This assignment was handed to us around the beginning of last year. As one of our first assignments we were just learning how to use the programs and weren’t really as confident as we could have been. The assignment was to make a logo for an imaginary company ran by you. It was a graphic design company with it’s own beautiful custom made logo.

Before I decided what my logo was going to be I needed to decide what kind of mood I wanted to get across. I wanted to get a kind of an energetic mood but try to show that I mean business. I thought around a bit and I finally came up with, a gecko. Playful, energetic and still one of the smartest lizards on earth.


I started to animate the gecko a little more and had many versions with all different colour decisions. This gave me a wide variety of choices to choose from. I finally decided to go with the colour of wealth and intelligence. Purple. After I made the main colour of the gecko I had to eventually go on and choose the colour for the specs. I thought that the purple was intense enough so I decided to go with a cool easy white.

After I got the colour down I needed to start thinking up design names. Some names past through my mind but I think the one that was most present was Naff. The word does not have a real meaning but I think it fits the energetic mood I was trying to set.

My logo really does represent my company but nothing ever stands for only one thing. The energetic gecko could stand for many things. It is very symbolic that business can be fun. The gecko is an intelligent and noble animal but at the same time it is very fun and lively. Loosen your ties guys, Naff is in the house.

As I said earlier this was one of the first assignments in the class. Since it was our first time using this program (Adobe Illustrator) it set the foundation for all other assignments I would do from this program. Without this assignment I would not have learned all the other skills that I would have needed in the future. This assignment really taught me about the gecko too. We needed to research the animal we chose and this was very beneficial to my “Gecko Knowledge”.

Facebook vs. Twitter

Site design is an important part of any success on the internet. It's extremely easy to have an un-appealing site that does not follow the ten principles of web design. This can also be easily avoided. Let's use Facebook as an example. For anyone visiting the site for the first time it's evident as soon as the page opens what the purpose of the site is. Clearly stated, "Facebook helps you connect and share with people in your life." These are almost the first words you see, and leaves you confident that is what your going to get out of the site. This allows the user to not even have to think, which is the number one principle of web design. The sign up details are also found without navigating anywhere, aswell as login info. On one page without navigating anywhere you can login, sign up and quickly see the point of the site. This is very useful and effective.

To look at the opposite side of the spectrum let's look over at twitter's home page. The first thing that takes my eye's attention is the side scrolling text, that upon further reading has nothing to do with knowing what the site does but is just a bunch of names. It is a very poor decision making the least relevant piece of information on the page moving, because this is where the eye will travel first. I am still not even one hundred percent positive on twitter's purpose and I've been looking at their homepage for a while now. The sign in, or sign up info is found after navigating a little through the site and this can cause some users to loose patience and leave the site. This refers to the second principle of web design, don't waste your users patience. Seeing a cycling list of top tweets definitely drains my patience, and also confuses me; what the hell is a tweet. A better idea would be to leave these "top tweets" or who else is on twitter to bee shown later after you login, because this information is redundant to someone who has yet to sign up. All of these problems could have been solved before they even became an issue. Keeping conscious of the purpose of your site throughout your design process is crucial to success on the web. People like things to be convenient and easy, not tedious and difficult.