Graphic design humour: naked logos

Iconic brand logos are so installed in our visual language that sometimes just a colour or a font is the immediate recognizable element of a brand. We’ve already seen a version of honest logos that put into a funny manner the reality behind them. Well this time, myHOTjuly came up with a logo series that they have called naked logos, which has the same principal concept. It has a slightly different take on the honesty behind the brand, referring more to what we probably think or unconsciously know about the brand itself.

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Impresion digital 4

Graphic design news: Liechtenstein votes for their new logo

The small Principality of Liechtenstein is currently having a voting contest to choose the country’s new visual identity. Every citizen over 14 years old is allowed to choose between five proposals that were made by agencies from all over Europe. The basic guidelines of the logos are based on the national’s colours -red and blue- and some of them refer to the royalty condition of the nation using dashes of gold. The logo should also take in consideration the fundamental principles and values of the little country, such as its independence, national security, self-determination, etc. Here are the contestants:

I’d have to say that this is proposal falls short in the sense of creating a consistent brand. The use of gradients and different triangular shapes look carelessly put, which makes a weird combination and not a very recognizable or strong logo.

In this proposal we can see again the use of polygonal shapes that use the 2 national colours plus the gold that refers to the Principality character. Unlike the previous logo, this one has a more consistent look relying on its simplicity. Considering Liechtenstein is known for its independence and overall neutrality amidst Europe, the sober look of this logo might live up to the intended spirit.

The third proposal focuses more on the flag’s colours, applied onto polygons (we might see a pattern here) with a light use of gradients to give a sense of volume. It certainly has a youthful look, specially considering the rounded type choice. This is a consistent logo, but I personally think it might fall into a more generic look. Besides, that spacing between Liechten and Stein looks kinda weird.

The next logo proposal refers directly to the royalty character of the country. It has a sober look that mixes the national colours with a gold crown and, although a bit more literal,  has a lot more character and recognizability potential than the previous proposals. The letter L is beautifully constructed, it has that Fraktur look to it that evokes to the germanic heritage of the country. The font chosen for this logo matches perfectly the literal look, given its clean strong character. It’s definitely a unique logo.

And last but not least, the fifth proposal goes in a different way than the previous ones. This logo also uses the red-blue-gold combination as well as the use of the crown. For a change they’ve gone with the use of coloured dots to create a diamond shape with an also dot-constructed crown. It’s paired up with a rounded typography, which makes this logo look a bit childish- I’m not quite sure if this logo would work as a nation’s identity though.

So what do you think? Which of these logos suites Liechenstein’s identity the most ? I’d have to go for the 4th proposal, it certainly has a distinct look and lots of recognizability.

Via

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Impresion digital 4

$200 In AdWords Coupons

Frequently we get sent AdWords coupons from Google.  You’ll have often seen offers for $50 in free credits (if nowhere else than from your hosting company I’m sure) but we’ve recently received 2 such coupon codes for $100 each.  We generally keep them for clients but as we’re currently not taking on clients … they’re going to be going to waste as they expire tomorrow.  Since we know a lot of our readers are doing online marketing now just might be a good time to add in AdWords if you don’t already.

The coupons are for $100 each, they expire on March 31st and I believe they’re only good on new campaigns.  I can confirm that they don’t work on campaigns where a coupon code has been entered previously.  Can’t blame us for trying Google.

So if you’d like to launch into a campaign feel free to use one of these coupon codes for a $100 credit:

3RXN-ETQL-9SAS-MJYM-T8G
or
KUF3-E7F8-CNG7-Q4SV-HB8

Google’s Self Driving Cars – More than a vision

As an SEO who loves 12 volt tech, cars, and robotics, I tend to focus on these updates from Google’s self driving car project. This morning I came across a video showing off the first official self driving car ‘user’ Steve Mahan, who is legally (95%) blind.

My only disappointment with the video was that Steve’s user # at the end of the video:
“#0,000,000,001″
..would only indicate ‘billions’ and not a ‘googol’ of users like :
“#00,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­000,­001″
See how witty that would have been?

Okay I also wasn’t impressed with the parking, just getting the car into the slot like that reminds me of driving past the local bingo hall. Where’s the pride in parking accurately?

