It started with a tweet from a designer who showed his disdain for the new generation of web designers who can't even write any HTML code. His tweet grew into an explosion of replies, retweets, blogs, comments, and debate on this subject. Both sides chimed in speaking of how he's right and others on how he's wrong.

I myself subscribe to his beliefs. I can't imagine doing web design without the knowledge that I've amassed in coding and just simply "how things work". I've borne witness to many incidents where a lack of knowledge in code on the part of a designer has ended up making a project into a large mess.

With branding set and a new logo finalized, the next step of this project for Illusion Bar • Grill • Café is the website redesign. The venue has had two websites in the past which performed perfectly fine with regards to displaying information, but I personally felt they did not bode well in neither setting a firm branding of the restaurant nor being an effective marketing tool for the client.

I took the time to look over many websites of restaurants and bars, even coming across articles on mistakes made in designing such websites, and moved forward in how I always felt a restaurant website should function. Today we'll go through what I came up with and my logic in the final piece.

Despite that this site has existed for two years, a startup known as Pinterest has recently exploded into the spotlight of social media with what I like to call an "improved" or "different" way of looking at aggregated links.

I managed to get an invite to look at the site a week ago and initially had mixed reviews, but I do see great opportunities and uses for many out there. Originally I wanted to give this site a month before blogging, but too many are asking me what this site is all about and thus I offer this look.

The day has finally arrived. A day Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been teasing us with for years. He's finally opened up his company to an initial public offering (IPO) where anyone out there can buy stock in Facebook. Before this day, Zuckerberg would only have private stock sales to investors when he needed money. Unless you were a wealthy investor, you were left out.

Facebook's IPO was hearty, thus adding new members to the "1%" the news media talks about. Billions of dollars were collected in sales of stock, but already journalists are asking if this will be a sign of a new tech bubble.

I can't blame them. The last time we really saw tech companies blow up on the stock market was the dotcom era, which ended up in a crash a short period later. I could see why the speculation will happen, but this time I think it's different.

Now that we've defined the new branding of Illusion Bar • Grill • Café, a new logo would be the next order of business. It will also be a first for this business since it's not had a proper logo since opening ten years ago. I'm pretty sure they're not the first business to do that either.

Today I'm going to take you through my own process on how I like to design logos and share my own thought process on the logo I ended up designing for Illusion Bar • Grill • Café. I'm not sure if my process is the right way, but hopefully my experience here will help you grow in how you come up with logos for your clients. I also urge you to share any insight you have in the comments section.

A man in the ad industry that I highly respect once told me that branding is not just a logo. It's the recognition, feeling, and opinion the consumer carries when they hear of your company, product, or service. Think about when one says "Coca-Cola". Of course you'll recognize the name, and you might have a positive or negative opinion.

Branding is the often-misunderstood factor many small businesses overlook. They think a simple name and an "Open" sign is all they need. My own father even understood long ago that how consumers view your business is what will drive them to patronize you. It's why he used "Jason's" as the name of his business, because it sounded more "American" than his native-Greek name.