So as a company that does a ton of e-commerce, we tend to be using Authorize.NET to do online credit card processing.
Recently, we had quite an ordeal trying to figure out a seemingly simple issue.

The Problem : We had the PHP Class sending the transactions to Authorize.NET and every time it was returning a Decline.

The Error : Transaction Status:  General Error (Request rejected by FDC omaha – Invalid merchant number) ( The Error Code is 205)

The Solution : This is not a developer issue! HA! Wish I had known that 3 hours before we figured it out. This means that the Payment Processor for Authorize.NET is telling them that there information and active status on your client does not match the information Authorize has or that they are not set to active status.

I hope this helps other developers out.

Regards

What can branding do? Sell you 6 of these for a ton of money.

I came across this amazing branding of a product while having tea with my grandmother.

The package was a gift to her , it came with six (6) tea bags.  It is black tea with a smidgen of jasmine green tea.

Its decent, had a good taste. I enjoyed it, but then again I enjoy the black tea from Target, in which a I paid $1.50 for 100 tea bags.

Our delicious 6 bag black tea escapade? Apparently, $48.00.

Its pretty cool, that packaging can add so much value to a solid product.
The tea is not bad by any means, it tastes great, but it went from $3.00 for a pound to $48.00 great. (Thats 8 bucks per bag).

Check out Tea Forte. Their strap line even says it, “Extraordinary Tea. Enchanting Presentation.”
It goes to show you, the battle is partly having a good product and the other part making sure your customer psychologically sees your product as high class.

This chart is funny, because its actually quite accurate.

I wanted to make a quick post for other web developers to enjoy it.
Also for non web developers to understand why most of us really hate IE, its nothing personal, it just makes our job harder and forces any work we do to take 3 times longer.

…Okay, I guess making our job harder and more frustrating makes it personal.

Welcome to zen office, kinda.

In an effort, to make the office even more pleasant and productive, we are beginning phase 1 of a new decorating motif and improvements. This is in preparation for new staff coming in ( who will be enjoy the new space in the back), and to achieve an overall more productive space.We also got a few Bonsai trees and some spa looking rocks, which are surprisingly low cost and cool looking. We will be putting in more awesome stuff, hanging new art and some fun stuff.

Still much improvement to be made, but its still feeling good.

Currently, these is just our back offices, more updates on the lobby, front offices and conference room improvements coming soon.

Now, Obama has released to new logos for other government initiatives the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act  and DOT’s TIGER plan :

I am actually not a huge fan of the TIGER one (U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery)  but, Obama understands that design is essential to positioning an idea successfully  in consumers minds or in this case, the minds of the American populous.

The logos were designed by Mode Project

Normally, I am pretty chill about magazines when reporting on subjects they do not understand. But, I feel like I need to comment on this article by Forbes, because

a) Forbes is a respected (and well branded) magazine.

b) They seem to have missed the point, since they take advantage of such creative services themselves!

I first saw this on David Airey’s  blog, a fantastic logo designer in his own right.  I am reiterating a lot of what he posted and most of the design community agrees with.

Essentially, this is not a new problem. Speculative work has been an issue in the design industry for sometime. see the NO!SPEC movement.

Forbes has posted a poorly researched and unbalanced look at the subject.  Are we supposed to be okay, with people telling us that design and development is easy and that anyone can do it? As many have said similarly, having Microsoft Word does not make you a writer anymore than having Photoshop makes you a designer. The design business is an industry that requires expertise and skill to excel in, and it is highly valuable. Why is it ridiculous to ask a fair price for it?

Look at Forbes themselves, I guarantee that did not get their brand, commercials, and website for a couple hundred dollars or before they signed a contract and retainer. It’s almost a double standard.

This article states that

“Now if you live in India or Peoria you can buy a computer and sophisticated software for a little bit of money and compete with big agencies–and they don’t like that.”

That’s amazing, I would love to know how you can get sophisticated design software for “a little bit of money”.

We are not a “big agency”, but I can tell you that I don’t like it either. CrowdSpring is based on the concept of essentially hundreds of designers working and 1 getting paid.  I apologize, agencies like us are definitley at a disadvantage because we pay our designers for their work.

I am mostly reiterating posts made by the design community but I think it is important that people realize that this is not an acceptable way to do business.

Here is a great post on the Logo Factory’s blog

Allow me to start with the main title. The text is a slight variant on Alternate Gothic/ Futura Condensed with the subtitle in a Caslon or Garamond. At first glance, the texture on the main title is a bit sloppy and uncontrolled; it does not really convey what it is supposed to be.  I also, feel like the abrasive red lens flare was shoe-horned into the bowl of the “O” in “Lost”, it creates an uncomfortable tangent and the overall inner padding is cluttered; which makes it harder to read. I can see the thought behind it, but It seems like the designer had the idea, but did not dedicate the craft and time needed to execute it in a solid manner. The subtitle feels thrown in; there seems to be no consideration for the spacing or alignment, and the serif all caps seems like a nonsensical choice, given the subtitle’s content and the game’s theme.