After seeing this sort of result from Google’s innovations it’s really sad to hear rumour that Google is pushing to trim the fat and look at reducing all the innovations it’s known for. Considering the volume of ‘Google is evil‘ and ‘Google just wants to steal our info‘ rumours that keep going around, hopefully the users can see that actions are more honest than words?

A Minecraft Demo Video?!

Yes indeed! I managed to find no solutions to the darkness issue, so I took a video of something that looks great when it’s dark: Lightning!

In fact one of the fellows who’s helped with the detailing stole our thunder over on Reddit’s r/minecraft, but we’re cool with it. Would have been nice if he’d link over to the contest page, but we understand. *sob*

The video, even as dark as it is, does give a sneak peek of the Beanstalk we’ve been building on the demo server. Hopefully we’re providing inspiration vs. stealing all the good ideas.

Speaking of ideas, we are still fishing for some good ways to detail the Goose nest and how to make ‘leafs’ that look thin on the Beanstalk. Serious brownie points are available for anyone who shares a way to get around those hurdles so we can focus on other parts of the maps.

Want a job? Password, please! – Facebook Won’t Sue Employers for Privacy Infringements

*UPDATE*

House Republicans Votes Down Stopping employers asking for Facebook Passwords

"House Republicans today defeated an amendment introduced yesterday that would have banned employers demanding access to Facebook accounts. While the practice isn’t widespread, it has caused a big brouhaha after reports surfaced that some organizations were requiring workers to hand over Facebook passwords as a condition of keeping their current job or getting hired for a new one."

Following up on my blog post from Monday titled: "Employer’s Asking for Facebook Credentials",
I detailed an alarming situation in which there have been many reports of employers asking potential hires for their Facebook credentials in order to check their online interactions to use as a hiring factor.

Facebook stated that doing so not only undermines the privacy and security expectations of both the user and the user’s contacts, but exposes the employer to legal liability. Furthermore Facebook legal representatives have clearly stated that sharing or soliciting a user’s login credentials is in direct violation of their Statement of Rights & Responsibilities.

"If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password, let anyone access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends," Facebook Chief Privacy Officer for Policy Erin Egan said in a statement. "We have worked really hard at Facebook to give you the tools to control who sees your information. As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job. And as the friend of a user, you shouldn’t have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job."

Initially it seemed that Facebook was considering legal action to protect its 845 million users by either getting politicians to pass a law stopping this practice, or outright suing employers shown to have asked persons to divulge their information.

"Facebook takes your privacy seriously," Egan said in a statement. "We’ll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges. While we will continue to do our part, it is important that everyone on Facebook understands they have a right to keep their password to themselves, and we will do our best to protect that right."

Until this statement, the only advocacy group willing to protect Facebook users was the American Civil Liberties Association which has deemed these practices as an invasion of privacy and has released this video on YouTube called: "Want a job? Password, please!" in response. The video details the a scenario in which a corrections officer said he required to turn over his Facebook credential or risk failing recertification to that would allow him to work in the state’s prison system.

"It’s an invasion of privacy for private employers to insist on looking at people’s private Facebook pages as a condition of employment or consideration in an application process," ACLU attorney Catherine Crump said in a statement. "People are entitled to their private lives. You’d be appalled if your employer insisted on opening up your postal mail to see if there was anything of interest inside. It’s equally out of bounds for an employer to go on a fishing expedition through a person’s private social media account."

In an updated statement, Erin Egan clarified their previous statement that while it wants to protect its users from employers demanding access to their accounts, they currently have no plans to sue any employers for any such actions.

"We don’t think employers should be asking prospective employees to provide their passwords because we don’t think its right the thing to do. While we do not have any immediate plans to take legal action against any specific employers, we look forward to engaging with policy makers and other stakeholders, to help better safeguard the privacy of our users."

While the practice of asking employees for private information has been occurring for a few years, it seems that recent events have helped to rekindle the controversy over online privacy and the need to protect the rights of individuals.

Google IO is a sellout

I know we’ve been anti-Google the last few weeks, but Google’s upcoming IO conference really did sell-out, in 20 mins no less!

With only 5,500 seats the 20 minute sell-out wasn’t too shocking, but the $2,000 EBay auction for a Google IO ticket took me by surprise. I tried to go find it for a confirmation picture but it was already nuked. Even at the full price of $900 a pop, the scalping price was over double! Heck educational admission ticket prices are only $300 each!?

