The picture above pretty much explains it all!

There we were, sitting at our old clunky mac computers, and our teacher started talking about what email is, and how you use it. So, our first instruction was to go to “Hotmail.com” and she would walk us through how to sign up for a new email account.

Needless to say, most of us typed in “Hotmale.com” without realizing what we were really typing, and the entire classroom full of monitors was filled with imagery that no child should see! At least no child in Ireland!

What was your first Internet experience that you can remember? Add in the comments below

If you would like to be included and are under 20 years of age, whether you are a graphic designer, web designer etc..  please fill out this form and then subscribe to my rss feed so that you will be notified when you are featured!

This is a chance to gain some nice exposure and a little link juice to your portfolio, and I look forward to seeing some great work by those young designers in our online community.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow you to see the first tweet if that person has over  3,500 updates, so I apologize to the likes of Calvin (@mayhemstudios) and others that I could not list here. I wonder if there are better Twitter tools for finding people’s first tweets? Let me know in the comments.

@brianyerkes: “Working on a post for BrianJosephStudios.com”

@DavidAirey: “Just starting out with Twitter” (wow, insightful David. Nice one )

@randaclay: “I’m trying to write an article comparing Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and Tumblr. It’s taking me too long…” (I accuse Randa of deleting her first ever tweet! Randa, please comment )

@idesignstudios: “The new web site is now officially LIVE! I would love to get your feedback! http://www.idesignstudios.com”

@blogdesigner: “I believe it’s important for your twitter account design to match your website design. Anyone else agree? Branding … ”

@catascraft: “I’m making a little book with a scrapbook papers. hello from Tuscany”

@designsheffield: “giving twitter the Design Sheffield treatment.”

@aaroni268: “working on an Admin User Interface”

@ffffffive: “Designing in school”

@coryobrien: “Learning Twitter.”

@davidwalshblog: “Working on the new design. Will incorporate Twitter. Sweet!”

@StaciEmery: “HELLO ALL! THANKS FOR LETTING ME FOLLOW YOU ” (Staci decided to shout her first tweet!)

@adamcoomes: “Everyone should speak English. It’s the best language.”

@chrisspooner: “is getting used to this Twitter malarky!”

@bluewavemedia: “Deloping Marketing Campaigns” (I wish I knew how to “Delope” marketing campaigns! )

@downersteve: “Okay, I’m here! Everybody can just CALM DOWN now.” (hahaha,that’s great Steve!)

@chriscoyier: “Snowed in. Video games.”

and my favorite first tweet is from @seanHodge:

“I just got set up on twitter. This will be great.”

Yes it will Sean!

What was your first tweet?  Post it in the comments below and let’s turn this into a huge list!

StaciEmery: HELLO ALL! THANKS FOR LETTING ME FOLLOW YOU

It was a fun experience and I think Michele and I had a pretty good discussion on the topic of social media..what it is..why businesses need to understand it etc..

You can listen to a recording of our segment of the show below. If you are reading this in your email or rss browser, you may need to visit the actual post on BrianYerkes.com by clicking this link.

For those in or near Southwest Florida, please consider attending some of the Twestival SWFL events starting on September 10th. For a full list of the events and everything that is going on, please click here. Oh, and one thing some of you may be interested in is the fact that Chris Brogan (yep, you read that correctly!)  will be attending some of our events this weekend, and he will also be the main speaker on Saturday.

While we’re talking about social media, why not follow me on Twitter (@BrianYerkes), and if you’re in or near Southwest Florida, follow @TwestivalSWFL

I will probably be able to get Chris to sign a copy of his book “Trust Agents” that I might just give away as a prize on BrianYerkes.com. Would any of you be interested in that?

• Ireland is in a recession (obviously…as is the world…however, you wouldn’t think it when you see the crowds out shopping and drinking on the weekends), and the media here seems to love saying the word “recession” even more than Wolfe Blitzer on CNN.
• Irish pub owners are becoming increasingly worried as a change seems to be happening in Irish society. More people are deciding to drink at home on the cheap rather than to socialize in the pubs and this is hurting the publicans and their industry, especially the thousands of small rural pubs around the country. As a result, more bar stools are empty on a regular basis, and many pubs are apparently not making much in the way of profits at the moment.

So, most of these publicans are complaining about high costs, and not enough business coming in. This provides the foundation for the stupidity of what Bulmer’s Cider marketing team decided to do.

