Search engine optimization (SEO) is an industry and practice in constant flux. As search engines continue to work toward improving the results returned for their users, marketers must continue to optimize websites and create relevant content to build relevancy and authority. Check out these awesome infographics for some visual instruction and information about SEO:

1. Order of SEO Operations

2. SEO Tactics

3. Search Engine Marketing ROI

4. The Visual FAQ of SEO

5. SEO vs. PPC

6. SEO Check List

7. SEO Factors

8. Long Tail SEO

9. SEO ROI Is King

10. Local Search

11. The Social Media Effect

12. SEO Spider Trap

Did you find these infographics helpful?

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After a long 7 years Google rang the victory bell over a trademark lawsuit with LMVH (responsible for the Louis Vuitton brand) this past Tuesday, March 23. Ever since this lawsuit caught my eye a while back I have been pondering why they decided to take this approach instead of doing the obvious: online reputation management.

In case you’re not up-to-speed on the case, here’s a quick overview.

In 2003 LMVH sued Google in French courts and eventually won in 2005. This led to Google paying over $400,000 USD for trademark infringement. LMVH’s beef was with ads selling Louis Vuitton replicas being shown when someone Googled “Louis Vuitton”. They were choked that Google would be selling the Louis Vuitton trademark to third parties – specifically websites selling counterfeits.

Google then took the case to the European Union’s highest courts where the battle continued for another 5 years until the ruling was made this past Tuesday, March 23 in Google’s favor. The courts stated that Google had not infringed trademark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords matching competitors’ trademarks.

Will the Real LV Please Stand Up

When I search for Loius Vuitton on Google (in British Columbia, Canada), one search result is for the authentic Louis Vuitton site, one is a Wikipedia entry for Louis Vuitton, and the other 8 are selling Louis Vuitton replicas.

So why is LMVH getting their knickers in a twist over ads when the search results are clearly dominated by people selling replicas? If anything, these search results most likely have a higher clickthrough rate then any AdWords campaign.

Money Well Spent?

How much do you think LMVH has paid in legal fees these past 7 years? Wouldn't they have been better off tackling an aggressive online reputation management campaign with that money? There are professionals out there that specialize in this type of thing you know.

Yes a lot of people sell Louis Vuitton replicas. But a lot of people also sell Chanel knockoffs and they seem to be doing pretty well in the SERPs. When I Googled "Chanel" only one knockoff company showed up in the results. So it is possible for the Louis Vuitton brand to do the same thing. Yes it can be costly, but it can’t be more than they’ve paid for a 7 year battle with Google in the courts.

What They Should Do

The following are some online reputation tactics that Louis Vuitton can benefit from. Since they can not control AdWords results, they can at least try to reclaim back organic search results for their name.

Subdomains

Only two pages from a domain can rank in the search results, however, search engines treat subdomains as unique websites. By developing content on subdomains, Louis Vuitton can have multiple sites that rank for their domain name. A blog, for example, can be one example of a subdomain.

New Domains

Louis Vuitton has a couple of options for new domains they can build up through link building methods. They are involved with nautical events and hold the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series and the Louis Vuitton Cup. They also hold the Louis Vuitton Classic for automobile collectors every year. Those are two separate sites that would work well.

Then there is Espace Louis Vuitton. It produces and hosts three exhibitions per year, around the themes of travel, heritage, art and fashion. It is a popular attraction that attracts more than 10 000 visitors for each exhibition. Once again, they have another opportunity here to create a branded website.

Affiliations & Distribution

Currently only Louis Vuitton stores are authorized to sell their products. What if they follow suit with other successful luxury brands and find high-end stores to officially sell their brand?

With this method they can create landing pages on sites that distribute their products and help along with link building. Although it may take away from their exclusivity, it will also prevent them from being overtaken by replicas in search results. They have proven that they obviously care about their online presence by taking Google to court in the first place.

Social Media

Louis Vuitton can also benefit from doing a little social networking. Like creating a Twitter account (and hiring someone to run it properly), or putting some of their fashion show clips up on YouTube. Outspoken Media has a thorough Online Reputation Management Guide that covers all the angles of the social media approach.

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, it is. But it is a small price to pay for Louis Vuitton to take over search results currently dominated by fakes. It will also most likely have a better ROI then taking Google to court.

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Stephanie Woods is an internet marketer living in Kelowna, BC with over 10 years experience with advertising and marketing. You can reach Steph at her internet marketing blog or on Twitter.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Louis Vuitton VS. Google: The Importance of Online Reputation Management

Según una investigación realizada por la agencia de relaciones públicas estadounidense Burston-Marsteller, más de un 79% de las 100 compañías más grandes del mundo según la revista Fortune 500, tiene algún tipo de presencia oficial en redes sociales.

Del total de empresas que utilizan redes sociales, el informe revela que Twitter es la principal herramienta 2.0 que utilizan, donde dos tercios de las empresas tienen una cuenta (65%), seguido por Facebook, donde la presencia se reduce a un 54%, mayormente compuesto por fans pages.

