Once upon a time everyone had a craft or talent. Traditionally women would sew, weave or paint and men would build, carve or fix things. Even now it is not uncommon to have some handmade clothes or linen somewhere in your wardrobe; a piece of furniture hand crafted; or a painting or drawing hanging somewhere in your house. All these things created either by yourself or someone close to you.

Although hand crafting is a completely natural process and of course a necessary part of the evolution and progress of the human race, somewhere along the way we have steadily lost the ability and the willingness to make our own products.

I am by no means an accomplished artist or a handicraft genius, but I do try my hand at a fair number of crafts. The gasps of amazement I receive from friends and family at my handmade kitchen curtains (and believe me, they are not that great) and the sheer disbelief that I could do such a thing when people see the hand painted tree in my children’s bedroom (ok, so that is great, and one of my greatest artistic achievements) leads me to believe that Art and general creativeness as a part of our daily lives is at an all time low.

By Lucy Kate Crafts

Maybe it is because we are too busy working, holidaying, wining and dining, and playing computer games to be bothered painting a picture or hemming a skirt, or maybe it is because there is such a wealth of commercially available products available that is no need to make something yourself. Then again, seeing as the average Australian annual wage is around $65,000, maybe we just earn too much to be bothered making something when we can just pay someone to do for us.

The other major factor in the decrease of individual craftiness and the movement towards pre-made and mass produced products could very well be the glut of imported goods now available. With overseas labour so cheap, it is in most cases less expensive to get something premade than to buy the materials and do it yourself.

The pride felt when you finish something you have made is usually the driving force behind making something yourself. Handmade dresses are cared for meticulously and paraded at the front of wardrobes, cushion covers take pride of place on the couch or bed, and handmade furniture is polished and guarded against uncoastered cups and plates.

As consumerism has reached an all time high, that self made pride has been replaced by the ‘look what I’ve bought’ pride. Whether your new pride-of-place piece has been found in designer shops or second hand warehouses, the emphasis of fashion and interior decorating has definitely changed. Where people used to find pride in hand crafting something themselves, they now find that same pride in the fact that they have paid money for something, and sometimes very large amounts of money.

The new found interest in home renovation and re decorating, helped along by TV shows like The Block, is helping to bring the emphasis back to ‘do it yourself’, but even on shows like The Block where teams compete against each other to fully renovate tumble down houses, the emphasis is often on the expensive pieces they have bought rather than the huge achievement of restoring an old and derelict building predominately themselves.

So is creativeness in the home coming to an end?

Are we now a nation of mindless consumers completely unaware that is possible to knit a jumper yourself, knock up a set of shelves, or paint a wall?

Is seeing the finished product in a furniture show room completely disassociating ourselves from the fact that someone, somewhere along the line has had a part in making that fabulous dining table? And is the fact that the majority of people believe themselves to be completely untalented when it comes to art & creativeness a problem?

Maybe in this consumerist world where it is increasingly necessary to earn a decent income, it is a good thing that people are reaching into their pockets to buy clothes rather that make them. Maybe as people believe more and more that they are not artistic, will they want to buy art rather than make it themselves? Because surely that opens the door to those more artistically minded to be able to earn a crust doing what they love. And the increase in artists markets and galleries is showing that this may well be the case.

So as sad as it makes me that the general population is becoming less arty and creative and more vanilla consumerists, I suppose I should be thankful that this movement may be paving the way for the more artistic people to finally be able to make a living from their creative genius.

And who knows, maybe with the majority of people losing interest in honing their creative skills, the Artists who do so will be revered and idolised in society.

We can only hope.

Some history

A little over a year ago, Google released the Panda update, which knocked a lot of sites down in the rankings. Its main focus was on poor content, content farms and high advertising to content ratios, among a few other quality issues. A dozen or so expansions on that have left many SEOs and webmasters reeling in shock.

What a surprise…. Things that have worked well for so long are suddenly no longer acceptable practices, at least in the eyes of Google.

Then, about a month ago, the Penguin update hit. This one was aimed primarily at webspam, which covers a lot of territory. Probably the largest slice of that pie is that of links, dealing specifically, it appears,  with the source of the links, the destination and the anchor text used.

