Announcements...

Good morning all,

We have an announcement to make to you all today. As of this week, we'll be taking a short break in order to make Lovers'.TIF as awesome as it can be for everyone! We'll be hitting your screens again in January with a whole load of new content and features, we're working really hard to develop them as we speak.

We hope you can bare with us during this time, we promise it will be worth it! In the meantime, have an epic Holiday Season, we'll be here to nurse your hangover in the New Year. 

Thanks so much for your continued support, we can't wait to share our new ideas with you!!

See you in 2014! 

James & Svea xo

On making the jump from Student to Professional

I first realised that I was a fully fledged Graphic Designer on my future sister-in-law's hen night. We were at a bar in Manchester just over two years ago and someone asked me what I did for a living. this was the first time that the sentence "I'm a Graphic Designer" had left my mouth. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, and truth be told I felt like a phoney for saying it. I spent a lot of time within those first few weeks of starting my job trying out those words and figuring out what they meant. Mostly, they seemed to mean that people assumed I know what I was doing at any given time, which was worrying because I mostly felt that I was winging it.

I'm not sure at what point graduates turn into designers. I think it fluctuates for everyone. For me, I'm pretty sure that it didn't happen until some point around the one year mark after graduation. Definitely for that first year of working I was still learning and growing. I'm still learning, I learn every day, but the first year especially stands out as a time when I was constantly being exposed to things that uni just couldn't have prepared me for. 

I count my first year of work as a fourth year of education. My degree didn't include a year of work like some do, so I was absolutely learning on the job. 

The jump from student to professional happened very gradually for me. There wasn't really a eureka moment, it's been a process of learning and doing. I think the only difference between myself now and myself two years ago is that I'm better at coping with stress (but I think some would disagree with me there!) and that I feel more prepared to handle what comes my way. I'm not sure that this makes me a 'real designer' or whether I'm still a bit of a pretender. I'm enjoying the process though. 

Svea xo

Announcing your winner

When Facebook updated their promotion guidelines recently, they casually removed the rule that stated brands could not contact promotion winners on Facebook via status updates, private messages, chat, etc. This rule was kind of a hassle, especially for businesses with multiple promotion winners to notify, so pretty much everyone we know was glad to see it go. With this rule no longer in existence, some of our users have asked: What’s the best way to contact contest winners now? In this post, we cover not one, but five great and totally legal ways to contact Facebook promotion winners.

// Post a status update
One simple way to contact promotion winners is to create a post on your Timeline and announce your winners in it. For example, the post would read: “Congrats [Winner Name]! You’ve won our awesome prize. To claim it, email us at ‘Contest@yourcompany.com.’ You have 48 hours to claim your prize. We will choose another winner if we don’t hear from you by then.” FYI: Facebook does not allow businesses to tag users in a status update, even if they have liked the Page. That said, a status update is a great way to announce your promotion winner, but it is not the best way to contact them as it is impossible to ensure that your contest winners will see your post.

// Notify winners in the comment stream 
If you host a Timeline promotion, the most effective way to contact your promotion winners is in the comment stream using their @name. One stipulation: Your contest winner(s) must have commented on your Timeline promotion post in order for your business to “@” reply to them. Therefore, in order for this to be an option, host a Comment or Comment and Like to enter Timeline promotion.

// Require users to submit their email addresses 
If you don’t like the idea of contacting your promotion winners on Facebook through a status update, require entrants to visit an app to enter their email addresses so that your business can contact your winners via email. If your business is adamant about collecting the email addresses of your promotion entrants, be sure to include in your contest rules that only entrants who’ve submitted their email addresses will be selected as winners.

// Use Twitter For Timeline promotions
It is not a best practice to ask users to share their email addresses in the comments section. Most people are uncomfortable doing this, anyway. An alternative is to ask users to share their Twitter handles in the comments section instead. When your Facebook Timeline promotion is over, find your winner’s comment. Then, using the Twitter handle they provided, send them a tweet letting them know they won. Note: Make it clear in your promotion’s rules and guidelines that your winner will be contacted via Twitter.

// Announce winners on your blog or website 
If your business doesn’t want to fuss about contacting multiple promotion winners directly, state in the details of your promotion that an announcement will be made on your blog or website on a specific date and time. This way the responsibility is on your entrants to find out if they’ve won. In the announcement on your website or blog, provide instructions on how your winners should contact you to receive their prizes. For instance, they might have to email a person on your team on a certain date and time.

As you might have noticed, we did not include Facebook private messaging in our list of ways to contact promotion winners. There’s a big reason for this. When a user receives a private message from a user other than one of their Facebook friends, the message is often marked as spam. If your business chooses to go this route to contact your promotion winners, it’s likely your winners may never see your message.

That’s it, folks: Five great and totally legal ways to contact your Facebook promotion winners! If you have another ways let us know

'Til the next time.

James x

This is Halloween...

Happy Halloween Everybody! Today I thought I'd share some of the visual lovelies that I've been collecting from Pinterest. These are the images that are stealing my heart this season, I'm loving the adorable E.T. costume, the cutest kitty ever (except my Weasley...obvs) and the neat Bat manicure. 

I love the colours of Halloween and Autumn, palette wise, I think this time of year is my favourite. I absolutely adore all of the beautiful oranges that show up. It really gets me in the mood for the darker days and the colder weather.

Enjoy this collection of the inspirational images that will be influencing me this Autumn...

