While browsing through the Issue 164 of the Web Designer magazine,  I stumbled onto their Top 20 Site Logos list. I was pretty disappointed to see that so many mediocre logos have made it into this list. I am not trying to put down the skills or the design of the logos or the designers of those logos that are in that list, all I am saying is that there are so many much better logos out there that do belong on that list. It almost seems like they just picked random sites and just stuck their logos in there without spending much time on this piece.

Anyways, from their top 20 list, I only saw 3 that were worthy being there and they are:

1. Sheriar Designs

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2. Agencia P4

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3. Mark Jardine

Until next time,

~ Valik

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Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all the Web Design Ideas Blog readers! Wishing you God’s blessings, health, happiness and success!

~ Valik

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At first I thought this was going to be easy, just install the WordPress reCaptcha plugin and add a couple of lines to the form and that should do it. Once I was ready to go and actually do it, I could not find any info on teh web on how to do this, so after two hours of research and trial and error I found the answer. I hope this will help someone out there.

I am building a custom contact page with a PHP contact form on it. I need the reCaptcha to sit at the bottom of the form and keep Spammers out.

First we needed to go and register an account at reCaptcha.net and get the public and private key for the domain the reCaptcha is going on. Then download the reCaptcha library PHP file that will be including in the form processing code.

Now we add a piece of JavaScript code where we want the captcha to sit:

<form name="contactform" method="post" action="">
<h3>Contact Us</h3>
Name: <input type="text" name="fname" />

Email: <input type="text" name="femail" />

Message: <textarea name="fmessage" cols="45" rows="5">
</textarea>

<!-- YOUR RECAPTCHA CODE GOES HERE -->

<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://api.recaptcha.net/challenge?k=PUBLICKEYGOESHERE">
</script>

<noscript>
<iframe src="http://api.recaptcha.net/noscript?k=PUBLICKEYGOESHERE"
height="300" width="500" frameborder="0"></iframe>

<textarea name="recaptcha_challenge_field" rows="3" cols="40">
</textarea>
<input type="hidden" name="recaptcha_response_field"
value="manual_challenge">
</noscript>

<!-- END RECAPTCHA CODE -->

<input type="submit" name="button" id="button"
value="Send Contact Message" />

</form>

Enter your public key where it says PUBLICKEYGOESHERE.

So there we have the form part, now we need to add a verifier on the form processing side to check if the captcha was entered correctly. To do this we add some PHP code into the beginning of the processing code.

<?php

require_once('recaptchalib.php');

if ($_POST['email'] != '') {

$privatekey = "PRIVATEKEYGOESHERE";
$resp = recaptcha_check_answer ($privatekey,
 $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"],
 $_POST["recaptcha_challenge_field"],
 $_POST["recaptcha_response_field"]);

if (!$resp->is_valid) {
 die ("The reCAPTCHA wasn't entered correctly.
 Go back and try it again." .
 "(reCAPTCHA said: " . $resp->error . ")");

} else {

YOUR FORM PROCESSING PHP GOES HERE

}

?>

Add your private key where it says PRIVATEKEYGOESHERE.

First it checks to make sure the reCaptcha was entered correctly and if it has, it sends them down to process the form, if not it displays an error.

Very simple. Hope it helps someone.

Until next time,

~ Valik

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Now, that I got your attention. I want to tell you a secret.

I love Post-Its. Period. I think they are one of the best inventions in the world. If there is anything I cannot live without, it would probably post-its. Okay. Maybe that might be an exaggeration. But, who has not benefitted from that yellow 76mm squared colored adhesive piece of stationery? I could never think of a more effective tool in reminding me of the things I need to do, of creating a stick man flip book, of communicating with others during meetings, of flagging emails print outs, bookmarking the last read chapter of my favorite novel, etc.

Lets Travel Back

If you are one of those unfortunate ones who is not familiar with Post-Its, here is a brief description of what they are. A Post-It note is a piece of stationery with re-adherable strip of adhesive on the back. It was designed to temporarily attach notes to documents and other surfaces such as walls, desks, computer screens, and so on. The most common color you would see is the yellow 76 cm square note (see image below). The unique thing about Post-Its note is that it uses low tack adhesive the can enables the note to be easily attached and removed on any surface without leaving marks or residues.

It was co-invented by Art Fry and Spencer Silver of the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Comapany or 3M, in March 9, 1970. Leveraging its yellow note success, 3M decided to manufacture other product related to the Post-It brand such mini post-its, highlighter pens with post-it tabs, etc. Computerized versions came out soon after.

Common Uses of Post-Its

As I was researching on ways to use post-its, I stumbled upon a very interesting article that provided a good laugh of various ways of using that yellow stationery note.