I imagine the Bulmer’s management and marketing team sat around a table, trying to decide what they should do to increase sales in a bad economy. Their sales have decreased, something had to happen.

So, they set out to create a television ad campaign that would let the market know that they were “cutting” their prices, specifically, the price of the pint bottle by 10c.

The ad’s theme involves an over-enthusiastic Bulmer’s staff member, Liam,  at the orchard, who overhears management talking about “cuts”. So, he starts applying “cuts” of his own to everything in sight, trying to make an impact and speed up production of the cider. You can watch the 40 second ad below, or by visiting the post on my site if you are reading this via email or rss reader.

So, why is this “marketing gone wrong”? Well…it’s simple. Bulmer’s don’t control the final sale price of the pint bottle that the consumer buys in the pubs. Bulmer’s only controls the price that they sell their product to when the publican’s purchase it from them as suppliers. Guess who controls the price when it gets sold to the consumer….The publican does…..And guess who isn’t making the same profits he once enjoyed?(as mentioned above)……. The publican. …And guess who isn’t going to lower his sale price even though his cost price has been reduced? You got it.

I don’t blame the publicans that aren’t lowering the price of a Bulmer’s pint bottle. They are in business to make a profit, and if they are struggling to survive right now, they are going to be delighted with any reduction in their cost of supplies. So why should they reduce their prices?

The problem here is that Bulmer’s the brand wants to be seen as lowering their prices, and doing something good for the market. The fact that they thought that the consumer would receive these lower prices is extremely naive and quite foolish, especially with the current economic climate and the fact that the publicans seem to be struggling.

In marketing, you can come up with all the great ideas you want, produce fancy television ads, and attempt to do something good and positive for the market, but if there is no business logic or pragmatic thinking behind it, you can end up doing more harm than good.

All of the callers into this radio show discussing this topic were angered at the fact that most publicans had not lowered their prices for a pint bottle of Bulmers. Needless to say, some publicans entered into the discussion, and argued their side about the fact that they are struggling  and need all the profits they can get.

Have you ever seen a case like this with another company? I am sure that this happens all the time, especially when the market is made aware that a supplier has reduced their costs, and the end seller doesn’t follow suit.

Over the years, I have heard clients say a lot of things, and some of them are more clear in their message than others. For those starting out in the design industry, whether it is at a firm, or as a freelancer, this list of “5 things clients say and what they really mean” will surely help you to be educated when interacting with various types of clients.

1. “I designed it myself and just need you to ,,,”

99.9% of the time, if a client says this to you when they first inquire about your services, and ask you for a quote, they are really saying, “I know enough to have an opinion on YOUR profession, and I understand what it takes to do what you do. I don’t really think your skills are anything that hard to do, I just don’t have the time to do it, or I don’t have the little amount of time it probably takes to learn it. Knowing all this, I won’t be paying you that much to do this work as it shouldn’t take you that long at all…plus I’ve already done most of the work for you.”

2. “Can you do it for $xxx now, and when we become more successful, we will pay more?”

This is a pretty easy one. What they are really saying is “I probably have the money to pay you fully for what you quoted me, but I’m gona try and see if I can make a deal and get away with paying you less than what you want. After all, you seem like a bit of a pushover….I don’t plan on paying you more when/if we are more successful, because your work isn’t really the thing that made us successful so why would we feel obliged to pay you again months after the project is over?”

3. “I don’t agree to your contract terms. Please remove section 1a ,,,”

Red flag. This is like meeting a girl in a bar who talks about her daddy issues for 2 hours, and ends up crying in your arms while I drink as much whiskey as possible in the hope that I may secretly pass out with my eyes open, standing upright, but not able to hear her myopic whining…..wait, whoa….sorry, back to the article.

It is probably a fact that a large majority of freelancers / design firms have fair and honest contracts. There is rarely any reason for a client to question any of the terms in the average contract designers use, so when a client requests different terms  and changes to the wording of the agreement, this is a serious warning sign. By rejecting some of your contract terms, depending on what they are, the client is really telling you, “I don’t really trust you or your company that much at all, so I am going to try and get this contract to be much more favorable for me before I sign it. Due to the fact that I don’t really trust you that much, this project is going to be a struggle to get completed, and while I will blame you for the delays, it will really be my fault because I continue to fight for the power in this project, and I really don’t want to give you any sort of control or power. Oh, and that 50% payment you want just to start the project…make it 25% and you’ve got a deal. I’ll pay the remainder when the project is done…in 2 years.”

