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What are the most popular web fonts in the world?

April 10, 2015 by Douglas Bonneville

popular-web-fonts

Update 1/2019: We shut down our tracking stats! Sorry to see it go, but we moved on to other projects!

We are tracking nearly 2000 of the most popular web fonts across 10,000 of the most visited websites ranked by Alexa. Head on over to Fonts of the World to see and explore the data, and click some examples to see what you are missing!

The data is very interesting. Arial has the lions share of usage. Will Arial be the most popular font…forever? And look at how widespread the usage of icon fonts has become: as of today, the fifth most popular web fonts in the world is an icon font.

Most popular web fonts usage trends: coming soon!

We are adding weekly data and trending charts so we can track web font usage over time. It will be fascinating to see what the data reveals as the weeks go by and the data piles up.

Stop by Fonts of the World, and don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter!

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Providence SEO: Dominate the Ocean State

April 6, 2015 by Douglas Bonneville

rhode-island-seo

We got involved with local SEO in Rhode Island back in 2004. We moved our freelance graphic design business from Columbus, Ohio, and needed to optimize our website to pick up local clients. Back in those ancient days of the web, it took very little to rank highly in the categories we wanted. Those were they days! Search engines have changed a lot since those halcyon days.

Our Providence SEO adventure

Years later we are still highly ranking for any term we need to for our graphic design blog, BonFX. Our media has sold at the top of it’s category for over 5 years. For instance, google “font combinations” and buy our book 🙂 Our Rhode Island design agencies post is still our most visited local, Rhode Island-optimized post. We have had thousands of visitors to that page, for years. That is not going to change any time soon. It’s safe to say  you need this kind of “web traffic” too.

More leads through website optimization

It’s very simple to get started using the form below or visiting us here, and we now offer this service to you as a part of our expanding web and design business based in Warwick. Our methods are simple, proven, and powerful! You can rank your local RI business, in most cases, very easily if you know what to do. And you need a real Providence SEO to pull it off.

And yes, you really do need the kind of traffic from being in the top 10 of the search engine results (watch our 30 second video: SEO RI).

Well, what do you do? You hire us, and get going to work for you. Our powerful domain software coupled with our exclusive trade methods can get just about any local business in on the first page of Google in a very short period of time. Each client is different, but the method is the same.

Yes, you are interested.

And what is the final question?

Do you have too many clients for your local business?

This is a problem you probably don’t have, right? Our job is to give you that problem, by getting positioning you as highly as possible through our proven methods.

Help us do our job for you!

Talk to us!

So please have a little chat with us. We invite you to look at how the process will work for your site.

 

Your Name (required - It's not "Buddy")

Your Email (required - e.g. "iggy@coffeemilk.com"

What is the top SEO Question burning in your mind? (0ptional - but it's not "Where do I get milk and bread?")

 

 

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Creativity, not Computer Savvy

November 27, 2014 by Douglas Bonneville

design quote jul 8

Today it is a challenge for designers to avoid being seduced by technology. As sophisticated as computer applications may be, they  are only tools for the creative mind. Truly successful designs begin with ideas and concepts. As you execute your designs on the computer, your knowledge of typography, combined with your trained eye and aesthetic judgment, will provide the path to the most creative solution.

-James Craig, Designing With Type

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Where to buy expired domains

October 16, 2014 by Douglas Bonneville

Where to buy expired domains

Simple: at our new sister site Oxbow Domains – the expired domain specialist!

If you need high-quality, no-spam expired domains for your PBN, SEO work, or affiliate sites, please check out Oxbow.

Logo, Branding, and Design

We had a blast working on the logo and branding for the site. The logo is a stylized ox bow, and references our crawler software, Ox.

The website is designed at and hosted by Squarespace, and uses their Pacific template. This is the first time we’ve used Squarespace Commerce and it is really an excellent product. Highly recommended.

Even if you aren’t on the market for expired domains (yes, it’s a niche market to say the least), do stop by and see how GREAT the design is, and how flexible Squarespace can be.

Explain in a few words, what are expired domains for?

