Design Credo have recently developed a new logo for PDM Design, the Topsham (Exeter) based architects. Phil Domville-Musters asked us to develop his brand identity further as part of the preparation for his new blog website also currently being developed by us.

Often when asked to ‘breathe on’ an existing idea we find that there are frequently good elements in the customers’ ideas. Phil was keen to keep the existing colours, being a fan of things Italian such as his Ducati and his Colnago. The first task is to unite the existing elements of the idea, the parts all need to be ‘friends’ with each other.

Phil’s original idea used Baskerville and Verdana. We felt that Baskerville designed in 1757 would be better complimented by Helvetica, introduced a further two centuries later and, having just watched Helvetica (the film) at the DID event in Exeter I am more than happy that we are in good company. As with architecture there is a case for mixing the old and the new. In this case we have used the extended form of Helvetica to achieve a suitable balance. The word architecture serves to unite the two dominant forms without detracting from the overall shape or ‘bounding box’ of the device.

As with all logo-forms it is essential that they will can be used in a variety of applications. On paper, where white is the dominant colour PDM will use the version with the grey ‘design’ whereas for the website the word ‘design’ appears as white.

Keeping it simple with respect for typographical heritage makes all the difference.

Original PDM Logo

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I like bikes, I like them a lot, preferably steel, or titanium, and they don’t need to be too new either. For me a simple bike is a thing of beauty that combines engineering, design and minimalism.

Cinelli Track Bike

As a teacher I used to do a design lesson where I showed pupils pictures of things I liked the design of; Guzzis, Porsches, Minis, Trangia cookers… The common link was design. I knew I was getting through when a Year 9 girl saw the Cinelli track bike (shown) and said “that’s dead sexy that is”. She meant it, she was correct too.

I love going to London in part because of the cycling scene there. Twenty (plus) years ago, as a student, I was a cycle courier, I guess it was a relatively new thing then. At the time I rode a mix of bikes: Rory O’Brien, Holdsworth, Ellis-Briggs and latterly an early Ridgeback. Sadly in the first week I crashed the Ellis Briggs, I rode into the back of a Ford Granada stopped outside Kings Cross station. I ended up lying on the guy’s boot and can still remember the look of surprise as he looked in his rear view mirror, fortunately he had checked before diving away with me there. The frame needed re-building and I had the pleasure of using Tom Board who was at the time making Paris cycles, this honour made the accident almost worthwhile.

The London scene is vibrant and organic. Recently we have sat outside pubs in Islington and watched as cycle polo teams have returned en-masse riding a selection of unique machines. On one occasion I was almost tempted to pull the classic Bob Jackson from the pile to protect it from damage. There is a range of styles and approaches but, once again, steel is king, whether it is an original or a fixie, and, if it is adorned by leather and a bit of canvas then so much the better.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell the recreations from the re-builds not that this is an issue. There are a number of boutique dealers such as Tokyo Fixed in Soho where you are likely to find all manner of classic machinery.

Colnago Mexico

For some this obsession is extended organised and published on the Internet for others to share and enjoy, none more than Ray Dobbin’s site. Ray has a collection of classics that he photographs in his garage..

Colnago Mexico Fork Crown

Tokyo Fixed had a Colnago Mexico hanging up in the shop (amongst other classics) but Ray has done an extensive and excellent job of recording the full details of this and others in his collection.

God Is In The Detail

Ultimately the appeal of a cycle is that it is a supremely efficient simple machine. Fundamentally it is a set of strong traingles that allow energy to be transferred efficiently. The appeal of steel is that it is a comfortable ride as well as a strong material.

That is not to say that there isn’t scope for personal expression within this minimal engineering, no more so than the lug-work. Personalising lugs started as a way to ‘brand’ competitive cycles that weren’t allowed to carry logos and frame stickers. Beyond that though there is a huge amount of craft detail frequently hidden. I realise that for a closet minimalist this all sits slightly awkwardly but…

Recently I saw fine example of this craft in Topsham, in the form of a Robin Mather

Robin Mather Fork Crown

So, I am happy to acknowledge that many will not understand this obsession. However I am happy in the knowledge, clearly demonstrated from a day in London, that I am not alone.

I have a mountain bike, I built it around a frame found in a skip, I use it sometimes. I have a PC in the house, I use it to test websites on the troublesome IE6. I once read an article by psychologist Hugh Miller from NTU suggesting that PC users are more likely to find mountain bikes appealing whereas mac users favour simple road bikes.

This all makes perfect sense to me.

Less is More

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Beyoncé Preparing The Vég

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO brings Beyoncé to Exeter? Yep if you’ve been following so far, “Beyoncé to help in light household duties” now seems to rank in the top three of a Googlé search.

Update – “Beyoncé Exeter” now position 2
Update – Now position 1

Further to this I am eagerly expecting people to fulfil my desires for a Leica M9 and a Colnago Mexico due to similarly high rankings for search strings.

So what’s this all about?

It started as a bit of a joke, I noticed that cigar smoking football players seemed to rank highly as search strings for The Design Credo WordPress blog (this is not a group that I have previously had an interest in). So checking it out, this was in fact true (by accident) as explained in my earlier post.

What Will Improve My Google Ranking?

Firstly it is absolutely essential to understand that whilst people may be very moved my visuals and aesthetic design, search engines, as yet, are not. They trawl or ‘crawl’ through the html code that is the basis of web pages and sites looking for relevant text. Some of this text is hidden, unless you view the source code of a page, but most of this is there to be seen by the viewer.

So, what will improve my search engine ranking?

Page Title

Depending on what browser you are using you will see a title at the top of the page. Currently this has a useful effect in search engine position and should employ value laden keywords and strings.

Page Heading

HTML is a structured system used to describe web-pages, there is a hierarchy to it. As such it is assumed that the main page heading, or ‘h1′tag, holds particular information summarising the text below. Not surprisingly Google places great importance on this first h1 tag. Every page should have one at the top of the body text.

Body Text

Again it is fairly intuitive that the text based content of a page will hold relevant keywords that the reader is expecting to see following the search. This isn’t rocket science. Google in particular applies greater weight to the text towards the top of the page.

SEO – The Bits You Don’t See

At Design Credo we try to structure our sites so that the important ‘value laden’ text appears towards the top of the code. As such SEO is embedded in our code design. We also ensure that pages have suitable ‘meta tags’ including appropriate keywords and descriptions and that these are different throughout the site.

Flash not flash

Flash, whilst offering a very rich experience rates poorly for SEO as well as accessibility, as such we tend not to recommend it. Nowadays there are many alternative methods to add interactivity to sites whilst keeping them fast and accessible.

SEO – The bottom line

There is little point in having a website if people (or only the wrong people) find it. Words make the difference, words in the appropriate place, selections of keywords and appropriate groupings of keywords. For the record I am not expecting Beyoncé to pop round, this is just a silly example to make a point, someone may need their Aston looking after though (joke).

Next time I will look at how to generate suitable keywords for your Organic Search Engine Optimisation whether in Topsham, Exeter or the UK.

We are the people who try.

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aston martin V10

Further to my last post about collecting the data, I have just noticed that a particular search string that has led people to this site is ‘youtube cigar smoking football players’. Imagine my surprise?

Sure enough if I throw this string back into Google I find my own site listed at number six.

Andrew Butler, Design, Photography, Topsham, Devon | Design Credo …

Posts Tagged ‘YouTube’ … men and children (v. young) stood in the street trading football cards, cigar smoking men trading post cards. … WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better. …

So there you go, sometimes you don’t get what you expect but clearly I will now have improved the ranking of this search string by referencing it again.

With that in mind then,

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