With just 2 weeks until their grand opening, we got straight to work…

They presented us with a sketch of a Superhero Mango, based on the new restaurant’s owner known to his friends as “Superman.” We began by bringing the scan into Adobe Illustrator and started tracing with an outline to develop a black and white version. Varying line weights were used to give depth and add dimension. We then added bright-colored blends to ensure that SuperMango will be both vibrant and memorable. Our client also requested a fun, comic book style type and we decided that the WigWag font fit the bill. Again, adding varying weight outlines and blends for even more dimension. Voilà, Mango Rita’s came to life! We quickly sent it off for review and recall them responding “It looks awesome!”

Next up… MENUS. We quickly went to work designing and laying out their main, breakfast and cocktail menus. We discovered photos with beautiful views of the area to use in the headers and backgrounds. The off-kiltered wood slats and rope frames added texture and interest, along with some whimsical fonts, drink photos and fun elements. Once approved, we zapped them out to be printed and delivered just in time for their grand opening. We wish them much success in this exciting new venture! Next time you’re in Fort Myers, be sure to check them out and tell them Team Icon sent you.

Have a custom illustration in mind? We’d love to bring your vision to life and help your business “STAND OUT.”

The post Dreams really can come true… appeared first on Icon Graphics.

Thanks,
Icon Graphics Team

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The Command Prompt (or Terminal)

Listing all files and folders inside current folder

For those old enough to remember, back in the earlier days of computers, everything was done via a command prompt (or terminal). There was no graphical user interface (GUI) for anything, just commands and crude textual output. Now a days, computers offer both a GUI and a way to send commands directly. Odds are that your operating system is Windows (probably Windows 8 or 10), and within that operating system is a program called cmd. It allows you to send commands quickly and directly to the computer. The average user will probably never need to use cmd or anything else like it, but for developers, it’s one of the first tools in our toolkit. Being able to quickly maneuver between directories, list out their contents, create/edit/delete files is incredibly useful. It seems counter productive, but with enough practice one can become much faster at using the command prompt than they are at performing the same tasks with a mouse. Additionally, there are several other tools in the web developer’s toolkit that don’t have GUIs and require you to type commands directly.

A Text Editor or an IDE

Editing a PHP file in PHPStorm

There’s a running joke in the office that all I require to do my job is Notepad and Internet Explorer (IE). And there actually is some truth to that! When I first began learning how to code, I wrote it in Notepad and tested it in IE. Fortunately things have progressed greatly since then and now I depend on several different web browsers for testing and two pieces of software for code writing. The first is a basic text editor. I’ve tried several over the years, but my favorite has to be SublimeText. It allows me to quickly write code and offers support for features such as auto-complete and emmet, which allows me to type code in shorthand (so typing “mt” followed by pressing tab will yield “margin-top”, or “ul>li*3>a” followed by a tab would yield a 3 item long list of links).

The second piece of software is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) called PHPStorm. All of our websites are written in, among other types of code, PHP. PHPStorm is like a text editor on steroids that’s built specifically for writing in HTML, CSS, Javascript, and of course PHP. The primary point of an IDE is to combine several tools and the functionalities of separate pieces of software into a single, unified environment. PHPStorm gives me quick access to a terminal, allows me to use version control, and even manipulate files. All  without having to leave the program.

FTP Clients

There are several ways to push code to a server, but one of the oldest and most used is the File Transfer Protocol (better known as FTP). Using a program like Filezilla or WinSCP, I can connect to a website’s server and begin uploading the website’s files. A good FTP client will also allow me to delete or move files on a remote server as needed. FTP can also serve as a quick way to backup or restore a site’s files.

Version Control

Version control is a relatively new addition to the web developer’s toolkit. To explain it as simple as possible, version control (usually in the form of a technology called git) allows a developer to jump back/forth between versions of a file with relative ease. For example, say I built a website with a blue background. I show it to the client and they want to see it with a red background. Upon seeing all of that red, they realize they’d rather have it be blue after all. With version control I can quickly and easily revert the file back to its original, blue form without ever having to touch code.

Inspector Tools

Using Firefox’s Inspector Tools to view the Google homepage.

Inspector Tools are another relatively new tool for web developers. In the old days if you needed to take a look at a site’s code for reference, you either needed to download the file and look at it directly, or use the “View Source” tool. Downloading a file can be time-consuming, and “View Source” is a very primitive tool. Web developers needed more, and the answer was the Inspector Tool. The tool allows a developer to safely view and manipulate the HTML, CSS, and Javascript on a website in real-time. This saves a lot of time as it allows developers to quickly try out changes without actually modifying the code. Additionally, the tools can be used to log site errors, track load times, and more. Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Edge all offer their own takes on the Inspector Tool.

