thinks his little internet thing is the next big revolution? I don’t need that. Never have, never will. Been doing fine without it.”

Well, they’re right, to a certain extent. The people I’ve spoken to have managed to be successful in their business. Many of them started with nothing 10 years ago and they’re still around running their business today.

And frankly, we ‘net-savvy people do talk about the virtual world and technology like we really can’t imagine how those businesspeople ever managed without it.

But these people really do need the internet. Should you ever be in a situation where you’re trying to explain to someone why getting online is a really, really good idea, tell that person this:

People Don’t Use the Yellow Pages Anymore

When was the last time you hauled the business directory off the shelf and looked up a business when you needed one? I’m betting it’s been a long time. The last time I needed a plumber, I looked one up online. The last time I needed the phone number, I looked online. The last time I went to a restaurant, I checked online for a menu before calling to make reservations.

If you’re not online, people won’t be able to find you – period. The majority of searches for new businesses, especially local businesses, take place online. The best damn plumber in the world might live in my town and be working in the building right next to mine (which, as a matter of fact, he does), but unless I knew him personally, I wouldn’t know it. He doesn’t have a website. And he doesn’t show up on Google Maps.

People Have Become Lazier

We’re the instantaneous generation. We want to know what we’re getting before we go to the trouble of getting in the car and driving five miles to find out. We want to see a website that shows us pictures. We want to hear about what we’re in for and be able to find reviews. We want to learn more about the people we’re going to hire services from.

We don’t want to have to call to ask. We certainly don’t want to drive out there and risk being disappointed. Going all the way to the home renovation warehouse the next town over only then to find it’s a complete pigsty and that the selection is really lousy?

No sir. An internet search is free and requires no effort. We make choices where to buy, what to buy and who to buy from before we even leave the house.

People Believe No Website = No Credibility

A few people I know are very good businesspeople. They’re awesome to work with. They have good stuff in their store. They get along without a website just fine. There’s certainly no reason to assume that a business isn’t good just because it doesn’t have a website (unless the person is advertising some sort of web-related service, in which case it’s a warning flag).

But think about an online dating site for a minute. You must have heard that people with pictures on their dating profile are 90% more likely to be contacted for a date. Not having a picture doesn’t mean that person is ugly. But it could. And we’d rather choose a person with a presentable photo versus someone who might be a better match.

The same goes for business. Not having a website doesn’t mean that you don’t have a professional business. But that’s the assumption most people make.

Think about it: You’re looking for a therapist. One friend refers you to someone who only has an email address, a generic address like annepottertherapist@mail.com. Would you search online for Anne Potter before writing her an email? And if you didn’t find her, would you do a few searches for other therapists before contacting Anne?

Most people would.

Small businesses need a website, even if they’re never going to use their website for blogging or selling or anything of the kind. These three reasons aren’t an exhaustive list, either. They’re just the beginning as to why getting online is a must.

Can you think of other reasons?

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Post by James Chartrand

James Chartrand is an entrepreneur, a pro copywriter and the founder and CEO of Men with Pens and Damn Fine Words, the game-changing writing course for business owners. She loves the color blue, her kids, and ice skating.

Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Three Reasons You Need to Convince Newbies They Need a Website first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

And in all of that, your potential client is supposed to find that one blog post, or a list of services, or how you’ll change his business for the better, or even find the About page?

I don’t think so. That person would sooner go to another writer’s site that doesn’t make his brain hurt.

I’m sure your website isn’t nearly this bad, of course. But there are probably some extra things cluttering up your blog that are distracting your readers and customers, possibly confusing them.

Certainly it’s not making it any easier for them to find what they’re looking for: how to hire you.

So why don’t we go through and see if we can’t make everything a little neater. You’ll have a site that readers can navigate easily and you’ll probably get more clients for your business out of it as well.

Shall we?

Break Your Widget Addiction

Widgets are one of the prime offenders when it comes to loading a site with unnecessary clutter. There are thousands of widgets, with new ones hitting the market every day. They’re so cute or clever or interesting that you just can’t help adding just one more to your site.

Six months later, you have widgets for social media, for the weather, for tracking your stats, for news, for keeping track of the average rainfall in Guam, for your live goldfish cam, and all of them seemed like great ideas when you put them up there.

