It all began in in 1994 when the first Playstation was available for sale in Japan and in 1995 when the Playstation hit Europe. With this came a logo design which for me i found amazing and was one of the reasons why I wanted to become a designer. But how did they come up with this final design; below are some early examples of the Playstation Logo.

Sony Playstation Logo Concepts

As you can see the early stages of the logo are unrecognisable except for the “P” on logo design 3.

Sony Playstation Logo Concepts 2

On logo concept 4 you can see they are playing with the idea of 3D, distorted look.

Sony Playstation Logo Concepts 3

Sony Playstation Logo Concepts 4

Now you can see the earlier concepts working together to create the almost complete logo. Just a few colour tweeks and we have the completed design.

Final Sony Playstation Logo

Now we will look at the other Logos Playstation has created.

In the year 2000 Sony released the Playstation 2 and with that a new looking logo design, which in my eyes was a step backward compared to the original Playstation 1 logo.

Sony Playstation 2 Logo

In 2004 Playstation created a its first handheld console, the Playstation Portable, which was basically exactly the same logo as the Playstation 2

Sony Playstation Portable Logo

After a sucessful 6 years with the Playstation 2, The playstation 3 was released in 2006 and with this another new logo design was created.

Sony Playstation 3 Logo 2006

Once this logo was released the Playstation 3 logo looked alot like the “Spiderman” films font and in 2009 they rebranded the look with a more sleek look, working from the Playstation 2 concept they created this new fresh look.

Sony Playstation 3 Logo 2009

And in 2011 the Playstation Vita was released, and again they used the look of the Playstation 3 logo from 2009, like they did with the Playstation 2 and Playstation Portable.

Sony Playstation Vita Logo 2011

And with Sony announcing they are releasing the Playstation 4 in the Autumn we look at the new Playstation 4 logo.

Official Sony Playstation 4 Logo

Do you think its as good as previous logos that the Playstation has used?

So what are we offering?

• All our A5 Flyers come with a professional graphic design service (no templates like vista print, print.com etc.) this is worth over £35.00 alone
• All our A5 Flyers are printed on 150gsm glossy paper and are printed Double Sided.
• Full Colour

Below is a price list of our A5 Flyers on Sale.

To claim this offer just quote #A5FSale

Ill try and add some more tips soon

1. Content is vital! be sure to have good, well written and unique content that will focus on your primary keywords or keyword phrase.

2. Building a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link.

3. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PageRank can actually outrank one with a higher PageRank.

4. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages or post new articles on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

5. Be sure that links to your site (from forums, guestbooks etc.) and within your website use your keyword phrase. for example, if your target is “Liverpool FC” then link to “Liverpool FC” instead of a “Click here” link.

6. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Liverpool based office” not “our office”) to help you get found in localised searches.

7. Use keywords and keyword phrases correctly in text links, image alt’s and your domain name.

8. you just built a new website and want it indexed? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take from a few days to a few weeks. The quickest way to get your site indexed is by getting a link to it from a quality website.

9. If your site content doesn’t change often, your website needs a blog/news feed because search spiders like fresh text and images. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to keep the spiders happy.

10. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.

11. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to cram your content text with keywords or keyword phrases, It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a search term is in your content and if it is high, will count this against you rather than for you.

12. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, your ranking.

13. Search engines love unique new content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.

14. If you MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below in the footer.

15. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.

16. Links from .gov or charities are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .gov / charity websites that are looking for sponsors.

17. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.

18. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.

19. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you would with your blog posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.

20. Use captions with your images. Place keyword rich captions with your images.

21. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by spiders. Good navigation and links will serve you much better than relying on your XML Sitemap.

22. Links from a high PageRank website are golden. High PageRank indicates high trust, so the back links will carry alot more weight.

23. Understand social marketing. It is part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us, Google+, etc., the better you will be able to compete in specific searches.

24. Surround video content on your web pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.

25. Use the word “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.

If you find yourself thinking, “I have a good eye for design and my brother or sister has Photoshop” or worse, “Mircosoft Word.” then you cant be more wrong!

Perception is the first step to recognition in business. If you do not give full respect to the power of your branding and graphic design you will pay for it in the future.

If you launch your business into the market with a low quality logo from an inexperienced graphic designer you will undoubtedly be perceived as a low quality brand who may produce low quality services or products. This is not the time to cut corners. It is vital to get it right from the start and build your brand on solid foundations from which it can grow and develop successfully.

Graphic designers are trained professionals who have spent 5 years plus gathering the skills, creativity, knowledge and experience to produce the quality and professional designs you need for you business. Every design job follows the necessary steps and procedures so that quality is ensured.