1. 1. Leave a Love Note for Your Spouse (Who does not love a kinky note stuck in your briefcase?)
2. Create Your Daily To Do List
3. Take Notes on What You’re Reading.
4. Let Everyone Know a Machine is Out of Order
5. Write a Book in a Few Hours
6. Be Passive Aggressive With Your Boss (Afriad to ask for a raise?)
7. Give your toddler something to do
8. Create a Stick-Man Flip Book
9. 9. Torture Cat (Stick a post-it on the cat’s hip and watch her go dizzy trying to get if off. I’m serious, it’s fun. Only one at a time though, more than that would be cruel.)
10. Communicate with others during seminars/meetings
11. Cover the surface of your co-worker’s entire cubicle with Post-It’s
12. Create wall art
13. Brainstorming with Others.

14.Remind Yourself of the Name of Person Lying Next to You (One night stand? Don’t forget the name, stick a post-it on her/his head)

1. Personalized Notes as a Gift.

16.Be Passive-Aggressive with Your Roommate (Hate your roommate? Leave him/her Post-It notes everywhere)

1. Use a stack of yellow post-it notes to get offered a job (Jim Kukral got creative in a job interview & got the job …see his video below or at http://jimkukral.com)
2. Write a Note to God.
3. Nag Yourself to Save the Earth
4. Take Notes at a Seminar
5. Use for a wedding dress.

A Designer Tool: A Challenge To Creativity

But, how does Post-It benefit us designers? One of the greatest challenge that designers face is creativity. I previously wrote an article on Mind Mapping and described various ways mind mapping can spur our mind to be more creative. In conjunction with mind mapping, Post- Its is another effective and creative way to keep us developing interesting ideas. I developed a system for myself to bring a pad of post-its to wherever I go. If I suddenly get inspired or get a “light bulb” moment, I scribble it down on a my post-it and stick to my visual diary to mind map later. It may or may not be useful but it keeps me entertained and my mind working.

In addition, post-its are a great way to get your brain to fire up. What do I mean? In my previous article, I mentioned that there are times when creative designers experience blocks similar to a writers block. In my experience, post-its have helped me get my mind working by creating alternative uses for them. Here are some of examples of what you can do with post-its:

Challenging The Paper Napkin

More importantly, Post-Its are effective management tools. As a freelancer, apart my calendar, I use post-its to remind me of the things I need to do for a client. I make sure that I keep a folder of every client I work with and in that folder, ideas or discussions are sometimes written in post its which I can review and work on later.

Recently, I read an article written by Bill Bartman, a selfmade billionaire and author of the   book, Bailout Riches. In his article, he challenges the business owners and entrepreneurs to fit critical elements of their businesses on a table napkin. My own proposal is use Post-its instead of napkin. Post-Its are smaller. Ergo, if you can identify the critical business elements to fit in the small colored stationery then you know what your business is all about.

Some of the ideas, I mentioned here may or may not be useful to you. In my mind, these are just some example on how common day items can be a source of inspiration for us designers. I guess, the only ingredient needed is just our imagination.

Giancarlo Gallegos is a writer, communications designer photographer, entrepreneur, and a post production professional based on New Zealand. He is the official photographer for a little pink pig’s travel blog called The Adventures of Spider Pig. You can view his work on www.giancarlogallegos.com. On his spare time, he travels, cooks, drinks coffee and mind maps new ideas.

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Two days ago, I was listening to a podcast sponsored by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program on the Art of Teaching Entrepreneurship. The speaker is Tina Seelig, a professor in Stanford University and the author of one of the best selling book, “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20”. In her podcast lecture, she talks about what distinguishes entrepreneurs from your average person. She said that entrepreneurs have a knack fo challenge themselves by looking at opportunities in everyday circumstances. They are in a constant lookout for things that will challenge their creativity.

Creativity for us designers is a given. We just have to be always creative. In fact, day in and day out, we tend to scribble ideas, create countless designs and offer various design concepts to our clients.  Sad to say, creative people tend to go overboard with designing ideas that we sometimes: 1) fail to maximize our time; 2) design things too perfectly for one client that we forget we have other clients to take care of; 3) miss our deadline because we have so much on our plate.

I plead guilty in some of these examples. I tried to search for a solution that could help me maximize my time well and luckily I found the answer from an Italian economist who lived 100 years ago, Vilfredo Pareto.

What is the Pareto Principle?

Perhaps, many of us have heard, read, experienced the Pareto Principle. It is often mentioned in many books on entrepreneurship, business and management. I will try to review some of its basic ideas and how it can be useful to us in the creative field whether we are working for ourselves as freelancers or working for someone else.

The principle basis of the Pareto Principle is that “80 percent of the effect come from 20 percent of the causes”. It was originally suggested Joseph Juran, who named it after the famous Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who made the observation that in his home country over 80 percent of all land was only owned by 20 percent of the population.