It’s like buying a shiny new toy. Eventually, all your toys are in a giant pile, and they make it near impossible to get through your site.

Be ruthless. Get rid of every single widget that does not have a solid and related use for your blog or business. If it benefits readers or customers, keep it. If not, then it’s just making more clutter for them – which makes them not want to stay.

It’s like having a messy room. Maybe you know where everything is, but the mess just makes it unpleasant for your guests. Since the whole point of having a site is to have lots of guests want to stay for a long time, it’s time to clean up your room.

Keep the toys your guests like to play with, though. It’s only polite, and they won’t think of them as clutter if they like to use them.

Clean Up Your Ad Space

Ads are a necessary evil for many blogs and sites, but that doesn’t mean they have to clutter up the space. You need the ads for income, but the way you generate that income is by lots of visitors viewing and clicking on those ads.

If your readers and viewers think of those ads as annoyances, they’re not going to want to click on them, which ruins the whole point of having them. No clicks, no advertisers. No advertisers, no income.

So de-clutter your ads and make them more appealing for your guests to click.

Two to four ads, three products at most, and perhaps five links in lists are the maximum number you’d want. You should have them neatly laid out, too, so that readers aren’t startled by stumbling across them in strange places.

Make sure those ads are attractive, too. The easiest way to make ads register as clutter instead of helpful suggestions or recommended resources for visitors is by having ugly ads that just look cheap or silly on your site.

Flash ads are the worst offenders. Avoid flashing banners, animated gifs, and pop-ups. They’re good for grabbing attention, but if you think about it, so are mosquitoes. No one hangs around long when the mosquitoes are annoying them and wrecking a good time.

Don’t Take the Standard Option

We’re big fans of WordPress here at Men with Pens, but every WordPress default installation comes with a few widgets that you can definitely do without. Those extra widgets may seem handy at first, but in general, they’re useful to you, not to your readers.

Some prime examples of widgets you could consider removing are the Meta widget, the calendar, link lists, blogrolls, archives, categories, and pages, as well as any tracking widgets you have. Unless there’s some specific reason why your site needs one of those widgets (there may be a good reason to have a calendar for some blogs, for example), get rid of it.

You can create pages that only you can access using all these widgets or variations of them if they’re handy tools for keeping track of things on your end. However, unless your readers find them useful, get ‘em off your site. Create a cleaner, more friendly space.

Now that we’ve gone over a few ways to clean up your blog, how does yours measure up? Could it stand a little spit and polish?

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Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Your Clutter is Killing Your Customers first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Ok, maybe not life or death fast. More like finish-this-project-before-the-deadline fast. It probably would have been possible to figure out the gaps in my knowledge by trial and error, but I didn’t have time to waste.

So I asked for help.

There’s always someone who knows the solution to your problem, but that doesn’t mean that answers come easy. I searched every index and glossary on my shelves with no luck. I read through old notes. Nada. The deadline was coming fast, and I was running low on resources.

So I turned to my last—but hardly least—resource: my online peers. It wasn’t long before I found a wealth of knowledge in the world of tutorials.

If You Teach It, They Will Learn

Tutorials are one of the most undervalued resources. Desperate searchers are quick to check Wikipedia and discussion forums for solutions to their problems. For some reason, few people regularly bookmark sites that offer step-by-step instructions.

What is it that makes people shy away from tutorials?

Most often, the answer is time. Going through a tutorial seems a bigger commitment than skimming the latest wiki update. The truth is that heading straight for a tutorial can save time and energy that you would otherwise have to spend researching.

Tutorials are designed to make a difficult task easier by providing simple instructions for potentially complicated steps. They become scary when the time investment doesn’t seem worth the knowledge offered.

Being an expert at something doesn’t make you good at teaching others.

There are just a few basic requirements to make a good tutorial. Paying attention to the details can mean the difference between providing fast help and wasting someone’s time.

Your tutorial gets the attention it deserves when you give special attention to these four aspects of every good tutorial: language, organization, presentation, and content.

Layman’s Tongue

The most obvious requirement for a good tutorial is the ability to communicate effectively.

