Thursday 30 November 2017

Beautiful and Simple Logo Design Ideas for Your Inspiration

You have launched your online store, put a social media campaign in place, and created a roadmap of how you can grow your business over time. However, now it’s time for the company branding. So, how do you start with that?
Branding comprises of many things- your company’s work culture, public image, and the kind of values you promote through your business. However, one thing you cannot make a mistake about is the importance of business logo.
Whether you learn photoshop techniques for logo creation yourself or approach a designer (AI or human) for the same, what matters is that you get a unique and creative company logo in the end.

If you decide to take the matter into your own hands, then the following are some beautiful and simple logo designs that are bound to inspire you and get you started:

1. Together

A logo for a dating website. So, the clever use of two stick-people holding hands together fits the profile perfectly.

2. lOOk

3. Wine Kingdom

4. Eluvphants

Another logo for a dating company. The logo shows two elephants making a “Heart”, again fitting. Also, observe the choice of background and foreground colours- how they complement each other.

5. Berry

A logo design for a handmade clothing company. Although the use of a berry as a button is creative alone, the background texture is of a fabric, which is an important detail as well.

6. Saturn Electronics

7. Be the Star You Are

8. BarCode

Another great example of approaching a logo design. If the brand name is made up of two words that have actual meanings, then you can simply focus on each one individually and come up with as many good visual concepts as you can.

Once you have selected one for each, you can combine them together and voila! You have a creative logo that is a perfect visual representation of your brand.

9. I Love (Heart) Poker

10. Unique Design

An example of a wordmark logo, which is basically a font-based logo that focuses on the brand name only. There are many other popular examples like this to take inspiration from such as Google, VISA, etc.
Since with these types of logos, the font is the only creative aspect of the design; it’s important to familiarize yourself with some creative and attractive typography. You can, of course, take a look at some good typography examples for inspiration.

11. Mountain West

If your business name is rather lengthy or isn’t something that will roll off a person’s tongue easily, then maybe you can use its abbreviation as the logo. Take a look at the logos of CNN, HP, Volkswagen, etc. You will notice a pattern here, which is that their logos are lettermark logos in which they use their initials for branding purposes.

These were some of the most creative company logos that were designed by some of the most creative designers in the world. Be sure to take a closer look at them as you will find something of value in each one. Use it all to create one for yours that truly stands out and qualifies to portray your company’s ideology in a visual format.

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from SpyreStudios http://spyrestudios.com/beautiful-simple-logo-design-ideas-inspiration/

Wednesday 29 November 2017

15 Great Gifts for Web Designers

Buying gifts for the technologically inclined can be challenging. Here’s fifteen great ideas for gifts for web designers.

Responsive Sketch Pad

gifts for web designers

This unique sketch pad is created to help developers design websites for both desktop and mobile platforms. If you don’t like this pad, UI Stencils has an awesome collection of similar gifts for web designers.

Don’t Make Me Think

gifts for web designers

Don’t Make Me Think is a classic of user interface design. It should be a must-read volume for any web developer. If your friend hasn’t checked this out yet, now is the time – it’s just come out in a mobile-aware new edition.

 

Notification Memo

gifts for web designers

We get digital notifications every day. Now you can create paper notifications using the same user interface design with these cute sticky notes.

iPhone Stencil Kit

gifts for web designers

This iPhone Stencil Kit makes it easier for web designers to add UI elements from iOS into their hand-drawn wireframes.

 

Web Designer’s Idea Book

gifts for web designers

This Web Designer’s Idea book is a useful resource for working developers trying to stay creative.

Cooking for Geeks

gifts for web designers

When you’re in front of a computer for most of your life, it’s easy to get stuck eating trash. Check out this cookbook for geeks to get some better cooking in to your friend’s life.

Helvetica Mug

gifts for web designers

Less of a tech gift and more of a designer gift, this Helvetica mug captures the world’s most popular typeface.

Floppy Disk Coasters

gifts for web designers

These floppy disk coasters are a throwback to the bad old days of 1.44MBs of storage. Confuse young people in your life and make old people feel ancient!

CSS is Awesome Mug

This punny mug perfectly highlights the hot and cold relationship most developers have with cascading style sheets, or CSS.

Motherboard Keychain

This 20mm motherboard keychain is made from images inspired by printed circuit board layouts.

.net Magazine Subscription

gifts for web designers

.net magazine is the number one magazine subscription for professional web designers and web developers. Get your friend a gift subscription so they can stay on top of the latest trends.

HTML “<head>” Earrings

If you know any web developers with pierced ears, these HTML earrings are a fun in-joke for other web developers.

Lynda Subscription

Development is a constantly changing business. If you don’t stay on top of new developments, you’ll fall behind. Lynda is the best premium educational resource online for developers and everyone else.

Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook

The Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook is a reusable notebook that can be erased by microwaving. Snap a photo of your notes and uploaded it to your favorite cloud service to archive your scribbling permanently. Then nuke the notebook and start over.