The numbers need not be 80/20 exactly. The Pareto Principle main key point is the most things in life such as effort, reward or output are not distributed evenly. For example, we can have 20% of our clients create 80% of our revenue or even 100% of our revenue.

Pareto Principle Benefits

I do not aim to persuade you to use the Pareto Principle. However, from my experience, there are many interesting benefits and advantages when you apply the 80/20 principle in your various work activities.

• You create more balance – The principle reveals the way it really is. What, or who, is getting too much, or too little, of your time and attention? Are the 20% of people who create 80% of the value overlooked? They may be if they don’t make as much ‘noise’ as the 80% who only produce 20%.

Use the Pareto Principle to re-address the balance.

• You become more efficient – Applying 80-20 thinking means you do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Learn how to prioritize work to identify, and then focus on, the ‘vital few’ for maximum benefit.

For example, in which 20% of your room or house do you spend 80% of your time? Focus on making that room or little corner a pleasure to live and work in. I often find myself working best in this awesome couch we have at my flat that faces the Auckland harbor. It becomes way better during sunny weather.

• You’re much more effective – Just starting a task or project is the most effective thing you can do. As time goes on, you reach a point of diminishing returns in terms of results for your efforts.

Practical Application

Take a look at your last 12 hours of work activity. Create a breakdown of how many hours you spend in one major task. Lets take my case for example:

Task 1 — Wrote freelance articles — three hours

Task 2 — Read and Researched on freelance articles  — one hour

Task 3 — Web development and design — three hours

Task 4 — Surfed the internet and other websites — three hours

So, perhaps a better application of my task would be instead of only spending 40% of my time on writing, I need to spend around 80% for writing and the remainder for on web design, videography and other activities.

In others, try focusing on the 20% that would dramatically improve your income rather than spending 80% of your time on something that just delivers 20% of what you earn.

The point of the Pareto Principle is simple. Just recognize that most things in life are not distributed evenly. Make decisions on allocating time, resources and effort. For example:

If you are a writer, instead of one hour on rough draft for an article you are writing, spend 10 minutes on 6 outlines for an article or blog and pick the best topic.

For web design, instead of investing three hours on a website, spend 30 minutes and create 6 different template layouts.

If you are researching on something, rather than spending three hours to read three articles 5 minutes glancing through 12 articles and then spend an hour on each on the two best ones.

This may or may not be applicable but the point is to realize that you have the option to focus on the important 20%.

When you are seeking top quality, you need all 100%. When you are trying to optimize your bang for the buck, focus on the critical 20%. It is a time saver. See what activities generate the most result and give them your appropriate attention.

Try This!

The 20% – Identification

In anything that you do, there is the 20% that will give you the greatest return. Using the ‘keywords driving traffic to your site’ example, it is true that a small pool of keywords will drive the majority of organic search traffic to your site. How are you going to take advantage of this? You need to first identify these keywords and know what they are. Use an analytics package to determine which keywords are driving 80% of your organic traffic. In most cases, the number of keywords will be close to 20% of total keywords. (Google Analytics works fine for this.)

The 80% – Maximization

Next, now that we have knowledge of what exactly the 20% contains, we want to maximize the results of this group. For instance in networking, spend more time with your 20% group to maximize results. Give more attention to your clients that spend the most money. Provide extra benefits and exposure for your top advertisers. You get the point. Going back to the organic keywords example, use the top 20% of your keywords to optimize your site for the search engines. Buy some PPC ads with those keywords and anything else you can do to maximize your return. Focusing on the 20% will actually make your 80% even bigger.

You can do so much more in less time by focusing on what works. Sure, sometimes you may want to venture out and see what other options you may have. This is what the identification stage is for. Just never forget this principle and always pay attention to the vital few that provide the most return.

A Word of Caution

The Pareto Principle often gets cited as a convenient shorthand for cutting down on time-wasting activity, spending, or even marketing, and for focusing on what is truly important. However, it MAY not be very useful if you are already working effectively. Sometimes, we can fall into the trap of looking at things from a monetary perspective and neglect the important long term relationship such as client interaction, effective customer support and reading blogs, journals, or books.

What I am saying instead of using the Parteo Principle as a hard-and-fast rule, use it as a reminder to keep tab of what you are doing over the course of the day and then work on the time where you think your time is being spent ineffectively.

Giancarlo Gallegos is a writer, communications designer photographer, entrepreneur, and a post production professional based on New Zealand. He is the official photographer for a little pink pig’s travel blog called The Adventures of Spider Pig. You can view his work on www.giancarlogallegos.com. On his spare time, he travels, cooks, drinks coffee and mind maps new ideas.

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