In the past I’ve had little comeback for clients with such a request because I simply wasn’t able to communicate effectively a reason to not change the logo size. Why exactly would making the logo bigger ruin be a bad thing. Often I could see it unbalancing a page but this reason just didn’t do anything to convince the client. So instead I’d just make the change, too battle scarred to fight, and get into a stinking mood while doing it. After two requests from different clients yesterday I decided to have another look into it and see if there was a good reason out there that even the client could understand.

This is normally where the Make My Logo Bigger Cream would come into it. Sure it’s good for a laugh but without a client that is either able to take a joke or see past the comical execution of the video you’re always going to be back at square one. After some searching around I came across a few things that that helped me not only figure out the answer but realise maybe why the client wants the logo bigger in the first place.

The Why

Of course I always knew the client put a lot of weight in their logo thinking it was important to promote on their website but I’d possibly not thought that they see their logo as their brand and their business. Their logo is neither of these things, but to the smaller business client the logo represents all the hard work they put into their business. So whenever possible they want to show off their success as prominently as possible, even on their own website.

The Reason

Yet here’s the problem and the reason to not make the logo bigger. A website is built to serve a specific business purpose, either it sells products to generate revenue or advertise a business in order to generate leads thus revenue. Anything that doesn’t serve this purpose should either not be on the site or melt into the background. The logo is one such thing.

By overemphasising the logo you essentially turn the website into a digital photo frame with the logo attracting too much of the users attention. At an increased size it takes more of the available space on the website leaving less for any information designed to sell. Although at times we can be talking a few pixels difference it can equate to a lot more as to the user they’ll see multiple items all fighting for their attention rather than a single primary call to action.

Rather than increase the logo in the attempt to push the brand the logo should be balanced in the design and become an element the user quickly glances to in order to confirm they have arrived at the correct website. Simple standardised positioning of the logo in the top left with sufficient whitespace surrounding it will be enough for the user to do this.

The logo will never be a factor in getting a sale, so a larger logo will only distract the user from their goals and reduce the space available for the website owner to highlight the call to actions.

Can you make my logo bigger? by Kean Richmond

I’m using PHP because it’s still the most widely used server side language and if you get the theory behind the PHP version it’s usually simple enough to transfer that to a different language even if you need a little help from Google.

The static method

Most websites tend to display a date as part of a copyright notice at the base of a website, displaying something along the lines of:

© 2010. Website. All Rights Reserved

With the date hard coded in this way it usually means a web developer will be changing this code once a year if they wish it to reflect the current date rather than the date of the websites launch.

Being a little more dynamic

By replacing the static date with a PHP function you can save yourself the work of having to manage the date shown yearly:

&copy; <?=date('Y')?>

The Date function is an inbuilt PHP function which means it does all the work for you, all you need to do is pass it the format in which you wish the date to display. In this case we add ‘Y’ to show the date as a four digit year. For more information about date formats you can use visit the PHP website.

Displaying a date range

Rather than show a single date you may wish to show a date range, in this case usually the year the website launched to the current year. Statically this might look like this:

© 2009-2010

To make this dynamic you simply change the second date to use the PHP function as shown above:

&copy; 2009-<?=date('Y')?>

This still isn’t as useful as it might first appear. Often you can be building a brand new website rather than redesigning a pre-existing website. This means that the launch year and current year will be the same. You could add a single date and swap it for the above code after the first year, safe in the knowledge you’d not have to make any changes the following year but really you should only need to write the code a single time.

So to cover all the bases we write something a little more complex:

$launch = "2010";
&copy; <? if(date('Y')== $launch){ echo $launch }else{ echo $launch  ." - ".date('Y'); }?>

What this does is show only a single year if the current year is the same as that you have hand coded into the function. Otherwise it will show the two year range. What this function also allows is for you to be able to add any date be it if the website is brand new or a few years old and it will display exactly what is required.

It’s a simple piece of code but it means you have a function suitable for any website that requires no yearly updates of the date, if that’s something you would usually do.

Displaying dates the easy way by Kean Richmond

So after some hard work writing (as it takes me some time to write) the post I wrote for Six Revision is now live and concerns the best practices for hints and validation in web forms. I hope you check it out and find it useful.