Sparkfun Inventor’s Kit

This starter kit for Aurdino programming is the perfect way to get started making physical devices with some engineering know-how. One of the few great physical gifts for web designers.

You might also like some of the following:

Best PHP Books, Courses and Tutorials in 2017

Free Downloads: Fintech and World Cities Icon Sets From Agente Studio

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from SpyreStudios http://spyrestudios.com/15-great-gifts-for-web-designers/

9 Email Design Inspiration for a Killer Campaign

Email marketing has been rumored to be dead. Don’t believe that just yet. People still read emails. In fact, 80% of retail businesses say that email marketing is the number one customer retention, according to eMarketer.

There are many factors for when an email is considered “good.” But right now, let’s talk about design first.

If you’re a business, you need to be able to design your emails with style. As competition grows endlessly, your emails must capture attention in a single glance, or you risk getting your email ignored and deleted.

Here are some designs that will surely light up a bulb and inspire you to make your own.

1. Keep it simple

In some cases, simple designs can be more than a lot. Meaning, it shows everything that’s needed in the limited space available.

However, being simple doesn’t just mean that you use two colors or a single font, it should also be relative to the message of your email.

Say for example this email design by Squarespace.

1 squarespace-newsletter

Notice the single image used, the color palette, and minimal font types. It’s straight to the point and delivers the message efficiently.

If you want this kind of email, start by subtracting some parts on your emails little by little instead of adding more.

2. Have fun with colors

Keeping emails simple is one thing, but you can always experiment with different colors and see which would be more useful. Also, adding colors should be related to what email you will be sending out.

This announcement email from Hoefler and Co. about their newest typeface shows a group of colors that complement each other. It doesn’t look forced, and it’s a fun thing to see in your inbox.

2 - Hoefler and Co.

Another example is this email from Anthropologie. Although most businesses use eye-catching colors, this one used light ones with a combination of orange colored texts. Plus the creative photos of their products are delightful to look at.

3 - Anthropologie

3. Make it balanced

What is the right email template? The answer is it depends on your content and on what you are trying to advertise. But do know that your email should be balanced between the texts and images.

Creative Market’s email seems to be perfect at this one. Look at how they had fun with colors but still make it look simple and elegant.

4 - Creative Market

Too much and too less of the both might not be an effective marketing. Simplicity plus creativity are the right ingredients to make your email’s template balanced and more appealing to your subscribers.

4. Try using animations

Animations for your email marketing is a must try as this engages people more rather than by just using simple images. Remember that including animations to your email does not require it to cover your email’s contents or to show how much you care about your consumers. Rather, the animation is purely for creativity and fun.

When we say animation, it could be as simple as this email from Milled.

5 - Milled

Bringing the element of creativity in your email is an excellent way to attract more people.

5. Use only important texts

Too much information can lead to confusion. When constructing your emails, remember to make it short but concise. Use and include only the words you want to express to your consumers and try to avoid any unnecessary texts that would take much of your reader’s time. Nordstrom‘s welcome email is precisely like that. Notice the short and precise message and ending it with three buttons that will lead the reader to their website.

6 - Nordstrom

Furthermore, focus only on what you want your readers to know and not on complicated and lengthy texts.

6. Show visual hierarchy

Using numbered items or connecting lines is also a nice touch. It makes your content easy to follow and leads right to your CTA button.

This iTunes email show a collection of information that is easy to follow. Both emails obviously tell its reader where to begin reading by carefully displaying the content vertically for easier skimming.

7 - iTunes

7. Lessen calls to action

Calls to action are essential to invite action. But keep it minimal. It should already be obvious to readers what you want them to do.

This newsletter from Starbucks maximizes the power of simplicity along with good visuals. You can see the straight to the point intent of the email and directs where to click exactly.

Starbucks newsletter

8. Make it urgent

Using a huge font and attention-grabbing color, this email from Jack Spade is a nice example of bringing out a sense of urgency to subscribers.

9 - Jack Spade

Urgency is a compelling aspect of human psychology. Once you know how it works, you can influence people to act quickly and do what it is that you want them to do. Here’s an excellent resource from Campaign Monitor that explains how using deadlines and the proper call to action language can significantly increase conversion.

9. Get personal

Emails should be as personal as possible. Aside from the usual mentions of their name, marketers should stand out and use other strategies that will enhance the probability of your subscribers to read through your emails.

Look at how journelle personalized their email by sending a birthday greeting and giving out a custom discount coupon.

10 - journelle

If you own an online store, sending out emails about abandoned carts like this could get people to re-engage with your brands once again.

When you have information about their interests, location, and shopping activities, it’s easier to send out a personalized email and get them to connect with you.

Conclusion

There are a lot of email designs to fuel your inspiration. Hopefully, the samples above will get you to create something that is perfect for your own business. Here’s a checklist for when you need more guidance to start your own email campaign’s designs.

 

As always, you will need to find your style so make sure to experiment with different designs and be creative.

 

Remember that you are also doing this for your subscribers, so make it desirable for them. Have fun with your next email campaign!

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from SpyreStudios http://spyrestudios.com/email-design-inspiration/