Sweet Catastrophe

My blogs have been in a bit of a slump lately, so I’ve been looking at my options for pulling back out. I’m proud of the work I’ve done here over the last year and I want to make sure it’s being seen.

I was given the idea to build a logo for myself and check out some matching business cards, so I gave it a shot!

I was apprehensive due to my lack of creative skills, but LogoYes has a super-easy logo design that had even me feeling confident about my final product.

[Click on each image for larger.]

On the homepage you’ll see a big icon that says “Try it free!” Clicking on this will allow you to go through the whole process. Once you’re in, you want to choose a base style for your company. This just helps you sort through the piles of icons they have to choose from.

You can choose High-Tech if your company is “innovative, fast-paced, and technically advanced;” Bold if your company is “experienced, stable, and trustworthy;” or Flair if your company is “creative, responsive, and customer-oriented.”

Next you want to choose from the huge variety of business categories they have. Whatever you’re about, they’ve got you covered–accounting, religion, animals, even yard care. I spent a ton of time looking through each of the categories! There’s even a search feature to the right if you’ve already got an idea of what you’re looking for. Keep in mind, if at any time you want to take a step back, just click on the corresponding number on the bottom of the screen.

I went into accounting and finance to find a computer. Once clicking on the initial computer logo, I was brought to a screen with EIGHT different computers to choose from. After looking through these all, I can’t imagine anyone not finding what they want here.

Also in this step, once you’ve chosen an initial image, in the right column you can click to see the image selections for the other styles. High-Tech and Bold had 13 & 21 computer logos, respectively.

Next you add your text. This is pretty straightforward. The only trouble I had was decided which bit of text was most important to me. You’ve got two lines of optional text. I tested by typing in the alphabet repeatedly and it looks like you can fit 255 characters into each line. You’ve also got thirty-six different fonts to choose from in this step.

In the next step, you get to play with your design. You can format your placement and choose the colors for your design and text. I was thankful to see that if I want to use the same color for each section I didn’t have to search to match it up, it was saved in the box and ready with just a click.

You’ve got the options to rotate, flip, size, or zoom not just your logo, but your text as well. This gives you the option to do some creative things with your text, which made me really excited. (At the time of writing this, I’ve only created one logo/card for this review, but I’m making more as soon as I get all my thoughts down.)

On the next screen you’ll get a clear shot of your completed logo.

At the top of the page is where you’ll see the option to see your logo on a business card. After clicking this option, you’ll be taken to a screen where some design choices will cycle through for you to see on a larger scale. If you’d like to move on and choose one of these designs to create a business card, you just click the top of the screen where it says, “Click here to create your matching card in 2 easy steps.”

Almost done! “Two easy steps,” is absolutely right! You just click on the template of your choice, and then choose the final placement of your logo on your business card. Here you can input all of your contact information. They have suggestive placeholders there to help you think of everything you want to include, but of course you can put in whatever you’d like. For your contact text, you can choose between Arial and Times for a readable font, and you can also set the size and alignment.

That’s it! Now you’ve got yourself a top-notch logo that you created, with business cards to match!

Here’s what I came up with on my first try:

I left out any info I don’t normally share online, but you can get a good idea of how these look.

After going through the process, I’ve gotten really excited about the idea of using business cards to promote my blog. I actually think it’d be a great investment for me. If nothing else, friends could stop using the excuse of forgetting my url (for those who don’t have their own internet and thus, no bookmarking).

Hopefully I’ll be seeing a pretty nice tax refund, or maybe even that rebate I’ve been hearing about. I know I’ll be using part to renew my hosting, but I think I’ll use a chunk for promotion as well. If I do, these business cards are definitely on the list.

The screen shots don’t really do them justice, but here are the other two I made tonight:

I’m gonna try my hand at some more when I get out of work tomorrow.