We’ve all heard the old adage “the medium is the message” – and that could not be more true in today’s vast media landscape where the majority of users are browsing websites on mobile devices. Knowing that users are visiting your website and often encountering your brand for the first time on a mobile platform, it is essential to thoughtfully design a mobile user experience that takes into consideration both the benefits and limitations of mobile devices as well as known user behaviors.

Mobile web design should not just be a narrowed version of the desktop experience, it should be a responsive design in and of itself that gives way to an intuitive user experience and easy navigation to the information the user is looking for. There are so many variables that can cause a user to leave a website. A slow-loading page or poor content layout can be enough to drive users away – don’t let a lack of forethought when it comes to the mobile user experience be a barrier between your audience and your website. By implementing the following best practices, you will be sure to create the best mobile experience for your users: 

Ease of Click is Key

You should always keep in mind what we know about all users visiting your website – every action you ask them to take should be as easy and frictionless as possible. Before even considering the content that will go on a page, you need to consider where on page it will be most accessible. In 2011, Steven Hoober and Eric Berkman published a study called “Designing Mobile Interfaces” in which they coined the term “thumb zone.” This refers to the areas on mobile screens that are most easily reached by the users’ thumbs and therefore where all important clickable items should be placed. Placing important buttons and links in difficult-to-reach areas on screen can add barriers to content and therefore detract from the overall user experience. 

Intuitive Navigation 

Whether a user knows exactly what they’re looking for or they are purely just browsing on your site, the path to information should always be clear and natural. Creating the best navigation for your site requires thoughtfulness of content and consideration of your audience and the way they are used to maneuvering through a website. The navigation should make sense for the content you have to offer while also aligning with the organizational structure that your users are familiar with. There are many correct ways to layout the navigation of your website, you just need to find one that is the best fit for you and your audience. Employing intuitive navigation on your website is particularly important on mobile platforms because eliminating clicks to content while also having a well-organized site structure can assuage user frustration, encouraging them to stay on your site longer and to visit more pages. Solutions like hamburger menus help organize the menu in a way that the user isn’t overwhelmed by the menu items all at once when first arriving on the page while also mimicking the structure of the desktop site.  

Cross-Device Consistency

While the mobile experience of a website should not just be a minified version of the desktop interface, keeping consistent UX design across desktop, tablet and mobile devices should always be a priority when creating your website. Responsive design across the board is crucial when trying to keep the user from disengaging from your site. Any inconsistency that arises when switching from one device to another can create confusion for the user and create the perfect opportunity for them to leave your website. Once again, it always comes back to making everything seamless and easy for your user. The mobile web design should be a full experience in and of itself that considers the intricacies of mobile user behavior while also mirroring the overall UX of the desktop interface. It is a delicate balance but is very worth it when done right. 

Prioritization and Breakdown of Content

Simply due to the nature of mobile devices, there simply isn’t much space to fit content in one viewport. This means that in order to encourage your audience to 1) consume the content you write and 2) take away the most important points, you have to visually break up content to make it digestible while also pulling out the highlights as visually engaging elements on the page. Drawing users to your website is a challenge in and of itself – this is only compounded by the challenge of capturing enough of their attention so that they read a significant amount of content while on your site. The reality is you have a very short window to grab their attention and once you have it, concisely driving home the main takeaways is crucial. On mobile, in particular, breaking up content into chunks rather than overwhelming the user with massive blocks of text is a good way to make it all seem more approachable especially when you are trying to fit content into such a small screen. Highlighting specific points using statistics and images in a visually interesting way is a great way to also hold user attention. 

Conclusion

Users have shown over a number of years now that the age of mobile device browsing is here to stay and if you choose to ignore it, you will get left behind. When designing for mobile devices, there is so much to be gained by considering what we know about users and the way they physically interact with their devices, and the way they consume content. Mobile web design principles center around the idea that users should always be presented with the path of least resistance when it comes to finding the information they need on your website as well as actually clicking the button to get there. 

If your website needs a mobile makeover, contact Bluetext to learn about our website user experience design services. 

Scroll-based animation offers all the benefits of on-page animation and more. Not only do pages with scroll-based animation engage users more effectively, but they can also tell more complex stories, improve page load time, and expand the capabilities of your brand identity.

Some stories are best told visually, and scroll-based animation is an effective way to make complex stories simple and elegant. Designers can use animation to guide users as they scroll, catching their eye at exactly the right time and place. Apple incorporates subtle animations into its product pages to drive user focus toward key information they want to highlight. 

