Fireworks, logos and polls

I have to thank The Buried Editor over at Buried in the Slush Pile for her use of luckypolls.com to create a short poll on her recent post Who Are You? I admit to not taking the poll, mostly because while I am a blogger and am still waiting, but not bitterly, for my first journal article to be published, I am not an author in the traditional sense of her blog. I did look closely at the cool little poll widget. Since I can be quite the widget slut - no need to clean it up, I sometimes need to call things as I see them - I was thinking most of the day, "How can I use this poll on a blog?"

Looking at this post, it seems I am also a bit of a comma queen. I digress.

I spent most of today working with Macromedia Fireworks (not version 8, I'm using Dreamweaver MX 2004 and whatever edition of Fireworks was part and parcel of the package) creating logos for the new resource center web site. Though definitely unfamiliar with the intricate workings of the software, I did manage to create four nice logo possibilities. For me it is necessary for to create the "pretty," visual, elements of logos, banners, buttons and the like, before moving on to the nuts and bolts. It saves massive amounts of time because I get carried away. Sort of like when doing PowerPoint, I can spend hours picking the right font, clip art, and slide template for a simple one hour presentation that takes me fifteen minutes to create accompanying content.

You know, content, the important part of any presentation.

I posted the four possibilities on my personal server space at work because it doesn't go through the staging server before displaying and so I can check how the logos look from home on my scary CRT monitor and see how long they take to display with my less than stellar dial up connection. I then began quizzing student workers, regular patrons in the resource center, a graduate assistant, and my boss, as to which one looked best. For sure I cannot choose one of the four because the boss told me portions of it resemble an eye exam chart. Unfortunately, at second glance it does indeed have that look. Hold the applause, it looks as if I have a winner. So, how does this relate to the polling?

As we were looking at the selection, there was a niggling thought in the back of my mind. How cool would it be to post these four logos on the collaborative professional blog and see if anyone in the amazingly small readership would take time to vote? Okay, okay, it also gives me a chance to play with the new technology toy. I admit to the weakness. I went to the web site, created a short poll, loaded the four logos on the blog, attached the poll, published, and was finished in a wonderfully short period of time. All I need now are a few opinions.

Tomorrow, buttons for the web site. Many buttons. Tonight, just a few more minutes until it is time for Grey's Anatomy.

Tags: Blog polls, Blog widgets, Buried in the Slush Pile, Web design, Luckypolls