Links: //Make-Up //Spider Bread //Vogue //Kitty //Table Settings //E.T. //Kiddos Costumes //Vintage Halloween //Witch Cupcakes //Bat Lights //Bat Manicure //Halloween Outfit

Have a great day whatever you're doing, I hope you enjoy this holiday as much as I do! 

Svea xo

The Walking Dead...

Just a quick one today folks, in honour of impending Halloween, I want you to see this awesome identity from German Graphic Designer Jacques Pense. He's created this magnificent piece of Zombie based design for a German Horror channel. This is one of my most favourite identities that I've come across in recent years. I always revisit it this time of year. I love everything about it - it's clever, it's beautifully illustrated and it's perfect for it's purpose.

I can't figure what which one I like the most, the stapled shut eyes or the hole punched mouths...hmmm.

Anyway, enjoy his work and have a great Halloween!

Svea xo

When Ads move in

When we join a social media site, we always join it on the start of its' journey. I joined Facebook back when the most exciting thing to do was throw a sheep at someone (apparently this still can be done). Being apart of someone's idea from it's infancy has that nice refreshing feeling about it, you feel like the first man on the moon, that no-one else has started to join this mini revolution yet.

You should savour the taste for as long as possible before the ad men starting making their way in.

I'm not one to shoot down people who make a living and generate money for business, that's how the world works and that's fine, some of the world's best creative ideas have come in the form of advertising. But, when a site announces the fact that its going to start placing advertisements within its site, it does feel like a little creditability is being lost.

Recently instagram announced that it would be placing advertising within the mobile app and it would look a little like this:

"Seeing photos and videos from brands you don’t follow will be new, so we’ll start slow," the company wrote on its blog. "We’ll focus on delivering a small number of beautiful, high-quality photos and videos from a handful of brands that are already great members of the Instagram community."

Like Facebook's integration I'm not that convinced that it will be a smooth transition, hash tagging on Facebook hasn't exactly added anything new and I find it to be an annoyance on the mobile when I have to cycle the ads, with many people commenting that they're overbearing or irrelevant.

So if you use Instagram do you think you will be hanging around when the ad content starts rolling in? Leave you comments below about how advertisements have effected your enjoyment of your favourite apps or sites

James x

Very Magazine Re-imagined: Designing for the Screen

Good morning to all!

I thought I'd break from tradition today and show you some work I've been doing. I thought it might be interesting to share some of my own stuff for a change.

I've spoken before about the digital publication project I've been working on for the day job. It's been going really well. We're about to have our third issue drop in Newsstand (tonight intact!) and ;sat week we had our first iPhone edition hit Newsstand too. 

So today I thought I'd give you a sneak preview of the latest issue, and talk about my experience of taking a printed edition, and re-imagining it for a screen. Sound good?

Firstly, you should know, that the set up at the moment, is that an outside agency designs the printed Very Magazine, then our in-house team takes their files once they've gone to print, pulls them apart, and pieces them back together to create the iPad/iPhone version. It's an interesting way to work because the look and feel generally has already been pre-determined for us. At first I found that kind of difficult - as a designer, you naturally pick up on things you would have done differently, so to pretty much accept what had been done already was tough. We had some of our own artistic license, but for the most part we were taking a pre-designed look and feel and translating it over.

As a print designer, it took some getting used to. The rules around copy totally changed, and all of a sudden I was thinking about things like interactivity and the optimum area to put buttons so our readers could reach them without too much strain. It's funny though how quickly it sticks in your head though once you've done it a few times. Right now I'm training up two more of the team and they're flying. I'm super excited to see the first true team effort get into Newsstand tonight. The first two issues sort of felt like we were winging it (I probably shouldn't say that!).

Designing for iPhone is so different again, copy size is a huge issue, and trying to tell a designer that they have to basically delete everything off the page is not a pleasant experience. All in all though, it turned out to be the most refreshing thing ever to only have to deal with two or three key elements on a page and making them work really well together. 

I'll leave you with some images of the app, including our shiny new iPhone version!

Svea xo

Target the right people

Email marketing can be a highly effective way to market yourself, but you need to know how to make your messages stand out from the millions of others that are sent every day.

One of the most important things you can do during your email marketing campaign is to set your goals and re-evaluate them as necessary. Make sure you know what you want to accomplish with your email marketing campaign so you know what to do best for next time.

Pictures are an option in Email Marketing, but don't depend on images too much. Images can enhance the look of an email; however, the information in your message should be readable, even if the images are not displayed. Many clients will disable images from new email senders for security reasons. You need to ensure that your message will come across clearly whether they see the images or not. A great example here of pairing the message with a great image from West Elm Market

It is extremely important that your emails are engaging and interactive when you are dealing with email marketing. Allow your readers to explore different avenues of your business within your email while keeping their interest at the same time. This will go a long way towards creating a loyal and happy customer base. 

Two or three email messages a week should be all that they receive from you, although some people say you should send emails daily. Just test it and watch your results you get with your email marketing. If you are flooding their email boxes, not only it will not be appreciated, but it will be highly unlikely they will buy anything that you are selling. Always make sure customers have a clear and concise way to opt out of emails at any time. They signed up with you because they wanted more information, and if at any time they wish to stop receiving that information, they should be able to opt out. It is only fair.

