Every shopping cart has default checkout process graphics (the “cart – checkout – receipt” icons at the top of the page during the checkout process) and there are literally bazillions of free icons available all over the interwebs for those who want to customize the process a little.  However, there is a certain type of compulsive design nerd for whom that simply isn’t enough.  For those poor souls, every element of every site must be designed from scratch.  That compulsive attention to detail is exactly what we look for in a designer and our clients get to reap the benefits.

Take, for instance, the graphic you see above.  Created for Flanigan Farms (purveyors of fruit and nuts), it isn’t anything you could ever hope to find on a stock icon site.  Its non-literal interpretation of the order process is a lovely bit of storytelling and it’s exactly the kind of thing that makes a custom site so compelling.

While on the one hand, this post is most certainly an endorsement of (and advertisement for) our creative services, it’s also intended to point out that in the competitive eCommerce marketplace, you have to exploit every opportunity you have to reinforce your brand.  In the end, when placed head to head with your competition, your brand is your strongest weapon.  If people connect with you, they’re likelier to buy from you.  Don’t squander any opportunity to distinguish yourself from the other guys.

See more great examples after the jump…

Airsoft Atlanta

Filing Supplies

Leland Tea

Southern Belle

Xoopii

Aiken’s Airplanes

Born On Earth

Shop Fuego

Model Roundup

Soigne

Tattoo U Direct

Verde Lifestyles

Windblue Power

BTTF.net

In every case shown above, the icons match the look and feel of the store so that the shopping experience remains consistent from beginning to end.  Good design contributes to brand credibility.  Brand credibility contributes to consumer confidence.  Consumer confidence contributes to conversions.  Ergo, good design = increased sales.  We totally proved it right there.

Our founders spent some time at the recent Internet Retailers Conference and Exhibition in Chicago, and a good portion of that time was spent in the company of our bestest friends at Volusion.  Here you’ll see Volusion’s video recap of the event and starting at about 1:22 you can see Dane and Kevin (from left to right) talking about the future of eCommerce.  Their answer is pretty lengthy just because it would be rude to say, “The future of eCommerce is Brand Labs,” before throwing some gang signs and walking off camera (which was the original plan).

(via Volusion)

We’ve been doing store locators for clients for some time, but every once in a while we feel compelled to remind you of the many, many ways we can alter your Volusion store to suit your particular needs.  In this latest case, BulletProofDiesel.com came to us with an existing Volusion store, but no good way to tell their online clients where they could have their products installed locally.  That’s where our Volusion store locator implementation came in.  Now, anyone browsing their online store will be easily able to pinpoint a local vendor, helping to seal the conversion and creating a brand new satisfied customer.  It’s just that easy.

Contact us if you’re interested in a store locator for your Volusion site!  We’ll be happy to help.

That’s not to say that some good old traditional logo design skills aren’t called for.  Take the logo at the top of the post, for instance.  It would be right at home on the barrel of a pen (or on a t-shirt or billboard) but it also has all of the elements you expect in an eCommerce logo.  First, it’s horizontal.  That’s not a requirement, of course, but since vertical space is much more valuable than horizontal in web design, you’ll find that the lion’s share of eCommerce logos are wider than they are tall.  (There are always exceptions…)  Second, it’s a quick read, both literally and figuratively.  Not only can you read the copy, but the color palette and the stylized blades of grass give you a pretty good idea of what you’ll find on the site.  Finally, it’s not challenging.  In a lot of “best of” logo lists, you’ll find that the ability to hide the intent of the logo so that the viewer has to figure it out is a highly prized characteristic.  If one has to look at a logo for a minute to “get it” designers go crazy patting each other on the back for their mutual cleverness.  We love that stuff, too, but much of it simply isn’t practical for eCommerce.  (There are always exceptions…)

Continue reading and see the rest of the logos after the jump…

Here you have prime examples of all of the points we just made.  Horizontal.  Quick Read.  Literal (word balloons for “social”, juicy colors for “juice”).

… and here’s a fine example of how you can cut loose when you don’t have to concern yourself with limited color palettes or a wide range of sizes.  In the old days (when print ruled the land) this could never have been considered a logo.  In the world of eCommerce, perhaps even more than on the rest of the interwebs logos could often be more accurately described as illustrations, again, simply because it may never appear anywhere but in the header.

And at the other end of the scale, this one is a rule breaker, but with good reason.  Not horizontal.  Not a quick read, but in this case the logo was intended for use not only on the website, but also on a line of MMA-related clothing.  The square-ish shape lends itself to sleeve prints and hang tags and the single color allows it to be reproduced cheaply where screenprinting is involved.

Shifting now from rule-breaking to strict adhesion to every rule, here we have a rather elegant execution of a literal interpretation of the store’s name – also appropriately horizontal.

… another rule-follower, but this one has a bit of fun in its reference to cigar band design.  It’s literal, but not in an obvious way.

Another rule-breaker… though it does have an element of (misleading) literalism in that it clearly gives the impression that there’s a real-world, brick and mortar Loft 816 out there somewhere (there isn’t).

This one’s as literal as they come and an excellent example of how a web designer can use a more illustrative approach, knowing the logo is intended for limited use.

A perfect example of a web-only logo.  With all of the textures and lighting effects on this one, you sure wouldn’t want to print this one in limited color.  This one is far less literal – choosing to eschew airsoft-specific imagery in favor of a videogame-esque approach.

A more traditional approach, mixing literal and interpretive, as the swash becomes both a symbolic “spray” as well as a capital “B”.  The nice thing about this one is that the B swash is so prominent that even though it’s a common design element, once the logo is in common usage, it could be simplified to eliminate all of the other elements.  This is a logo that comes with its own evolution built in.

