Logo Design Ideas – How You Use them on Company Shirts
Published November 30th, 2009 | 
A lot of times businesses print their firm’s logo designs on customized items and one of them is t-shirts as it works wonderfully towards doing an effective level of marketing or promotion of a brand. However it does not mean that putting any design on shirts would be able to fetch your promotion a positive response. There are a lot of factors which need to be given attention so that this is ensured that there is an optimistic response received. One of the methods that you could use in order to make it a success is by paying attention to the detailing that has been done on t-shirts like the hues that have been used because it is essential that the color combinations match the logo design of your company that is printed on the shirts. You’d definitely not want that people are unable to identify what shape of the trademark is and how it looks just because of the other colors having an overpowering effect. Many people make use of the good old and classic, white color but there is no hard and fast rule since using any light shade would be good as it would let your trademark stand out and be recognized easily by people. One more method that could be used in order to make the t-shirts attractive looking is by utilizing similar or near similar colors and fonts of the brand name as well as the patterns of your company symbol. It would not only lend a consistency to the overall look of the shirts but at the same time make them pretty much easy for people to remember and differentiate from the rest.
The style and design of the trademark and shirts should complement each other. One biggest advantage that you get via using t-shirts as a means of promotion is that it is easily noticed by all and since it can be clearly seen and caught by the eyes of any person, it becomes essential that layout of the symbol design and shirt’s look are much in their own balance to look decent.
Gettin’ Wavey Wit’ It
Published November 30th, 2009 | After months of anticipation and waiting, I finally got my Google Wave invite the other day. In case you’ve been living in a cave this past year and haven’t heard all the hoopla about Google’s new techno-toy here’s the scoop according to Google:
Google Wave is an online communication and collaboration tool that makes real-time interactions more seamless — in one place, you can communicate and collaborate using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is a conversation with multiple participants — participants are people added to a wave to discuss and collaborate on its content. Participants can reply any time and anywhere within a wave, and they can edit content and add more participants as a wave develops. It’s also possible to rewind waves with the playback functionality, to see what happened, and when.
There has been some debate among early users about whether the Wave lives up to its hype. Some are blown away by it, while others are more skeptical, complaining about various problems that plague any piece of software that is in early stages of development and/or saying things like, "well . . . I’m on Facebook and I have Twitter, so what’s the point of having this, etc. . . ?"
Having played around with the thing, I find myself somewhere in the middle in that debate. Yes, it’s definitely buggy as hell. Add to that some of the bots, gadgets, extensions developed for the Wave by third-party creators simply do not work (while others are just plain stupid — Eliza the Bot Shrink, coughcough) . Yes, there is some lag so it’s much slower than instant messaging or chat (but it’s still faster than email). And, being as it’s still early and available by invitation-only, there’s really very few people to wave to.
That’s the negative.
Here’s the positive:
The minute I signed-in and saw what the Wave could do already, I could see the great potential for this thing. If not as a "tool-killer" or out-and-out replacement for email, then as a collaborative tool for project-based communication. Although, I’m sure this’ll eventually gain popularity with the common folks, the Wave is really a tool for business communication. Already, through it’s native programming and the addition of a few extensions, you can seamlessly (nearly so, anyway) integrate video, imaging and text in a collaborative way. I can see how I might be using this thing in the future as a tool to work with writers I’ve published. One of the problems I’ve always had is that when it comes to connecting with writers after a piece has been accepted, I’ve always had problems as I’ve been forced to use many different tools/methods for keeping in touch and have met with very limited success. This often leads to conflicts and misunderstandings. If I had enough of these writers using Google Wave, we could just send waves back and forth, discuss and implement revisions when necessary and keep each other informed in a timely fashion, rather than flitting about different communication platforms all the time. What I’m hoping is that, once the Wave is farther along in it’s development, and more and more useful apps are developed for it, it will become an even more useful and streamlined tool. One of the problems I had was integrating the Wave with this blog. I first tried a plug-in for Wordpress that was alleged to work well with version 2.8+, but found that it did not work on my blog at all. Further investigation led me to the conclusion that many other more tech-savvy users than I am were experiencing similar problems, so I tried an alternative method and got the exact same result. Needless to say, the really nifty demonstration for Google Wave I’d planned for this blog post did not work the way I wanted it to.
NanoWriMo, Fame and Dan Brown
Published November 27th, 2009 | A few days ago, I was chatting with someone about my NanoWriMo novel and somewhere along the way, the conversation turned towards Dan Brown and what a awful writer I think he is.
"Your just jealous," this person said.
"Jealous? Why would I be jealous of Dan Brown?"
"Because he’s a famous writer."
Well, I thought about this for a bit because whenever strangers or near-strangers make these apparently keen observations about me, I always give it due consideration. So I first asked myself how I came to such a low opinion of Dan Brown in the first place. I remember: I read The Da Vinci Code. Jesus, man! I don’t hate Dan Brown, I hate his writing. I don’t want to drive his car or sleep with his wife — I just don’t ever want to suffer through anymore of his books. Second, I asked myself if I even wanted to be a famous writer like Dan Brown, because to accept that I’m jealous of Dan Brown, I’d have to be someone who coveted fame. But, here’s a little scoop: I’ve never really wanted to be a famous writer. I’d like to be a good writer. I’d certainly like to make a living from my writing (and by "living" I don’t necessarily mean a million dollars). Truth is, I couldn’t handle fame. In real life, I’m kind of shy and more than a little anti-social. Were I to attain fame on par with a Dan Brown, Stephen King of J.K. Rowling, I’d be pulling a J.D. Salinger for sure.
Sure, being famous is why everyone participates in NanoWriMo — because they want to be the next whoever. I’d like to believe that’s not true. I’m sure even Dan Brown didn’t want or expect the level of fame he’s achieved. What writer really, truly does? We just want to write. Should I live to be old and feeble enough to require the use of a cane and walk in tubs, I just want to look back on my life as a writer and see a body of work that I’m not too ashamed of. And isn’t that what we should all want from our writing?