En menor porcentaje se encuentra presencia en canales oficiales de YouTube (50%), y casi en el mismo promedio es la cantidad de blogs corporativos que poseen estas empresas.

A pesar de que aún no se ha definido cual será la estrategia comercial a seguir por parte de Twitter (se especula con publicidad contextual o cuentas Pro de pago anual), las grandes compañías lo consideran un canal con alta efectividad y buen feedback tanto para generar confianza (cuentas para responder inquietudes) o para fidelizar (concursos y premios)

La investigación realizada entre febrero de 2009 y enero de 2010 muestra además que Estados Unidos y Asia son las regiones que agrupan un 25% cada una, de las compañias con presencia en las redes sociales mencionadas.

En este link se puede ver el informe completo de Burston-Marsteller.

Link: Las principales compañías del mundo se enganchan en las redes sociales (DirCom)

Brian Solis is a principal at new media agency FutureWorks, and author of the upcoming book, Engage. You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook.

One of the greatest challenges I encounter today is not the willingness of a brand to engage, but its ability to create. When blueprinting a social media strategy, enthusiasm and support typically derails when examining the resources and commitment required to produce regular content.

Indeed, we are programing the social web around our brand hub, which requires a consistent flow of engaging and relevant social objects. Social objects are the catalysts for conversations — online and in real life — and they affect behavior within their respective societies.

They are our tweets, our Flickr photos, YouTube videos, Facebook updates and events, Delicious links, FourSquare check-ins, and blog posts.

But once we introduce a social object, we must be ready to back it up with additional relevant content, and create a publishing calendar programmed specifically for each network on which we maintain a presence.

Brands Become Their Media

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There’s a saying in theater: A big part of acting is reacting. This is especially true when we consider how many individuals, brands, and organizations engage on the web today. Instead of seeking inspiration and direction from those around us however, we simply react to activity, which may or may not benefit us in the long run.

The democratization of publishing and the equalization of influence allows us to create and connect with a wider reach. Everything starts with a mission, and is fortified by the content we create.

Among the most valuable resources we procure through dedicated publishing is good will, social capital, and influence. It comes at a price however: The cost of production, distribution, and support. In the end, you get out what you put in. The investment represents time, money, creativity, and passion.

Thus, we not only become our media — through production and engagement, we can become influential.

Productive Social Media Must Be Earned

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While establishing a presence is elementary, captivating audiences is artful. In the near future, brands and organizations will create new or augment existing roles for editors and publishers to create timely, relevant, and captivating content on all social media channels. This work is in addition to the other reactive and proactive social media campaigns that are already in progress. A strategic editorial calendar should blend video, audio, imagery, text, updates, and other social objects and networks to reach, inspire, and galvanize communities.

Earned, Paid, and Owned Media

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In media, there are several channels that populate and shape perception — earned, paid, and owned media. Each requires a dedicated management system that actively creates, monitors and stimulates strategic movement.

Recently, Sean Corcoran, an analyst at Forrester Research, published a detailed post that describes the differences between earned, paid and owned. He clarifies the roles for brands who undertake the responsibility of embracing new media. Dave Fleet, a thought leader in new media and public relations, also visualized Corcoran’s thoughts through a series of graphics that represent the social media ecosystem.

As Corcoran points out in his recent report:

“Increasingly, interactive marketers are being asked to manage a wide range of paid and unpaid marketing communication —- despite the fact that many marketing departments are still organized around traditional paid marketing channels. All types of online media (whether ‘earned,’ ‘owned,’ or ‘paid’) can play specific roles in meeting marketers’ objectives —- especially when seamlessly working together. To find the right balance between these types of media, marketers should take stock of their resources, listen for the impact of earned media, look for opportunities to shift short-term paid media to the role of catalyst, and begin to build out a solar system of long-term owned media touchpoints.”

In other words, paid, earned and owned media require thoughtful programming and targeted distribution and must be linked to a systematic review of behavior and activity that surrounds each object. And, the analysis of activity and ultimately the end result should play a monumental role in the creation of future publishing and social activation.

Corcoran uses the word “touchpoint,” which by standard definition, refers to any point of contact between a buyer and a seller. Touchpoint is part of the greater opportunity here. But more importantly, these touchpoints require direction and the establishment of a path that offers a complete experience — a beginning, a middle, an end, and a reward.

These experiences are definable by paid, earned, and owned media.

New media necessitates a collaboration between all teams involved in creating and distributing content, including advertising, interactive, communications, brand, and marketing — with an editorial role connecting the dots. We are competing for attention and our success is dependent on our ability to not compete against each other. Producing content and lobbing it over the firewall to an “audience” will only confuse communities. Therefore, we are obligated to build pipelines that carry strategic communications, each with calculated intents, targets and outcomes.

If we examine the differences between earned, owned, and paid, we can visualize necessary programming and dedicated channels for each.

Owned media is essentially that which we control. If we designed the object, we own the content within the object. Most likely, we also own (or lease) the distribution channels that present these objects to our target communities. We do not however, control the impression and perception of our objects. We lose that control at the point of distribution.

