Typography is like any other skill set. It takes knowledge, experience, and a natural knack in order to master it.  There are masters, and there are rookies. Now, I don’t expect the average person to know all the fashion faux pas of typography, but there is one crime that stands above the rest in my eyes and that is Papyrus.  This font is used everywhere. Even if you aren’t familiar with it by name, you have surely seen it around.  The problem is, people use it as a skeleton key font.

Now, I don’t want to make an example of any local businesses (although, it wouldn’t be hard at all), so I am going to make up a few quick logos that are accurate depictions of logos you may see around.  First, let’s start with a Day Spa logo.  We want something elegant, fancy, and exotic. Let’s use Papyrus!

To the untrained eye, this may not look so bad.  I get it.  But here’s the problem.  Lets pick something else.  Lets say we have to create a logo for a woodsy resturaunt.  We want something rustic, charming, and of course, woodsy.  How about Papyrus?!

Let’s try one more, just to drive the point home.  Let’s try something Hawaiian.  Oh! Papyrus would be the perfect font!

Now, to many people, these may look great!  Problem is, you really aren’t creating a proper association here.  Do you want your design to look like every other design out there? I mean it. I probably see this font used five times a day, and I cringe every time.  I have seen it on local art organizaion signs, restaurants, the health section in the grocery store, and just today, a strip club sign!

This is not the image you want attached to your company.  If you don’t feel confident picking a font that fits your company, please find someone who does.  This is important.  It is the image of your company.  This is going to impact peoples decisions.

Papyrus was developed to look like handwriting on papyrus, the paper used by ancient Egyptians.  If you are trying to recreate that look, Papyrus may be the font for you, and even then, I would look for an alternative. If you have ANY other use in mind, please don’t use Papyrus.

Oh, and just to further drive home that it is everywhere, it was recently used in a major Hollywood production.

Carter had shown us some examples of websites he liked, which were very well designed, hip, full screen sites.  We always love when clients provide us with examples that they like.  It can give us a very solid insight into what the client likes visually.  We do not copy work, but it is always great for inspiration.

We knew we were going to need some high quality photos for the background of any design we came up with, and Carter was quick to respond with some amazing photos. 

One of Carter’s requests was to be able to update content easily.  For this reason, we chose to build the Chains for Chains website on the WordPress Platform.  By custom building a WordPress theme, as we did here, we can make a website appear as much or as little like a blog as desired.  Chains for Chains looks and behaves very little like a blog, but has a full featured Content Management System (CMS) that Carter can use to update the site.  We love how easy WordPress is for our clients, and how flexible it is for us to design on.

We were really happy to be part of Chains for Chains.  Seriously, go check them out.  Here is the link again: www.chainsforchains.org and here are a couple more shots of the website:

Wikimedia Commons

From time to time, I like to pick a topic I am familiar with and re-research it. It’s always good to make sure you understand things like you think you do. After all, this stuff changes faster than you can learn it, so staying up-to-date is critical. Recently, I started looking into SEO. SEO, if you aren’t familiar with the bazillion acronyms floating around the internet, is Search Engine Optimization. Basically, making sure your website fairs well in the competitive world of internet searches.

Now, we don’t tout ourselves as “SEO experts” but we do keep SEO in mind when we build our websites. There are specialists for that very thing, and they charge a pretty penny to make sure your website is at the top of a search! During my search, however, I noticed something striking. These SEO experts aren’t at the top of the searches!

I have long felt that SEO services are just quack medicine. There once was a time when getting to the top of a search was the best thing you could do for your website, and there were little tricks you could do to make that happen.  Things have changed.  Getting results on the web is now much more than simply getting to the top of  a search.  Users have gotten used to this web thing, and it turns out, they make pretty wise decisions.  As content grew, so did their demand for quality content.  Search engine companies either saw this and learned how to work with it, or they failed.  This is why Google is the leading search engine on the web, with Bing, Yahoo, and MSN trailing way behind.

Google, over the years, has developed an every changing, ever improving search algorithm that is more likely to find whatever it is the user is actually looking for.  They work hard to make sure their crawlers can’t be tricked.  So hard, in fact, that if they catch you trying, they may just ban you from their search results.  Their servers pay attention to the trends of the user and other users throughout the world.  They look carefully at a website’s content. They pay attention to the tricks people use to try to get to the top.  They pay attention to who is linking to who, and how good/bad that is.

This means that SEO is growing toward an emphasis on quality content, and it’s about time! It’s quite refreshing to have search results give me what I was looking for, instead of a website that simply tricked me into visiting.  And it’s time we all start thinking of SEO in these terms.  What good is it to get traffic to your site if it doesn’t generate any response?  A visit to your site is only worth something if it generates the desired response.