4. “I’ve never hired a web designer so I’m not sure about this whole process, but you guys are the experts ,,,”

Lovely. Time to be happy and smile. What this client is really saying is “I honestly think you are the expert, and realize that I know absolutely nothing about the skills that you have. I can’t even imagine trying to do this myself. It would be like trying to build my own house, or telling the air conditioner technician how to fix the air condenser. I will be a good client to work with as I value your expertise and I will not request that many revisions during the project. I figure that you do this all day everyday and have a successful career out of it, so who am I to tell you to what to do.”

5. “We need a website built, my Husband’s cousin made one for him but he is in Detroit ,,,”

This is pretty similar to #1 above. Most likely, what this client is really saying is “My Husband’s cousin is a receptionist and she has Photoshop on her computer (or she is a granny from Tennessee), and she put the site together using Go Daddy’s “Website Tonight” service. We really like that website and want something similar.”. Unless her Husband’s cousin is an actual experienced web designer, chances are that the website she developed for her Uncle is pretty bad. If the client says she likes the site that was created, it pretty much means that she doesn’t understand the difference in quality in web design. As a result, she will probably choose the cheapest web design firm she finds. If she doesn’t understand the quality difference, why would she pay you $5,000 when someone down the road quoted her at $500? She will get a $500 website, and will be happy with it, until one day when she realizes that her site isn’t getting any leads and nobody ever compliments her on it.

Ok, how about a 6th! “Make the logo bigger”

When clients say this they actually simply, and sadly always just want their logo bigger! Perhaps you need to stock up on some “Make my logo bigger cream”

Well, that’s it! “5 things clients say and what they really mean”. Most clients are good people, and great to work with, but there will always be those that make life a little more difficult, for whatever reason.  With some education, and understanding, you can turn even the most high maintenance clients into decent, profitable ones. Client management is an underestimated element of being a designer or project manager, and the successful ones are able to handle each level of communication that they have with clients.

I would love to hear about any additional experiences you’ve had with clients, things you’ve learned about the different types of clients etc. Please discuss in the comments below and let’s start the conversation!

Here is a list of 5 people I follow on Twitter and why I follow them:

@tonychester

Serious reason: he owns a cool web design company in North Carolina, named “onwired”, and I enjoy networking with a fellow business owner in a similar situation as myself.

Non-serious reason: because he is a smart ass

@brianyerkes :Just fired up the grill to cook some chicken, and flames blew up in my face and burned half my arm hair, that wasn’t fun
@tonychester : My question is “why do you have arm hair on your face”?

@mayhemstudios (Calvin Lee)

Serious reason: he’s a cool guy, and personable even though he has over 30,000 followers. A fellow designer and he is the king of RT’s.

Non-serious reason: because he looks like “The Hulk” and has a severe case of narcolepsy

@randaclay

Serious reason: another fellow designer, Randa is also experienced in all things Wordpress, and a very nice person.

Non-serious reason: I find amusement when she tweets about her kids! (I won’t be laughing when I have some of my own I’m sure)

@randaclay : Why is it that when you’re on the phone, your kids have to follow you around like they’re tethered to your backside?

@randaclay : Unbelievable. It’s 7:21 and both kiddos are still asleep. Doing a quiet little happy dance at my desk.

@davidairey

Serious reason: David has one of the most popular personal design blogs out there, and is a logo designer’s role model for his professionalism and knowledge of brand identity.

Non-serious reason: He is a Liverpool supporter and I get to rip on him when they lose. Which is quite often.

@andysowards

Serious reason: Andy is another great RT’er and shares a lot of good design & social media related links. He also takes the time to frequently ask you how your day is going, and is a cool guy.

Non-serious reason: Together with @McLucky34, we coined the phrase “Temperature is Ball Relative“, after we were talking about how hot the weather was. “hot as balls” etc…

This social media icon set includes DesignMoo, DesignFloat, DesignBump, and the other standard ones like Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc… you can see them all below:

This set of icons ties in nicely with a previous Photoshop video tutorial I posted on “How to quickly create a post-it note in Photoshop”

The icons are in png format, and are 65px  x  65 px.

Download

Post-it-SocMedia-Icons-65×65.zip (55kb)

License

These icons are licensed under the Creative Commons license and can be used for personal and/or commercial purposes. No attribution is needed by those using them, but credit via a link or listing my site in your blogroll is very much appreciated.

