Branding is an important consideration for any business, whether you’re an established firm or a rapidly growing start-up. You may want to think twice about DIY-ing your brand development, though. Here’s why: Continue Reading
We’re so excited! (And we just can’t hide it.) Last week, our crew attended the 2018 ADDY Awards, hosted by AAF Polk County at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland.
An annual event to honor excellence in advertising, The ADDYs offer local industry pros an opportunity to get our fancy on and celebrate the area’s raddest creative work.
With the exception of the unnerving “MUST BE BORN BEFORE 1997” sign posted at each bar, this year’s totally awesome theme brought us back to a time when shoulder pads, teased-to-high-hell hair and Tom Cruise were all perfectly normal. Gotta love the 80s. Continue Reading
It’s a tempting proposition. For a few minutes of your time and a couple hundred dollars or less, you can have a new logo delivered to your inbox at Amazon Prime speeds. The commoditization of design—and, let’s face it, most services in our industry—is everywhere. As a graphic designer, I’m often asked, “But really, what’s the difference?”
It’s depth. Continue Reading
I’m not quite sure when or how it happened, but somehow December is drawing to a close and 2018 is right around the corner. Before we take a break from Santa’s ad shop to spend some quality time with our families, I’d like to thank our wonderful clients for giving us the opportunity to make a living doing what we love (and perhaps, more importantly, for helping ensure that we still love doing it when the work day is through). Continue Reading
The situation: You need headshots for your website, but you’re out of budget and too pressed for time to hire a professional photographer. Hey, it happens. Although you’re always going to get the best results from a professional, taking the DIY route is better than foregoing photography altogether—for digital applications. (We’re bound by our Hippocratic design oath to tell you that this is a no good, terrible, very bad idea for print.) All you need is your iPhone and a basic understanding of the do’s and don’ts of portrait photography, which, lucky for you, this post is all about. Continue Reading
Whether you’re a designer or a developer, working in an agency boils down to solving problems. (How can we get people to buy more? Click more? Share more? You get the idea.) Ideally, this is a two-step process:
- Define the problem.
- Solve the problem.
Seems straightforward enough, but does it always happen like that? Not by a long shot. Continue Reading
Consistency is crucial to the health and success of any brand. But maintaining a consistent brand presence can be a major challenge, especially when you’re working with a large team or collaborating with partners outside of your organization.
Without an internal reference point for your brand, discrepancies and confusion become inevitable, and that can seriously affect how your customers see you*. On top of that, if you constantly have to clarify what’s “on-brand,” you’re really wasting a lot of time and not arming your team with the tools they need to do their best work.
*Life Pro Tip: There’s nothing wrong with trying new things, but don’t be that guy trying to bring back frosted tips in 2017. It’s not gonna happen. Continue Reading
Marketing is not like throwing a birthday party in first grade. So hold back on that value pack of Lisa Frank invitations, because you won’t be including the entire class.
But.but.but. Why wouldn’t I want to cast a wide net? I could be missing out on a potential sale, and that feeling would be worse than realizing you left the freezer door open and all the ice cream has melted. Continue Reading
Garbage in, garbage out.
In everything from mathematical computations to creative endeavors, the output is largely influenced by the input. For marketing projects, that means the energy invested and the quality of details collected at the very beginning of a project will directly affect the entire project lifecycle and ultimately, the end result. Continue Reading
Dear fellow development aficionado: Is your body wracked with anxiety over a new web or mobile app that’s got a tight budget, a tight schedule, or both? Does the idea of taking a deep dive into some jQuery spaghetti code make you want to leave it all behind and restart your life in rural Appalachia?
Take a deep breath, put down the industrial-strength muscle relaxer because—and I never thought I’d say this—all of your problems have already been solved by Facebook.
So light some candles and put on the Luther Vandross, because I’m going to introduce you to the new love of your life: the React framework. Continue Reading