Apply dynamic content to customize individual messages whenever possible. If someone has made multiple purchases of your products and services in the past, then send emails containing recommendations based on those past purchases. It is easy to find out what customers of one item have also bought in the past, and basing recommendation on these associations can actually surprise your subscribers with useful ideas beneficial to them. Implementing GIF's into emails has really taken off and a great example over a simple idea is with this gift sale

Making effective use of email marketing to promote your business can be tricky, but it is easier once you know what you are doing. Done properly, email marketing can dramatically boost your visibility. So get your creative thinking hats on and see how your email can be a little different

'Til the next time
James xo

Viral Marketing: Doing it Right

I'm a bit of a film nut, ask anyone, I usually talk about films more than another subject in my life. It was great to see that my to favourite things came together so I can chat about films on the post.

Viral marketing has become it's own beast thanks to the rise of the internet, bring something to the fore of popular culture by exploiting people's emotion's or taking an aspect of a product and making you think differently is a real skill in my eyes. This viral video takes two aspects of Carrie, the power of telekinetic ability and the fear that comes with someone using it against people really hits home what the movie is about.



With over 35 millions views, this shows the absolute power of doing a prank likes this has, this is one of those videos that people huddle around your computer to watch. It is great, extremely well thought out and is just the perfect example of nailing viral marketing.

The company behind this are Thinkmodo who have done this for previous films in the past including iPhone Hack for the movie 'Limitless' also, equally great. You should really check out their site for more great viral moments

But, using this format takes a lot of preparation and timing and shouldn't be used as an everyday solution and sometimes you have face facts that what your trying to promote just does fall into this bracket and shouldn't be shoe horned into making it work. You only get that viral buzz if the what grows out of it happens to be something great.

You can guarantee though that people weren't interested in seeing Carrie on the cinema before are probably a little bit more interested after this.

'Til the next time
James xo

Tips on how to manage a design project - when you're a two man band

James and I are still pretty new to the concept of getting ourselves out there, pitching for work, and delivering complete projects. We've yet to come across the difficulties experienced by established agencies/free-lancers. But being a two man band does come with it's own set of challenges, especially when it comes to slotting this work around the day job. Today I thought I'd share some things that I've learnt so far, and also open the floor for anyone to pitch in with type of their own.

Sound good? Ok let's do this.

Beginning// I start any project with a totally open mind, regardless of brief. I don't discount any ideas whatsoever because there may be potential to borrow from it at a later stage in the project. I hate to admit this, but Pinterest is also my best friend at this stage. 

I like to grab a sketchbook, scribble myself into oblivion, then compliment it with the odd cheeky pin now and again. I find that often Pinterest narrows down options for me, allows me to check what has been done to death and also opens my eyes to inspiration from sources I wouldn't usually have come across. 

Even though as a general rule, I do most of the actual printed work (identities etc) James will still get involved at this point - we share thoughts and ideas about where we'd like the project to go and then head ourselves in that direction. 

This is also the point where we'd have an initial meeting with our client, nail down a solid brief, and share with them our first thoughts - we're dipping our toes in, seeing if our vision matches theirs. If it does, awesome! Full steam ahead! If not, back to the drawing board we go and a compromise is on the cards. 

As part of this briefing session, it's a good idea to get out of the client up front what they want from you. As in, what are the exact deliverables of the project. You don't want to be doing a ton of additional work at your own cost when all they wanted was a basic website right? I thought not. This is the point where you have that conversation too…you know what one I mean…the one about your fee...

Middle// So once we have brief in hand, we agree a time frame then work work work to meet it. A series of mid-point meeting will be arranged with the clients to check you're still on course and that they're happy with the direction you're taking their brief.  

I'll probably mock-up a few carefully selected options to show to the client. I wouldn't be putting too much work into any one of these yet, that will happen once there's a clear winner. Both of us will start looking at logistics/pricing up printers etc so that we can present a decent idea of what the client can expect from production costs too. (Side Note: I know this probably isn't how a larger agency would function - because we are just two, we find it easier to establish a basic price for the job, then agree that the client will pick up print costs additionally, we do give them a fairly accurate idea of what this will be though. By doing things this way we're making sure that we can actually deliver what we say we can.)

If everything goes to plan, our lovely client will be signing one pathway off then it's all systems go for us two to get it designed and delivered by deadline day. 

End// Hurrah! We've reached final sign off. Before anything (and I mean anything) goes to print/goes live, we get a sign off from the client. This is a definitive "Yes I am happy with this work". You should also summarise the sign off in an email asking the specific question 'are you happy for us to send this work to print?' prompting them to answer 'yes.'. This way you have a solid, dated copy of the agreement, so that things can't be back-tracked on later. You've got to cover yourselves people! (This rule also applies for the cost of the job, get it in writing! On that note it's also invoice time!) 

And you're done! Everyone's a winner! One extra thing to bare in mind:

Before sign off, we'd usually give clients one round of amends in with the original price before we'd need to start charging for our time. We're happy to do as many amends as necessary to make our clients happy, but we do still need to eat, and good design isn't quick or cheap. 

This is our journey thus far, we're still getting into our groove, but things are working out. We currently do all our work around our day jobs, so there do tend to be late nights/weekends involved, but as long as tasks are well planned and time is used and managed effectively, it works out alright for us.

I hope this has been vaguely helpful, if anyone has any tips they'd like to share then feel free!

Svea xo 

Is Google taking war on Adobe?

Since Adobe moved to it's new cloud based service, thousands of designers have been searching for alternatives to Creative Cloud products, but with Adobe’s taking up all the room on professional grade web design software, alternate applications are very thin on the ground.

The time is right it seems, for an internet giant to step into the breach… The biggest name on the web, perhaps the biggest name anywhere, is Google and they already provide business tools that many professionals can’t live without; Google Drive where once we may have used Microsoft’s Office, and most people access Google Mail numerous times per day. Google haven’t previously looked like making a play for the huge web design market however, a curious decision given that they hold exclusive rights to the browser with the largest market (Chrome). That looks about to change.