For example, in addition to standard web pages, social media presences contribute to our portfolio of owned media including Twitter accounts, Facebook Fan Pages, Blogs, YouTube channels, etc. By creating presences in the communities where our customers, prospects, partners, and influencers congregate and collaborate, we can lay the foundation to contribute “earned” social objects of value.

Social hubs are also gaining prominence in social media plans as brands weigh options for directing traffic. The creation of strategic landing pages can extend the rich, interactive experience within social networks (channels which we partially own) to pages we do own. This shapes the experience in a way that maintains interactivity and targeted options for action. I’m not necessarily recommending the creation of microsites, unless it’s warranted in the overall program. But a bridge that connects the social experience to a valuable destination is important.

Forrester’s Corcoran recommends that brands create a “solar system” of owned media. However, I suggest that brands instead create a focused ecosystem of media that establishes presences where their communities are already active — a brand or organization-specific social media ecosystem. This requires research. In the process, we uncover not only locations that require our engagement, but also how, where, when and to what extent to participate. We just may find that the given locations for social profiles represent only part of the many opportunities rife within the Conversation Prism.

Paid media represents the visibility we purchase, such as display ads, paid search, and sponsorships. When paired with owned and earned media programs, paid media can complement, reinforce, and polish a brand’s voice, directives, mission, and stature. While many argue over the future and fate of advertising, what’s clear is that online paid presences can benefit initiatives where action and experiences are defined and promoted through the click path. Current trends reflect a shift away from branding programs and place emphasis on sparking desired activity, empowering viewers and their social graph to share in the experience all in ways that measure the cost per action.

Earned media is the result of our owned, paid, and participatory media programs and is reflected in the blog posts, tweets, status updates, comments, and ultimately actions of our consumers, peers, and influencers. Earned media is linked to owned media campaigns as well as proactive initiatives that attempt to incite viral and word-of-mouth activity. Garnered visibility is also tied to communications and public relations programs as they continually seek to gain the attention of reporters, bloggers, analysts, and influencers who can drive awareness and behavior.

This isn’t a one way street however. Success is absolutely conditional on the techniques and methodologies that inspire dedicated programs focused on outreach, relations, and hopefully the engendering of productive and mutually beneficial relationships. Crowd-powered visibility also merits an official and devoted listening and response initiative to ensure that each respective community aligns with the mission.

Participatory media is an extension of earned and owned media. It takes the shape of a hosted hub where brand representatives and our communities can interact and collaborate. Good examples of this are Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbucks’ “My Idea” network, which resemble branded wikis designed to elicit responses and establish community-focused governances. Participatory media equalizes the balance of power, providing a dedicated platform the gives voice to the consumer and a channel for their ideas.

Sponsored media is a new category that fuses owned, paid, and earned media. Sponsored media is championed by companies like Izea, Ad.ly, and Twittad, among others, and is creating a new medium for packaging messages through trusted voices within highly visible and social channels. Sponsored media can take the form of paid tweets, blog posts, appearances, and featured objects on targeted profiles. And, whether you agree or disagree with the idea, the reality is that it works, and seems to benefit all parties involved, from the brand, to the paid affiliates, to their communities. In fact, Forrester’s Josh Bernoff and Sean Corcoran shared their thoughts on why sponsored media is worthy of consideration.

Sponsored objects fuse earned, paid, and owned media, as technically: 1) The messages are owned; 2) The voices are paid, and; 3) With more thoughtful approaches, the responses within targeted communities can inspire a positive wave of earned media.

Disclosure: My company works with Ted Murphy, Founder/CEO of izea.com.

Influence

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As media, brands earn prominence and hopefully influence as rewards for contributing meaningful content. On Twitter, brands can earn legions of loyal and responsive followers, who in turn become brand advocates and ambassadors, extending the messages, mission and purpose of the brand to their followers as well. On Facebook, brands can cultivate vibrant and dedicated communities where interaction inspires increased responses — each reverberating across new social graphs. On Ustream and YouTube, we can earn global audiences of viewers who tune in to watch our programming and interact with brand representatives in a live community that spills over other social networks. And of course, our blog is more important than we may realize. Through our posts, we can establish a strong alliance of subscribers who hope to learn new things and participate in the discussion of a brand’s future.

As Tom Foremski points out, we have the ability to earn noteworthy, equal, and in some cases, greater influence than those authorities whom we’ve relied on over the years to help us reach greater audiences and communities. As influence is equalized, our ability to earn presence and relationships is derived from how we program, manage, and participate in all forms of media. And, it is through a balance of media and engagement that we also establish the foundation for affinity. People align with movements they can believe in, and it is the human, intellectual, and financial investment in genuine content that defines experiences, and hopefully one day earns the significance your brand deserves.

