Social Media Gone Wrong: Toyota.

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Tuesday March 20, 2012

Old Spice showed us how to take a high profile Super Bowl ad to the next leve. But just as they showed us the pros of social media, Toyota proved there is a wrong way to reach the masses.

Also paying millions for a Super Bowl spot, Toyota focused on advertising the newly redesigned Camry. Instead of letting the Camry commercial generate buzz organically, Toyota worked with LocalResponse to create ten Twitter accounts spamming anyone who tweeted about the Super Bowl with generic tweets about entering a contest to win a car. The tweets created a controversy because the accounts were verified, from @CamryEffect all the way through @CamryEffect9, proving their authenticity to the Toyota campaign.

Although the social media world and Super Bowl ad critics were buzzing about Toyota, it was not how the automobile powerhouse envisioned it. The backlash from Twitter users was harsh, how would Toyota recover from this PR nightmare?

Digital Marketing and Social Media Manager of Toyota Motor Sales, Kimberley Gardiner, issued an apology shortly after, but the damage was already done. “We apologize to anyone in the Twitterverse who received an unwanted @reply over the past few days. We were excited to share the message of our Camry Effect campaign in a new way and it was never our intention to displease anyone. We’ve certainly learned from this experience and have suspended the accounts effective immediately to avoid any additional issues.”

Let’s hope other companies learn from Toyota’s mistake and think before they tweet.

 

Fabulous Friday: Top 10 Typography Edition

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Friday March 9, 2012

Since we’re constantly creating and updating websites, we’re always on the lookout for funky fonts and interesting text. This week, we found some especially awesome examples of website typography and we just had to share them all. Enjoy!

Kinetic V5

Why we love it: eye-catching, unique color scheme, graphic type.

 

Rogue & Pott

Why we love it: use of color, basic but bold, easy to navigate.

 

EE Harbor

Why we love it: understated, interesting font, and simple, yet effective.

 

WakWAW

Why we love it: awesome graphics, great use of color and size of the images/text.

 

Behance Network

Why we love it: “beautiful” combination of text and photography, nice use of contrasting gray and colors.

 

Finch

Why we love it: perfect combination of white and black, a unique fun font, and good use of white space.

 

The Lost Thing

Why we love it: fun, youthful design and full picture background graphic combined with different variations of text as if cut out from a magazine.

 

Planet Propaganda

Why we love it: the use of white on a bold color and using text to direct the viewer to the center of the page.

 

Snowden Industries

Why we love it: Full black background with bold, opaque lettering.

 

Cade Martin Photography

Why we love it: perfect use of white, black, and gray, it’s simple but still tells a story.

WDW: Web Designs We Love | SaneBox

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Wednesday February 29, 2012

We’re bringing back Web Design Wednesdays! And what better way to start it off than with a user friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and well organized site called SaneBox. We love SaneBox.com for several reasons. First, because of the time saving, organizational features that work on every type of email software to de-clutter your emails. SaneBox.com is a lifesaver for anyone who’s inbox has gotten way too out of control. It sorts through your emails marking those that are top priority, can be saved for later, and finally those that are altogether unimportant.

Now, onto the main reason we love SaneBox: the design of the site. When a company’s website has a mere seven seconds to create trust, value, and credibility, it’s important to make those seven seconds count. SaneBox has no problem keeping our attention for seven minutes, let alone seven seconds. The intriguing homepage graphics are effective at communicating the goals of SaneBox, without leaving us feeling overwhelmed. The cool graphics are almost cute in their simplicity and size, which goes with the overall feeling of the site. With a minimalist design, the plain white background juxtaposes the colorful graphics nicely and helps maintain a good use of space throughout the site.

The fun doesn’t stop with the homepage.  We even love how the “Happy Users” testimonials page is laid out with conversation bubbles integrated directly from social media sources as well as praise from top media companies. With only six tabs to click on from the homepage, it’s hard to get lost with this design. Every tab is laid out as clearly and to the point as the last.

Best of all? It’s is super easy and takes less than a minute to sign up for a free trial.  Don’t believe us? Check it out for yourself.

Decorating a ribbon website blog into WordPress

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Tuesday January 17, 2012

The newly designed and launched May Arts Blog

We worked with the team at May Arts over the last month and a half to re-concept, re-design, re-develop and port the content from their old blog into WordPress. We designed and created a custom theme, befitting of their cause and industry, with careful attention to the things that matter to them. They’ve been successfully blogging over the last couple years which gave us good insight into what the new blog should highlight to their readers.

It was a joy of a project and we are happy to have successfully launched it last night. Check out May Arts Blog.

Our website should be our top sales tool

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Thursday December 1, 2011

The Build Your Summer Tool on JKCP.com

“We want our website to be our sales tool” is one thing we hear from many of our clients. It should be, but how do you make it so?. The next question we always ask is “How do you currently sell your services?” Maybe we could bring that to life online.