Next, we can see the cliche A(“V”) as I like to call it. This is generally a fallback for less experienced designers; essentially an easy way to imply futuristic themes or content, I believe Capcom’s design team/or designer are above this sort of convention. Many great logos and distinct marks are great because the convey abstract or themes with little associative imagery with quirkiness, distinction and originality. Even though the red line completes the bridge of the “A”, it does not read properly and feels more like an accident than a design decision. Based on where the lens flare line hits on the ascenders of the other letters, it leads me to believe that every letter was inconvenienced in terms of layout and tangent for the sake of the “A”.

I believe, the only thing that is somewhat successful is the planet shape itself. However, I think the designer simply needed to but more time into creating the contour of the planet, because when you look at it, it feels like a blue half moon, not an eclipsed frozen planet. Plus, the tangent with the planet to the “S” seems more like a mistake than an intentional call.

To me, It just feels somewhat bland and uninteresting in comparison to some other rather well done and distinct logos by Capcom.  In my mind, Capcom has always created
some of the most memorable and appealing marks for game franchises and releases. Look below, and many of you will recognize and remember these games without even actually reading the logo.

Capcom has never had to rely on using crazy or busy typefaces; many of their logos
use classic typefaces that we all love. So, it disappointed me that Lost Planet’s logo was so uninteresting and forgettable…

True to their reputation, Capcom has restored much of my confidence in their logo designers. Behold, Lost Planet 2 comes with a new logo, not a huge deviation from the previous.
Its actually quite  subtle. But, subtle makes all the difference, I believe this new logo falls right alongside the rest of their distinct and memorable games (the game looks excellent as well.)

Lost Planet 2 New Logo!

Gorgeous.
Notice, in the type the designer has removed that goofy and cliche A(“V”) shape and replaced it with an aligned, properly kerned type setting. The alignment is controlled and intentional. Notice, the top descender on the “2″ aligns with the top of the “T” and the bottom of the “2″ draws a comfortable parallel with the thin lens flare line.

The new metallic texture is smooth , more delicate and controlled. What do I mean by controlled?
Well, notice how it has subtle outlines, implication of shadow, and the reflection and light makes sense. It creates a nice dimensionality that was not present in the previous logo.
This also allows the type to have solid contrast, making extremely readable and effective.

The planet silhouette shape is much more elegant, it uses the orange color to imply heat and the planet shape without using a generic looking clunky blue beveled edge. It’s great, it reads immediately as a planet, not a moon or a crecent shape.

Lastly, the lens flare is a subtle alignment through the middle, it creates a slight symmetry, it doesn’t smash you in the face with a hard circle forced into the O’s bowl or a hard red line that throws off the contrast. Instead, the lens flare line is thin and unobtrusive, and is aligned beautifully to the bridges throughout the title text, not just to the “A”.

Overall, the entire logo is much more subtle, elegant and appealing. However, I think the change in type and alignment considerations did most of the heavy lifting here.

Nice Capcom, very nice.

Google Advises Users to Drop IE6

With Google and MobileMe officially dropping support for IE6 and now commanding only a 19% market share and dropping fast.
Anthem has decided to also officially drop direct support for Internet Explorer 6 for our websites. However, we still support it when our client’s
target demographic calls for it and also within portals and intranets.

It has an eight year run, but I think its time. With barely any PNG support, support for CSS 1.0 and consistent Javascript rendering errors IE6 is a bit outdated.
This will simply make web development one browser easier.

As a note, Anthem currently builds our websites to work flawlessly in Internet Explorer 7 and 8 Beta2, Firefox 2 and 3 , Safari 3, Opera 9 , and Google Chrome.

And we now officially remove Internet Explorer 6 from that list.

This is the Anthem Blog. The Anthem Groups is a game and website design firm, we wanted to share our fun, failures, successes, breakthroughs, and goofiness with the world. Plus, some of it is interesting…

If you are considering hiring Anthem, we invite you to look around our blog and get to know us, because we want to get to know you.

You can check back here, subscribe to our RSS feeds, or even subscribe to Text message updates for recipes on good food, cool experiments we are doing with Flash, AJAX, PHP, etc, Fun stuff from around the office, cool new (Non Confidential) Projects, cool art, bad art, good art, video games and the creative antics we get ourselves into.

The blog catalogs the culture and approach of Anthem and our love for what we do.

Thanks for stopping by and:
Enjoy.