This is a guest post by Andreas Kambanis. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

I’ve always considered logo’s the realm of big multinational companies. Companies like AOL or Amazon who have thousands of dollars to throw at new designs.

Therefore, despite being constantly told about their importance and the value of branding for my blog I’ve ignored the advice. I’ve put it to the back of my mind and decided to focus on other things. After all logo’s are really expensive aren’t they?

Well, these days that isn’t really the case. Websites like 99designs can provide a new logo for as little as $150. The premise is that you run a competition and then designers from all over the world submit their entries. Within a week you can be up and running with a great new logo.

After avoiding the decision for ages, I took the plunge and launched my logo design contest on 99Designs. The result is a logo that gives a good first impression and was completed just in time to be used in my London Cycle Routes eBook. More importantly, as the eBook is likely to be featured in various big publications, the logo sends the important message of professionalism and this could make all the difference to the success of my site.

If this sounds pretty cool and you are considering it for your website, then here are five things you need to know before heading over to 99Designs.

1. Guarantee your prize

After you have had your first 10 entries on 99Designs you are able to “guarantee your prize”. This means that you have to choose a winner. This might sound scary at first especially if you only have 10 entries and you are not a big fan of them. However, guaranteeing the prize greatly increases the number of entries you have. This means there is a far better chance of finding the right logo. It also motivates you to get the most out of the designers and find the perfect design for your site. Don’t be scared, press the guarantee button!

2. Contact other designers

At the start of my competition I didn’t have enough entries and the entries I did have were not very high quality. I was at risk of having to pay for a logo I wasn’t entirely satisfied with. This was a massive worry for me. My solution was to look at other competitions and find designs I liked. I then contacted the designer behind them and invited them to join my competition. In total I think I contacted around 10 designers and 4 of those joined my competition. In the end the design I chose was off one of the designers who I invited.

3. Write a good description

Try as hard as you can to articulate what you want from the logo. Should it work on a dark background? Do you want to see simple designs? Should the logo be placed on the left of the text? For me it was “do I want to promote more the sporty side or the simple enjoyment of cycling?” I failed to mention this at first but it was easy to make the change later. A good idea is to look at some of the best performing competitions and take a look at their descriptions. It is best to just launch the competition and then make improvement as designs come in. Don’t delay indefinitely, launch now even if it isn’t perfect because you can always change it later.

4. Feedback, Feedback, Feedback and.. Feedback

It is a tough task providing new feedback every day. Especially in successful competitions with 100 or more entries. Sometimes you just think “bluh, can’t be bothered!” Or perhaps that is just me?

However, good feedback is essential. Think about how the logo makes you feel and what you do and don’t like. What would you like to see in the next version? Should the designer just scrap this one? You should also use many of 99Designs features. Rate other designs with stars so designers know what you want to see more and less of. Leave comments at the bottom about the direction of the competition.

Also don’t be afraid to ask friends. Talking it through with others is one of the best ways to argue about the merits of different designs. I was pretty much 100% set to go with one design when my friend told me it looked like a Ferris wheel. She was right!

5. Don’t neglect the last 24 hours

As I approached the last 24 hours I considered ending the competition early and going with a design I was fairly satisfied with. Luckily I decided to keep going and I’m glad I did. The last 24 hours tend to be very active with a lot of entries. This is the time when you should be focusing on the competition the most.

Bonus tip: Future proof your design. What happens if your name changes from DailyBlogTips to WeeklyBlogTips? Make sure the designer provides you with the editable Photoshop files and Adobe Illustrator files.

If you follow these tips in a week you could be proudly showing off your logo to your followers. Good luck to you!

About the Author: Andreas is one of the most successful cycling bloggers in the UK. You can read more from his on his blog, London Cyclist.

A couple of years ago we saw the trend of “mobile optimization” emerge. People started urging us about the importance of optimizing our sites for mobile devices, about creating versions for the iPhone and other mobile phones and so on. There were even companies that created a business model around this idea.

I wrote about it, but I never really bought into it. In fact early in 2009 I had already written a post titled Do We Really Need to Optimize Our Sites for Mobile Phones?.