More business resources from Mashable:

- The Maturation of Social Media ROI
– The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– 9 Great Document Collaboration Tools for Teams
– HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
– 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, cogal, YanC, Juanmonino

Tags: blog, blogging, brand, branding, business, facebook, List, Lists, MARKETING, small business, social media, social media marketing, social networking, twitter, ustream, youtube

Dan Schawbel is the bestselling author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, an award winning blogger at Personal Branding Blog, a national speaker and consultant on branding and a BusinessWeek columnist.

There have been countless incidents in which professionals have lost their jobs, been evicted, or even been arrested for things they’ve done on social networks. There has never been a more important time to discuss the many ways you can sabotage your personal brand, and how you can prevent these mistakes before it’s too late.

A new report by Microsoft states that 64% of HR managers think it is appropriate to look at online profiles of candidates and 41% have rejected people as a result. Your online presence — which may consist of both content that you provide (on your LinkedIn profile for instance), as well as what’s written about you by people you may or may not know — is slowly becoming part of the formal recruitment process. It’s also where first impressions occur before in-person handshakes are made, so you have to make sure you are managing your brand online, before someone else does it for you.  The following are five ways to avoid sabotaging your personal brand.

1. Don’t Ignore Brand Mentions

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58% of Americans don’t even Google themselves, but employers and potential customers certainly will. It’s safe to say that people are already talking about you, either online or offline.

As you create your personal brand on a variety of platforms, your name will start popping up in search engines and on social networks. This can be both beneficial to your brand or harmful depending on the context. The viral nature of social networks, as well as their new ubiquity, should encourage you to start listening in on what people are saying about you.

Negative mentions will spread fast unless you keep your ear close to the web, so I recommend you setup a Google alert for your name, your company’s name, key competitors, partners, and industry buzz terms. There are many other free tools that can help you monitor your brand. You can also try Social Mention for a more complete solution to brand mentions on social networks.

2. Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin

A future problem, which some might say is a current problem, is the volume of social networks and the amount of status updates and messages you receive each day. If you’re active on each and every social network that launches, you will start to spread yourself too thin, which can really hurt your brand. You won’t possibly be able to update all of your social profiles, as well as keep track of pictures, profile information, groups, etc. In general, you should only join the largest social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), as well as those networks in your industry.

As I noted in a previous Mashable post, you should reserve your full name on as many of the popular social networks as possible by using a service such as namechk.com, before someone who shares your name claims them and you’re locked out for life. But just because you have claimed your name everywhere doesn’t mean you should expend valuable time and energy maintaining a presence on every social network.

There are some websites that allow you to scale your social feeds so that one status update can automatically spread to other networks, without manually publishing content. You can use hellotxt.com or ping.fm to spread your status message to many social networks at once, including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. You can also go to your LinkedIn profile and syndicate your tweets for your LinkedIn status update automatically or by using “#in” for each tweet (if you want to be selective). There is also a Facebook application for Twitter so you can syndicate your tweets through your Facebook profile.

3. Know Your Audience

It’s really easy to forgot who you’re connected with on social networks as they grow. You might start out with high school, college, and summer camp friends, and then add some co-workers when you start a new job. There will be a point where you’re going to have to make a strategic decision, who you accept and who you don’t. The second you add your manager or colleagues is the time when you have to rethink what you publish or what you syndicate from other social networks. One mistake could cause you trouble.

On Facebook, you may want to have a profile page for your inner circle of friends and family members and then a Facebook Fan Page for your professional image. This way, you can make your profile private and hide it from search, while having a fan page that you can point your coworkers to. They will know that you are hiding your profile but should respect your privacy, especially since you’re giving them the option to follow your fan page.

4. Limit Self-Promotion

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Certainly, self-promotion is an extremely important part of building your brand because if no one knows of your achievements or the company you work for, then how are they going to do business with you? Yet, I’ve noticed that people often over-promote themselves in various ways across the web.

Successful self-promotion only works in moderation, because if you’re constantly only promoting yourself, many people will unfollow, unfriend, or block you from their network. The best way to build a strong personal brand is to promote other people, which creates goodwill and a connection, as well as distributing value based on what you have to offer: Your expertise. If you’re helping people 80 or 90% of the time, then people will be much more accepting of your self-promotional messages the other 10%. You will also start to notice that other people will promote you — and their endorsement is even stronger than your own proclamations.

5. Be Consistent

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Consistency is extremely important when it comes to any kind of branding, from personal to corporate.

Selecting a unified “picture” and spreading it across all your social media — your website, your blog, your presentations, your press kits, your business cards, etc. — will build image recognition in the mind of your audience. Consistency is significant for pictures, your name, as well as the fonts, the colors and the overall message that you communicate through your online properties.

There is no question that you already have a personal brand — whether you built it yourself or not. The way to differentiate it from everyone else is through management. By paying attention to mentions of your name online, not spreading yourself too thin, knowing your audience, offering more value than self-promotion, and being consistent, you can be very successful.