Google gave us a new product “Google Web Designer”, helping advertisers and publishers more seamlessly unlock the potential of cross-device programs, we are investing in a new HTML5 creative development tool – Google Web Designer. Available in beta, Google Web Designer gives creative professionals the chance to create cutting-edge advertising as well as engaging web content like sites and applications – for free.

“ Let’s be clear: it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be switching to a “Google Creative Suite” style product line anytime soon. “Google Web Designer” is expected to be an enhanced version of Google’s already available Google Sites — which isn’t going to threaten Adobe’s position.

It seems a stretch to think that Google Web Designer could replace Creative Cloud applications, but then it wasn’t that long ago that people thought of WordPress as “just a blogging tool”. So make room on your CV, you may well find Google Web Designer becoming a marketable skill in the next 12 months.

James

Fev Pehs: In Memory of John Young

On Friday we went back to my university to see the opening of an exhibition being held in memory of my tutor John Young. John sadly passed away last year and so this exhibition is being held in his memory and with all proceeds from the Auction being donated to Cancer research.

The work is made up of several of his pieces plus work that was kindly donated by several prominent Graphic Designers.
The auction on Friday did really well, raising close to £2000 without even counting individual donations. It was great to see so many of the old faces all coming together to remember John and everything he did for us. The world is a smaller place without him, he's greatly missed. There aren't many people that have such a profound influence of a great number of others, both professionally and personally. John was definitely one of them.

Friday night was also the launch of John's instrumental album 'Found in Tokyo' which will be released with his own artwork, I can't wait to get my hands on it!

Here are some of my pics from the night.

 

 

 

 

Yes that is a signed David Bowie LP!! 

It was really interesting to see John's own work too, I never got to see much of his work before, I didn't even really know what to expect to see. I'm so glad we got to see this. 

John's wife Marie has set up a Just Giving page that you can donate to, any donations would be very much appreciated.

Read more about John and the exhibition here:

Fev Peh's site

 Creative Review

 Design Week

Svea xo 

Where does your best work come from?

Recently, I have been addicted to TED talks, I downloaded the app on my phone and pretty much everyday I've been watching some very inspirational talks. Whether it's been the the power of sleep or dealing with rejection, I have been hooked.

But it was a great talk from Steven Johnson about where good ideas come from that I couldn't help notice I was agreeing with every word he said. In any job I've had, my best ideas have come when I was furthest away from office. Even if the atmosphere wants to inspire creativity, sometimes it's just best to switch away from the norm and try somewhere else to work.

I don't want to come across cliched but this kind of happenend for me and Svea over the weekend. We usual do our work in the living room but we got away and went to a coffee shop (and yes it's that coffee company, like I said very cliched) and so much work and ideas started flowing, it was really great just to get away from everything, take our time and focus truly on a creative solution for our clients. It's kind of been the first time we have done this and it probably won't be the last.

So that got me thinking about places that truly let creative people be more conductive with their time, I know business needs to be done on a daily basis, and that sometimes leads to any creative ideas being done outside of work, but most real people are tired after the daily grind.

Google show a great motivation technique, Google uses a policy often called Innovation Time Off, where Google employees are encouraged to spend 20% of their work time on projects that interest them. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense. Showing that some great things can come from just being away from it all and sometimes.

It doesn't help that if creative people are seen from taking time away from the office are seen as lazy of just having a quick break dimisses their work as 'proper' work. Some of the people with these thoughts would probably say 'Time is money' but using that time in the right way would probably benefit everyone in the long run.

So back away from the desk and go work somewhere new for a change or if you get your best work done somewhere unexpected then share it with us, let us know where your creative juices get flowing and inspire someone to do the same.

P.S.

You can watch the TED talk below, that inspired this little post

'Til the next time
James x

The New Face of Lush

Hello all! After a little break I'm back this week to talk about the well loved brand Lush and the face-lift it has given to it's in house publication 'the Lush Times'.

Lush is currently in the midst of it's very own face lift. For years it has been at home in the bright, poppy, thrown together area of our design eye, but recently it's been cleaning up it's image, and re-emerging as a more grown up version of itself. A perfect way to demonstrate this is to take a look at it's sweet little newspaper/catalogue 'the Lush Times'. If we rewind to 2012, the Lush Times looked like this...




Here is a brand that is pitching undoubtedly to the younger market. Aimed pretty much entirely at the student/alternative population. It has a distinctly hippy-ish vibe, it's cute and it's vibrant. It stands out as something I'd see sitting comfortably with the Company Magazine readers. It's got that Innocent Smoothie thing going for it. Personally, I love it. It strikes a great balance between informative and selling. I don't feel like I'm being shouted at, and there are snippets of interesting info thrown in the mix.

Fast forward to now, and the Lush Times looks like this...




This is a magazine for grown ups!! A big beefy 116 page magazine for grown ups! Still getting the message across but now, for me, it has lost it's personality. I don't know whether anyone reads Oh Comely magazine, but I feel as though the design time team behind this took their inspiration from that and then missed the point entirely.
I don't get the same warmth from this publication at all and it feels totally alienated from the in-store experience. And the selling pages are just that - big, boring selling pages. Sigh.

I love Lush as a brand but this new face really lets the side down for me. I always used to pick up the Times in store, but  think I'll be giving it a miss from now on.