People want tutorials so they can grasp a process that they don’t already understand. If a tutorial is so full of technical language that the only people who can read it are those who know the process anyway, it doesn’t do anyone any good.

Ever wonder why the instructional “for dummies” books are so popular? They talk to the reader in plain language, one any person can understand. The technical jargon is stripped away.

All that’s left is pure, sweet knowledge.

You know the language of your trade or skill, and your challenge is to find a way to communicate your knowledge in ways others can understand as well.

In other words, know your audience. A group of experienced coders might understand what overflow, float, and the difference between padding and margins are, but those coders aren’t the ones looking for a tutorial on website design.

Accessible Organization

It takes more time to create a tutorial than it does to work through one. Before you can help others and teach them, you need your own thoughts in order. A tutorial that skips around or leaves information out isn’t good for anyone.

Whether you’re doing a step-by-step video or writing a how-to article, start with an outline or list that helps keep your tutorial clear and organized.

The best way to get organized is to go through the process you plan to teach. Take notes each step of the way. Instead of pulling information from memory, where you’re likely to skip a step because it comes to you naturally, pay close attention to what you’re doing. Try to see the process through the eyes of a first-timer.

Think about what confused you the first time you tried. Jot down the questions you had. Try to remember what tripped you up. Write down the minor steps, even if they seem obvious or common sense to you now.

When you’re done, go through your outline slowly and make sure the process is divided into logical steps. Ask a friend to try it. Test it yourself.

Then test it again (and again) until all the bugs are worked out and the information is crystal clear.

Impressive Presentation

Presentation is the all-important hook that gets your tutorial attention. I’ve seen many tutorials with excellent information that were of such poor quality that learning was a struggle.

If you spent as much time figuring out your lesson as you should have, you shouldn’t waste that effort by offering a final product that doesn’t reflect your knowledge and skill.

Pay attention to details. Fix grammar and spelling. Make sure your formatting is proper. When you have downloads, test them. Make sure all your links are live. If you’re making a video, don’t skimp on editing.

Don’t sabotage good work by offering it on an ugly tray.

Also, make sure that the final formats you use for your presentation are accessible to a majority of users. Not everyone can download large files, and not everyone can view Quicktime or Flash.

You could even post multiple copies of your tutorial in different formats and let people choose what they’d like. Be bold in getting your knowledge publicized.

Crucial Content

A good tutorial finds its greatest worth in the quality of information presented. A tutorial can have the best presentation and the clearest language in the world, but if the knowledge within isn’t worth knowing, the tutorial isn’t worth it.

Give viewers an introduction. Tell them exactly what you’re teaching, list what they’ll need to complete the project, and provide a brief overview of the areas you’ll cover. Offer a skill level, if needed. Is this for a beginner, an intermediate, or an advanced user?

If a tutorial ends up being long, break it down into manageable sections. Remember that people want good information, but they want it fast. A good tutorial makes time fly because it’s enjoyable, but aim for brevity without skimping on the important details.

After you have your content, take one last look at it. Ask yourself, will the viewer see immediate results at the end of each step? If the tutorial is part of a series, does each lesson build on the next? Cohesion is an essential part of any written work, but it’s especially important in projects carried out by people who may not understand the value of the individual steps.

A Good Teacher?

Before you start spreading your nuggets of wisdom, ask yourself if you’re the right person to teach the lesson. You may know how to put a pretty background up on a proboard, but does that mean you’re suited to give a lesson on web design?

Tutorials can even help you realize that you don’t know as much about a topic as you think you do – and that lesson is just as important for you as it is the person who needs to learn (from someone else).

If you do feel qualified to teach on the subject, tutorials are a great way to cement your grasp of the process and to spread appreciation for the work that you do. Everyone has something to teach, and for as long as there’s a teacher, there will always be a student waiting to learn.

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Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
How to Create a Great Tutorial on Anything at All first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

What do they do then? Do your eyes flow over the page? Do they follow a specific path, flicking to the left, then skimming over to the right and maybe down the page? Do you leap from color block to color block or jump from title to title? Or do your eyes zigzag through utter chaos as you search for something you can focus on?

When any site at all appears on your monitor, you’ll either have a good first impression and want to explore, or you’ll be hit with a jumbled mass of chaos that you don’t even want to stick around to figure out.