More business resources from Mashable:

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- Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right
– How Social Media Helps One Small Business Connect with Fans
– 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Avoid Social Media Panic
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, drflet, titaniumdoughnut

Tags: brand, branding, brands, business, facebook, linkedin, List, Lists, personal brand, personal branding, small business, twitter

The release of Firefox 4.0 may still be nearly a year away, but the excitement for the new version is already growing. In July, we revealed the first images of Firefox 4.0. Now one of the designers behind the browser has shared on his blog updated mock-ups of the new design.

While a lot of the original concepts from the July images are still intact (e.g. a combo stop/refresh/go button, color changes based on your actions), there are some new details revealed by designer and Mozilla contributor Stephen Horlander.

Here are the new mock-ups of Firefox 4.0, along with an explanation of what’s new in this iteration:

The New Design Changes

As we’ve previously noted, the Menu Bar has changed from version 3.5 to 4.0. The biggest change was that the stop, refresh and go buttons have been combined into one color-changing button. But in these new mock-ups, there is a new button: the App Button.

According to Stephen, the app button works a lot like the Windows 7 and Office 2010 menu button, which condenses a lot of those options into a single location. Instead of having File, Edit and all of those options take up space at the time, there would only be a single “Firefox” button at the top of the browser.

The look of this button, though, is still up for debate. In fact, there are multiple proposals for how it should look. See for yourself:

While the App Button may be the biggest change, it’s not the only one: the toolbar button is getting touched up to be more visible on multiple backgrounds, and the location bar is now recessed (rather than floating). Finally, the bookmarks toolbar is getting some new functionality — if it hasn’t been modified by the user, it will not appear by default.

Here are some more images for you to gawk at. Let us know what you think of the new changes in the comments:

Firefox 4.0: Even More Images

Firefox 4.0 with bookmarks toolbar:

Firefox 4.0 with tabs under the navigation bar:

Firefox 4.0 with bookmark bar between tabs and navigation bar:

Comparison of Firefox 4.0 and Firefox 3.5

[via Chromatic Pixel]

Tags: Firefox, Firefox 4.0, mozilla

“There is no specific London style.” At least that’s what the ‘Super Contemporary’ show at London’s Design Museum proclaims. During an exploration of London’s art and design scene in September 2009, what did emerge was a city with a unique sense of its own personality and history, a fertile hub of international thinkers, and a community working towards a future that is designed to be interactive, environmentally responsible, and prosperous.

Here is a look at the visual personality of London, based on visits to the city’s major art museums, attendance at the 2009 London Design Festival, and interviews with artists and designers who call the great city home.

Identity of a City

Street Style

Neville Brody served as Art Director at The Face and Arena.

London magazines including The Face, i-D, Blitz, and Arena became major influences on international design during the eighties and nineties. The Face was known as a showcase of London street style and experimental graphic design during Neville Brody’s tenure as Art Director from 1982-86. Brody incorporated hand-drawn typefaces and custom graphic symbols into his page layouts. His work for The Face – and later, Arena – put an emphasis on striking photography, the impact of simplicity, and occasionally jarring juxtapositions of text and imagery. Brody is responsible for fonts including Industria (designed for The Face) and Arcadia (designed for Arena).

Geography

Supermundane’s ‘Truman’ font, based on the bricks of the Truman Brewery tower

One example of a physical representation of London in design is the Truman font designed by illustrator and designer Supermundane, a.k.a. Rob Lowe. The font is based on the iconic tower of the Truman Brewery, located in East London. “The reason I did that was because I couldn’t believe anybody else hadn’t done it,” Mr. Lowe says of the project. “(The tower) is just sittin’ there!”

Public street signage around town.

London as an International Hub

London is a metropolis that is proud to be composed of international residents and ideas. The 2009 London Design Festival featured a great diversity of artistic fields (product design, furniture design, digital media) represented by artists from all over the world. The ‘Make Believe’ show presented by Goldsmiths, University of London featured emerging designers who came to London from locales including India, California, Switzerland and Bangkok. All designers seemed to bring their unique cultural perspective to their work; one even boasts of his quadri-lingual skills in his bio.

History

“It’s a city steeped in history and heritage,” says London-based photographer Haider Kikabhoy. It is impossible to review London’s entire art and design legacy here, so two elements of its history have been chosen: a legend from a distant era and a cultural phenomenon from the recent past.

“England’s First Great Native-Born Painter”

A self portrait by William Hogarth (left) and an example of ‘the line of beauty’ in his work (right)

According to the Tate Britain Museum, William Hogarth is “England’s first great native-born painter.” His depictions of London life tell visual stories about the lives of archetypal characters: the harlot, the apprentice, the drunk. He symbolized his unique theories on artistic beauty with an icon he called ‘the line of beauty,’ a curved, serpentine line which can be seen over the palette in his self portrait (above left) and in compositions of his such as Beer Street (above right). Hogarth incorporated this element in his compositions because he believed that this curved, S-shaped line excited the viewer’s eye with its energetic movement (as opposed to straight lines or right angles).

Hogarth is also considered a pioneer of sequential images and therefore a forefather of the narrative structure used in comic books. One example in Hogarth’s work is his series ‘A Rake’s Progress,’ which includes eight paintings that tell a story when viewed sequentially.