I have to say thanks to Jacob for the better title as after writing the post I was struggling on the title.

I’m on Six Revisions by Kean Richmond

These emails tend to go a little like this:

i want a web designer. email me?

Er, no thanks.

There’s a few issues I have with this. Firstly it’s the master/servant complex. What this email makes we feel is that whoever sent this email thinks’ I’m the dog and they’re the owner simply calling for me to come, sit and beg. Not only will I not work for any client like that but I’m unlikely to want to even know a person with that sort of attitude.

Secondly there’s the effort put into that email. Sure we live in a busy world but if this person truly wants to work with me then it’s a case that they have to put in just as much effort in as I do, and that starts with a well composed email. If they can’t manage to write an email that explains a bit more about what they want, or even bother to use capital letters then they’re unlikely to put the effort in to provide feedback, content or even payment.

What should they be doing?

Some people don’t seem to consider web contact forms in the same way as traditional communication but I like to write contact forms in a similar way I would a letter. First I introduce myself, explain what I’m writing for and then finish with a thank you. Now this might be a little over the top and my personal preference but I’ve responded to short email’s like:

I have a blog running WordPress, and I want to update it. I wondered if you accept freelance work and how much you would charge, etc.

Thanks for your time

Ok so it doesn’t give me all the information I need to go back with a comprehensive reply but it’s friendly and passes as a good initial response. This is all I want from people who get in touch with me. I want them to be friendly, put in a bit of effort and actually sound as if they are thankful for my time, anyone else is just wasting their time.

When you email, try doing it properly please by Kean Richmond

Due to work I had the video screen right in the bottom corner of my screen with the chat channel hidden which I’m glad of as it seems that when any female members of our community appeared the chat channel regressed to a forum of sexist and offensive comments about the females in question. As Rachel Andrew mentions some comments went as far as to say that these women’s appearance on the show was due to their good looks alone.

Dickheads!

I’ve previously written about women in the web and how certain groups segregate themselves from the wider community due to sexism in our industry. At the time I disagreed with the idea of them setting things up aimed primarily at women because I felt if anything it fed the divide and didn’t solve the issue of attracting more women in the industry. I still stand by those views but it does appear that my view of an accepting community wasn’t correct in all instances.

Sarah Parmenter also commented about how people mentioned she was only breaking into the conference set due to her good looks. I’m not going to disagree that Sarah is an attractive woman and certainly gets her noticed by the males in our industry but is she did crap work too then her looks would not be enough to get her appearances at conferences or Boagworld. It’s more likely her good looks where a disadvantage when first starting out in this industry, forcing her to work even harder.

Shut up if you want more women

It’s fair to say almost all men would like more women to join our industry, even if it’s just someone to flirt with but being so obviously offensive sure doesn’t help the cause.

Of course men will be men but most of us have managed to engage our brains and understand when to keep our mouths shut as well as get enough experience and maturity to understand the difference between success due to looks and success due to hard work.

Luckily I think the women in question are intelligent enough to know that the views of the few in the chat room were not an reflection of our community as a whole, or at least I hope it isn’t otherwise we’re all screwed.

What not to do when meeting a pretty female web designer by Kean Richmond

After skirting around a few frameworks in the early days I eventually made the conscious decision to stick with JQuery. Rather than use the first framework that came up when searching for a specific technique I decided to stick with one and hope to learn this. Usually I’d prefer to learn JavaScript itself but other than learning some of the basics it was just too much to cope with.

I’m not positive over what swayed my decision to choose JQuery but I’m glad I did as in my view it’s the most widely adopted which has led to a higher number of tutorials and plugins becoming available as well as a much larger community. Parallels can be made between JQuery and WordPress as having become the dominant forces in their respective markets.

I’m positive many people like myself now use JQuery and know little to no standard JavaScript, so could it be the case that in the future JavaScript as a coding language will become near obsolete serving a purpose only as the base for JQuery, where this becomes the de-facto language for creating dynamic websites.

I’m sure those who create and use the other frameworks such as Prototype and Mootools would wish to challenge this idea. Whether or not JQuery will be universally adopted I think that JavaScript will soon die off as a language that web developers learn, replaced instead with JQuery or possibly another framework.

JavaScript = JQuery by Kean Richmond