Site layout is the answer. It’s the basic composition of the key elements on the page – where everything is. Creating proper layout isn’t something that comes naturally to most people, either. Many designers or dabblers just lay stuff into sites and hope it works.

Sometimes you get lucky. You have a feel for what seems right and what seems out of place, and you can lay out a nice path for visitors to follow when they land.

But luck will only take you so far. You need to understand why layout and the placement of elements work well together to build a better site for your clients – and hit the mark every time.

Why a Site Needs Proper Layout

If you want people to stay on your site, you need to keep some principles in mind:

First, you need to understand that how you view material on the web is very different from how you view printed media. Think about how you look through a magazine or catalog compared to how you surf sites on the web.

With a catalog, you might leaf through pages. You’ll linger over attractive images, read a bit of descriptive copy, or maybe jot notes down on a wish list. You leaf through a magazine too, admiring full-page ads or articles, moving on to the next page, reading a bit of article or a call-out box.

On the web, how you view pages is often different. You’re moving constantly, already searching for something – information, entertainment, products…There’s no time to waste and a barrage of visual stimuli to sort through, analyze or ignore.

While surfing the web, you don’t usually mosey through pages on a site. At best, you browse sites, judging them in a split-second glance, moving from one to the next as you get distracted and click an add or a button. Of course, clicking stuff runs the risk of you being taken away from where you were and not being able to get back, so you avoid the extra stuff begging for your attention to focus on where you want to be.

Your attention span is shot. It’s gone right out the window. It’s moving fast, avoiding distractions and searching for what it wants. If you can’t find that in three clicks on a site, you’re out of there and heading for the next.

Walking Your Eyes Along a Path

Why are websites laid out the way they are? It’s how people in our culture read: from left to right and top to bottom. Although some people in other cultures read from right to left, the majority follows this typical pattern.

• A header (or banner) is always well placed when it’s at the top, as doing so gives people a starting point. They like to know where they are before they begin moving.
• The navigation bar underneath the banner gives people options and tells them what they can find, suggesting places to go to get what they want.
• Additional navigation can be had down the left or right of the page, subtly leading people down the page and calling gently for their attention.
• In the heart of it all is the content, sprawled out with lots of room in a space all its own.

Your site should be laid out in a way that helps people move around and navigate your site easily. Since the virtual world doesn’t really offer a clear sense of direction to people, the direction you can offer them on your site takes on greater importance.

Because that makes visitors a whole lot happier. Why confuse people with a scary looking forest to bushwhack when what they really enjoy is a meandering garden path?

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Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Are You Leading People Down a Slippery Path? first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

But how far is too far? How much can you stretch the boundaries of convention? Where is the point when it all breaks down in functionality, usability or effectiveness and just becomes confusing?

What good is anything if no one knows what it is or what to do with it?

Architects and Engineers Don’t Get Along

A friend of mine is a structural engineer. He designs the framework of many big, flashy signs seen outside casinos in both Las Vegas and around the world.

He’s good at his job. He knows how to make a structure sound, whether it’s a simple bookcase for his office or a 70-foot chandelier in a posh lobby. He understands how loads and stresses work, what holds up in a hurricane and what crumbles with the slightest shake of the earth.

I often hear my friend complain about the architects he works with. Many of them make his job difficult because they don’t seem to care about structure – they only care that the signs look good. They want it pretty and spectacular – structure be damned! That brace on the south wall? No, we can’t have that. It destroys the aesthetics!

Where Should You Draw the Line?

I read a post over at Vandelay Design that listed 25 websites with creative layouts. I looked at the websites on the list and there were indeed some pretty incredible layouts.

The sites were stunning. They were creative and unique. They had depth and texture and great design galore…

But I couldn’t help thinking, were they practical? As far as user-friendliness, functionality and usability goes, I doubt any would survive one of our drive-by site critiques. The designers wanted to push the limits so much with amazing imagery that they seemed to be forgetting a site needs to be user-friendly too.

Here’s an example. When you land on Colour Pixel, you’re blasted with a bright orange pixelated background and so much visual activity that the Las Vegas Strip pales in comparison.

It’s creative, yes. But as a site visitor, where do I go? What do I click? That’s not good for a site that boasts user interface design. And many of the other sites gave me the same impression.

