For now the Todos badge has the background color of #f8f8f8 which is fine if there's 0 todos.
But if there's 1 or more todos available, that badge does not attracts attention to itself.
What if we change the background color of Todos badge, say, to orange (#e75e40) if there's 1 or more todos available?
@dbalexandre red is danger. If we were going to change the color it would have to be a blue (or something like that) as blue demands a primary action. I'll defer to @dzaporozhets. Your thoughts dz?
@jschatz1 according to colour - grey if zero, blue if 1+.
According to counter itself - its not clear what are those numbers. Just number "3" near logout button makes no sense to me. In design it was an icon instead of numbers. Like http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/icon/bell-o/. Since you already touch this subject can you improve it by adding icon to counter. Example:
@jschatz1 in future when left sidebar will be static and "Todo" with counter will always be visible in it - we can leave only icon and remove counter completely
@dzaporozhets I agree! Let's make it clear that these numbers apply to todos. I like your design. I just wanted to make sure it didn't take up too much vertical space!
Also I wanted to make sure that it draws attention. I made three mockups with three different colors. I think the orange draws the most attention but I think the green is the most positive. Your thoughts @dzaporozhets?
Here's some quick and dirty HTML and CSS as inline styles.
Aww shucks thanks @dzaporozhets. This is an easy one to knock out and get some UX brownie points for. Let's go for blue. This is the standard blue we use.