In Summary

Of course this is just a short list of the most common tools used by web developers. New technologies and approaches are developed so rapidly that it can be difficult to keep up at times. And each technology or idea comes in multiple iterations. I love SublimeText, but others may prefer Atom. Most web developers use git for version control, but others may use SVN. There’s no shortage of choice of tools in web development. The joke, “If you don’t like the weather in Maryland, wait 5 minutes” is also applicable to web development. If you don’t like the tools available to you, just wait 5 minutes for new ones!

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I’m sure we’ve all seen this phrase when signing up for a new account online. In the earlier days of the web, there wasn’t as much concern about web security, making simple passwords quite common. But while plain passwords are easy to remember, they are incredibly unsecure.

Let’s take a look at the first five entries in SplashData’s 25 worst passwords of 2013:

1. 123456
2. password
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123

Enticing though they may be, those five passwords could be guessed in under a second. And that’s just using just a desktop computer!

In our line of work, when handling client information online, we commonly run into passwords structured something like “arthur42.” Just a name or a word followed by a number. You might think that the number makes it secure, but in reality, it only makes the password minutely more difficult to crack. Rather than an instant guess, it jumps to 11 minutes. Capitalizing the “A” increases decryption time to a whopping 15 hours, but I think we can do even better.

Building a Better Password

When a website urges you to add a symbol and number to your password, you may find yourself wondering, “What good will that really do?”

Going back to our example above, let’s try adding another number and a single symbol. “Arthur423$” would take 58 years. That’s 1,411 times longer than the password above! While that’s definitely an improvement and you’re vastly better off using that than “arthur42,” we can still do better.

The reason these simple passwords are easy to crack is because the automated tools used to crack them have a huge dictionary of words to pull from. They’ll automatically (and very quickly) try those words and variations on their spelling and capitalization while also trying to append numbers to them until they finally get a match. So while adding a “$” or “3” doesn’t solve our problem, you can see how utilizing symbols and numbers can greatly boost the security of your password. Less than a second to 58 years is quite a jump!

So, what would we consider to be a good, strong password? I personally use a random password generator that just now gave me “M$j%$@gXSN2Le*O.” Using the same parameters used to gauge “arthur42,” it would take your average desktop PC 16 billion years to crack it. Since that’s 3 billion years longer than the age of the universe, I think we’ve found our secure password.

Remembering a Better Password

“M$j%$@gXSN2Le*O” may be secure, but it’s not very easy to remember. Some people come up with memory tricks to remember their passwords, but that’s not always possible. So what are our options? How can we be secure, but not have to rack our brains trying to remember dozens of super-complicated passwords?

Personally, I use a password manager. A password manager is a program that keeps track of your passwords for you in an encrypted database. It only requires the memorization of one super strong password to be given access to all of your accounts. Now, this may seem like an “all your eggs in one basket” approach, but any good password manager will require multiple means of verification (commonly known as two-factor authentication). That way you — and only you — can have access to your passwords.

My preferred manager at the moment is KeePass, which allows you to store your passwords in a secure, encrypted database file. To unlock that encrypted file, you can utilize up to 3 methods of verification: encryption key file, password, and Windows account verification (which will limit access to the database to the user who created it). I utilize the encryption key file and a strong password. The downside to KeePass is that it requires a good bit of setup and a little extra know-how to use it effectively.

A more user-friendly method is LastPass, which exists as a website and browser plugin for managing passwords. The major advantage LastPass has over KeePass is the browser plugin detects what site you’re attempting to log into and auto-populates the login form for you. The major disadvantage is that your encrypted passwords are stored on a 3rd party’s server rather than locally on your own machine. But since LastPass also offers two-factor authentication via several mobile apps for an extra layer of security, it’s still a strong option — and much preferable to “arthur42.”

In Summary

While prompts to create a stronger password may seem like an annoyance or inconvenience, the value of a strong password cannot be overstated. The easiest way for someone to gain unwanted access to your email, social media, or other online accounts is by guessing your password. The weaker the password, the easier this becomes. Tools like LastPass and KeePass can be very helpful for utilizing strong, complicated passwords without the hassle of having to memorize them.

The post The Importance of a Strong Password appeared first on Icon Graphics.

The Western Maryland Blues Fest held its very first event 21 years ago. We were lucky to be able to partner with them to create the graphics for the festival, as we have every year since. Once an artist has been selected to represent the event, we take the artwork and use it to create posters, T-shirts, ads, and more to promote and celebrate the blues.

Since Blues Fest is right around the corner, we thought we’d take us all back to that very first poster. Blues Fest posters are highly collectible, and this poster in particular is very rare nowadays!