Again, a common and previously acceptable practice is suddenly sufficient to get your site slapped hard, causing it to lose several pages in rankings. Many more SEOs and webmasters cried in their beer the last week of April.

That’s what this post is about. To give you some perspective on what the present Google landscape looks like and what it means to you and your website. And to give you some safe means of proceeding.

What can you believe?

As is usually the case when major updates hit, there’s no shortage of opinion and conjecture about what it means, how to detect the effects, avoid getting hit or recover if it’s already too late. Sadly, much of that advice is misguided or misrepresented as “tested”.

Hard Truth #1: The vast majority of SEOs, journalists, bloggers and pundits that profess to have conducted “testing”, have no more idea of how to properly set up and conduct a scientifically reliable test than I possess of the intensity of labor pains.

It stands to reason, then, that you should question anything and everything that you read on the internet. That includes me, obviously. What I’m telling you here can best be described as anecdotal evidence. Correlation does not amount to causation! I’m simply going to tell you what I and some of my colleagues have found to be true, and the probabilities that we are seeing.

So… moving along…

Much of the Panda dust has settled now, so let’s focus primarily on Penguin. As I said, Link building is the most affected by Penguin, and you should discard anything you previously believed to be true, because the landscape has changed dramatically.

A little background is in order.

• Google has never appreciated efforts to manipulate their ranking algorithms, and the most common method of manipulation has long been the use of deliberate link building. They prefer to see links that are natural, or organic, in nature. Basically, that means unsolicited.

 A commonly stated fallacy is that paid links will get you in trouble with Google. That’s actually not true. If a paid link is given with a nofollow attribute, meaning it won’t pass any pagerank, Google has no problem with it. Nofollow negates any manipulation attempt whatsoever, even though it’s bought and paid for. Failing to use nofollow, however, is a sure path to hot water.

•  For a long time, anchor text (“Google Australia” in this example), Google Australia has been a perfectly acceptable (and very effective) means of tying the content of the destination page to the keyword used as anchor text, as a means of boosting relevance to a search query using that keyword. There seem to be limitations now in place for this practice.

Is the Party over for unethical Link Builders?

Link profiles (the spectrum of all of your site’s inbound links) now need to be as diverse as possible, as the sites hit hardest were those that had many of the same sort of links or from the same sort of sites. In other words, your profile should consist of many different kinds of links, such as:

• Blog comments;
• Forum signatures;
• Directory links;
• In-content links (articles, posts, etc.);
• Social Media content;
• Profile links.

It’s important to achieve and maintain a balance between many different types of links, as if you are too heavily invested in one or two types, it can set off alarm triggers in the algorithms.

What we found in our collective observations was this:

• Sites that had 20% or less of their total link profile consisting of one particular sort of link didn’t get hit;
• Sites that had less than 20% of their anchor text identical didn’t get hit;
• Sites that used raw links (no anchor text, just http://example.com.au) didn’t get hit;
• Sites that used the destination page’s title as anchor text didn’t get hit;
• Sites that used generic anchor text such as “click here”, “more info”, “details”, etc. didn’t get hit;
• Sites that had link profiles comprised of a great percentage of directory, forum, blogroll, footer and/or sidebar links seemed to get hit most often.

It’s important to note that the sites referenced here, while not hit by the Penguin update, may have been “safe by a mile” or may have barely escaped – there’s really no way of knowing. And as I pointed out earlier, this is anecdotal, so while I personally feel it’s a fairly strong indication of what are some safe boundaries, it still isn’t enough to bet the farm on.

Recommendations

1. Achieve a balance in your link profile, with no more than 20% of your inbound links being of the same type;
2. If you’re going to use anchor text, use it sparingly, or use the meta title of the target page. Otherwise, use a raw link;
3. When you do use anchor text, vary it. As a general rule, I try to never use the same anchor text on more than 5% of my links with anchor text.
4. If you presently have a lot of links from forums or a social media platform, change those links to either no anchor text at all, or to the meta title of the target page;
5. Stay away from directories. Partly as a result of the Panda update, but overflowing into Penguin, directory links have become very questionable. I suggest staying away from them entirely, until we know more.
6. Don’t forget the opportunity to use images for links. An image placed on a guest blog, linking to a RELEVANT page on your site (and with relevant alt tag) can further diversify your anchor text profile.