Scroll-based animation can offload elements beneath the virtual “fold” from the initial loading process, decreasing overall load time. Elements above the fold are prioritized in the initial load, saving time on down-page items that are animated to appear as the user scrolls down.

Implementing scroll-based animation provides the opportunity to add animated elements to your brand. Whether they’re completely new, or existing pieces that have been updated with motion, animated elements can help bring your brand to life. Elements like a scroll-based footer or call-to-action can be used across a website to consistently call attention to key information about your brand.

Key Tips for Scroll-Based Animation

Getting started with scroll-based animation can be tricky, so here are a few pointers to keep in mind as you go. 

1. Timing is everything. The flow of the animations as a user scrolls down the page is key to maintaining their interest. As a user moves down the page, elements should naturally animate or appear, so there are no gaps in the experience. A simple, well-timed scroll-based animation is always better than a complex but awkward one. 
2. Added effects should emphasize key information, not detract from it. Keep in mind that the whole point of on-page animation is to make it easier for users to navigate your site and find what they’re looking for. Be sure that any effects or animations make their experience easier, not more difficult.
3. Less is more. When in doubt, simplify. Avoid cluttering your site by animating every element on a page or by introducing particularly drawn-out animations for no reason. As a rule of thumb, smaller elements should have shorter animation cycles, and each animation should have a purpose in guiding the user experience.

Looking for inspiration?

Clarabridge’s animated homepage brings the brand to life and elevates the user experience. On-page effects guide the user through the homepage, emphasizing the strength and ease of Clarabridge’s solutions. Click here to read our case study on this project.

HuffPost’s interactive article, Chef Jose Andreas Embraces the Chaos, is an example of “scrollytelling,” which uses scroll-based animation to enhance a written story. Hand-drawn visuals appear as the reader scrolls through the story, adding a playful, personal feeling to the page.

For Calling All Optimists, Bluetext incorporated subtle scroll-based animations throughout the site to draw attention to key information or calls-to-action. Along with the brand’s playful shapes and colors, these animations reinforce the positive, dynamic qualities of the site. Click here to read our Calling All Optimists case study. 

Ready to see how scroll-based animation can enhance your site? Contact Bluetext to learn about our motion design and interactive UX services.

 

 

The next time you’re in a public setting, look up, and chances are you’ll notice almost everyone around you has their eyes glued to a mobile device in hand. Modern-day mobile devices are essentially mini computers, enabling on-the-go browsing, communication, and connection at unprecedented ease. Society has become accustomed to instantaneous connection, but not all websites are up to par with user expectations. While desktop sites were once the focus, a disappointing mobile performance of websites is holding many companies back from their full online potential to garner customers. Aside from a frustrating user experience, poor mobile performance can hurt a website from a technical SEO perspective. This is why many companies are turning to digital agencies like Bluetext to revamp or create entirely new, responsive web designs & optimized performance to stand out among their competitors. 

On average, mobile devices account for more website user traffic than desktops. However, despite the high traffic volume, conversion rates on mobile environments are significantly lower. So what’s turning our mobile users away? Adrienne Clem, Director of Search Ads Growth and Optimization at Google, describes that it could be an issue with any one of the following pillars of mobile website design:

Speed

Page Speed is a key indicator of website quality, as it is a critical first impression of your website. The longer a user must wait for your website content to load, the higher the risk of the user leaving the page and increasing the bounce rate. Bounce rate, performance, and speed metrics all play a critical role in Google search crawlers’ evaluation of a website.  (such as, In addition to limiting bounce rates, reducing your Time to First Byte can also increase your site’s SEO ranking. You can keep tabs on your site’s speed performance using tools like Google, PageSpeed Insights, or GTMetrix.com, but consulting a website development agency can offer further insight into actionable steps to improve your site’s performance.

User Experience

All websites should be designed to be as simple as possible for users to navigate. However, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Content hierarchy, navigation, and calls to action are all critical components that need to be equally accessible and intuitive across desktop & mobile formats. Responsive layouts are essential in a mobile-optimized design, but more important is the speed at which content loads for a user. Mobile site speed tends to lag behind its desktop counterpart, but a poor mobile performance can significantly ding your site’s SERP ranking and create a poor user experience. Even the most creative & persuasive landing pages are wasted if features take too long to load on the screen. Pages that utilize AMP (Accelerated Mobile Performance) technology both rate higher on Google search rankings and increase chances of conversion for paid media promotions. AMP HTML is an open framework based on existing web technologies, that allows for more lightweight and speedier mobile web pages. In an initiative to enhance the shift to mobile browsing, AMP-powered webpages load instantaneously, even when they contain rich media like video, animations, or graphics, including things like Twitter and YouTube embeds.