Cool to look at. Hell for visitors.

Make It Work Together – Or It Won’t Work At All

A site with unique design that’s also user-friendly isn’t impossible. Functionality doesn’t have to be boring, and design doesn’t have to be out on the fringe of Alice in Wonderland.

Keep basic conventions in mind. They’re there for a reason. You could have the most amazing graphics on your site, but if people can’t figure out how to find what they need, the site is useless. And a useless site doesn’t bring in great sales.

Remember to include familiar elements even when you’re being creative. Visitors need guidance, and they don’t want to think.

And you don’t want to shock people so much with your awe-striking design that they’re knocked on their ass and can’t get back up to hire you.

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Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
How Far Should You Take Your Creativity? first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

A convention (in this case) isn’t a crowded floor in a fancy hall. When speaking of convention in terms of web design, it means using basic signs, symbols and patterns that people recognize quickly. They’re familiar with them and expect to see them.

For example, when a driver see two signs crossed at the corner of an intersection, that person knows the signs usually indicate street names. When the driver sees a red sign, he knows it’s a warning to stop. He’s learned that a dotted yellow line on the highway means you can pass another car if it’s safe and that flashing lights in a rearview mirror means trouble.

We’ve become familiar with certain symbols and know what they mean without having to be told. We expect those yellow lines on roads, red stop signs at the end of streets and street names at intersections.

Without these familiarities, we’re lost. We hesitate at the intersection wondering if it’s safe to keep moving. We search for street signs and get frustrated when we can’t find them.

Driving Around Your Website

Conventions are the same for websites. A few very important conventions have evolved as the Internet developed. We expect to see the site’s name across the top of the page. We expect a navigation bar to be on the left, the right or at the top of the page just above or below the banner. We expect content to take up the bulk of a page and ads to be listed down the side of the site, laid out in a grid.

You could visit a website written in Russian and still be able to navigate because you have some sense of where elements might be – or where they should be.

When you start changing conventions and moving elements to unique places or creating designs that remove familiar buttons, icons and navigation, you’re inviting confusion. A change might strike a new trend or improve a convention, setting a whole new precedence.

Or it might just confuse visitors. They’ll leave.

There’s a problem when you make a change in your design or layout just for the sake of making a change. You’re not paying attention to the reasons that convention worked with people well in the first place.

Can you think of some design or usability conventions used in websites and blogs today? Let’s see how many we can all come up with!

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Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Don’t Be Creative – Be Conventional first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

Logos are a common area of graphic design. Many an art student’s first project is to design a simple logo for himself or herself or a fictional business. The perfect logo can be frustratingly elusive, though.

Some wonder what’s so difficult about creating a good logo. They’re small, they look easy to do, so no problem, right? When you only see the result of a designer’s efforts, the logo creation can look like it was a simple task.

But, it’s not. A logo takes thought and creativity, and many elements combine to make a good one. You know that good logo when you see it. Here’s some of what goes into one:

Branding

Creating a logo that fits a business brand takes a great deal of consideration before the first line is drawn. A designer brings many elements together to capture the essence of the brand, blending it all into an image that will be everlasting through time, just like the business.

A good logo needs to to encompass the brand and marketing message the company wants to send to consumers. For example, when you see the Harley shield, you can sense the “cool” that might be associated with their motorcycles.

Memorability

Unique and well designed logos are unforgettable. Some logos are too plain or not symbolic enough for consumers to easily associate them with the brand. How impactful is a white dot, for example? Now think of Google’s logo – big difference, right?

Memorability means that when a viewer spots the logo, he or she can easily recall which company, service or business owns that image. Think of the World Wildlife Federation’s panda, the “I (heart) NY” logo or the Olympic rings.

Aesthetically Appealing

A good logo is appealing, stirring emotions to heighten the positive image of the business in question. For example, have you ever heard a new song and thought you didn’t like it? What happened after you saw the kick-ass video a week later? Did you start to change your mind about liking the song? That’s the power of visual appeal.

An ugly logo is going to turn people off or attract the wrong kind of attention. One excellent example is the logo designed for the 2012 Olympics in London. It’s a wonder it didn’t cause riots in the street, and it has unfortunately taken away some of the glory that goes into the Olympic games.