Svea xo

Social Media Insight: Pinterest

For my final look into the world of social media. I'm going to turn my attention to the pinning sensation that is Pinterest...

Pinterest is an online pinboard, a visual take on the social bookmarking site. Unlike other social bookmarking sites, such as StumbleUpon, content shared on Pinterest is driven entirely by visuals. In fact, you can’t share something on Pinterest unless an image is involved. Like every other social media site, Pinterest has its own lingo: When you share something on Pinterest, each bookmark is called a pin. When you share someone else’s pin on Pinterest, it’s called a repin. You group pins together by topic onto various boards or pinboards in your profile. Each board mimics a real-life pinboard.

The first time you visit Pinterest, you may notice immediately that it’s an aesthetically pleasing site. You can see how much it relies on stunning photos.

Pinterest did change a lot of visual looks of most websites after it's launch in 2010. Just take a look at how ebay looks now...

Personally, Pinterest is one of my favourite sites. Svea really got me hooked on this and haven't really stopped pinning since. 

Pinterest does have a lot of influence over the new web and create a visual portfolio for yourself can be a great site, if you have great content to share or stories then this is the perfect site to use.

Pin your own content//

Believe me when I say that you can get lost, just repinning other peoples content, so be vigilant. This is one of the most crucial elements of using Pinterest for content marketing. Of course once you produce content you’re going to share it with as many outlets as possible, and with Pinterest you can use keywords to help optimize your pins. This is important because the Pinterest community is driven by repins rather than unique pins—nearly 80% of all pins are repins, compared to Twitter in which retweets constitute less than 2 percent of all tweets. In short, your pins are much more likely to be shared on Pinterest than any other social site, so you need to be pinning on a regular basis. 

You should also create boards for you content in order to drive traffic to your site. This doesn’t mean that the boards should be entirely made up of your own content—you can seed popular boards for pins that are likely to get you followers and repins, and then put your own content in among them, increasing the likelihood of your pins being (and thus, your website) being seen, liked, or followed.

Infographics//

Infographics are really popular on Pinterest—especially in the business and marketing world—because you can get a lot of information in one image. Recently in the main Pinterest feed on the desktop version, they have started to cut off the image at about 1935 pixels. A grey box now shows up within the feed for you to expand the pin. There is no file size limitation on Pinterest.

Pinnable images//
Entrepreneurs and business owners often feel that they are too busy, don’t have the budget or don’t have the talent to produce a blog with pinnable images. With free easy to use resources, creating images is easier than ever. When it comes to producing high quality images, large brands with huge marketing budgets that can afford professional photographers do have an advantage but that doesn’t mean the small fish in the pond can’t get in on the Pinterest action. To get high quality images it’s no longer necessary to be a professional photographer with expensive equipment. The digital cameras built into mobile phones are amazing and can take some very pinnable images even if you’re not a pro.

So what are you waiting for, get pinning! This is my final look at social media sites that you should be using as well as the big ones of social media. I'll be back to the world of the web next week, so look out for that out.

'Til the next time
James xo

Social Media Insight: Google+

Welcome back, today in my latest look at social media I'm going to be turning my gaze to Google+. 

Google Plus is growing very fast, as of January of this year it is the second biggest social networking site on the web and is also believed to be the fourth most used app on smartphones, so it's becoming a bigger contender in the realms of social media.

Google Plus works very similar to many other networks it has a main 'Stream' where all the realted artclies the people you follow will appear in. The main big change comes in the forms of 'Circles'. This allows you to organize the people you share certain information with, so you can be more selective to your social circles and it couldn't be easier as it is a simple drop and drag option. Finally, one of the big reasons Plus has excelled is it's very nice 'Hangout' feature that brings a maximum of 10 people to have a video chat giving Google Plus a unique advantage in the every increasing market place.

So what are the benefits of using Google Plus

SEO//

Google+ posts are crawled and indexed almost immediately. Google Search treats Google+ profile and pages just like “regular” websites, so they have PageRank and can be just as powerful as other websites in terms of ranking. Web pages with higher PageRank rank higher for search terms than those with lower PageRank, and higher PageRank pages deliver more authority to sites that they link to. It’s important to note that Google+ posts can indefinitely retain ranking, which helps you create a better standing on Google's search engine

Google+ Local//

Google+ Local is a part of Google+, and focuses specifically on businesses and their locations. These pages are similar to Facebook business pages, but include a many more features geared to help businesses connect with local consumers on a social level. It's also Integrated with Google maps, which enables consumers to find pertinent contact information like your phone number, address, directions, and opening hours.

Feedback//
Google Plus launched “Communities“ to allow businesses to reach out and directly solicit feedback from customers or potential clients in a meaningful way. Private and public communities can be created where businesses can post photos and videos about their service, products and industry news members can earn from, interact with and share with friends and family.

So, there you have get yourself set up on Google+ and reap the rewards of being connected to the world biggest search engine.

'Til the next time
James x

Colour Splash

Hi all!

Don't know if you caught the Apple Keynote, but if you did you'd now know that the iPhone 5C will be coming to us in an array of pretty colours complete with matching/clashing cases!

In honour of this blessed event, I thought I'd share my favourite Apple commercials, (admittedly they're all for iPod Nano's but lets overlook that and focus on the pretty colours and awesome soundtrack!).

Enjoy!

Svea xo

Social Media Insight: Foursquare

Morning, hope you had a very productive week and you managed to take a look at StumbleUpon after I featured last week. I'm going to continue with my look into how different social sites can help benefit you & your business today. 

This week it's a look at foursquare...