In my recent research I found an interesting PDF published by Google that outlines some of the basics, and interestingly enough, their tips paralleled providing the user with a quality experience.  The site should be coded semantically and keep users from being confused.  The content should be of interest to them.  You shouldn’t trick users into visiting if your site is not really what they are looking for.  Google is looking for the sites that the users are looking for. This means, a focus on the user has a more dramatic impact on search results than ever!

And the really cool thing is, if a user finds your site on Google nowadays, he is more likely to respond to your content.  Search engines are giving users the content they want, and they are giving websites the traffic they want as well. Ethical SEO will help you, and help the users on the internet, get the things they need. Unethical SEO dirties up the web with rogue content and misdirections, not to mention it can actually harm your site!

Recently I ran across a company who was harmed by link farming in a rather unfortunate way.  Link farming is when you pay for a service that will get your links placed on various websites.  Get enough links out there, and people are sure to click them. It’s a shotgun approach.  Well, part of the deal is that you also have to allow these links to be placed on your site.  You may have seen this.  You will be reading an article, and there are random links with annoying little pop-ups all over.  They never link you to anything you actually want, but you may click them on accident from time to time. More importantly, you have no direct control over what links are placed on your site.  In the unfortunate case of the company in question, their link farm service was placing the links to direct competitors on their site!  Not only that, but as far as search engines go, you may be held responsible for these links. If they link to known spammers, you may be penalized by search engines and actually go down in the rankings!

So, SEO companies may have their place, but they are not a guarantee to success.  The best thing that can be done for your site is to put the user first.  Make sure they get what they want, enjoy their stay, and know how to find you.  Make sure your site is the site they are looking for. If you put the user first,and have a skilled and ethical web designer, half the battle is the already won.

Jentry designed some wedding reception invitations for her friends, Mike and Kim. They decided to host their invitation a few months after the wedding. This presented a unique opportunity for Jentry because she got to photograph the wedding, and then use those photos on the invites for the reception.

Jentry even designed the logo for their wedding.  It was a small but beautiful element on their invitations.  Jentry never misses these small details. You can view photos from the wedding at her photography blog, Jentry Aileen Photography.

M Dryden Photography is anxious to photograph any action sport. Just look at this photo of a dirt bike rider taken deep in the Nevada Desert

Two of my biggest passions outside of web development are photography and snowboarding; it is only natural that I merged the two. Action sport photography has become an obsession of sorts for me. This is one of my hobbies. I recommend everyone keep at least one of their passions as a hobby. Too many people try to get rich off their hobbies these day. Turning all your hobbies into work is a sure way to get old fast.

I needed to create a home for my favorite photos, and a place for people to go to contact me if they want their photos taken. So I created mdrydenphoto.com.

The home page is minimal. This photo was shot at Mt Rose Ski Resort

The site is entirely Flash based, but like all our Flash sites, has HTML replacement content for viewers that don’t support Flash. I chose Flash because I love the way it interacts with the viewer. You can use simple animations to help guide the viewer around the site, and to help immerse them in the site’s atmosphere.

Contact page features a rock climber - Photographed on Donner Summit

All the photos on the site were taken by us here at Tasty including the background images. The site itself serves as a small portfolio. There is even a button to turn off the content so you can view just the background images. However, there needed to be a single place to view portfolio images, so we have included an official gallery as well.

Matt Dryden's portfolio, featuring some of his favorite action photography works

Take a Gander at the site and drop me a line while you are there!

Bad Monkey Merchandise Home Page

We just completed building Bad Monkey’s new website! Bad Monkey is a merchandise company for clients in the music industry. It’s some really cool stuff! They get to do business with all sorts of bands from John Mayer to Kenny G! Their designers are, and I quote, “Badass”.

Bad Monkey Merchandise Gallery

They wanted a website that maintained consistency, but also showed their funky nature; Each page changes color in header, footer, and logo, but the design elements remain consistent. Their gallery showcase many of the products they have designed and distributed in the past. Check them out!

Instrument Laboratories North home page

This was an upgrade to the outdated site that ILN had before.  They felt their site was lacking style, imagery, and up-to date content.  We replaced their site with a site that allows clients to view and learn about products, which has had a direct impact by increasing sales.

Knowhere Itineraries home page

The design process with this project was extremely fun. It started with a bus, then a city, then some swirly elements…and finally, some universe. It also started out orange and black (the colors of the logo) – but as you can see, we veered very far away from such a simple color scheme. In the end, I think this is a really cool website, aimed at helping the target audience remember what an awesome profession they are in. Can you imagine touring the world with some of these acts? What a cool gig that must be!