Iterative Design

Website design is an iterative and ongoing process. Platforms & technology are constantly evolving to include new features, remedy existing pain points and approach the ever-moving target that is positive user experience. Companies should approach this process in the interest of continued learning and constant improvement. Collecting feedback should be built into the plan for any mobile site development, as the site’s performance should be re-evaluated at least every 3-6 months. Keeping track of your site’s vitals is an important step for ensuring that your site stays relevant and isn’t losing out on potential conversions.

In an increasingly mobile-first world, emphasizing the performance of sites on mobile devices can increase customer loyalty and satisfaction. Whether a prospective customer’s impression of your campaign landing page or an existing customer’s experience browsing your full website, speed is the name of the game. Keeping up-to-date with best practices in website development and enlisting the help of seasoned designers and UX specialists can transform users from mindless mobile scrolling to enthusiastic interactions on your site. 

If you’re ready to start designing your site with a mobile audience in mind, Contact Bluetext for guidance and expertise.

The needs of a modern consumer are not static; they are constantly moving and advancing, shifting and changing. Customers adopt and discard products at breakneck speeds, seeking new opportunities for enjoyment and discarding them at the first sign of trouble. For a product to remain relevant in the eyes of today’s consumers, it must be able to not only meet their present needs but evolve alongside them to seamlessly adapt to future needs. Effective product management requires two critical steps; first, a deep understanding of how consumers use a product, secondly the ability to leverage that knowledge into actionable improvements. To do so, your business must understand product intelligence and its essential role in an impactful relationship with your customers.

What Is Product Intelligence?

Product intelligence refers to the use of software to collect and analyze data about a product’s performance with users. These systems gather and interpret information about how users’ interaction delivers critical insights on strengths and opportunities for improvement. Product intelligence also takes into account external factors that influence the customer relationship. Shipping, marketing, customer support, and countless other service touchpoints all influence consumer perception and ultimately the experience of your offerings. Product intelligence software helps aggregate these factors to evaluate the performance of your product holistically.

The ultimate goal is to create a positive feedback loop that enables product teams to iterate and innovate with greater speed and higher accuracy. By leveraging critical insights about the customer experience, product management teams can implement improvements to engage, convert, and retain users more effectively.

Product Intelligence Best Practices

1. Understand the Customer Journey – While website interactions and app behavior are important, you need to include insights from marketing campaigns, ad spend, and other touchpoints to drive a deeper and more impactful understanding of your customers. Analytics, behavioral targeting, and customer data management cannot remain isolated from each other when optimizing product experiences.
2. Collaboration Cannot Be an Afterthought – Services and integrations don’t get you a great product experience; teams do. For product intelligence to make a real impact on your business, you need to support efficient collaboration among product teams. That means being able to keep pace with rapid question-asking, in-depth exploration, agile decision-making, and generally enabling the most frictionless product development process possible.
3. Assess Your Competitive Landscape – Your product offerings don’t exist in a bubble, and understanding the potential interactions consumers could have with the competition helps guide you towards truly differentiable improvements. You should strive to know your competitor’s products, strategies, and marketing tactics just as well as you know your own.

Why Is Product Intelligence Important?

Consumer preferences can change in an instant, and companies that can’t keep pace are destined to fail. Product intelligence ensures that your business will never be left behind by shining a light on the key factors that influence whether or not a consumer buys and continues using your products. Whether it’s through illustrating conversion paths, documenting user interactions, or detailing which marketing campaigns attract new visitors, the product intelligence process provides a holistic view of how your product adds value to people’s lives.  

Navigating the high-stakes challenge of effective product marketing can seem like a daunting task. That’s where Bluetext can support. From omnichannel media campaigns to product videos & landing pages, Bluetext’s digital marketing experience can ensure customers old and new take notice of your company.

Web designers are constantly looking for new ways to keep the attention of their users. An innovative way to do so is through what is referred to as “hidden interactions.” These subtle website design elements allow users to click or hover, revealing additional content or micro animations. In an effort to keep interactions simple and easy, here are Bluetext’s tips and resources to enhance a user’s experience on your website.   