Punk Rock: High Versus Low

The often tense relationship between upper and lower classes has been a dominant theme in English culture for centuries. Many entertainers and designers have relished the act of thumbing their nose at a perceived snobbery amongst royalty and the upper class. No one did it better than the punk rock movement that blossomed in England during the 1970’s. The impact of punk has made an indelible impression on generations of designers that have come since. Acclaimed graphic designer Neville Brody said that punk was “the most influential thing that happened to me in London.”

Two Sex Pistols designs by Jamie Reid

Punk design was dominated by D.I.Y. (do it yourself) techniques, outrageous subject matter, collage, photocopied imagery, defaced images, and basically any technique that broke the rules or seized the viewer’s attention. Punk fanzines like Sniffin’ Glue empowered amateur designers and liberated audiences from the limitations of mainstream music media. Jamie Reid’s ‘ransom note’ typography for the Sex Pistols seemed to capture the spirit of the movement.

Elvis’ debut record; London Calling by The Clash

The cover of The Clash’s London Calling (1979) was partially based on the cover of Elvis Presley’s 1954 debut. The London Calling cover was designed by Ray Lowry with a photograph by Pennie Smith. The typography and colors of the two records are nearly identical, but Elvis is pictured playing his guitar while Clash bassist Paul Simonon is smashing his. The design pays mildly satirical homage to the Presley cover while signaling the change that London Calling represented in music: The Clash had come to destroy their audience’s perception of rock and roll.

Pentagram: London Roots, London Presence

This announcement for the merger of designers Fletcher, Forbes & Gill (1962) features split pages so that photos of the three men can be merged. A different incarnation of this design firm would become Pentagram in 1972

London Roots

Pentagram was formed in London in 1972. The studio began as Fletcher/Forbes/Gill, but after aquiring and losing several members, they tired of altering the name of the firm. Alan Fletcher chose the name Pentagram – a star with five points to symbolize the partners – after reading a book on witchcraft. The acclaimed design firm has since opened offices in New York, San Francisco, Austin and Berlin. Pentagram was the world’s first multidisciplinary studio; its partners work independently but share knowledge, experience, and the legacy of the brand name. The formation of this global organization in London seems to symbolize the city’s thirst for international ideas and its expansive creative curiosity.

A clever footwear advertisement by Fletcher/Forbes/Gill on the side of a bus

The Influential Career of Alan Fletcher

Two designs by Alan Fletcher: his logo for the Victoria & Albert museum (1989), and an illustration of a glass of wine from his classic design book, The Art of Looking Sideways

Graphic design legend Alan Fletcher was one of the founding members of Pentagram in London in 1972. One of the most influential designers in history, he was once called “the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation” by The Daily Telegraph. Fletcher had a gift for cleverness and simplicity. His illustration of a glass of wine (above) uses only the simplest shapes to convey form and perspective.

Pentagram at the London Design Festival 2009

Logo and identity of the 2009 London Design Festival, designed by Pentagram partner Domenic Lippa

Today, Pentagram’s influence is indelible and ubiquitious. The 2009 London Design Festival included identity and collateral materials designed by Pentagram partner Domenic Lippa as well as a ‘London Posters’ show curated in part by Mr. Lippa at the Victoria & Albert museum – an institution whose logo was designed by Alan Fletcher.

An Eye on the Future

A thorough exploration of the London art and design community in September 2009 has revealed a glimpse at what’s to come. Here is a look at the designers who are leading the way as well as the themes that emerge in their work.

‘London Posters’ at The London Design Festival 2009

Two posters from the ‘London Posters’ exhibit. Designs by Andy Altmann, Why Not Associates (left), and Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell, FUEL (right).

Some of the brightest talent in today’s London design community was on display at the ‘London Posters’ show in the London Design Festival. The show was curated by Domenic Lippa and Sir John Sorrell, Chairman of the London Design Festival. According to Mr.Lippa, the show was “a reflection of how our capital is seen by some of the country’s most renowned graphic designers… certain themes cropped up frequently – transport, location, structure, heritage and even love.”

Two posters from the ‘London Posters’ exhibit. Designs by Morag Myerscough, Studio Myerscough (left), and Jonathan Ellery, Browns.

Another element present in the work was the renowned dry British sense of humor. The poster by Morag Myerscough, Studio Myerscough (above left), reads, “London BORN London BRED until I DIE and then I’m DEAD.” Using stark photography and typography, the poster conveys London pride, playful morbidity, and a delight in language and rhyme.

London Goes Green

London hopes to lead the way to a more environmentally sound future. Lord Digby Jones of Birmingham remarked on the issue of climate change during a London event held by British Airways in September. “The answer to this issue is science,” he said, and went on to remark that leading economies of the world like the U.S. and the U.K. made their wealth while polluting the Earth, so we should lead on solving the problem.

Designers at the ‘Make Believe’ show presented by Goldsmiths, University of London sought innovative ways to approach environmental topics. Mina Papathanasiou proposed a structural system to build housing that would function “as a living organism, while re-using and recycling construction materials.” Among her innovations were roof tiles designed to collect rain water for redistribution throughout the housing structure.

