design. creating. the inspiration of life into the designs that are created to love....*amanda cahill

Pittsburg State University | Graphics & Imaging Technologies Students

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Blogging Services Free vs Paid

Blogging is FREE better?
Not always, free is good for businesses looking for budget tight advertising. Free is quick and easy to use, you don't have to know html to have a free blog. You are in control but not having your domain name can be a little bit of a downer. Most free blog sites like blogger.com is yourname.blogspot.com which is not very professional, and the blogging can get a little confusing.
Blogging is PAID better?
Not always as well, paid is good for enhancing your themes and having someone customize you for a small price. You can make more money by advertising, and can have your own domain name as well. The down side is the hosting services are not always reliable. You must know html a little to understand the paid sites. This can be costly too. Having your site built for you can range from $275-$375 with extra charges for framed photos and quotes, linked side bars, and custom side bars. It might just be better to design the blog yourself if the confidence is high in your background of blogging.

Blogger vs Wordpress

 Blogger vs Word-press! The thoughts about having your own custom page and just putting your thoughts and feelings out on the web would be more of a blogger page. Blogger is powered by Google, Google tends to take away and add things whenever they feel like which can up set people. The blogger can also benefit businesses with sharing with there customers, asset in business opportunities, help share info about products, and is a free low cost way to advertise. This can be professional by purchasing a domain name for only $10 a year. This can help businesses in a way to have there site updated daily. Most blogger's have came to the conclusion that blogger is less professional than word-press. Blogger is more recommended for people who want more customizing features and an easy quick set up of there own page.  
Word-press is more of a business blog. This is a more professional out look or professional way to promote a business or your own name. The word-press software is always updated. Word-press comes out on top compared to blogger. Most blogger's have come out to say that Word-press is way better and more professional with the pages and Word-press has way more hosting services to have your own domain name in the URL. Blogger's have also came out and said that blogger has a tendency to change gadgets and remove things off your blog, which can make people very angry when they worked hard on that piece of work for them to just throw it away.

Image source | blog.smartbuzz.in

Why We Blog??

We blog to get our thoughts and feelings out there. We blog to show what we can do and to let others see how well we can design, write, or put our thoughts in writing. Blogging helps companies get there name out in the business world, and is a easy way to advertise on a tight budget. In most cases blogger's are people who think that the thoughts and feelings they have about politics and issues in the country matter. Blogger's are very free and open with how they strongly feel about Obama, and the War against Iraq or when the soldiers are coming home for good.

Blogging is more about getting the work that we do everyday out there for potential employers to see and to show how well spoken we are as well. Blogging also helps potential clients see who you are and if they can trust you with the work they are paying you for. Blogging also lets you be in control of the site and to add things to the site as many times a day that we want too. To Blog is to publish your thoughts and feelings and the hard work that we do everyday to get us out in the corporate world.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Brenden Murphy former PSU Graphic Student

Brendan Murphy came back to Pittsburg State University where he started his education, to give an inspiring speech about his success in graphic design to help the graphic communications students see the success that has happened to him. His most important advice was to pay attention in school.  This is the advice that anyone can really give a student. This concept is so much easier said than done on some days.

Brendan Murphy came to Pitt State in 1985 with a track scholarship and didn’t really know what he wanted to do, and then the opportunity came to him with graphic design. He says that the technical writing aspect of his career is more important than he thought. Murphy says that he does more writing about his work than actually designing. His communication skills had to improve for him to climb the corporate ladder.

Having Murphy give us this advice was very helpful to how I think that I can do this by climbing the corporate ladder as well. This just shows that there is much more work into this career than some people think there may be.  I want to do layouts and designing for huge companies but to get there I have to be the little man for awhile. I felt that Murphy was very helpful in helping me understand that there is more writing involved in the design world. I thought it would be drawing but in his experience this has come to my attention that the writing is more important in this field.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Gap Logo Change

The Gap  company had wanted a new logo to coincide with what it says was its updated image, including having more modern designs of jeans, pants and other clothing. They were wanting something more modern and up to date with the logo change. Gap was looking for something that would attract the younger crowd and looking for something that would help the company in sales, and to compete with the rival stores like forever 21, Levi's and Crew.  Unfortunately the decrease in sales and disappointment at its continuing sales slump, and how gap had spent weeks meeting with brand presidents discussing how to make the stores stand out from their rivals.  The Gap brand's financial performance, and difficulty at winning back customers after the change in the logo.
The change of original brands had taken a huge impact on the gap company in changing the brands just to fit the new logo, this started costing money and fans of gap were not happy with this sudden change in the logo. Gap has over 700,000 fans on facebook that were so outraged about the new logo change that they didn't know how to react to this new logo. Gap fans didn't like the new logo and took out all there anger about it on the social media, posting comments on twitter and facebook. The news and dislike of the new logo quickly had Gap rethinking the decision of changing the logo. I think that Gap should have given the fans a chance to speak out about the blog and maybe have a contest for the fans to submit a new logo. This I think would of helped the media ease into the case of Gap changing the logo.
The lessons that Gap learned form this huge change is that they need to think things through more before they decide to change the whole company look. My thoughts of the new logo and the old logo are that the old logo looks so much better than the new logo. The new logo just was a complete turn from the whole company, the new logo just was not a very well planned out and the process they went through was not professional. I think if they were going to change the logo they should have kept the same theme with the original logo but maybe change type or ad a simple graphic that would speak out more than the plan letters.

Image source | blog.learnvest.com