What are Hidden Interactions? 

Hidden interactions open up a world of possibilities online. When implemented correctly, they empower users to uncover additional visuals, animations, actions, or content. A simple hover, mouse movement, click, or swipe can initiate a pleasant, yet unexpected, feature to your webpage. Some discrete interactions have become so common that users begin to consider them second nature. For instance, when you need to delete an email on your phone, what is the first step you do? Swipe right and it moves to trash. But notice, there is no explicit instruction to direct that action. As users, we have just become accustomed to these implied functionalities. These subtle features take place across a number of digital platforms, from desktops to mobile apps. These animations can determine how fondly users will remember their experience on your site and lead to increased conversions and sales. 

When to Use Them? 

When deciding where to implement micro-animations, first put yourself in the user’s shoes. It is important to then consider the function of the animation and how it enhances the user experience. While your hidden interaction should be somewhat intuitive, it’s important to recognize that not every user may uncover these hidden gems. Pivotal points and calls to action should continue to use traditional placements, but interesting “nice to know” or animations can be reserved for these interactive elements. 

Finding a creative way to entertain your audience is a way to gain a competitive edge and ensure your webpage is as memorable as possible. Users are going to associate a positive experience with your brand, and a spark of joy can set the foundation for a long-lasting emotional connection. 

Where to Find Hidden Interactions

GitHub, for example, uses animation and interactive hidden elements in their hero zone. The spokes on the globe animate as the user enters the site, but if one were to click and move the cursor the globe pivots. The core animation, which conveys connections between the global reach of GitHub users, still plays but the user is empowered to pivot the globe to their desired location. 

Another great example is Pitch, which has multiple elements on their homepage that parallax to match the user’s on mouseover. Other components play videos or change visuals on hover, adding a nice little nudge to users considering clicking on different calls to action. 

Bluetext client, SonicWall, has implemented hidden interactions on their homepage. As the user’s mouse hovers over the hero scene, the foreground floating objects subtly shift to mirror mouse movement. The beauty of this “hidden” interaction is that every user must naturally mouse over the hero zone to interact with any content on the homepage. Therefore, every user will get to experience this hidden “easter egg” animation.  

In an age when users are faced with hundreds of websites to peruse per day, the challenge of standing out is getting steeper and steeper. Implementing subtle interactive elements and micro animations can significantly enhance the user experience and leave your audience with a positive impression of your brand. Interest, attention, and delight create a holy trinity of website user experience and will set brands that implement ahead of the pack. Be sure to contact Bluetext to learn more about how our design team can help you enhance any website with hidden interactions. 

What’s your first instinct when you have a question? For most, it’s to Google it. Whether or not it’s looking up a restaurant or finding a solution to a business challenge, Google is the go-to. So the question is, how do you make sure that your company is at the top of its Google results?

This is the central question of SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO refers to any practices that improve your placement in search engine results. Bluetext does great work helping our clients find SEO success. Below, you’ll find our top four tips for improving your website’s search engine performance!

Enrich On-page Content with Keywords

Keywords are one of the first concepts to evaluate when you start improving your SEO. Customers will search Google using keywords, such as “best cell phone provider” or “easiest website making tool,” and you want to make sure your pages show up in the first page of relevant results. Once you understand what your customers are searching for and identify the keywords for your business and industry, you can interweave those keywords throughout the content on your site to advance your placement in search results pages. But beware, Google crawlers are smarter than you’d think. Be sure not to unnaturally force the keywords into your content or unnecessarily duplicate your content, both of which can negatively impact your SEO.

Add Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are the small blurbs of text that appear under a link in a search result. Though small in size, they make a huge difference in your click-through rate. Customers are far more likely to click a link in a search engine when they can see a small promo description of the type of information that link will provide. It’s important to have accurate meta descriptions for your different pages, so do not repeat the same meta description on each page. The meta description should are the perfect opportunity to embed relevant keywords, and should tie back to the prominent H2 and H3 section headings on your page.  Think of meta descriptions as invitations to users to click through to your site via powerful calls-to-action. Additionally, avoid using too many words in your meta descriptions, as Google will auto-truncate them and cut you off mid-sentence.