Foursquare is a free app that helps you and your friends make the most of where you are. When you're out and about, you can use Foursquare to share and save the places you visit. It gives personalised recommendations and deals based on where you, your friends, and people with your tastes have been. It helps when you're setting off on a trip, coordinating a night out or trying to pick out the best dish at your local restaurant, Foursquare offers a great insight into the places you love visiting.

The beauty of Foursquare for me is that it turns the places that you visit into categories, awarding badges for repeated visits and repeated check-ins, turning you social life into a game. Making it border line addictive if you get hooked in. And with the endless number of badges to collect, repeat engagement with the app is a must.

Foursquare has over 30 million people worldwide, which adds up to 3 billion check-ins and with 1,500,000 businesses it is an ever growing app that has the potential to get even bigger. But what can foursquare offer you? 3 thing's I would use it for are:

Social Specials//
If wanted to reward your loyal customers or even gain some new ones, what better way than to do it online. Examples of the types of specials offered for attracting new customers are:

Friends Special—”Check in with 3 friends and get a free popcorn.”
Newbie Special—”First drink on the house.”

If you want to offer something to your loyal customers then:
Loyal Special—”Get a free muffin every third check-in.”
Mayor Special—”Mayor gets a free starter with the lunch menu”

Use local updates to promote your specials on Foursquare, as well as Facebook, Twitter and the other social networks you’re active on to spread the news of the special.

Lists//
The other helpful feature that your page offers is the ability to create lists of locations. Creating lists centered around various locations grouped by themes can be extremely valuable to your community on Foursquare. Creating lists of your company’s favorite restaurants in the city, for example if you created a list of recommended Mexican restaurants that got saved by users over 2,000 times, highlighting how valuable users found this list. Users can choose to save lists they like, instead of following all of the activities and other lists on your page. Following individual lists can be more relevant for users, providing them with specific insights into your company without receiving your other messaging.

Tipping//
People visiting your business on Foursquare can leave their opinion of their experience. Users are even prompted to leave tips about places they’ve checked into in the past, leaving the opportunity for both positive and negative feedback. The tips that appear at the top of this list of feedback are the ones with the most likes from other users. The idea behind ranking these tips in such a way is that it’s assumed the most relevant and truthful tips will make it to the top. Adding great feedback for your venue of what works or how you can improve you business.

Foursquare for me is great for the leisure industry and can put you a real step ahead if you're wanting to take it seriously and build a loyal customer base. It hasn't really taken off in the UK yet but with the right level of promotion I think it could be very useful for the business wanting to embrace it.

'Til the next time
James x

The Death of Print?

An episode of Dragons Den really annoyed me recently. A woman showed up with a reasonable pitch to take her printed fashion magazine global. She'd pulled the entire thing together herself and made the first steps towards taking it global. It wasn't the greatest pitch in the world - her numbers were seriously off - but the thing that annoyed me is that most of the Dragons turned her down because apparently 'print is dead'. They seemed to be arguing the point that why is she trying to take a printed magazine global when she should be going the other way and turning it digital instead.

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I'm a sucker for a well designed digital edition, I really am. But it will never replace print. I just don't care what anyone else says. I defy any Graphic Designer to not get excited about a beautiful print. There's just something about it that can't be replaced. A screen is a screen, it's impossible to appreciate the subtleties of a well chosen stock or a beautiful piece of letter pressing via a screen, and I think that in the end, this is what will save print. 

The thing that compounded the whole argument too was that here was a businessmen who - with the greatest respect - strikes me as the kind of person that is possibly slightly out of touch with the industry, but likes to present the image that he knows what he's talking about at all times. So when someone shows him a shiny magazine on an iPad and tells him it's the future, he immediately discards print as a dead medium. It's such a crazy argument for not taking this idea forward and nurturing it. I fail to see how a magazine is likely to be more successful digitally than it would be in print. Isn't it even more likely to get lost amongst the masses in the world-wide Newsstand than on the shelves of high street retailers? For me, this shows a total failure to grasp the entire point the girl pitching was making. I can't help but think that it would be far easier to work on the content/design and make it work in print than it would in digital. Because really, once you strip out all the bells and whistles, the content should speak for itself regardless of the medium. And it's a really tough job to make something unique for a digital publication these days - it really is. If you're going to play in this arena, you really better be ready to play with the big boys otherwise they will take you down. 

The ease at which people are disregarding the printed word amazes me. I mean, haven't you even smelt a really great magazine straight from the printers? It's like that new car smell, you just can't beat the shiny new-ness of it. I like the feeling that someone has taken the time and effort to choose the paper and the finish just for my reading enjoyment. And yes, I also like that when I'm done, they look cute lined up on my bookshelf in chronological order. But it's more than that, I like that I can pick them up and read them again and again without being told to free up space before I can download. 

This is what I think a certain Dragon failed spectacularly to grasp. There will always be print geeks like me that will pay for quality and for the experience of holding something real in our hands. Designers will always get a buzz from seeing their wok on a shelf - I don't care how many editions you've got in Newsstand, it's always awesome to see a piece of print you brought to life held in someone's hands.

Svea xo

p.s. One more thing. One of the apparently constructive pieces of criticism this girl received was that she should break up the fashion and introduce some lifestyle aspects such as Interior/recipes/craft etc. Because apparently that is all women want to read about. Now I love me some Pinterest diy-ing, I do, but for Christ's sake, the girl has a vision! Surely it would be better to focus on one area and do it really well than dilute her brand? And I'd love to see someone make that same suggestion to Anna Wintour. That I would pay to see. 