This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive guide on how to manage a post-Penguin link building campaign. It’s simply meant to make you aware of some practices that seem to have caused problems for many sites that were hit by the Penguin update, as well as a few that appear to be safe.

As a parting shot… diversification is the key. Even if you acquire some links that put you in Dutch with Google, you can minimize the impact of a Google-slap by having a link profile that’s sufficiently diverse that a loss of value of all the links in any one area can’t really hurt your site badly. And while you’re thinking about diversification, you might as well apply that to all your on-line marketing efforts.

We’re all familiar with the standard conventions in website design these days – you know: banner, menu, maybe a couple of squares around the page to click on. But here I have selected seven websites that have just that bit of extra creativity which can make a site stand out from the crowd.

Creative Web Design #1: The J Peterman Company:

Uncommon fashion for men and women

This site opens up to a pretty standard layout – a slideshow dominating the page with quirky quotes on designer clothing-like painted backgrounds, above a few old-style shop advertisements to click on. Also the standard menu list on the left for departments. Nice-looking with an easy-on-the-eye colour scheme, reminiscent of a tailor back in the good ol’ days. Plus the time in three cities around the world – reflecting, I presume, the by-line Traveling the world to find uncommonly good stuff.

This site really does give the impression of class, fine style and a discerning palate – matching the types of things for sale (mostly clothes plus some interesting old items). A buyer would trust this site to deliver what it promises!

Creative Web Design #2: Pieoneers: Web Design Firm Canada

 The opening page of this site is one big sort of ugly but endearing pie on a spaceship. Nerd points straight-up! Speech bubbles emanating from the pie list values the company believes in – rather than the expected areas to visit. Under this is the blurb of what the company actually does… ie specific web design areas. Under this (aided by a down-pointing arrow in case you don’t realise there’s more to scroll to) is another cartoon spelling out their standard development process. By this point we realise there’s even more to scroll down to and we find the spaceship/pie landing on the moon with a successful expression on it’s face! And contact details for the company.

A lot to pack in to one page – but do we really need to go elsewhere in the site? I find the cartoon quite ugly but memorable… There is more information on other pages if you need more details – like the technologies they specialise in, services they provide or examples of projects they are involved in. Well one project, anyway… which ends up being a standard looking website, at a brief glance…

Creative Web Design #3: Somersby Cidery: Cider producer

As a legal requirement in the UK underage people cannot enter a website of an alcohol vendor, hence the reason the opening page asks you for your date of birth.  If you do put  a birth date too young it tells you how many days I need to wait in order to enter the site… Different though, I must admit.

In the site (using my real birthday) we get a nice drawing looking like a pretty typical alcohol advertisement (stay open minded) plus a tiny please like us in the top corner… cheesy but cute I suppose… Then a grid-menu (with empty boxes! Preparing for the future or lazy design?) of the different products available. Plus the intriguing line tell me how to drink Somersby cider. Afraid I’ve been doing it all wrong thus far, I can’t resist… and get a pithy little message about ice and a summer mood…

Actually this site looks great, it’s just a shame they don’t really have anything to say…

Creative Web Design #4: Tommy: Design Agency

This is a great example of how to use a functional block style and still have a great-looking website. The 50s-esque font-colour-texture scheme really lends itself to this type of layout, plus the html 5-looking image rollover animations remind us that we’re dealing with modern, savvy designers. And the big advertisement, front and centre, of their Webby nomination too, of course.

A long vertical banner with a bold sans-serif newspaper font dominates the right half of this page – interesting use of what would usually be an annoyingly difficult block of text (that seems like someone is SHOUTING at me), but rather motivates me to scroll down the page to finish reading it. And it’s just a pithy sensationalized buzz-talk advertisement for itself – but done in just the right way.

Clicking into other areas reveals a simple silhouette theme which is remarkably consistent across the diverse variety of their clients. Great retro colours, easy on the eye and yet also beautiful and legible. A great example of effective creative design!