Be Careful with PDFs

PDFs may be an easy way to upload content to your website, but they are not very helpful from an SEO perspective. Search engines crawl web pages, but have a hard time reading the text on PDFs. Therefore, none of that content in the PDF is being used by search engines. With all the time and effort you put into creating the PDFs, it’s a lost opportunity to not reap that SEO benefit.  By transferring some (or all) of your PDFs to on-page content, you can greatly increase the amount of content that Google takes into account when determining how high to place your content in the search engine results.

Prioritize your Pagespeed

Google does not just look at content and keywords to determine the placement of your website in search results. Google page speed is another piece of the SEO puzzle. Google ultimately wants to make their searchers happy, so they want to provide fast-loading pages, on both mobile and desktop devices. Therefore, having a good Google page speed will make it more likely that Google places your web pages higher in its results lists.

While SEO is always evolving with changes in search engine policies and algorithms, these are four great tips to help you get started on your way to SEO success.

If you are looking for an agency to put together and execute a customized SEO playbook for your company, contact Bluetext today to learn more about our SEO offerings.

With a constantly increasing amount of online content being published each day, it is important to stand out in the search engines results. Social media does not directly contribute to your SEO ranking, however, it does have the potential to drive quality web traffic to your site. When links to blog posts, videos, podcasts, and more are shared, Google and other search engines use it to rank your website. The right strategy will allow you to increase overall brand awareness, improve traffic, amplify your audience, and overall benefit your SEO. Want to know how? Read further to learn more about four practical social media tips that will explain how these marketing channels will help you improve your site’s ranking.

1. Generate New Ideas

Whether it is for blog posts or Instagram captions, social media can help you generate new ideas. One way a social media post can generate content ideas is through user feedback. Oftentimes, followers post questions or topics they would like to hear more about in the comments section. Questions within your comment section can also provide great feedback regarding your content that may not be readily available on your social page or website. Using this process, you can use feedback from your followers to generate a list of ideas that will boost your site traffic.

2. Post Content Frequently

Search engines want to know if your company’s website is relevant for its users. Therefore, it is important to regularly post SEO-saturated content to ensure your business looks helpful to users and trustworthy. The more content you post on your website, the more social posts you can create to promote and boost that content. You can accomplish this by creating a social media schedule for each month to monitor the frequency of your posts as well as important analytics like traffic, engagement, etc.

3. Know Your Audience

One of the many benefits of social media is getting to know your audience segments. Social media insights and tools like Google Analytics can tell you where your audience interacts with your content most. This is helpful for improving your SEO ranking because it makes finding the right keywords to use throughout your website a much easier process, boosting your company brand recognition and improving your search engine optimization and page rank.

4. Use Keywords

It can’t be stated enough: using the right keywords is crucial. Start by making a list of crucial keywords for each page on your website and commit to using those keywords throughout the copy of those pages. It is important to keep in mind what your audience might be searching for to arrive at this post. Tools such as Semrush Keyword Research and Similar Web can be helpful resources for picking the right keywords.

The benefits of improving your SEO results are you can increase brand exposure, improve traffic, and amplify your audience. Therefore, it is an important part of your social media strategy. Contact Bluetext to learn more and about how we can boost your SEO results.

After crafting the perfect campaign, ad creative, and hook-worthy copy, there is nothing more frustrating than a user coming to your website only to leave after a few seconds.

In order to prevent those high bounce rates and low clickthrough rates, you need to set up engaging and informative landing pages that lead visitors to the actions you want them to take on your website. It’s not an easy task, but thankfully digital marketing agencies, such as Bluetext, have experience and tips to share. Let’s look at five ways you can master the art of the landing page.

1. Emphasize Calls to Action

As this Elementor article states, “Unlike most webpages, landing pages often actively discourage exploration in an attempt to push visitors toward the CTA.” The whole goal of your landing page will be to push your users to a certain action or link, so make sure you place CTAs throughout your landing page to encourage clicks as the user scrolls. Also, be certain the CTAs are the most prominent component of your landing page, by color, placement, or other characteristics, they need to stick out to grab visitors’ attention and entice click-throughs. Also consider adding sticky CTA menus that follow the user down the page, enticing them to click-through at any time during their experience with your site. Some top placements of sticky CTAs lock onto the right-hand side or directly under the main menu navigation. 

2. Think Through Your First Viewport

When a user first appears on your landing page, they are looking for an immediate answer to their question. Every one of us has looked at a website for all of one second before exiting because we could not immediately find the information we wanted or perhaps there was too much text to read through.