Julian Krinsky Camps and Programs asked us to make a “site that sold” for them, so we role played. “Let’s say I were to say I was interested in coming to camp, what would you say?”, I said. They said, “Well, we’d ask you your age and what your interests are, then recommend a set of programs that matched that criteria”.  ”Let’s build a tool to do just that, then”, I said, and that was the start of something wonderful, their Build Your Summer tool…built from the ground up on WordPress.

The beautifully designed interactive homepage of JKCP.com



Think WordPress isn’t ready for primetime, management of relationships, custom post types and client specific scenarios? Think again. We built the JKCP.com WordPress Theme with relational custom post types to let them manage almost every aspect of the site, specifically the age, details and interests related to each of their programs. Oh, and this is for savvy kids, so don’t forget that we needed a killer design, with some serious moving parts that their audience would expect at this day and age on the web.

So, why all the sales pitching? See it for yourself. Meet Josh, the interactive sales agent on their Build Your Summer section, which lets parents or kids concept their own agenda for a summer schedule. Or, just check out their super-awesomely-designed homepage and other pages of the site to get more information on their camps and programs.

Thinking differently about the loss of a hero.

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Thursday October 6, 2011

Yesterday, Steve Jobs passed away and the world lost a hero.

Photo courtesy of Techachi

Post after I post I read mentions how Steve Jobs brought us the iPod, iPad, iPhone, countless improvements to iOS and Mac computers. Many of them go on to say how much a visionary he was in the tech field that we live in, creating revolutionary products. But, there’s “one more thing” that people seem to be missing.

The reason so many people are mourning his loss is because they have lost a true leader. Personally, I write this on an Apple Macbook Pro, read my email this morning on my iPhone and constantly marvel at the simplicity of these devices that drives my 20 month old daughters to instinctively know how to use them. I too use these devices because they are inherently simple, reliable and enjoyable to use. But, I buy these devices because the company that makes them shares the same beliefs that I do.

Apple didn’t just strive to create simple devices. The simple devices were/are a by-product of their core belief. They – Steve Jobs – believed, as Simon Sinek put it in his TED speech (below and linked here), in “challenging the status quo, in thinking differently”. Because of that wonderful yet challenging belief, they have made wonderful products and have provided wonderful service.

It’s more than the products you sell. It’s more than the service you provide. Your core beliefs should shine through the service and products that come from your business.

I can only hope that my 20 month old daughters have the same type of mentors in their lives and that they (and I) exemplify the same leadership skills that Steve Jobs showed are so critical to business and life success.

WDW: 53Mondays/Lesly Garreau

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Monday August 15, 2011

We’re back with another WDW.  The past two weeks we’ve featured OkapiStudio and Watermelon Ministries.  Since then, we’ve posted a blog about <link> screen resolution and canvas size</link> for designers, so it’s only appropriate to have this weeks WDW speak to that as well.  With that said, it’s a pleasure to introduce 53 Mondays‘  design of Lesly Garreau’s all-inclusive portfolio.  The tricky part about this WDW is that Lesly Garreau is the cofounder of 53 Mondays, so he gets a double shout out here.  Let’s dive in.

A rising 2010-2011 web trend is the single page website, and LeslyG.com fits the bill.  The first thing that attracted me to LeslyG.com was the heavy graphical build of the site.  He’s using his website to showcase his design work, why not make it extravagant? As you scroll down the page you enter into different segments of LeslyG’s portfolio, what would ordinarily be individual pages of a website.

To start, we’ll begin in the header, where you’ll find an interactive facebook link in the cloud – get it?  Keep scrolling and you’ll hit a java slideshow of Lesly’s current work, each screen expandable through a lightbox click, followed by a recent tweet.  Presumably, you’ve just passed through the typical homepage.

Continuing down the page we enter into the “Portfolio” page, of which Lesly slapped the title, “Some Cool Stuff” above a few lightboxes and called it a day.  Each lightbox enlarges to a quite substantial viewing of his work, which I really enjoy.  I’m not a big fan when designers show  their work in 200x200px blocks and expect to sell their stuff.  If you’re a designer, show me your work large and in charge (and lookin for chickies).  Each thumbnail of the lightbox’d is graphically scotch-taped to the site.  It’s the small details like this I enjoy in a website.

Flying south we’re brought to the about section, which Lesly feels three sentences and a headshot are enough for me.  He’s right.  Let’s keep going.

Annnnd suddenly we’ve hit the footer…and a chunk of earth.  Passing over a banner linking to his blog and a contact form,  we’re at the bottom of the page.  Site credits and social icons line the footer…after the chunk of earth.

