I designed this logo for West Homestead PA. I wanted to give West Homestead a fun uplifting logo design that incorporated a green element. There is a hidden element in the logo; you look at the branches, you will see a W and an H. I also developed a tag line for West Homestead to tie in with the logo and help establish the borough as a historic but progressive community: ROOTED IN HISTORY - GROWING WITH THE FUTURE.

If you are interested in identity services from LeDonne Creative you can call 412.853.4932.

I’ve been an advertising designer for over 17 years in the biggest and best advertising agencies in Pittsburgh – I even ran my own Pittsburgh advertising agency. I must confess that through all my years in the advertising field, design is something that has never been easy for me. Being able to always stay on top of my game, constantly produce creative ideas and execute the design, takes as much discipline and training as becoming a Jedi. It takes years of practice through trial and error to develop design skills and there are tricks that every Jedi designer should know.

Jedi Designer Mind Tricks and Best Practices:

Surround yourself with other great design Jedi and find yourself a master Jedi to guide you through the force. This is one of the best design Jedi practices. Being around other designers helps you learn and grow. You can learn tips and tricks from experienced designers. You can get feed back on your designs from other trained eyes. If you are lucky you will also get to work with great art directors and creative directors. This is not always an easy thing, but trust me if you are willing to learn, working with experienced and successful design professionals will help you be the best.

Creative Brief Is Your Own Personal Yoda

Always, always, always (when it is possible) work from a creative brief. A creative brief is like having your own personal Yoda to help you with all his infinite wisdom. All the answers to your creative ideas and executions will be in the creative brief if it is developed correctly. My best work has always been developed when I had a great creative brief.

Summon Your Creative Yin-Yang

Learn how to summon your creative yin-yang at any moment. Unfortunately, we do not always get to choose when and where we need to be creative. So we have to train ourselves to call on the creative force at any moment. During my creative training, I have learned that asking questions, no matter how stupid they may be, helped me. Being creative in the advertising field is not just about making pretty pictures, but about solving problems with design. So, ask the questions that you need to know to design a great marketing solution.

Weaponry Of A Design Jedi

Design Jedi weaponry will not be in the form of a deadly light saber, (to bad, cause it would come in handy on account executives – kidding, lol. We love AE’s!!!) but will be in the form of a deadly Mac or PC. And no, this is not the splitting of the forces - Mac’s and PC’s will always be on the side of the good force. Both the Mac and the PC are 100% capable of doing a great job of winning design battles. Either of these platforms allows you the power and programs you need to be the best.

Design Jedi Environment

Creating your design Jedi environment is all in the way you think creative. Your environment needs to have elements in it that make you feel and think creative. I have found that I respond well to inspirational quotes, great design books, fun toys and objects, a fan and scented candles. You have to create your space and most likely you will be in a cube or small space, so you have to be creative.

How To Inspire A Design Jedi

Inspiration for the design Jedi comes in a lot of different varieties. Some of us design Jedi get inspired from nature and others from the roar of a big city. I have found inspiration comes to me in a lot of ways. I find inspiration in music, nature, movies and especially in books. Also, be prepared to write inspired ideas so you don’t forget - Inspired ideas will hit you at any moment and when they do, write them down.

Design Jedi Fun

For some fun I have found a link to a Jedi Name Generator. Go claim your name and wear it proud.

I hope this article helps you in your journey to become a great design Jedi. If you are not a design Jedi and would like to employee the services of LeDonne Creative give us a call 412.853.4932.

Traditional business success in many cases could be predicted by the location of the business. Is the business in a heavily trafficked area and is the traffic in the area a match for the business. Hopefully the business owner did his or her research and landed the business in an area that is trafficked heavily by the core target audience. Hopefully the business owner did not just stop at that piece of research and did further investigation to find out what the target audience’s life is about and how to use this information to turn the traffic in the business location, into business traffic.

Now, this same theory of location, location, location is the same for having your business or service online. The location is not determined by a street in a city that is heavily trafficked, but by a keyword or keyphrase that is heavily trafficked (in this case heavily searched) by online audiences in search engines. Finding the right keywords and keyphrases is not that difficult. If you are running a PPC campaign, there maybe keywords that fit your business that are as expensive as rental fees on Park Avenue. But, just like Park Avenue real-estate, popular keywords, if you can afford them, brings you the traffic that converts to sales and leads you might want to invest in.

What if you can not get your business on Park Avenue? Could you get your business location close to Park Avenue and get some of the indirect traffic? In the traditional business model this would be an expensive gamble, but online you could test alternative locations (keywords or keyphrases) without breaking the bank. You should also have more then one keyword or keyphrase; this is the equivalent of having your store in multiple locations. Here’s how it works. Say you had an advertising agency in Pittsburgh. The keyword “advertising agency” is like renting real-estate on Park Avenue – could be very, very expensive. You need to look for alternative keyword locations like pittsburgh marketing agency or creative agency pittsburgh This is where the online real estate market is more flexible, forgiving and affordable. You can look for alternative keywords and keyphrase that are in close proximity to the real-estate (keyword) that your target audience searches for to get to your online location.

If you would like to know more about keyword real estate and how to position your company, product or service online, contact LeDonne Creative.

Tools:

SEO Chat

SEO Chat is a great resource for Search Engine Optimization news, techniques and tools.
www.seochat.com

Google Analytics

Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online. Write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. Google Analytics is free to all advertisers, publishers, and site owners.
Google Analytics

Google’s webmaster tools

Google’s webmaster tools provide you with a free and easy way to make your site more Google-friendly.
Google Webmaster Tools

Word Tracker

Wordtracker helps website owners and search engine marketers identify keywords and phrases that are relevant to their or their client’s business and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors.

Marketers can also determine how many competing sites are using those keywords and can identify the phrases that have the greatest traffic potential.

www.wordtracker.com

Web Position Professional

WebPosition 4 is an end-to-end solution to manage the entire SEO process. WebPosition 4 helps customers optimize a web site’s relevancy, visibility and overall performance with search engines, by enabling businesses to understand how their sites perform for various organic and paid keywords and what they can do to achieve higher search positions on each of the major search engines.

www.webposition.com

Resources:

Jeffrey Zeldman

In 1998, Jeffrey co-founded and from 1999 to 2002 he directed The Web Standards Project, a grassroots coalition that helped bring standards to our browsers. Once browser makers got with the program, Jeffrey and his cohorts persuaded designers and developers to change the way they created websites an effort to which A List Apart also greatly contributed.
www.zeldman.com

Search Engine Optimization Journal

Search Engine Optimization Journal is an SEO Blog that discusses Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Ranking and Positioning for the new and advanced reader.
www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com

ClickZ

The ClickZ Network is the largest resource of interactive marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion, research, and reference in the world, online or off-. From search to e-mail, technology to trends, our coverage is expert, exclusive, and in-depth.
www.clickz.com

Matt Cutts’ Blog

Matt Cutts is one of Google’s SEO gurus, and often acts as a liaison between the SEO community and Google.
Matt Cutts’ Blog

Webware

Webware.com is the site where computer users can learn about new and useful Web applications.
www.webware.com

The Offical Google Analytics Blog

The latest news, tips and resources straight from the Google Analytics team.
analytics.blogspot.com