Make sure that you use that first viewport wisely to start appealing to user needs. Have informative, relevant headlines, eye-catching images or video, and helpful secondary text. All of these pieces will go a long way in convincing your users to continue to scroll, and eventually click that CTA button.

3. Write Intriguing Copy

If you can grab your visitor with their first look at your landing page, you’ve already overcome a significant challenge of landing pages. However, now you need to sustain that attention. It’s a tricky maneuver, balancing providing immediate information while also ensuring they absorb additional details. Give everything away at once and the user never interacts further with your website, but tease it out too long and you risk users bouncing off the page. Digital marketers recommend to not overwhelm the user with small, dense text but instead offer answers to their questions. Additionally, psychological elements can be used to reach your visitors and convince them to use your CTAs. By the time someone finishes reading your landing page, they should have a clear idea of why your product or service will give them the best solution to their problem.

4. Optimize for Search Engines

You may have the most magnificent landing page in the world, but that does nothing if people can’t find it. Using keyword phrases and writing rich meta descriptions is an important part of SEO for a successful landing page. By getting to the top 20 results of Google (or in the first two pages of results), the chances of someone actually seeing and clicking on your landing page rise substantially.

5. Design with Your Users in Mind

As with any page, design can make or break your user experience. As you write copy, consider what information is most important to the user and needs to be emphasized in valuable H1’s and H2’s, think about which details could be shown in more interactive formats, and choose media that adds to instead of distracts from your main purpose. You also need to ensure that your landing pages are fully accessible for all your potential users.

A great example of a compelling, successful landing page comes from our campaign with Varonis. Bluetext worked with Varonis to create ads that drove viewers to landing pages and CTAs. By targeting the right audiences and leveraging intriguing copy, Bluetext helped Varonis grow its click-through rates above the industry benchmarks.

Want to learn more about creating successful landing pages or are interested in working with Bluetext to create a successful, data-driven landing page strategy? Contact us today.

Whether you’re creating your first logo, editing an existing logo, or totally redesigning an outdated logo for your business, you’ve been tasked with representing your brand and everything it stands for within a small graphic icon. A logo design project requires extensive knowledge of what your business stands for, what your current competitors are doing, and how design principles can be applied to capture attention and promote memorability. To increase the likelihood of a successful logo design, many companies turn to digital agencies like Bluetext who understand the competitive landscape and get to know each business in depth before designing a logo that accurately reflects the company and helps them stand out among the competition.  The following 4 principles are integral considerations for the logo designing process at Bluetext, and they should be utilized by any company looking to create a timeless, impactful visual identity for their brand.

1. Color

More often than not, color lays the foundation of a brand. Color is the first thing that catches the eye, and in an age of diminishing attention and quick digital scans can make or break a strong brand. With the power to improve brand awareness by more than 75%, color psychology is an essential consideration. Digital marketing & branding agencies advise considering the perspectives of two important players: the end-user and the industry. Below are three critical questions to ponder before any branding objective:

1. How do you want to be perceived by these audiences? 
2. What emotions should your brand evoke from end-users? 
3. How do I want to compare to industry standards? ‘Zig’ (run with the pack) or ‘zag’ (go against the grain)?

Certain colors tend to dominate different industries. Ever wonder why almost all fast food brand logos use the colors red and yellow? Red elicits passion and energy, while yellow stimulates hunger, which leads to subconscious food cravings. In comparison, the government contracting industry tends to use the colors red, white, and blue to invoke a sense of patriotism. Understanding the emotional impact behind your color choices can help your brand resonate with users and prospects. However, while some colors are tried and true, you should also weigh the costs and benefits of choosing the colors commonly found within your industry. Your ultimate goal should be to stand out amongst the competition, rather than blending into it. Whether or not color palette is the avenue to differentiate is a question that an expert brand agency would be able to consult on. While it may be tempting to utilize numerous color combinations, within your brand and logo, keep in mind the second most important quality of a logo: keeping it simple.