Interactivity

Interactivity was another theme that emerged at the London Design Festival. Visitors at the Victoria & Albert museum were invited to draw ceramics and the results were put on display. Children visiting a boutique called Few and Far were invited to participate in a drawing competition affiliated with illustrator Christopher Brown. But the most exciting interactive element of the festival was Kioskiosk (pictured below), created by designer Wayne Hemingway.

Although Kioskiosk was featured in the ‘Supercontemporary’ show at the Design Museum, its main component is an actual shop where start-up designers sell their wares in a public venue. Hemingway’s goal was to encourage business growth by providing low-rent or free space to designers and entrepreneurs who face difficult economic times and high London rents. This project gives back to British design community by supporting its artists. It also provides an exciting new way for shoppers and art lovers to interact with featured participants like SonoDesign and The Arthouse. Kioskiosk is now on tour.

Seventeen British Artists and Designers You Should Know

This list has been assembled to inspire and inform. It is not an attempt to summarize the entirety of a nation’s visual arts. The selections range in their style, era, and cultural impact. A certain continuum of creativity is evident: Bacon had a profound influence on Hirst, Hockney extolls the virtues of Turner, and so on.

Francis Bacon

Irish-born painter Francis Bacon worked in London for much of his life and is known for his gruesome, nihilistic imagery. “I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them like a snail,” Bacon said of his work, “leaving a trail of the human presence and memory trace of the past events as the snail leaves its slime.”

FUEL

Two books designed and published by FUEL

Since 1991, graphic designers Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell have worked together as FUEL. The designers split their time between commercial work (album covers for The Thrills, film titles for Lost in Translation) and self-initiated projects like the publication of their own magazine. In an interview with the Design Museum, FUEL cite The Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia (on which they served as editors, designers, and publishers) as one of their favorite projects. The series of books serves as an ethnographic study and includes thousands of tattoos accumulated by author and former prison warden Danzig Baldaev.

Damien Hirst

Hirst’s installation piece The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (above) features a 13-foot tiger shark in a glass tank of formaldehyde. The piece shocked the London public during its first display (at the Saatchi Gallery in 1992) and launched Hirst to international fame. The piece is indicative of Hirst’s sense of morbid, outrageous humor.

John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais’ painting Ophelia (1851-52) is an example of the great British tradition of Shakespeare as subject matter for painting. Millais’ dedication to capturing every lush, vivid detail of the wooded scene was so intense that he sat painting by a stream in conditions of great discomfort for nearly five months. Ophelia is pictured holding flowers that she herself listed during her mad scene (Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5).

Edward Johnston

The logo and typeface of the London Underground were designed by Edward Johnston. The logo (or ’roundel’) has become something of an international symbol for London.

Calligrapher and typographer Edward Johnston is responsible for the logo and font that have graced the London Underground for almost a century. In 1915, Johnston was commissioned to design the font by Frank Pick, the first Chief Executive of London Transport. For his ultra-modern sans-serif font, Johnston looked to a few unlikely sources for inspiration: calligraphy and Classical Roman capitals. The influence of Roman typography is evident in the perfect circle of his capital ‘O’ and the square outline of his capital ‘M.’ The diamond-shaped dot (or ‘tittle’) above the lowercase ‘i’ and ‘j’ resembles the dots made on paper by a square-nibbed pen. The result is a font that has become an influential classic due to its modern nature and profound communicative power. Johnston is author of the revered design textbook Writing & Illuminating & Lettering.

J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) has been called “Britain’s greatest artist” by The Times and was even dubbed ‘the Shakespeare of landscape’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Turner’s gift for graceful light and sublime color helped him elevate the landscape to an artistic height that had previously been reserved for historical painting.

John Isaacs

Untitled (What Makes Certain), 1995

John Isaacs has shown work at London’s Saatchi Gallery along with other artists affiliated with the so-called ‘Young British Artists’ that included Damien Hirst in the 1990’s. Isaacs’ work suggests an insidious danger lying in wait just beneath the surface of conventional reality.

Bibliothèque

This gallery guide accompanied the Cold War Modern exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Bibliothèque designed the guide and other exhibition materials.

A glance through the portfolio of graphic design firm Bibliothèque reveals a consistency in the style and quality of their work. Although their clients vary from a manufacturer of electrical components to a company that makes mattresses for babies, Bibliothèque brings an austere simplicity to each project. Another unifying feature of their work is a keen understanding of color: many projects include a limited palette employed in bold compositions.

David Hockney

Pool With Two Figures, 1971

David Hockney is “the most enduring British artist” according to The Times. An important contributor to the Pop Art movement, Hockney is an artist known for painting, photography, printmaking, chain-smoking, and conspiracy theories. He was born and educated in England, but some of his most famous works depict the sunny, laid-back lifestyle that he experienced while living in California.

