One of the things that we’re proud of at Atomic is that we’re not just a bunch of development geeks. We’re also … design geeks! And part of design is creating logos.

Sometimes we’re working with a new company that doesn’t have a logo yet. So we’re starting from scratch. Other times we’re working with an established company whose logo may be outdated, or just not as strong as it could be.

Whatever the case, we help our clients with logo development whenever it’s needed. A logo is the heart and soul of a company’s brand identity, and when someone’s building a great new website, they usually want to make sure a great logo is part of it.

Creating a logo isn’t easy. You have to blend a company’s products, personality, and presence together and somehow distill the mix into a single image. When I’m working on a logo design, here are some questions I ask to help determine whether or not the design is working.

1. Is it clear? This refers to both visual clarity and conceptual clarity. On the visual side, can a viewer tell what the logo represents? Can it be scaled larger and smaller and still be readable? Is the typeface legible? And on the conceptual side, what message is the logo supposed to convey? Will viewers clearly understand it?

2. Is it unique? How well does the logo create a unique identity for your company? Does it set you apart from your competitors? Does it help you stand out – but without being so off-the-wall that it confuses or offends viewers?

3. Is it clever? In a nutshell, does the design make you smile? Does it have a hidden image, like the arrow in the FedEx logo or the Golden Gate Bridge in the Cisco logo? Does it have a hidden message, like the sun inside the BP logo that suggests renewable energy?

Asking these questions isn’t a magic formula. Logo design is still more art than science. But it can help keep you on the right track, and help you spot weaknesses in a potential design.

Want to talk about your logo or site design? Contact us anytime.

Say “buh-bye” to your new business.

Or, what if you sign a contract with new online vendor for a key business process — accounting, for instance — only to find out that the application runs on an outmoded browser, forcing your entire team to ditch their upgrade or run two different versions of the same browser, one to work with the application, and one for everything else?

Say “buh-bye” to your sanity.

The new choice in browsers — with Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome challenging the still-dominant Internet Explorer (IE) — is forcing us to change the way we think about and choose browsers.

A central question in evaluating Web browsers is this: What, exactly, does your business — or your customers — do online?

Do you rely on Web-based applications for many of your business processes? If so, picking a compatible browser is vital — as is making sure it remains so even as new versions of the application are released.

Many Web-based applications will run on almost all browsers, but exceptions abound. Constant Contact, the well-known Web-based email marketing tool, supports some browsers but not others (one of its rivals, Vertical Response, also works best in Firefox or IE). As eWEEK recently noted, other applications will run on most browsers, but may not perform optimally in each.

If you are developing online products or experiences for your customers, are you assuming everyone will gain access using the same browser? If so, you might be making a big — and costly — mistake. More and more people are attracted to different browsers for different reasons, so taking the time to find out where they are — um, browser-wise — might go a long way to establishing good customer relations and generating repeat business.

A single solution for picking the best browser probably eludes us, but here are a few tips:

1. Evaluate what you’re doing most online to make sure your choice of browser won’t conflict with your online applications, slow you down, crash your systems, or frustrate your staff.
2. Investigate and test browsers to see which one — or which mix of two or more — works best for certain tasks.
3. Read all the different reviews, stay up on the latest evaluations, and know the impact of any upgrade on either application or browser performance.
4. Learn what your customers are doing online and don’t make assumptions.
5. Choose vendors and developers that understand browser technology, features, compatibility, customization, and performance and can match you with a system that meets your needs.

Do browsers still bewilder you? Contact us for more insights.

When you join StumbleUpon, you get to pick from a list of items that are of interest to you. We chose Web Development, PHP, and Search, for example. (As well as Science Fiction and Action Movies. But that’s another topic.)

After you pick your interests, StumbleUpon displays related sites that other users have rated highly. Each time you look at a site, you can give it a positive or negative rating. Over time, sites that are consistently ranked highly move up in StumbleUpon’s search results. Sites that are ranked poorly move down.

StumbleUpon enthusiasts argue that the site’s search results are more useful than Google’s because they’re based entirely on user rankings – rankings from real human beings, in other words. Google’s results, in contrast, are based on algorithms that can be “tricked” by unscrupulous or overly aggressive webmasters.

That’s why we recommend that our customers incorporate StumbleUpon into their SEO campaigns. Achieving high rankings in StumbleUpon can be a real coup for your site – and can have a serious impact on your web traffic.

So when you have a minute, stumble over to our office. We’ll help you get StumbleUpon working for you .