2. Simplicity

Visuals can communicate information 60 thousand times faster than text, a simple visual can be more impactful—and memorable—than a complicated or wordy design. Especially with the rise of mobile users and smaller screens, reducibility is a critical factor. Your logo should be comprehensible across multiple sizes—from a banner ad to a website favicon. Complex, detailed logos often have legibility challenges on small devices, therefore limiting your opportunities to show off even the most stunning designs. When there are too many competing elements of a logo, a viewer’s attention is divided between them, which detracts from their ability to recall the logo as a whole. It’s much more effective to choose just a few key elements of your logo to highlight your brand offerings. A good logo communicates your company’s strengths, whether it’s a rich history, creative thinking, or literal products featured in the design. The devil is in the details, which is why leading brand agencies advise a simple, yet scenic, route to logo success. 

3. Adaptability

Another important aspect of your logo is that it must hold up to the test of time. A brand as a whole can be updated and refreshed every now and then, but replacing an outdated logo can be a large undertaking. A timeless logo is one that can be implemented across different formats, from horizontal, vertical, square, black and white, full color, etc. These format variations allow the same logo to be adapted to different contexts as the opportunity arises, whether that be print materials, branded merchandise, and new online formats. Anticipating new ways to use your logo will keep users engaged with your brand as you expand across different platforms. Your brand’s style guide is an important resource for explaining how your logo and brand identity can be communicated through different channels. 

4. Relevance

The previous 3 qualities of your logo tie into one overarching factor: relevance. Before considering a  logo redesign, you should talk extensively with target consumers to better understand how they perceive your current logo and overall brand. Creating a logo that reflects your brand identity is one thing—making sure that customers actually receive and understand your message and the brand behind your logo is an entirely different challenge. A digital marketing agency can be a powerful partner to compiling market research and getting a third-party perspective on your logo’s effectiveness. To learn more about how to stay in tune with your customers to make sure your branding conveys the value you actually offer, check out an interview with Bluetext’s Jason Siegel and Travelocity’s Terry Jones on avoiding brand regret. 

Keeping up-to-date with design trends is one way of reading the market at a broad level to see which logo design techniques are resonating with audiences. However, accurately representing your brand is more important than being trendy. In the cyber-security space, for example, the challenge of selling an abstract concept has led many companies into the trap of using stereotypical imagery or design to try to communicate that they work with computers, coding, and hackers in hoodies. However, following those trends has led many companies to fall into the clutter of the category—a space where they’re practically indistinguishable from competitors. In order to avoid these common mistakes and stand out as strong competitors within your industry, consult a brand & marketing agency for your logo design. 

Contact Bluetext to take the first step in setting your brand (& logo) up for long-term success.

Why animation?

As the saying goes, static doesn’t sell. According to research, animated banner ads are more than four times as effective as their static counterparts. More and more these days, users are expecting engaging, interactive content from brands at every point of contact. This goes for any platform—a website, an app, digital out-of-home, social platforms (yes, this means TikTok). Anything with a screen is an opportunity to shake up your brand with animation.

Say more with animated content

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an animation is worth a million. Animated content captures key messages in more ways than a static graphic, and injects any design with the personality of a brand. After all, motion draws out emotion. Whatever your brand wants to convey, animated content can sharpen and elevate that message. 

Is your brand a subtle responsive animation kind of brand, or a claymation one? Maybe a blueprint-style animation speaks to your brand’s personality best, or perhaps a parallax effect is the best representation of your brand. However you choose to do it, you can get more out of your corporate visual identity with animation.

Getting started

When it comes to animation, the options are endless. Here are a few simple ways to get started, plus some examples produced by the team here at Bluetext.

1. Introduce an animated version of your logo or key brand assets.

An animated brand identity can be applied across any digital asset, as demonstrated by Octo’s identity in motion. The style of movement captures the ever-changing nature of the government technology market and communicates more about Octo than a static identity could. 

2. Add subtle movement to some of the static content on your website.

This example from ScienceLogic is an elegant way to introduce movement to your website while incorporating visual elements like brand shapes and secondary colors. As the mouse hovers over images of the leadership team, the background pops with new colors and shapes to keep the viewer engaged with what they’re seeing.

3. Consider a moving graphic for your next ad placement.

4. Read some more tips on motion integration from Ale Hernandez, one of Bluetext’s web design and UX experts.

Easy animation with interactive AI

Animation is becoming so necessary for modern brands that designers have even begun to automate some of the process. This cutting-edge technology is making animation more cost-effective and efficient to produce, meaning that more and more brands will be able to build out animated identities. Now is the time to get an edge on your competition by debuting a signature animation style for your company’s offerings.  

Want to go all-in on animation? Contact Bluetext to learn about our motion design and interactive UX services.