Creative Web Design #5: Leading Art: Online gallery

A stunning example of ‘less is more’, this one-page vertical scrolling website intrigues with a minimal design. Roll-over menus are simple and to the point – links lead down the page with a very smooth automatic scrolling. The static background in a neutral grey supports the art thumbnails – the bright colours throughout the represented artists are really brought to life.

The least commercial site out of these seven, the design of this site conveys a serious and genuine attitude towards the art it showcases. The absence of clutter and unnecessary distractions is a shining example of how a professional image need not be intricately complicated.

Creative Web Design #6: Anything But Perfect- Digital Art Store

The cute cartoon banner really draws attention to itself as this site loads – and really appeals directly to its target audience – teachers, tech-savvy women, pre and early teen girls. The second thing we notice is all the featured free printable items – again, all the things the target audience loves! In fact, it took me a few minutes to find anything to actually purchase… and still it seems like there’s more free stuff than stuff for sale. Inexpensive upgrades to the free things really – like the calendar with editable text, for example.

And somehow I went straight to the products without really reviewing the design… Clever design or coincidence? It’s really a simple wordpress-style theme but with such a consistent design approach that it becomes easily assimilated and the content becomes readily absorbed. And my ten-year old daughter would love a cute calendar with her name on it… See there I go again, into the products… clever hey?

Creative Web Design #7: Piliani Kope Farm: Coffee producer

You know it’s all about coffee here. Looking down on a table background with coffee paraphernalia all over it, a different perspective for the web does disconcert just enough to leave me staying on the site just that moment longer – a statistic goal achieved straight-up!

If you’re passionate about coffee, where it comes from, the ethics of production, that sort of thing, you’ll love this site. It reeks of contemporary coffee etiquette – images of real-life (cup, wood, leaves, beans, denim and singlets) – coffee grown by real people for real people. The home-produced iamge of this company is really reflected in the design of the site – nothing too fancy but more appealing than square boxes everywhere, plus the popularly recognisable Facebook and Disqus logos for comments and feedback. Familiar and genuine, just like the good people who grow and grind the beans… get the idea? Sometimes imperfections can be more reassuring than slick glitzy bling.

There’s no reason why websites have to be just run of the mill.

Why not call us for a Quote (03) 5472-2225 or Email us today? or view our portfolio *End blatant Plug*

What is Arts Open you say?

Arts Open is an arts based festival incorporating over 50 artists and revolves around a self guided tour of art spaces, studios and galleries. Participants are able to download a map, or pick one up from the Castlemaine Information Centre or participating venues, then make their way at their own leisure to some or all venues.

Arts Open is the brain child of some very prominent a Castlemaine based artists who were becoming frustrated by inaccessibility and lack of information about the art and artists based around this well known arts community. They wanted a format that could be easily accessed by the community and tourists, and executed with ease by the participating artists. And so Art Open was born.

Arts open kicks off on Anzac day, April 25^th with some participants opening their doors, and the remainder following suit on Thursday 26^th April, and will run through to Sunday 29^th April, so there is plenty of time to get round to everyone.

There are various music and entertainment events running throughout the extended weekend so taking a look at our Arts and Culture page on the official Arts Open Website will help you to better plan your weekend.

The making of this website and helping with the organizing of this event has been a truly enjoyable and rewarding project and has enabled the Explainafide team to work with and get to know some remarkable and esteemed members of the community and has hopefully helped to cement us in the fabric of this remarkable town and inspiring art community.

Even if you can’t make the event please check out the website & view the video below made by Jim Coad from Video Architecture.

Acronyms are everywhere in today’s society. The global use of emails and text messaging has heralded a whole dictionary full of regularly used acronyms, some of which have also made it into everyday conversations – OMG (oh my god) LOL (laugh out loud) ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) OTT (over the top) and the list goes on.

Acronyms are extensively used in business to abbreviate everything from company names to business employment titles – FC (financial controller) PRO (public relations officer). We all use acronyms in everyday life without even knowing it – ever had a BLT for breakfast? Do you eat a low GI diet? Have you been accused of not being PC, and are you interested in the effects of the GFC?

Since we are in the midst of an ACW (acronym crazy world), why not take advantage and use an acronym to advertise your business and make a snappy logo?