Usability

Graphics have to be versatile enough that they can be used in many different mediums. A good logo has to work well on the web, on letterhead, in print ads, and in video. Good graphic designers know that what looks great in a site banner might not work on a brochure or vice versa, so they carefully craft a logo that looks good no matter what.

Size matters. If a logo on the web has too much detail, reducing its size for a business card might give you nothing more than a blob.

Colors are a tricky element, too. RGB is very different from CMYK, for example, and they’re used in different mediums. Where RGB looks rich and vibrant, print colors may pale in comparison, losing some of their punch. A full-color logo may not translate well to black and white or grayscale, either.

Timelessness

A good logo withstands the test of time. It may need some touchups to keep it fresh and prevent it from looking dated our out of style, but that’s all it should require. Changing your logo when it already has memorability in place is bad for your branding. You want one logo that works for as long as it can.

Two good examples are the logos for the Betty Crocker and Aunt Jemima. Both have gone through quite a few facelifts over the years to stay up to date, but the integrity of the original logos hasn’t changed drastically, though both companies are over 8 decades old.

Other logos like those for major television networks in the United States (ABC, CBS, NBC) have been updated over the years, but you can still look at their logos from 50 years ago and recognize the similarities.

If you have a logo for your business, take a look at it. Does it pass these five tests? What are your favorite logos out there? Which do you hate?

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Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
The 5 Basic Elements of Good Logo Design first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.

“It’s funny,” he continued. “There’s ‘don’t think’ and ‘don’t care’. When a person doesn’t care, I see it right away. When a person doesn’t think, the results are usually spectacular.” Right again. I see many people trying to produce nothing short of miracles each time they work.

Unfortunately, that attitude of striving for perfection does work against you.

It’s not long before performance anxiety kicks in. You’ve set a bar of standards for yourself that you must reach. You start agonizing over every little detail, tossing page after page into the virtual trash can. You might even spend twice as long on the project than you normally would, because everything seems to suck hot, sweaty rugby socks.

I Give Up!

You know what happens then, don’t you? Eventually, you reach a point where you just give up. You sigh and say, “Screw it.” You stop thinking. You search for a distraction – anything to not think of the Job You Cannot Finish. You Twitter a while, surf the ‘net, check out Amazon books, chat with friends… You just don’t want to think any more.

Oddly enough, an amazing thing happens. When you come back to the project, you’re still not thinking – and then it seems to start to fall into place. It could be just the right sentence that suddenly unleashes a flood. Maybe you haven’t tried a certain font before and you realize it looks just right.

Sometimes by not paying attention, you hit on what works.

Play is the Father of Invention

In A Whack on the Side of the Head, Roger von Oech writes, “Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.”

Think about when your best ideas come to you. Is it when you’re actively seeking them out? Or feeling the pressure to perform? Or is it when you’re relaxed, not paying attention and just playing around?

There’s a good chance your best work happens when you’re relaxed enough that youv’e let go of self-expectations. Playing with ideas means that there are no expectations at all. No one’s going to tell you that you’ve done anything wrong, or that it’s ugly or that it’s poorly written, or that it won’t work. Of course not – you’re just playing. You’re experimenting. You’re just letting your mind wander.

Who knows where it might lead you?

Not Thinking and Not Caring

That doesn’t mean you don’t care about the work you’re doing. There’s a huge difference between not thinking and not caring. When you don’t care, you’re just slapping words into a sentence or throwing images up onto the page. Whatever works – you just don’t give a damn.

But when you’re not thinking, you’re allowing yourself to be open to new ideas. You’ve loosened your creativity and set it free to go where it will. You start to think in new directions and try new ways of doing things.

This freedom of creativity is one of the main reasons you’ll find so many people encouraging you to take breaks, go for a walk, play with the kids or have a nap. These common-sense ideas have a deeper goal:

They let your brain loose to play so that you can do your best work.

What do you think? Does your best work come when you force yourself to sit down and get busy, or do you find your most creative ideas come when you aren’t even looking for them?

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Another rockin' post from Men with Pens!
Lose Your Mind and Release Your Creativity first appeared on Men with Pens
Copyright 2006 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.