Looking back on this review – WDW3 is the most bizarre so far.  I was sucked in at the beginning for the strong graphical elements, but now I’m at the footer and I’m realizing I started by looking at clouds, consumed Lesly’s portfolio, bio and contact information without hesitation, suddenly landed on a floating chunk of earth, and now am redirected back to real life: facebook, twitter, and all other forms of virtual friendships and fake personalities.  Was this a website or an artistic revelation of truth? Let me know in the comments…

USPS.com, A Worthy Effort?

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Wednesday August 10, 2011

So let’s be honest, a while back we jabbed tweeted at the USPS.com revamp.  But in all honesty, the website looks great.  Much more functional than ever before, proven by their video explanation, and it sure is a lot nicer on the eyes.  USPS did something that might not (probably won’t) save their current business plan, but at least they have started in the right direction: rebranding and refocusing on the coming age.

Let’s face it, the majority of the people that are still sending/receiving paper mail are those that are too afraid to “Go Green!” and do their billing online.  Almost everything from that point on is birthday cards and junk mail.  It won’t be long before I’m paypal’d money, packages will be teleported to me, and I’ll be reading magazines exclusively on my tablet.  Paper magazines are hardly circulating as it is and unfortunately for the New York Times, they’re still treading water with their digital subscriptions. So what’s next?  Who knows, but USPS.com is guessing.  They’ve streamlined their old and ugly website (left) to a sleek and smart look (right).  Easy navigation and  “Quick Tools” will really help their user experience, and you can’t help but notice they’re modeling their presentation of updates on Apple announcements, so at least they’re doing something right.

Among the slew of changes, USPS.com is drawing attention to their “About Us” page, which is hard to imagine didn’t exist before.  About Us  features topics such as “Who We Are” and “What We’re Doing,” along with News and Employment Opportunities.  I can only hope with a few solid weeks after the revamp and rebranding their news feed doesn’t float the potential closing of 23 USPS offices.

At this point in your reading experience you might be thinking to yourself, “CreativeMMS is a web design agency, why are they so focused on the United States Postal Service?  I thought they were just supposed to be indie-laid-back-designers?”  Well, we’re focused on it because we’re a multimedia firm, and while our medium is already in “the future,” tech trends change constantly, and it’s only fun when it’s not happening to you.  Twenty years from now someone very well may write an article on how CreativeMMS is still making WordPress based websites when all the other design firms are selling holographic chipsets that embed in the eyes.  Until that day comes, I guess we’ll all just have to keep improving on what we do, what we know, and what we strive to know.  What that, I leave you with a Postal Service that has yet to fail us:

What Screen Resolution Should I Design For?

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Wednesday August 3, 2011

We get asked this question all the time: What screen resolution should I design for? An important thing to recognize is that, especially with many large and HD monitor’s being released, your screen size will rarely be the same size as your monitor, so “view Desktop Properties > Screen Resolution” isn’t the spot you want to be checking when confirming a design.

Largely, your audience will affect your design decisions.  I say largely, because design doesn’t solely derive from your audience; you should be designing with slight intentions of how you want users to browse your website.  If you’re using Google Analytics [and if you aren't, you should be] you can find your visitor’s browser settings in Visitors > Browser Capabilities > Screen Resolutions.  Here, Analytics will show your visitor’s screen resolutions sorted by popularity.  In most cases, you’ll see 1024×768 as a fairly medium size resolution with a majority, or close-to a majority, of viewings.  Case in point: This is what you should be designing to.

Now that we’re all on the same page in terms of design, lets talk about canvas size.  In the image below you’ll see a screenshot of the Creative MMS website.  The inner teal rectangle, where the content is held, is the live area.  We designed the live area to 1024px wide.  The entire frame, however, is the canvas size.  To have a properly designed website, you want to design for both the canvas size, and the live area.  The point is twofold;  the first being, when the overall screen resolution is only large enough to show the live area, nothing will be displayed improperly, however, when the overall screen resolution is large enough to display, say, 1600px wide, the live area will be centered within the canvas, which will also have design elements throughout. In the diagram below you can see how various screen resolutions would display the Creative MMS website.

Notably, as monitors grow, available space for viewing also increases and, like they do, trends will change; they’ll change faster than you think.  For now though, with current tech trends both shrinking and expanding (Apple’s iMac is up to a 27″ displays and the UMID mbook at a whopping 4.8″ screen), design needs to be at a safe median to reach mass audiences, catering to both those with the 27″ iMac and the UMID mbook.

Firefox and Chome have two extensions worth downloading and experimenting with to help in analyzing a proper website.  The Web Developer extension enables you to input specific screen resolutions and automatically shrink your browser to those set dimensions.  Web developer also has a slew of other web tools built in; it’s a great tool to have.  A new one I’ve recently downloaded is MeasureIt, which allows you to draw a ruler on the screen of any webpage you’re viewing to analyze elements.  This is especially handy if you’re matching features to a specific site, or just curious about something you’re viewing.

I hope this is a help to all those out there reading up on proper web design.  Give us a head nod, cheers, or just some general feedback on our design views in the comments.