Links from quality sites to your main website are the main factor in how Google ranks the quality of your site. If you can’t easily get natural, organic links back to your site, you can create a “network” of websites using domains from sites that themselves had a naturally strong set of links  pointing to them. If you acquire these domains, add new content, and generally make them look like “real” sites again, Google will allow the “link juice” from those reconstituted sites to flow down to your main site. So, if you collect a little set of these “expired domains” and fluff them back up, you can reap the benefit of the hard work of the previous owners, and Google’s ranking method is glad to help your main site that these “network” sites now point to! It’s a simple yet powerful concept that takes advantage of how Google works.

Filed Under: Graphic Design

3D Doodle Boxes video demo: Black Widow and Carrot Alien

September 20, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Do you wonder why people doodle 3d boxes? Don’t think too hard about it but do check out the video below to start doodling your own masterpieces!

Watch how the Black Widow and Carrot Alien are drawn in 3D Doodle Boxes available in the Mac App Store:

So there is 3D Doodle Blocks in action for today! Download it today!

Filed Under: Graphic Design

How to draw in 3D the easy way with 3D Doodle Boxes

August 30, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Update: 3D Doodle Boxes is now available in the Mac App Store. Free for a limited time! Try it today!

3d-doodle-boxes-logo-v02

3D Doodle Boxes will be available on the Mac App Store very soon. We’ve been working on this on and off for the last couple years as a labor of love. Now that it’s as fun and easy to use as we hoped, it’s ready for the world of doodlers to try it and have as much fun as we have had with it.

… [Read More]

Filed Under: Drawing, Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Obsession with Originality is a Trap

July 18, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

“Allowing influences into your work is one  of the ways that you expand your expressive range. Designers enrich their work — not diminish it — by looking for ways to ‘incorporate’ new and radical modes of expression into their work, especially from places outside contemporary design. Shutting out influences because of an obsession with ‘originality’ is a trap. But you have to be able to acknowledge the debt to your sources. Copyists never own up to it; the talented always do. That’s the difference.”

—Adrian Shaughnessy, How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul


Yo, Font-Addict! Make sure to check out The Big Book of Font Combinations. Go grab a copy from Amazon or B&N, or grab the DISCOUNTED ebook PDF digital download version (40% OFF the hardcover retail price!) from the BonFX Store, and stare at all 350+ examples of informative font combinations for web and print. You know you want to!


Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Is Originality an Absolute?

July 17, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Work of Julian House

“I don’t believe in originality as an absolute, I think it’s more to do with interesting twists on existing forms. Borrowing from the Modernist designers of the recent past, for instance, is not plagiarism; it’s more a continuation of the processes and ideas that they set in motion. I’m influenced by Polish poster art of the 1960’s, which was influenced by Pop Art and Surrealism, and which in turn appropriated commercial art, comic book art, cinema and Victorian engravings, etc. I think the key to whether it’s good or not lies in the viewer’s response to a piece of design. Do they say “I’ve seen it before” or, “I’ve seen it before but not in that way.”

—Julian House


Yo, Font-Addict! Make sure to check out The Big Book of Font Combinations. Go grab a copy from Amazon or B&N, or grab the DISCOUNTED ebook PDF digital download version (40% OFF the hardcover retail price!) from the BonFX Store, and stare at all 350+ examples of informative font combinations for web and print. You know you want to!


Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: The Delusional Quest for Originality

July 16, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

 Kota Kobayashi - Graphic Designer; James Kinney - Art Director/Copy Writer - New York, NY

“Most designers are untroubled by the notion of originality, but others are obsessed with it, and I see many problems caused by the delusional quest for originality. In my view originality is an overrated and misunderstood quality in contemporary graphic design. Copying is bad, no question. Infringing someone’s copyright for personal gain is immoral, not to mention illegal in most countries. But the only people who copy are the terminally second-rate and the downright dishonest, whereas the good designer freely borrows and adapts from sources in precisely the way artists have done for centuries. And furthermore, the good designer readily admits to this ‘appropriation.’ It is a quality of many good designers that their influences and sources are clearly visible and readily acknowledged.”

—Adrian Shaughnessy, How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul


Yo, Font-Addict! Make sure to check out The Big Book of Font Combinations. Go grab a copy from Amazon or B&N, or grab the DISCOUNTED ebook PDF digital download version (40% OFF the hardcover retail price!) from the BonFX Store, and stare at all 350+ examples of informative font combinations for web and print. You know you want to!


