IDG Communications Spring 2011 E-News

Research: Colour + Typography; Logo + Web redesign
Phase 2 of the rebranding process: exploration and execution
This blog is the second of a four part series about how the Branding Specialists rebranded themselves at IDG Communications.

Once the mission and vision were established we could finally begin the design process. Through colour and typography we needed to convey the voice and tone of our new identity.

We knew the new logo would have to be drastically different from our current logo but we also knew it would be scrutinized by those who were familiar with our current brand. We would have to justify every design choice made, down to the minutest detail. Oh the pressure!

Read the rest of Rebraind ghte Brand Specialists (Part II) on IDG's blog! »

When most people are browsing through the shelves of their local wine store trying to find that perfect bottle of red or white for the evening, they normally have certain criteria in mind to guide their choice. Amongst other things, they consider the country… the year… the grape… the house… and of course, the price.
However, years ago, while I was slowly developing my taste and love for the almighty grape, I had an admittedly simple way of choosing which bottle to buy when faced with the thousands of possibilities. The label!

Now, I can practically hear the cringing of any true wine connoisseur… and that’s fine. But being a designer, the label was always an integral part of my process in those days. The funkier the label was, the more likely I was to buy it. It sounds a bit crazy, even to me.

Read the rest of Wine by design on IDG's blog! »

So what’s the deal with HTML5? Apple created a section on their website about their HTML5 supported devices. Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 9 is telling the World Wide Web how beautiful the web will be using HTML5. Both of those pages are built in W3C’s new brainchild; HTML5. The pages look like another other web pages right? Not exactly. There is some mysterious witchcraft at work under the hood.

The W3C describes HTML5 like this:
This specification defines the 5th major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web: the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In this version, new features are introduced to help Web application authors, new elements are introduced based on research into prevailing authoring practices, and special attention has been given to defining clear conformance criteria for user agents in an effort to improve interoperability.

Now, that looks great! Everybody wants more features on their websites! But hold on to your horses, because W3C predicted their final specification in 2022. A recent article is talking about a 2014 final specification. That raises the question: “How did Microsoft and Apple build pages in HTML5 already?” Simple! HTML5 is not final, and certainly flawed in a few ways, but can be used safely, right away. Here is a fun website to look at: http://ishtml5readyyet.com. The irony? It’s built in HTML5.

Read the rest of HTML5: More than a buzzword on IDG's blog !»