Social Media Insight: StumbleUpon

I know a lot of people use social media to help market themselves in an ever increasing and saturated market. You have do something pretty special these days to stand out from the crowd. Most people use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help them get a step above the rest, and rightfully so.

Never a day goes by that we see news about them whether good or bad, they are the most popular. But there is more to the web than just these 3 sites. That's why I'm going to uncover some of the other less popular social media sites, that have their own right to be here. Over the next couple of weeks I'll show you some of the benefits that you might not of thought about.

Our first stop is StumbleUpon...

Referred to as SU and with over 25 million users (as of 2012), it is one of the social websites that was started with a vision of allowing users to find what they are looking for with the help of ratings provided by scores of other users. Based on the recommendations of users, which could be either thumbs up or thumbs down, SU helps you find the right content, be it web pages, videos, photos or sites, which otherwise could have been difficult using a search engine.

The top 3 reasons for using StumbleUpon? Well just look below:

Increase web traffic//

The more visitors you have visiting your site, greater is the chances of them buying or using your products/services. That is what exactly SU helps you do. It helps you increase the footprint of your site to the entire world. In order to make this happen, you have to get your site in the SU system by listing it and encourage readers/visitors to start rating them. The more you get a thumbs up, the better it is as increased thumbs up means users like your site/posts/videos/photos etc. Hence, bringing more people to you.

Brand name//

Brand is the name of the game in marketing. Your site becomes a brand when it stays in the minds of many visitors and start using it frequently. The recognition and recall are the two vital factors that are responsible in promoting a brand. With SU, you are more likely to generate the recognition and recall in the minds of visitors. Once your site is in the SU system, the chances of it coming across visitors increases and if you have good content that is liked by many visitors, they start ranking your site positively. This in turn, helps you increase your site visibility which subsequently helps in creating the brand name.

Analytic Tool//

One of the greatest features of SU is that it allows you to analyse and visualize the incoming traffic to your site. This information is crucial to any marketer as it helps in understanding the visitors surfing habit in the site. The research shows that SU has the lowest bounce rate, which tells how many users left the site immediately after landing on your site, of around 30%. This definitely is a great tip for a marketer to position his product or service in order to convert the visitors to loyal visitors and finally to loyal buyers. Hence, this little analytics helps marketer to convert Stumblers to regular visitors.

So that's just a few things that this hidden social site could help bring to your business. I'll be back next time to uncover a few more reasons not just to stick to the big three.

'Til the next time
James x

Brand Spotlight: The Quarterly

Welcome to our first Brand Spotlight feature! Today we're super excited to be talking to Sanj Sahota of the Quarterly! Sanj is on a mission to promote ethic work practices within the creative community and already runs the Creative Book. Now the Quarterly is here as a submission based publication that has a central theme for each issue. Over to Sanj to tell us all about it!

"Think of it as a social enterprise publication, a kind of fair trade for creativity: high standards based on an ethical revenue share that tries to do the right thing.

It’s a publication with a focus in the field of photography, featuring the work of a wide range of talent from around the world and a variety of different backgrounds, from fashion, to photojournalism, travel to landscape and portraiture and so on.

It’s a submission-based journal that aims to release 4 issues a year, where each issue has a theme and creatives are tasked with sharing their ideas for submission. Those who have their ideas accepted for publication are then supported to bring their concepts to life, in whatever way we can.

The Quarterly is about challenging, provoking thought, embracing the awesome, championing talent and above all bringing value back to creatives and their work, in our own bold way. It’s not a new idea but we kinda think it’s daring, will likely ruffle a few feathers, and put some noses out of joint—especially when creative talent is often exploited and their real value goes unrecognised and underappreciated. It’s time for a creative journal with guts and integrity."

Sounds exciting right? We really love what the Quarterly is about, it's so inspiring to see a fellow creative doing their own thing and really promoting and nurturing talent. We asked Sanj to tell us more about the process of bringing the Quarterly into being…

Hi Sanj! What inspired you to launch the Quarterly?//

The inspiration for the Quarterly comes from all the incredibly talented creatives out there, working day in and day out to perfect their craft. I wanted to create a publication that gives readers exclusive content, created specifically for the publication, that engages and inspires and doesn't offer false promises or pretend to be something more than it actually is. 

Over the last few years since starting The Creative Book. I've encountered various working practices within the "publishing" industry that i feel are rather exploitive. Ones that provides empty promises and illusions of massive mount exposure and false hope. I realise that not everyone in the industry does these things and i'm reluctant to tar everyone with the same brush, but more often than not, things are made out to be bigger than they actually are. I just wanted to create a publication that was honest, open and tries to do the right thing. Which is pretty much what inspired the ethical, social enterprise aspect of The Quarterly. We don't have investors and we don't do advertising and so every issue is self-funded by myself with my own personal savings. 

The idea of being able to split the profits amongst the contributors felt like the right thing to do, as it's their work, created exclusively for The Quarterly that is makes the project what it is. I'd love to pay everyone for their time, but the publication isn't in a position to do so, but i'd love to be able to grow it into a position where the rewards are more obvious.

We wanted to create a photographic journal, one where each issue is focused around a theme and creatives interested in taking part are given the task to create a proposal for a piece of work that they would like to produce for the issue at hand. Once shortlisted, we work with those creatives to help pull teams together and bring that proposal to life. Taking an active role in helping creatives to make things happen is also an important part of what The Quarterly is about.