Here are some acronym logos, some are very well known while others are less conspicuous. But they all work.

Acronyms help to say a lot with a little.

Who hasn’t heard of WWF? Coupled with the bold font and the panda image, this acronym is one of the most widely recognized acronym logos around.

I love this logo. Not only is simple yet very striking, but the Acronym itself is very clever. The letters stand for the website the logo was designed for, which is a youth homeless housing program for Dudley city council. The powerful factor in this logo is that the letters also stand for another well known acronym ‘do it yourself.’ This is a brilliant play on words, or letters, which is both memorable and empowering.

This is a perfect example of the power of acronyms in logos. For years and years the companies name was ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken.’ They put that rather large name on all their packaging and advertising. Then over the years the company experimented with shortening their name to just the initials, with great effect.

Nowadays you won’t find their full name anywhere; instead the acronym of ‘KFC’ is used worldwide. I imagine this would save money with printing, enabling the logo to be shorter, and saves time – and stuttering – when answering the phone. It is also more user friendly than a full long name.

One of the best known car companies in the world, BMW is accepted as a name with no questions asked. But what does this acronym stand for? Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, or in English, Bavarian Motor Works. This is a German company and I can pretty much guarantee that if it went with its full name for advertising it wouldn’t be nearly as big a company as it is.

Ahh, thus is the power of an acronym to take a clunky and unimaginative name and make it succinct and enticing.

Using an acronym for this company allowed the designer to incorporate some flowery designs and be more creative with the overall logo. Having the full business name as a tagline at the bottom of the logo means you know who they are and what they are about, and the use of flowers and leaves in the acronym logo cements the organic angle.

I Hope these logo examples have given you some FFT (food for thought), and some ideas to help you on the way to a spectacular advertising arsenal.

RSS is a tool for getting information from people without having to keep visiting their website to get it. You can subscribe to their information, have it sent to you and read it whenever you like. Once you have set up your subscriptions, you can then choose from a list of them all in the one place.

company bulletins – news bulletins – arts launches – performance updates – weather updates

personal blogs – podcasts – club updates – sporting fixtures – fan newsletters – special offers

How to subscribe to blogs, news bulletins, &  podcasts via an RSS Feed Reader:

1. Install an RSS feed reader:

An RSS  feed reader is basically a storage space for your subscriptions so you can read through all your items without having to visit each website. It really is as simple as that – the feed reader searches for the latest updates to your subscriptions and downloads them to your computer.

There are two types of feed readers you can utilise. We used to have to install a dedicated feed reader program to manage our subscriptions, and this is still a great method – though you need to run the program to get it to update your subscriptions. This used to be a concern with older computers (another program to use up thinking space!) but these days our computers easily handle the additional program. And as the RSS reader downloads the content to your computer, you can read your feeds anytime you want without having to be connected to the internet.

The other type of feed reader being used more frequently these days are web browser-based readers. These take up less space and don’t require an extra program to be installed, but reading your feeds offline can be a hassle – in fact, it’s recommended that a separate program is installed to synchronise with your browser-based reader if you want to read feeds offline. In this age of constant connectivity via mobile devices browser-based readers are becoming more popular.

2. Finding RSS feeds you are interested in:

First thing is to visit your favourite websites and look for the RSS symbol . Clicking on this symbol on a website triggers your feed reader to set up a subscription and you’ll be able to keep in touch with all their latest news directly from your reader.

A great place to start looking for feeds you might be interested in is an RSS Feed Syndicate. This is a website that collates feeds and sorts multiple RSS Feeds by categories, so you don’t need to go trawling around the internet searching for new feeds to read. There are a few comprehensive general syndicates, as well as some specific topic-based syndicates – check out your favourite search engine for a list.

3. Podcasts using an RSS Feed:

Audio and video podcasts can be collected in a very similar way, though you will need a media player to play them in. Most computers will have a media player installed already, though if you have problems make sure you have the correct codec installed for the type of file you are trying to play – check out your media player’s help.

Many RSS feed readers will be able to subscribe to podcasts as well as text. And newer media players will be able to subscribe to podcasts. So you can really treat podcasts and feeds as the same thing, these days. To read more on Podcasting read one of my earlier articles.