Chris Cunningham

Stills from Aphex Twin’s ‘Come to Daddy’ video, directed by Chris Cunningham

Chris Cunningham is a filmmaker, video artist, and photographer. The twisted, disturbing style of his music videos for Aphex Twin and Squarepusher have made the director infamous, although he claims to find his imagery more “silly” than scary. Robotics and anatomy emerge as themes in Cunningham’s work, and he often works in color palettes that are cold, muted, or spare. Cunningham’s recent experimental short film Rubber Johnny applies inane, childlike humor to spazzed-out scenes of a disabled mutant dancing in darkness. It’s a truly bizarre vision that is exciting for its sheer individuality.

William Blake

Plate 1 from Europe a Prophecy, 1824

According to Andrew Wilton’s Five Centuries of British Painting, William Blake was a “maverick rebel” best known for his historical paintings of narrative subjects from The Bible and Paradise Lost. Although he failed to attract many patrons during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a key figure in histories of both poetry and the visual arts. His work was motivated by grandiose creation myths and also by visions he claimed to have seen of Gods, angels, and other spirits throughout his life. To William Blake, the imagination was ‘the body of God.’

Gilbert & George

Existers, 1984

Since the 1960’s, the duo Gilbert & George have been producing provocative, ambitious work from London’s East End – their home and an area they consider a microcosm of the world at large. Their career has been a subversive exercise in branding; the artists incorporated themselves into their body of work as ‘living sculptures’ and thereby “sacrificed their individual identities to art,” according to the Tate Britain.

Lucian Freud

Girl with Roses, 1948

Lucian Freud was born to Jewish parents in Germany during the winter of 1922. Eleven years later, Lucian and his family moved to England in order to escape the rise of Nazism. The anxiety and despair of war and the Holocaust would inform some of the painter’s greatest works.

Girl with Roses (above) is a portrait imbued with fear and discomfort. The subject is the painter’s wife, Kitty, who clutches her roses so hard that she appears to have broken one. The sensation of the thorns in her grasp is almost palpable. Her enlarged eyes are wide pools of angst – what does she see that we cannot?

Airside

Airside’s logo for the Pop Art gallery at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery

Airside is a “creative agency working across the disciplines of graphic design, illustration, digital, interactive and moving image.” Airside co-founder Fred Deakin says, “we have a real pride in bouncing around different media.” In early 2009, Airside designed the identity for a Greenpeace initiative called Airplot. Airside shared some of their design process on their blog and the work was featured on notable design sites including Brand New and Logo Design Love.

Clare Leighton

Breadline, New York 1932

Clare Leighton devoted her life to the medium of wood engraving, cultivating a style of great detail and heavy contrast. Born in London, she later moved to America. In Breadline, New York, she captures the grim mood of depression-era Manhattan. The heavy contrast of light and dark mirrors the contrast between the anonymous poor and the shimmering metropolis that looms over them like an alien landscape.

The Vorticists

Cover of the first issue of Blast magazine, 1914

Vorticism formed in 1914, spurred partially in response to Futurism. The debut issue of Blast magazine shocked with its bold pink cover and huge, diagonally-set type. Along with publications from other groups, notably Fluxus, it is a precursor to the radical printing techniques and typographic experimentation of the punk ‘zine. Author Richard Hollis remarks in Graphic Design: A Concise History that the pages of Blast “exhanged symmetry for the consciously crude layout of popular advertisements,” thereby solidifying the Vorticists as the first in Britain to exploit typographic form at a time when “tradition remained the most powerful influence in Britian.”

William Morris

‘Bird’ textile design by William Morris, 1878

William Morris was a central figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement, which was led by artists and designers who romanticized personal crafstmanship while rejecting Victorian-era opulence and an age of mechanical reproduction ushered in by the Industrial Revolution. In 1861, Morris and several colleagues founded a prolific decorative arts firm that produced stained glass, metal work, printed paper, tapestries, decorative carvings, and more. Morris himself was a master of two-dimensional design and his work should prove inspirational to any contemporary graphic designer. In textiles like the one pictured above, Morris searched for the “force, purity, and elegance of the silhouette of the objects represented.” He also sought to return to the “crispness and abundance of beautiful detail which was the especial characteristic of fully developed Medieval Art.”

Further Resources

• Ways of Seeing
  The first episode of John Berger’s groundbreaking 1972 BBC television series about the perception of art.
• Alan Fletcher: fifty years of graphic work (and play)
  A biography of the designer and his career of accolades. Includes images.
• Video: History of Pentagram
  Current partners of the international design firm provide an oral history.
• Interview: Supermundane
  Interview with London artist Supermundane. Written by Dan Redding.
• J.M.W. Turner Online
  Learn more about the great British painter J.M.W. Turner online at Tate Britain.
• Hockney on Turner
  In this article, ‘The Turner surprise’ from The Times, David Hockney discusses his passion for the work of J.M.W. Turner.
• Pitchfork Interview: Chris Cunningham
  The music video director discusses his work, his goals, and working with Stanley Kubrick on A.I.

© Dan Redding for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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