If you’re wondering ‘what the heck is Google IO?’ that could be our fault, because our post about it last year, Ooh Shiny! ChromeOS & ChromeBook, was totally about the new ChromeBook and not the conference.. Oh man!

Each year Google hosts it’s Input/Output conference to not only share a vision of what’s ahead for Google, but also to get some feedback from the developers and users that work with Google’s solutions.

As is the case each year the team of nerds over at Google have put together a ‘chrome experiment‘ for anyone with a Google account.

The splash page for the Google IO event experiment teases us with the following:

“Brush up on your geometry, dust off your protractor, and architect a machine only you could have dreamt of. Join developers tackling our latest Chrome Experiment for a chance to have your machine featured at Google I/O.”

… yet the site seems a wee bit too popular at the moment, refusing to proceed into the actual site no matter how many times your click it. I’ll have to keep trying but right now it looks like I’ll have to come back and update after lunch.

If you REALLY wanted to click something to fiddle with in your browser, and it has to work right this second, well try Browser Quest from Mozilla Labs! While the game is currently still up and running I expect it will completely flat-line as it reaches peak popularity. I am running around as DobbieBobkins if you get in.

Browser Quest is an HTML5 site, with everything using the latest web-tech available. Don’t let those 8-bit graphics fool you, this is a modern technical demonstration. I’ve seen the game work with the latest versions of Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera, just fine, though Opera was loading like dirt because of some broken plugins.

Speaking of coming back to things. I keep saying that we will have more on the Beanstalk Minecraft map contest, including some videos to inspire folks with ideas.. Sadly I am SO out of date with video capture that it boggles the mind.

Apparently my problem with recording is missing codecs, so I installed the FFdshow package which supposedly contains the right codecs to maintain the correct color space and gamma values in my source videos. If that sounded like Spanish, in a nutshell I’m fixing some dark video issues.

Here’s my last upload fresh off the preview screen, and it’s STILL TOO DARK?

So, for now, today’s post is more of a bookmark, with some Google IO teasing, to be visited again after lunch when things are less popular.

UPDATE: Okay I got into the Google IO on my lunch and did a Bean experiment:

Employer’s Asking for Facebook Credentials

There has been a rash of complaints and public outcry arising over companies asking potential employees for their Facebook login credentials. Several complaints have been filed in Canada and the United States of documented cases in which job applicants have been asked to surrender their Facebook username and password during job interviews.

Using social profiles as a resource to screen potential employees is not new, but demanding that users turn over passwords has garnered attention from government officials and has been condemned by Facebook as "distressing"

This disturbing trend in the US job market has legislators hastening to protect individuals from such practices. Fortunately labor laws in Canada already offer strong protection against employers asking for personal information. US laws are much more lax and there have been many instances reported where prospective employers has required employees to reveal this information as part of the vetting process. In other cases, candidates have been asked to log onto their social networks on computers at the job site or requested to become friends with a hiring manager while still in the interview process. Illinois and Maryland have both tabled legislation that would forbid public agencies from gaining access to social networks.

Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan cautioned in a post on Friday that if an employer discovers that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer may open itself up to claims of discrimination if it doesn’t hire that person.

"If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password," Erin Egan wrote. “This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends," wrote Facebook chief privacy officer Erin Egan. "It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability."

In the light of these reports, Facebook is warning employers not to demand login credentials from job applicants stating that is a blatant violation of privacy and of the Facebook term of use. Companies that access user profiles could easily find themselves facing a barrage of discrimination charges.

Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut want Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether employees asking for Facebook passwords during job interviews violates federal law.

Job seekers are within their right to ask employers to explain their motives behind obtrusive questions. Even if candidates resist such strong-arm tactics experts caution they should be on the lookout for more insidious ones.

Microsoft sheds more light on cloud backup service for Windows Server 8

Microsoft is testing a beta of an Azure-based online backup service for Windows Server 8. Here are a few more tidbits about it.

Former Microsoft Courier team members launch hot new apps for the iPad

Former Microsoft execs who were associated with the nixed Courier dual-screen tablet project are resurfacing at companies doing Courier-inspired apps for Apple’s iPad.

Codename Antares: A new Microsoft hosting platform for Web apps

At the Microsoft Hosting Summit this week, Microsoft execs are talking up what’s coming on the hosting-platform side of the house.