Some of the most popular RSS Feed Readers:

RSS Owl is a great Open-Source RSS Feeder

RSS Owl Feed

Google Reader

Feed Demon RSS

In these days of an over abundance of information using an RSS Feed can really help you stay on top of what you want to know, whilst not wasting your time on things that don’t interest you.

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Arts Administration – for many artists it’s the side of their practice they’d rather not think about, but in our economic culture it’s an integral aspect of any successful Art Business. Luckily with the advent of technology, we have tools at our disposal that can help us manage this side quickly and easily.

Spreadsheet applications like Excel are my favourite way to manage the administration of art – in fact I consider it an artform in itself. The beauty of Excel for me is the simplicity of its function, and its ability to be manipulated to perform various tasks.

How to use Excel: The Basic Theory

Quite simply, Excel is a sheet of rectangles, or cells, into which information can be entered. This information can be two types:

• Data
  • Words
  • Numbers
• Instructions involving other cells
  • Total the list above
  • Calculate the total price times the number of items
  • Add up the total hours worked for each day

So it can be used either as a database or a spreadsheet. What do these terms mean?

A database is a record of information that can be maintained and sorted through easily. Some examples of how artists could use a database are:

• Using Excel as a Contact list
  • A mailing list of people to invite to exhibitions or performances
  • A list of contact people in the industry
  • A list of possible venues to stage events in
  • A list of galleries that can be sorted by the area they are in or the styles they show
  • A list of annual competitions that can be sorted by area or genre
• Catalogues of works
• Timetables for events

For example, here’s a database for galleries you may approach for exhibitions:

Using this database we can then use Excel to sort a list of all the galleries in a certain suburb, or which medium they exhibit. And you have the contact details recorded for easy retrieval. And as you discover new galleries, you can add them to the list as you go and have a comprehensive list to draw from.

A spreadsheet like a blackboard with rows and columns marked to create rectangles where they intersect. You choose what the rows and columns mean, whether they are some data or an instruction. Some examples of how artists could use a spreadsheet are:

Using Excel to keep track of costs of a project:

• the budget for a project
• timeslot calculations for events
• ticket pricing for events

For example, you may want to work out the budget for an art project. You would make the columns represent the cost of an item and the rows represent each item:

We can use this for the projected budget and then the actual budget on the same page, so we can compare how accurate the projections are. You can see that we also have two sections, materials and admin. This could be any number of sections, depending on how complicated your project is – an arts festival might have sections on venue hire, technical services, equipment hire, admin, volunteer expenses, commissions…

The purple boxes are where you would enter the data, as mentioned at the start. The green squares are where you would enter instructions, in this case the sum of all the costs in the list above. The orange squares would also contain an instruction, but this time it would be the sum of the two green squares above, to add up the cost of the materials plus the cost of the admin.

The beauty of using a spreadsheet to calculate budgets is that once you have all the cells programmed, any changes you make to the cost of an item will automatically alter the total figures. The project can be planned with a budget limit in mind, making the job of projecting a budget quicker and easier – you can see the effect of the changes in the total immediately.

These are just a couple of simple examples of how to use Exce to make the process of managing your art quicker and easier. I’ve also used it in events to create colour-coded timetables, in corporate administration to extract accounting information from reports and even in classical music composition to calculate musical pitches from manipulations of formulas.

It can be a really useful tool and well worth a small effort to familiarise yourself with it.

If you don’t want to go to the extent of purchasing Excel there is a wonderful Open Source Program called Calc that is part of the Open Office Suite.

Clicking on the logos below will take  you to their respective official websites so you can download the program.

For more great resources on running a succussful Art Business see our resources page here….

For many years we have viewed designers as people that make things aesthetically pleasing. Yet prior to that designers were responsible for solving major problems and hurdles that society needed solved.

What Tim Brown discusses here is that ideas based on human centered actual needs, rather than aesthetic needs, have to be focused on more by the design community and the broader community at large.

Quoting Victor Papanek from “Design for the Real World”,

Too many designers have mis-directed their talents to design things we don’t need, to be sold to us using money we don’t yet have, only so we can impress our friends who don’t really care.

