Elements of SEO is a really clean, minimalistic design with a main focus on content and typography. Crafted for the true blogger, this theme will not let you down when it comes to your rankings or listings either.

Read all about it from the post or go straight to the download and demo. Either way you gotta try it out.

• How to Get Blog Post Ideas
• Blogging For Human Rights
• Home Sweet Home Part 2

Also the crew and I at Jackson-Dawson have started a new blog, Cure for Common Marketing. It should be exciting to see the way a traditional advertising agency takes on a blog.

Come check it out and snag yourself a free new theme.

I recently wrote an easy 13 step guide to on-site SEO that anyone who has access to their content can increase and take control of their rankings. Many of the on-site steps are easy to implement and that’s why a lot of people over look them.

If you’re looking to increase your rankings, check out the SEO guide and if you still need help, feel free to contact me with any SEO questions or concerns.

I received a comment on my wildfire blog and naturally I wanted to check out who was nice enough to take the time. The second I saw the design I said, “that aint dan.” Dan Cederholm, a designer that I have tremendous respect for and consistently research his code has an outstanding portfolio. Naturally other people tend to steal his work and try to pass it off as their own. One day I spent an hour on Flickr reading an arugument about a company that blatantly stole Dan’s logo, but that’s a different story.

Anyways, I followed the link from the nice comment and this is what I found.

Dan Cederholm and Dan Benjamin launched Cork’d in 2005 and this new domain looks like it was created just a few months ago.

Looking at the code, you can see that they didn’t even remove parts of the code from the Cork’d website they just commented it out. This is a blatant ripoff.

I urge you to take a look at both of these sites and see what you think. You can see their urls in the images.

Steff’s presentation on logos broke down into six main categories:

1. Appropriate
2. Legible
3. Memorable
4. Flexible
5. Consistent
6. Lasting

Appropriate
You have to think about the ideas and activities of the particular organization. More importantly you have to consider where the logo is going. A logo that’s blown up on a billboard requires a different plan of attack than something that is going to be place on a letterhead.

Legible
Never show your design or logo in a stale state. Show the logo on the medium where it’s going to live. If you are designing a logo then show it to the client on a letterhead or business card. A logo on a blank piece of paper means nothing to the client.

Memorable
On one hand the design must be simple enough to be understood in an instant; on the other hand it needs to be recognizable and memorable.

Flexible
For the logo to exist for any period of time it needs to be ready to evolve in any way.

Consistent
Consistency through colors, typography and images are basic guidelines to achieve continuity.

Lasting
Ideally you want the logo or design to appear timeless and not trendy. “Nothing dulls faster than the cutting edge.”

A lot of these categories are all things we learned in design school but its funny how in the middle of meeting deadlines and keeping clients happy we tend to get side tracked. When Steff was showing a movie of many of the logos he’s done throughout the years you can’t help but think about how simple and effective they are.

“A successful mark is informed by a deep strategic understanding and is deliberately designed to provide a distinctive, memorable and appropriate visual expression of the organization it represents.”
- Steff Geissbuler

Posts will be a little light this week but I will be sure and give updates on everything I hear.

Here is what my CSS looked like:

.floatbox {
float: left;
width: 150px;
margin: 5px 100px 5px 0px;
/*The second value, 100px applies to the right margin */
}

Normally, this CSS would be fine, but in IE my margin on the right was doubling to 200px. The extra margin threw off the entire page. Images didn’t line up, spacing wasn’t consistent…needless to say it wasn’t going to work.

A friend of mine, Andy who has helped me out with many a developing quandary told me about positioniseverything.net. This site is a fantastic resource for any bugs that you run across in IE. The fix was as simple as adding { display: inline; } to my float. Here is a more detailed description of the IE Doubled Float-Margin Bug and a better summary of the results.

I am not a full time blogger and I still have a 9-5 design and development job so needless to say I don’t have oodles of time to devote to multiple blog posts on each blog every day.

I try to say that each blog is slightly tailored to a specific niche but I’m really just lying to myself. They’re all on website design, development, SEO and marketing solutions.

What do you think?

• Would I be better off focusing on just one blog?
• Should I try and make each blog more specific?
• Should I quit whining and just write more blog posts for each site?

• I researched and found a new job thanks to Cameron Moll’s Authentic Jobs
• Flew across the country twice, enduring extremely long interviews
• Accepted a new position that’s closer to family on the east coast
• Flew back across the country again to find a new place for my girlfriend and me to live
• Packed up all of our possessions
• Drove across the U.S. for five days stopping at various tourist stops. Pics coming soon.
• Moved into our new apartment in Greenville, SC
• Still waiting on the movers to bring our stuff so this post is coming from the floor

Once again I want to throw out a huge thanks to Cameron Moll’s Authentic Jobs. Authentic Jobs and all the job boards that are devoted to designers and developers blow Monster and Career Builder away. Thank you so much, Cameron!!

Now that I am almost settled in my new place, it’s back to business. Both Alibi and Wildfire have a lot of new clients on the horizon and a bunch of exciting projects in the mix. I am thrilled to get back to blogging and devote my attention to my work instead of travel plans and moving arrangements. What are some things that have kept you away from your blog?