Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
We definitely aren’t about tooting our own horn, but sometimes you have to gush. I am so very proud of the team we’ve assembled here at CNP over the last 22 years, and much of their hard work was recognized at last Saturday’s Polk County Advertising Federation’s 2013 ADDY Awards.
The theme of the ADDY Awards this year was “Design a Brighter Tomorrow” and with my creative family here at CNP, I know that’s what we’ll be doing for some time to come! Each project is a labor of love and we are grateful for the opportunity our clients give us to work on these amazing projects.
It was one of the greatest prop failures in movie-making history.
During the production of the movie Jaws, “Bruce” the costly, pneumatically powered mechanical shark, never worked as designed.
Unfortunately, Bruce was slated to appear in almost every attack scene. Malfunctions happened routinely. The studio almost shut down production because Bruce became such a pain.
With the exception of the final few minutes of the movie, director Steven Spielberg mostly abandoned Bruce and reverted to the classic Hitchcock approach: the power of suggestion. Continue Reading
A group from CNP invaded the AMF Lanes in Lakeland as part of MIDFLORIDA Credit Union’s “Blast Off! Bowl-A-Thon,” a bowling fundraiser of galactic proportions. The event was a gathering of MIDFLORIDA employees and friends all throughout Central Florida to raise money for Junior Achievement of West Central Florida. Anne’s getting some warm-up throws in while Taylor, Chris & Alex are taking bets on whether or not I’m about to get whacked in the head with a bowling ball while taking the photo.
The most truthful part of a newspaper is the advertisements.
I consult with clients everyday who are locally known as thought leaders in their industries - the best of breed. They regularly speak at community functions and industry conferences, sponsor fundraisers, and are quoted as experts in state-wide and national publications. They’re the type of people who actually are, really really good at what they do.
Enter Google.
All too often, I hear how they’re frustrated that when they try to find themselves online, a far-less-qualified competitor comes up ahead of them … or worse yet, they’re nowhere to be seen. The Internet can be a cruel place, and it happens to all types of businesses: I’ve heard the same thing from hotel owners to restauranteurs to business attorneys to healthcare privacy consultants.
The sad reality is that Google has absolutely no idea who you are in the real world (though, for a lot of very different reasons, that’s probably a good thing). It infers who is the best (and therefore #1 ranked) by your activities across the Internet – your website or blog, presence on social media, listings and reviews on third-party sites, and who’s talking about you (and linking to your website).
I wanted to share SEOMoz’s Whiteboard Friday last week, because it’s right on the money on a variety of user experience (UX) myths that a lot of web masters still blindly follow at their peril. At CNP, we never sacrifice UX for the benefit of SEO and, as time goes on, we’re finding that this conflict comes up less and less as search engines evolve.
The best way to address both concerns on your website is to never blindly follow a set of “rules,” because by the time you learn a set of rules to follow, most of them are defunct, debunked and can actually hurt your domain over time. Instead, look at the data, do some tests and use common sense.
As a rule, interaction design should be something you look at for what it is in its own right, not what it is associated with.
This struck me as wonderful. Perhaps because of the collision of both sides of the brain, with structure and organization causing beautiful art.
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.