Let me know if you use them and I will update this post with a screenshot, and please share them around by bangin’ on a few of those buttons below!

So, needless to say, the buzz about Google’s new search engine got me both excited and anxious at the same time! It seems that Google will be launching a serious over-haul of their search engine, and while on the surface may not look like any changes of significance, it is reported that it will be quite an improvement on the current search engine that is live at Google.com

Their aim is to improve speed, accuracy, size and comprehensiveness. In Google’s own words:

“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.”

I have been playing around with the new “beta” Google search engine here, and I have concluded a few things:

1. It seems much, much faster to query out your search and generate the search results page. I’m talking IE7 to Firefox speed difference in browser terms! In my opinion, the current speed of the Google search engine is quite amazing to be able to process it as quickly as it does, and the new version seems to be even faster.

2. Local Business Map Results have been cleaned up – this is an area of Google SERP’s that needs a lot of work, and has done for a long time. It is too easy for spam listings to get on here, many duplicated listings, inaccurate information matching of listing data to website information, and many more small bugs. The new version seems to have made some improvements on this, especially visually.

Check out this current screen shot and the new version screen shot of the local business results for a search on “naples web design”. (images blurred out for the purpose of not giving other local websites free advertising

You can see in the current screen shot that the abc list is a little messy with the “title” spanning almost the entire width of the display area, pushing the rest of the listing information down to a second line.

Now, have a look at the new version. Much more clean, with the “title” being snipped after a certain amount of characters.

This helps to give more space to the other normal results below and is much easier on the eye.

Another change that seems to be apparent in the new Google Search Engine, is the fact that they no longer display the second tier results. These are the results that display under a main result, and are shown if they hold a close relevancy to the search query along with the main result above it.

For a search on “Fort Myers web design“, the current results page gives you a two-tiered result at the number one spot just below the map results. In the new Google version, it does not show this second tier result. It must be noted that even in the current Google SERP’s, it seems that sometimes the second tier results show up for some results and sometimes they don’t. This is another issue that seems a little buggy with Google’s algorithm.

So, those are the main differences I have noticed between the current Google version and the new one that was just released to the public in a beta location, which you can test for yourself here

The Brief

We discussed the client’s needs with them, and learned that they have over 25 years experience in the insurance industry, and wanted their identity to represent this experience. They said that they liked the phrase “Protecting Your World” and asked that we develop the logo design around that concept.

Concept Development

I was the lead designer on this project, and so I started sketching some ideas for this logo design. After getting to know the clients well, I had made notes that were of Irish and French decent. With the client’s last name being MacDermott, I decided that Irish Celtic symbolism or crest imagery would work well for the “protection” concept I was planning. I researched the McDermott Clan, and found the McDermott crest. I also learned that the traditional McDermott clan motto was “The Strong Hand Rules”. Perhaps I could include this somehow into the concept.

Sketching works well for me as I love to draw and wish I dedicated more time to sketching just for the fun of it. Below you can see how I got started with my ideas; working on the concept of a shield for protection.

The second I idea I had was to incorporate the McDermott clan crest into a shield along with the intials, JMR. You can see two of the concepts I presented to the client below. The first one uses a minimal drawing I made of the McDermott clan shield, with the 3 boar’s heads.

The second concept uses a general shield look. The “JMR” initials in this design would work well standing along as a mark also and is recongnizable.

The next concept I began to sketch was the idea of a lion, presenting the “strength” and “protection” feeling in this logo. I sketched the lion standing strong and powerful and then the client responded with the idea of adding a “fleur de lis” and scepter to represent the French origins of his wife and partner in JMR Insurance.  I drew a “fleur de lis” and then transferred this into a digital drawing, along with a detailed drawing of the lion. The lion holding the scepter tied in perfectly with the McDermott clan’s motto of “The Strong Hand Rules”.

The final concept was ready to be developed into a full design in Illustrator, and can be seen below.

The client was very happy with the outcome of the final concept and decided to go with that. We then started designing the letterheads, business cards and envelopes. They were printed using a foil accent on the gold areas of the design, and accompanied with a standard textured stock, they came out well. You can see them in the images below:

Overall, we were all delighted with the new logo, and the stationary designs. The client now has a powerful, professional identity that represents their experience in the insurance industry and the overall look is one of strength, protection and competence. We are currently just about to start a web development project for this client also.

If you would like to see some other logo designs we have completed, please visit my company’s portfolio