One year later I still defend the position that optimizing for mobile devices is not really necessary. Not because people are not using these devices to access the web. They are. But most mobile and smart phones these days work pretty much like portable computers, with fully compatible browsers. The resolution is not great yet, but we are getting there.

I got inspired to talk about this issue again after my little brother came hope with an iPod touch. Once I grabbed it to play a little I connected to our wifi spot and opened Daily Blog Tips. To my surprise the website was loading fine, and it was perfectly possible to navigate around and read all the posts. And that is an iPod touch. Imagine what you’ll be able to do with the iPad or the coming smart phones.

In other words, I don’t believe we’ll see the rise of a “mobile web”, with separate protocols and websites. I believe we’ll continue using the “traditional web,” even though we’ll certainly start using new and mobile devices to access it. Sure there will be new applications and features that mobile connectivity makes possible (e.g., Foursquare), but overall the good ol’ web will remain as the core network.

Thoughts?

If you have the habit of visiting social bookmarking sites you probably know how popular web design related stories are. Every single day you can find a list with “the best collection of free textures,” “free icon sets,” “examples of stunning typography” and so on.

I do believe that design is an important part of the whole. As the Italian proverb goes, anche l’occhio vuole la sua parte (i.e., the eye wants it’s share too). But after seeing those web design related stories flowing around the web ad nauseam I started wondering whether or not we are obsessed with aesthetics.

The western society in general certainly is, with the fashion industry growing year after year. But my questioning is specific to the Internet society. The netzens, which I like to believe are more sophisticated than the average westerner.

You can find evidence of that obsession for aesthetics everywhere. And bear in mind that I am not pointing fingers here. I have been there myself. I remember back in the day when I was creating my first blogs I used to spend weeks tweaking the design and neglecting the content, as if a beautifully-designed blog would attract more readers than a well-written one. Maybe that is the case?

My reasoning might be biased because I am a functional guy. One of the things I hated the most when working for a multinational company was the necessity to wear a tie. Why? Because I couldn’t find a logical reason behind it. You wear shoes to protect your feet. You wear underwear for hygienic reasons. But why the heck do you wear a tie?

Back to the central question: do you think we are obsessed with aesthetics on the Internet? Wouldn’t it be better if we focused more on the functional aspect of things? I would like to hear what you think, as mine is not an affirmation but rather a wondering.

Some weeks ago I came across an interesting post on Blogging Tips titled 5 Quick Ways to Improve Your Blog. It basically lists improvements that you can perform on your blog without spending too much time. Here is the first point:

5. Tweak Your Theme

You might not have the time you need to overhaul your theme completely, but what about tweaking it a bit? Why not see if you can improve your site’s typography, thus making your text easier to read? Maybe it’s time for a better logo?

Check out the original article for the other four points. The weekend is coming, and it could be a good time run some of those small tweaks.

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and it is the most common language used to create web pages. The basic HTML structure is composed of tags, but you can also embed images, videos, and load scripts from other languages (e.g., Javascript) inside pages.

You probably already knew that. What you might not know is that currently we are using the fourth revision of HTML, called HTML 4.01, and that the next revision, called HTML 5.0, will completely change the web development segment.

Here are some major game changers that we’ll see with HTML 5:

• The elements will be more aligned with modern web design practices. Some of the new tags include <header>,<nav>,<aside> and <footer>.
• The DOCTYPE was simplified to <!DOCTYPE html>.
• You will be able to embed audio and video directly in the HTML code and without the need for external plugins. The two new elements for that are <audio> and <video>.
• New APIs (application programming interfaces) will be included. This will enable developers to add drag-n-drop features, document editing, drawing and so on.

Cool stuff right? Unfortunately we can’t say for sure when HTML 5 will be adopted. The first public working draft with the HTML 5 specifications was published January of 2008. The last one was published in August of this year, and you can read it on the W3.org website.

Major browsers are gradually incorporating HTML 5 specs, but it might be a while before they are fully compatible and before developers start using the language. If you want to test it, both Firefox 3.1 and Safari 3.1 should have support for some features. You can go to youtube.com/html5 to see a demo page built with HTML 5.