Filed Under: Graphic Design

Typography Quote of the Day: Typography as Invisible Art

June 21, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Design by: pentagram.com

“Typography is known as an invisible art, because if a typographer has done a good job and produced a page that flows and is ‘easy on the eye’, he has done his job and the reader doesn’t notice. A page that is badly designed will be difficult and irritating to read. Whether you are reading in the office for work, or at home for pleasure, and no matter how interesting the actual content , if a book is uncomfortable on the eye then the enjoyment of reading is spoiled.”

—Jim Williams, Type Matters!

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: The Grid System — an aid to personal style

June 6, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Works of Bachmann-

Le Corbusier

“The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.”

—Josef Muller-Brockmann

 

“I still reserve the right, at any time, to doubt the solutions furnished by the Modular, keeping intact my freedom, which must depend on my feelings rather than my reason.”

— Le Corbusier

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: The Graphic Design Process

June 4, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

work of Neville Brody

“The graphic design process—the search for visual concepts—has been compared to the running of a maze. In both cases the solution remains mysterious until the end of the exercise. From an established starting position, the designer works out a logical plan and follows it only to be turned back by the constraints encountered along the way. As in a maze, the designer continues the exploration through further applications of logic, some intuitive guesswork, and a certain amount of trial and error until the problem is solved.”

—Allen Hurlburt, The Design Concept

… [Read More]

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Allen Hurlburt on Visual Bombardment

June 3, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

June-2-graphic-design-quote

june-2-graphic-design-quote-2

“Throughout this century, there has been first a gradual and then an accelerated movement of communication patterns until today the public is virtually bombarded by printed and projected images until most of them become blurred andmeaningless. This burden of visual ideas places new demands on the designer for more knowledge and for a greater involvement in the planning and problem-solving aspects of communication. Whether he likes it or not, the contemporary art director must be at ease with editorial thinking, advertising objectives, market strategy, human response, and social responsibility—if  his layouts are to move from the egocentric boundaries of the drawing board to the excitement of the printed page.”

-Allen Hurlburt, Layout: The Design of the Printed Page

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Creativity a Blessing or Curse?

May 31, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Dave Carson

“Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle.  To some a blessing. To another a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea.

—Lou Dorfsman

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Devious Authenticity

May 11, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Photo by - katiew : www.flickr.com/photos/30744708@N00/320161805/

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it.”

—Jim Jarmusch

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Genius

May 10, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

Jacqueline Casey

“Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.”

—C.W. Ceram

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: Design with Intelligence

May 9, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

www.coroflot.com/shalini_krishnan/Typography

“There is no design without discipline. There is no discipline without intelligence. The life of a designer is a life of fight. Fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do is cure it somehow with design.”

-Massimo Vignelli

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Graphic Design Quote of the Day: The Successful Designer

May 7, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

culture-post

“…cultural awareness (you can call it research, if you like, but it’s really something larger) ranks higher than technical ability and academic qualifications in the designer’s portfolio of attributes. When the British writer lain Sinclair was asked if he did research for his books, he replied that his whole life was research. I can’t think of a better adage for the modern graphic designer. Without constantly scanning, scrutinizing and absorbing what goes on around you, you cannot become a successful designer.”

-Adrian Shaughnessy, How to be a Graphic Designer, Without Losing Your Soul

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Back to basics with typography

April 8, 2013 by Douglas Bonneville

typo book pile
So, Ms. BonFX is getting on board with graphic design blogging and a new focus on typography.  I’ve gathered some of the classic typography books and of course, my favorite coffee mug. I’ll be sure to recommend some great reads and resources along the way! Stay tuned…

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Gorgeous Random Color Scheme Gradient Generator for Photoshop

June 8, 2012 by Douglas Bonneville

Want some simply gorgeous random color scheme inspiration? This is the script for you!

I’m working on a new ebook about color combinations to be released later this year. Part of the work for that book entails some very cool Photoshop and Illustrator scripting. One of the scripts, the intriguing one I’m sharing with you today, takes four random colors and creates a stunningly beautiful gradient from them.

… [Read More]

Filed Under: Graphic Design

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Recent Inspirations

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