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What is a Logo, and why do I need one?

A Logo is a symbol or graphic emblem which is a concise, portable and powerful visual communication tool used to represent commercial enterprises, organisations or individuals. The logo is the central part of a broader Visual Identity - an image that helps promote public recognition of who the entity is and what they do.

A Logo is usually made up of a combination of a symbol or icon, and some text (eg. The name of the business). When designed by a professional, a logo becomes an asset to the company, and all visual communication is based on the colours, style, fonts and supporting elements uniquely created to represent that company's character and ethos.

How important is a logo?

The visual identity of your business or organisation is vital. A great logo will give potential clients an impression of the quality, professionalism and trustworthiness of the company.

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Time for a makeover? Updating your brand

Design Sense Graphics & Web has considerable experience in refreshing tired brands, or completely rebranding an existing business. Some brands do lose impact over time - colours and styles change, and while a well designed logo should last many years and even decades (think Ford, Uncle Toby's, etc.), changes can be made to revamp an image. When rebranding occurs, there are usually some elements that are retained eg. Colours or fonts, or perhaps part of the logo, while others are changed. This helps to provide a link from the old to the new, and allows for continuity in the minds of the clients. It may also help to minimise the cost, eg. The whole building may not need repainting if the corporate colours remain the same. Refreshing a logo may be quite subtle, but it can make a big difference.

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Protecting your web forms from spam

Web forms can be used on websites in many different ways and can be a great tool for gathering data or allowing your customers to make contact with you.

However, including a web form on your site can open you up to receiving unwanted spam. Spam is often submitted by automated spam robots that search the internet looking for forms, and often once they find yours you will often get a large volume of spam in the first hit.

While we don’t want to deter your customers from sending you their information by making your form too difficult to submit, there are a few simple countermeasures that can be added to stop (or at least slow down) spammers.  Hopefully this article will help you decide which option will work best for you.

Hidden Fields

This option is invisible to customers but may not block some of the smarter spam robots out there. A field is added to your form that is visible to robots who read the code, but hidden from the customer using css or javascript. If a value is entered in this field, the form will not submit, thus stopping robots who cannot tell the difference.

Human-friendly Question

Another option is to add a basic text question that would be easy for a human to answer, but that a robot could not answer. This could be a simple maths problem, or something everyone would know e.g. The colour of the sky is? This is a fairly common method and should not annoy your users too much or prevent them from submitting the form.

CAPTCHA

This is probably the most secure option, however as you may have experienced, CAPTCHAs can be quite hard to read, and may annoy or deter users. We recommend only using this method for important forms, or if neither of the above methods are working and you are still receiving a large volume of spam.

There are other solutions available, so speak to us if you don’t think any of these will work for you. And just note that spammers are always finding new ways to get around your countermeasures, so any method implemented may not be a permanent fix.
 

Design Sense Content Management System (CMS) vs Wordpress

What is the difference between a custom Content Management System by Design Sense and popular free open-source CMS platforms such as Wordpress?

We often have clients asking us to compare our quotes with others they have received for websites built using different open-source CMS platforms. However this is like asking us to compare apples with oranges. There are a few key differences between what we offer for CMS and the free solutions out there. For the purposes of this article, we are using Wordpress as the main comparison.

Flexibility – Function & Design

Wordpress is a free publishing software that can be used to create basic websites which include a blog in the standard installation.  All other functions that you may want on your website e.g. a calendar, online store etc. must then be added by using plugins or widgets. While there is a vast array of these to choose from, you may not be able to find one that does just what you want it to. In comparison, when Design Sense builds a custom CMS for you, we can tweak every last detail down to a T so that it will operate exactly how you want it to.

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What features should my website include?

Aside from your main content, there are so many features available for websites that it's hard to know where to start. Consider who your target audience is, and what information you would like to convey through your website. How will you draw in new visitors, and how will you get people to come back again?

Here is a list of some ideas for website features that Design Sense Graphics & Web offers. Make sure you choose tools that are useful and relevant to your business, and that will enhance your primary message rather than distracting from it. Note that this list is by no means comprehensive. If there's something not on this list that you'd like included in your site, just ask!

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