How have you found your self publishing journey?//

The Self-publishing journey is not one for the faint of heart, but it's immensely satisfying especially when you finally have the end product in your hands after months of hard work from everyone. You're always learning, always picking up new bits of information, some much more welcome than others. We started out doing things on a tiny scale, just so we can understand all the things that need to be done.. It's much easier to handle things, when things go wrong and you don't have a clue as you can learn from your mistakes. It's quite a complicated industry in someways, there's so much to consider, so much that needs to be done, a lot of balls that need juggling. Doing it with such a small team is a challenge and scary one at that. I really wished It was simple case of, get the content, put it together and sell it… but it's not like that at all. The promotion, the PR the distribution, raising awareness of it, the marketing and all that stuff are things that start making things so much much complicated and challenging. But i think we're having fun doing it at the moment.. We'll see how long that last for though!

We're big fans of how you run the Quarterly, how have your ethical methods of sourcing and developing content been received by your contributors?//

We think it's gone down well. It was fun seeing the reactions from the contributors, when they finally had a physical copy in their hands. I think for a lot of them and us included it felt great to have something tangible in their hands. Obviously we've not managed to make it a profit making project yet, due to the massive costs involved in setting something like this up from scratch, but we hope to reward people with something soon enough. A fair few of the contributors of the first issue, were quite eager to jump back in the ring and get involved in the second issue as well. Which i'm guessing is a good sign, especially as they also been more active in the production of it this time round. 

There was a level of scepticism by various creatives we approached when we first started this project up, about what we we're striving towards and trying to achieve. But this time round, it was an easier dream to sell. I guess that stems off of the fact that we actually managed to do what we said we'd do and create an actual independent physical publication.

Finally, how do we submit to the Quarterly?//

To submit, we ask people to share proposals and mood boards that are relevant to the theme of issue in question. We don't want to see finished products or work that has already been published before, mind you as that's not the way we work. Anyone interested in getting involved should keep an eye on http://www.thequarterly.co.uk/submissions/ for the announcement of the next theme. As to what that's going to be? i've got no idea as of this moment..

Thanks to Sanj for taking the time to talk to us, (and for sending us the very beautiful first issue of the Quarterly!) We can't wait to see what's to come from this exciting publication!

Svea & James xo

Images courtesy of The Quarterly

Pinterest and Portfolios

As a designer, it's getting harder and harder to create a portfolio that will have any sort of impact on potential employers. The rise of Pinterest in recent years means that original ideas are becoming less commonplace and once vibrant portfolios are in danger of being taken over by shot upon shot of identities laid out in grid formation.

I like a portfolio to be neat, tidy and well presented, I really do. But does this mean that now we're all expected to present our work in this specific way? A general search for graphic design on Pinterest will throw up reams of images of designers' work that is difficult to distinguish from one another. The work could be (and usually is) awesome, but we tend to glaze over it because we're sure we've seen that image before. It's sad to see really great work get lost amongst the masses. 

I feel that now more than ever, there is becoming a standard as to how work is presented in portfolios. All of the print should be laid out a right angle to each other, any digital work comped onto a Matchbook/iPad. We are looking at many varieties of the same photo. Graduates in particular seem to be jumping on the bandwagon with this trend.

Just once, I'd love to see someone really think about how they compose their portfolio imagery. I mentioned in a previous post that when applying for a job portfolios should have a sense of neatness about them - especially in the corporate environment - but does this mean that we as designers need to sacrifice all of our creativity? Now that great looking portfolios are so accessible online, It's becoming increasingly important to separate ourselves from the masses and up our game. I almost feel that maybe it's time to go back to the tangible, rough and ready work. Get the sketchbooks and the prints out, bring it all with you so employers can have a feel of the boss paper you've printed on and get a sense of how your pieces work together. It's time to re-evaluate how we do things and start thinking outside of the grid.

So please, please can we get over the right angles already?

Svea xo

Do you have Klout?

After a bank holiday break, we return refreshed and ready to give you your daily dose of the world of the web and design.

For this Tuesday, I'm going to introduce you into the world of Klout. For everyone that doesn't know what Klout is, it is a secret algorithm to measure online influence. This monitors everything you do on social media, the web and tracks you ability to influence people within your peer group.

Klout breaks down people's online “influence” by topic, which should theoretically help you find interesting people to follow on topics you like. Most social networks do this, too, but Klout uses something called +K points. If someone thinks you’re expert on a certain subject, they can visit your user page and award you +K points, which is supposed to further increase your "influence." But like your overall score, it doesn’t have a lot of relevance outside of the Klout echo chamber.

Why is this important I hear you ask? Well some people don't, some people do. Klout gives a score to your social status online. With a trackable number, you can measure one person in relation to others in their field, you can measure improvement over time, you can use it to set standards that people can aspire to.

My Klout score comes in at 41 which isn't too bad as the average is around 50, only Justin Bieber has managed the elusive 100 score and Barack Obama picked up 99 so these people of influence have the potential to help raise your score if you want to engage with them (Obama probably over Bieber any day).

I suggest you setup yourself up on Klout, it's interesting to see where you stand in your field of influence. After that, you need to start building relationships with people. Start and join in conversations. Interact with people one-on-one and provide useful information. Ask and answer questions. Follower and interact with the thought leaders in your field. The more engaging your content is the more likely people are to share it, which shows Klout you really are an influencer. Raising your Klout score isn’t an overnight process. It takes time to build meaningful relationships and fill your social media account with kick-ass content. With time, patience and know-how, you’ll slowly see your influence and following grow. And this time around, you’ll be the most popular kid on the playground.

'Til the next time
James x