Not only did we provide the design for the first poster, we sat down with Blues Fest founder Carl Disque to create the logo that’s represented the event since its inception. Carl’s vision both for the festival and the creative direction has guided us through successful events year after year.

This year’s event will feature a fantastic mix of international, national, and local musicians, with performances scheduled from Thursday through Sunday. Delicious food, great drinks, and amazing music make this the community event of the year. We hope to see you there!

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Bijou, Bongo, and Casey

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We can’t wait to show off the website as soon as it’s live — stay tuned!

Vehicle graphics designed by our Shepherdstown University intern, Yasmeen Alkordi.

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When it comes to writing content for your website, there are 2 main schools of thought seemingly at odds with one another. Many argue that you should focus on the people reading your content and forget about search engine optimization entirely. They suggest a heavy focus on loading your writing with keywords makes your content too stiff and difficult to understand, resulting in a disconnect from your visitors. But others insist the goal ought to be to focus on search engine robots crawling your site through loading your content with keywords. Their reasoning is that people can’t find your site if search engines don’t, making SEO of utmost importance. In short, the former focuses on human connection; the latter focuses on data alone.

But what if there doesn’t have to be a fight? What if content managed to be good while taking both humans and robots into consideration? What would that look like? What guidelines might inform how you write?

Keep it simple.

For humans:

• Break up your content into headlines and shorter paragraphs. People in general have short attention spans, so structuring your content in a way that’s easy to scan means people are more likely to stay and read.
• Science says the average American reads at an eighth-grade reading level, so you should aim for that in your writing. Why? To make sure what you’re saying is neither too elementary as to be insulting nor too complicated as to fly over people’s heads.

For robots:

• Headlines tell search engines important things about the content that follows and why someone might search for your page in the first place, allowing them to place it more accurately in their rankings.
• Content that’s easy for people to read translates into content that’s easy for robots to crawl, interpret, and categorize. This also means visitors are more likely to stay on your page longer, which will increase search engines’ opinion of you.

But not too simple.

For humans:

• Don’t talk down to your audience. Simplifying your content means communicating clearly, not condescending to your audience.
• Make sure your content gives people the information they need. Keeping things simple doesn’t mean you should sacrifice pertinent data. In the interest of brevity, consider linking to outside articles rather than expanding upon a word, phrase, or practice that’s not directly related to your topic.

For robots:

• Search engines will punish you for too little content.  If you haven’t written a lot on a particular page or post, search engines will assume what you have to say isn’t important and diminish your rankings.

Stay on topic.

For humans:

• Content that goes off on tangents means people will leave your site unsatisfied. If someone reached your page or post by searching for a specific thing, your page or post should be focused on that specific topic.
• Respect your audience’s busy schedule. If you find yourself reaching 1,000 words or more, consider breaking your article into a multi-post series addressing multiple factors of the topic you want to cover.

For robots:

• Focusing on your topic means you’ll naturally include keywords relevant to your page. Search algorithms are getting smarter every day about whether or not keywords are relevant or included to SPAM visitors. Naturally including these words as you stay on topic means search engines will decide your page really is related to the topic you say it is, thereby improving your SEO.

Create value.

For humans:

• Solve a problem for the people who come to your site. Don’t focus on your needs — focus on the needs of your audience. People search to find answers, not brands. What do your specific clients, customers, patients, or users need to know? What do they typically not know? What topics will offer value to the people you want to reach? How can you make their lives easier?
• Become a resource for those who use your product or service. This will establish your reputation as an expert, building trust with the people who visit your site.

For robots:

• Valuable information translates into search engines having an easier time finding and ranking you. When you focus on creating value for your audience rather than for yourself, you’ll organically write content search engines will determine is relevant.
• Inbound links from other sites drastically improve your rankings. When your content is valuable to people, they share it, thereby making search engines think more highly of you.

Be human.

For humans:

• People connect more closely to humans than they do to cold information. Speak like a human, and your audience will stick around to listen.
• Empathy and respect create a meaningful bond. Taking the time to understand your audience and treat them with dignity will result in fewer instances of inadvertent cruelty.

For robots:

• The longer people stay on your site, the more search engines will reward you with higher more relevant rankings. When people leave your site quickly (or “bounce,” as the robots say), this reflects badly on the relevancy and worth of your content.
• Positive human experience means repeat visitors, which increases your rankings.

The verdict? Humans and robots work together.

When you write for humans, everyone wins the SEO battle — not just people and search engines, but your company and your audience.

Looking for advice on optimizing your website for human and robot consumption? Drop us a line — we’d love to help.

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Welcome, Yasmeen!

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