Simple enough, but without having to explain it here, we’re relatively sure that you already know that Browns Trading Company is located in the southwest and that they specialize in turquoise jewelry.  That simplicity, was (of course) not simple to achieve, but the speed with which the final design communicates that message makes the effort worthwhile.

Here’s an example of an element of eCommerce logo design that we’ve failed to mention until now.  The fact that many online stores cater to a very specific clientele allows for the use of a more obscure visual language.  In this case, the site in question sells metal clay supplies and specifically, the stamps and molds used in the jewelry-making process, making the symbols above the type immediately recognizable to the target audience.

Since the name of this particular site leaves no doubts about its contents, this one only needed to be playful and girly.  Done and done.

This one’s a nice example of a logo that can work anywhere, not just for eCommerce.  Sure it’s simple… but it’s elegant in its simplicity.  The chosen font harkens back to the west coast hippie culture that spawned the hemp movement, but the color palette makes it contemporary.  Further, the afore-mentioned elegance makes it clear that this isn’t a brand for pot-smoking edge-dwellers.  It’s refined, but comfortable.

Our final entry here is a prime example of all of the best practices suggested above.  It’s horizontal.  It’s relatively literal (in that the decorative elements above the type are suggestive of a garden gate).  It’s a quick read.  However, in this case it also shares some best practices with traditional logo design.  Its limited color palette and simplicity of design would allow it to translate to any media without alteration.  Its readability would allow it to be shrunk to a fraction of an inch without muddling the content.  Further, the elegance of the type, combined with the unrefined nature of the decorative elements speak directly to this client’s nature and the identity of his business.  It’s classy, but accessible.

In case it hasn’t been clear up until this point, the reason that there’s no attribution for any of these logos is that they were all designed by Brand Labs, so you can see this post one of two ways… either this whole thing was a big, long advertisement for our logo design services or it was a genuine attempt to pass along a little bit of insight to allow those who are working on their own designs to achieve better results.  In all honesty, it’s a bit of both.  Sure, we want your business.  We truly enjoy making new logos and stores and we’re the best Volusion designers in the biz (that’s right – we said it), but it’s also true that bad design makes our eyes sad, so we’re on a crusade to help the interwebs look better even if we can’t profit in the process.  We’re self-serving crusaders for better interweb design.

Enjoy!

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Attendance for the conference was up significantly over last year and the prevailing tone was overwhelmingly optimistic, as eCommerce continues to assert its critical position in the world of consumer retail operations as a whole.  The obvious buzzword (or buzzphrase, if you will) was mobile commerce, and as the first developers of a mobile Volusion platform, we weren’t surprised one little bit.  Hit the jump to see a few pics of Brand Labs with all the party people…

Our fearless leaders, Kevin Harman and Dane Downer at the Stamps.com/Volusion mixer

Here we have Paul Goldman, CEO of Juiced Hybrids, Adelle Rodriguez from Volusion's marketing department with our perpetually smiling leader, Kevin

Finally, (clockwise from the left) there's our own Dane Downer with Andy Humphrey from EcoMowers.com, Mac Harman (no relation to our prez) from Balsam Hill, and (once again) Adelle Rodriguez from Volusion

We recently completed an iShop USA integration for Sorella Jewelry’s Volusion store (shown in the lower right corner of the screenshot).  For those who don’t know, iShop USA is a remarkable service that allows any retailer to sell their products worldwide without having to concern themselves with all of the pesky details involved in such a transaction: customs paperwork, international shipping and returns, currency conversion… all part of the integration.  It’s like a dream for online retailers, allowing you access to potential customers all over the world, with one little hitch – it doesn’t integrate natively with Volusion.  We can fix that.

With our integration, your international clients will have a nearly seamless shopping experience and you won’t have to learn a thing about exporting, currency exchange or international shipping.  With one move you can expand your potential client base from 300 million to 6 and a half billion.  That’s billion with a “b“.  So, if you’re interested in having about a gazillion more customers, it’s something to consider and we can help.

Also, it pays to remember that we can do pretty much anything you’d like to do with your Volusion store.  Just ask…

If you follow this link to our knowledgebase, you’ll find an excellent tutorial on just how to… ummmm… er… well… how about if I just give you a little quote that explains the whole thing.  From the article:

“Sometimes you need to make changes to many of your Volusion store’s products. Volusion’s Bulk Updates capability is great, but when you have a large number of products or lots of changes to make, even this may be cumbersome.

The solution is to export the products to your computer, make your changes in a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel, and then import your products back into Volusion. Volusion covers importing and exporting quite well, so the purpose of this article is to expand on what is possible with import/export in Volusion.”

We couldn’t have said it any better.  Hit the link to read the whole article…

If you’d like to set something up, you can email Dane at dane.downer@brandlabs.us or Kevin at kevin.harman@brandlabs.us, or just look for these happy, smiling faces on the show floor (Dane’s on the left, Kevin on the right).  They’re prepared at all times to drop some eCommerce knowledge.

Word.

Our recently adopted charity, One Laptop Per Child, has just announced that they intend to debut an early-stage prototype of the XO-3 laptop at CES 2011.  This prototype touchscreen tablet will likely have a glass screen for testing in less harsh environments, on their way to the ultimate goal of an all-plastic, nearly indestructible final product with a dual-mode display, appropriate for use in direct sunlight or indoor environments.

The new tablet looks pretty damn sweet, but we’re still in love with our little XO-1.5.  On the other hand, if the OLPC folks are able to hit their target cost of $75 as opposed to the $199 for the current model, we’ll be able to change the name of our charitable effort to “One Laptop Per Child Every Three Days”.  Not quite as catchy, but we don’t think the kids will mind.

(via IT World)