Let’s take a logo design as an example. Select a font, pick a colour…. hey presto we have a logo…

If only!

Below is an example of a good logo example and a bad logo example.

First Impressions Count

Graphic design and brand identity are as much about artistic flair and exuberance as they are simple and effective visual communication.

Every visual element on your small business website, from your logo, color scheme, page backgrounds, banners, stock photography and other visual elements convey a distinct message to your site visitors.  Do your visual elements convey the message you want?

Books Are Judged by Their Covers

For better or for worse, your site visitors will determine whether they want to do business with you based on what your site looks like; often before they even read a word of your text.

This isn’t so strange when you consider that appearance goes a long way to delivering visual cues and providing context.

Would you walk into a shop with boarded up doors and broken windows to find out whether they had products or services you might be interested in?

The answer is no!

So get a professional graphic design to help you with your design and branding work. And you wont ever regret it.

How the Voting will work.

out of the 133 people 3 people will be picked out at random and then there will be a 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place. If the 1st placed winner doesnt respond to his/her prize within 72 hours, there prize will default and will go to 2nd place and if 2nd place doesnt respond in 72 hours then the prize will go to 3rd place.

If by some crazy way that 1st, 2nd and 3rd doesnt respond then i will pick 3 new winners.

Everyone who has signed up to the newsletter will recieve a email newsletter from NUGFX stating who has won 1st place, 2nd place and 3rd place.

Good Luck All! Voting will start at 22:00hrs GMT and the winner should be announced by 23:00hrs GMT

What is the one item that you find vital to have in your home office?

I have a few items i would say are vital,my laptop, tablet, PC, printer. But without the internet I couldn’t be a business so I would say the internet is my most vital tool!

You can read the full interview from the link below.

NUGFX Interview

So what is Responsive Website Design?

Responsive Website Design is a website that is created to be viewed on multiple formats such as PC’s, Laptops, TV’s and Mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones. So you ask why does my website need to be responsive? and the answer is YES and here are some facts about this.

The Facts

In 2011 PC’s had its first decline in almost 10 years, and in 2011 it was reported that over 77% of the population of the UK aged 18 – 40 had a mobile phone with internet capabilities, and of that 77% of mobile phones, 43% of these mobile phones were smart phones. So that means almost 40% of the UK’s population are now browsing the internet through their mobile phone, whether its for social media, finding a dress or looking for a business service.

In Febuary 2013 Laptop sales dropped by 16% worldwide due to the uprise of tablet devices. And in March 2013 Tablet devices rose 18% alone in the UK. With users now using smart phones and tablets to browse the internet, it is becoming increasingly more important to have a responsive website design. According to comScore, mobile internet is set to overtake desktop internet at some point this year.

The Benefits of Responsive Website Design

A responsive website will adapt in different ways to fit any screen size. This means that whether you’re using a 17 inch desktop display an 10 inch ipad or a mobile device, the website you’re viewing will shift and adapt its content to display it in the best possible way on the device being used. So lets try this theory out, NUGFX website is responsive. Make your internet browser window smaller and see the images, navigation bar and content columns shrink, until the sidebar disappears altogether. Then increase the size of the window again, until the columns have reached their original sizes.

The benefits are obvious: You build a website once, and it works seamlessly across thousands of different screens. And yet, four out five organisations in the UK are still not designing their websites for smartphones and tablets.

Can you imagine the effect this may have on your clients? Coming across a website on your mobile or tablet that you can’t view correctly – zooming back and forth, moving right and left to read a column that doesn’t fit to the screen – is so discouraging to most users that they simply leave.

A recent study from Google confirms this with 61 per cent of its respondents saying they would “quickly move onto another site” if they struggled to find what they were looking for on a website that wasn’t optimised.

It’s an increasingly fragmented mobile landscape out there, and businesses need to consider how their website is being viewed across a whole range of devices, unless they want to miss out on a huge part of their audience.

It’s great that we can now design websites to be flexible and fluid. Images can be automatically adjusted, and we can work around layouts so they never break. It’s perfect for devices that switch from portrait orientation to landscape in an instant, or for users who switch from a large computer screen to an iPad throughout their daily routine.

2013 is the year of mobile and the year of responsive design.

So if you want to be ahead of your competition get your website responsive so you can reach a larger audience. All websites created by NUGFX are responsive, unless the client states they do not want it responsive. And at all NO EXTRA COST!

below is a small poster that I created for the occasion.

The poem was written by Sue Gielink

http://blog.cloudflare.com/