Tim Brown is the CEO of innovation and design firm IDEO, which blend design, business and social studies to come up with deeply researched, deeply understood designs and ideas — they call it “design thinking.”

IDEO is the kind of firm that companies turn to when they want a top-down rethink of a business or product — from fast food conglomerates to high-tech startups, hospitals to universities.

IDEO has designed and prototyped everything from a life-saving portable defibrillator to the defining details at the groundbreaking Prada shop in Manhattan to corporate processes. And check out the Global Chain Reaction for a sample of how seriously this firm takes play.

Think infamous artists in Castlemaine and immediately Ben Laycock comes to mind. Born with a paintbrush in his mouth, Ben has been a colourful member of this great arts community for close to two decades. But when I had the opportunity to interview him I didn’t know where to start. His studio is full of art and the various flotsam and jetsam that tell us loads about what informs and inspires his unique style. The bold palettes, landscapes that hit you right between the eyes. Ben is prolific.

I have known Ben for over 10 years and have worked with him on several community and artistic projects but I really didn’t know much about the journey through his creative past and its profound influence upon his view of the world. I think it is fair to say that he is a highly unconventional character who has chosen not to accept the values of the “real world”.

Who else would go on a five day hike through the bush without a pair of shoes.

To view Ben Laycock’s amazing Artwork click here…

Or to see more of Jim Coad’s video projection work through his project Video Architecture.

Both Ben & Jim are exhibiting as part of Arts Open 2012 where 50 of Castlemaine’s leading artists are opening their studios to the public, many for the very first time.

Not all logos have to have a pretty picture or a mascot animal. A growing number of successful businesses are choosing to present their name as their logo. With the addition of a great font and a selection of colours, a simple business name can be transported into an eye catching logo.

The great thing about this method is that your clients don’t need to remember a name and a logo in association with your business. Sometimes the connection between a logo and a business name isn’t made if the name doesn’t appear on the logo.

Following is a list of businesses and companies using their name as a logo. You will find a mixture of very prominent and well known companies and smaller businesses, which goes to show that this method can work for anyone.

This is a beautiful logo, paying careful attention to design. The use of two different fonts and contrasting but complementing colours make this logo look sophisticated and contemporary.

The use of the graph paper like background alludes to their area of expertise – stationery – without being too obvious and losing that design edge.

So here’s an obvious one! I don’t think there are many people in this age of mass produced furniture who don’t immediately recognize this logo. This is a very effective use of name as logo. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve picked up a water glass and seen IKEA printed on the bottom. Without even the hesitation of a nanosecond I know exactly which company produced that glass, and where to get one.

Very handy advertising and logo recognition, especially if I’m in the market for some glass ware at the time.

Who wouldn’t recognize this logo?

Bold, brash and almost embarrassingly simple in its use of font and colours, the ebay logo is becoming one of the most recognizable logos, right up here with Apple and Nike.

Although the google logo has undergone some changes over the years, with different fonts and layouts, overall it has kept that simple primary colour name logo. And let’s face it, it works for them. I don’t think many people go more than a day, or even half an hour, without seeing this logo. It is ingrained on computer workers brains; they probably even see it in their sleep.

Google is after all taking over the world!

The use of a monkeys face as the O in monkey allows the mind to use the picture to quicker indentify with the words. We do after all process pictures far quicker than words.

Funky font and two complementing earthy colours bring this business name logo together to great effect.

This logo is cute and a little quirky while retaining simplistic style. It just goes to show that you don’t have to dramatically change your business name to make it a logo.

Just some imagination and addition of some colour and interest will work wonders.

 

Wow, it must have taken a design team many brainstorming sessions to come up with this design! Sarcasm aside, this is one of the world’s most successful companies and that albeit uninspiring logo is one of the most recognized logos in the world today.

What’s in a name? In this case, billions of dollars.

Yes, even boats have logos.

And this is certainly a beautifully executed logo that will look beautiful on the back of a luxury yacht.

Often when we think of logos we think graphics designs that convey what a company stands for but as you can see some of the world’s biggest companies use their own name as a logo, just with a stylised font.

What kind of logo should your Art Business use?