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Comment by gav | Hacker News Reader

It's also a landing page vs. a website. I can see why it would make a difference in this case, but it's not really general purpose advice.

Having a logo in the top left that links to the homepage is common enough that people expect it. A good example of something that's counterintuitive is the blog post itself; it's really not obvious without hunting for it that the text "fellow." on the top right goes home.

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I tried to indicate your first point in the post:

> But for small startups like mine, ...

> Brand awareness doesn’t exist if your customers number in the hundreds.

I think it's clear that I'm talking about landing pages for a certain type and size of business, and not all websites in general.

Also, thanks for the suggestion about the blog theme. I hacked that together really quickly, and it could use some improvements.

Edit: formatting.

I don't think it really matters how many customers you have. Your goal isn't to build brand awareness at this point, it's to get the visitor to provide their email.

It's a great example of a landing page that clearly lays out the problem and solution. I especially like the dark on light/light on dark transitions.

Yes, the real rule here is 'breaking the rules for a landing page. The author hasn't noted that his site is a one page site. I suspect that when he adds any extra pages the logo will appear back at the top again. Actually, I'd argue that a number of designers know that landing pages are not standard site pages. I certainly always design a content page to figure out the general structure and expect landing pages—particularly the home page—to potentially break these rules as their goals are different (by the time you end up on a content page, you are usually looking for specific information).

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