Websites « Blog

November 24, 2006

Axis41 – Salt Lake City, UT Marketing Communications Company

On the front page of Axis41′s website, they define themselves:

“We’re not an ad agency, consultancy, design firm, or web shop. But the best from all of the above. No one word describes us. Although the word refreshing is a popular choice for those who have been through marketing hell.”

Perhaps that’s why their website is organized a little bit different than most ____ shops who do design work are.

Axis41
155 North 400 West, Suite 135
Salt Lake City, UT 84103
T 801.303.6300
F 801.303.6339
E info@axis41.com
W www.axis41.com

OVERVIEW
Axis41 has proved itself as a firm to be reckoned with – its designs seem to be appearing in all the recent publications that I’ve been looking at, and they’re winning a lot of awards. Since they don’t have much on their website to say “about us” other than describing the solutions they provide and their approach to those solutions, the only tidbit I found beyond the above is their press release signature:

About Axis41
Bringing a revolutionary approach to marketing communications, Salt Lake City-based Axis41 comprises a team of communication and program design specialists who strategically use and develop a wide variety of marketing and Web tools to effectively create a measurable voice that radiates from their clients’ organizations. Included among Axis41 clients are: Ciena, ClearOne Communications, FranklinCovey, Symantec, ADP Lightspeed, Novell, VISTA Staffing Solutions, and Intermountain Health Care. Learn more â€” visit www.axis41.com.

I assume that their name originates from the fact that Salt Lake City lies near the 41st parallel, though technically their location in downtown Salt Lake is about 40.77 degrees north. (I guess a little “rounding” was in order there. I can’t imagine Axis40.77 being as easy to remember.)

Read the rest of this entry »

November 22, 2006

More Design Quotes – Wikiquote

I posted on a previous occasion some of my favorite design quotes. I had several of my friends comment to me personally that they were a big fan of the one by Steve Jobs. When I did this post, I did a quick search online for a few more design quotes and ran across the design section and the graphic design section of Wikiquote. Here are a few of the quotes I found of note listed there:

“Design is the contrast of the core of limitations therefore there are no boundaries. It is simply an interpretation of creativity.”
- Jenaiha Woods
“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.”
- Dr. Edwin Land
“I think so many of the objects we’re surrounded by seem trivial. And I think that’s because they’re either trying to make a statement or trying to be overtly different. What we were trying to do was have a very honest approach and an exploration of materials and surface treatment. So much of what we try to do is get to a point where the solution seems inevitable: you know, you think ‘of course it’s that way, why would it be any other way?’ It looks so obvious, but that sense of inevitability in the solution is really hard to achieve.”

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November 15, 2006

KFC Creates First Brand Visible From Space

KFC Boldy Goes where no brand has gone before by unveiling astronomical, 87,500 square-foot, contemporized Colonel Sanders logo in Area 51 desert to launch “KFC of the Future”.

Kicking Off a New Brand Image Campaign
The event marks the official debut of a massive global re-image campaign that will contemporize 14,000-plus KFC restaurants in over 80 countries over the next few years.

KFC’s new fresh look updates one of the most recognized, respected and beloved brand icons in the world and spans all visual elements from logo to restaurant design, advertising, packaging, uniforms and more.

The new logo depicts Colonel Sanders with his signature string tie, but for the first time, replaces his classic white, double-breasted suit with a red apron. The apron symbolizes the home-style culinary heritage of the brand and reminds customers that KFC is always in the kitchen cooking delicious, high-quality, freshly prepared chicken by hand, just the way Colonel Sanders did 50 years ago.

The Logo Construction
It took a team of nearly 50 designers, engineers, scientists (including astrophysicists), architects and other professionals working nearly three months to conceive, create and execute building the world’s largest logo.

The “Face from Space” took more than 3,000 hours to create from inception to launch and was built by Synergy, a leading event company.

The logo consists of 65,000 one-foot by one-foot painted tile pieces that were assembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle: 6,000 red, 14,000 white, 12,000 eggshell, 5,000 beige and 28,000 black.

The logo took 24 days, working around-the-clock, to manufacture and ultimately produce. It then took six days on site to construct the logo, during which time the logo design pieces were kept hidden and under cover from identified and unidentified flying objects.

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November 7, 2006

“Citizen Journalism” Gannett Jumps on Board

Have you got a blog? Do you write about what’s happening in your world, or under your expertise, or in your realm of influence? Gannett Co. may want to hear about it. The nation’s largest newpaper chain plans to create stories with information from bloggers, people who post in Internet discussion groups and other non-journalists in hopes of winning readers from the Internet, television and other news sources, officials with the company said.

Gannett, which operates 90 newspapers, including the nation’s largest, USA Today, is hoping “citizen journalism” will reverse the company’s part of an industrywide trend of declining circulation and advertising revenues, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Gannett also plans to merge newspaper and online operations of USA Today and other publications. All Gannett newspapers are being urged to make the transition quickly.

The question is begged to be ask, As Blogs and Citizen Journalism Grow, Where’s the News? Who writes the news, and what news is news?

Read about it in this article: Yahoo News – Gannett enlists citizen journalists

Hereâ€™s some nice commentary: The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism

November 4, 2006

angryporcupine*design – Park City, UT Design Studio

I added another design studio to my list called angryporcupine*design, out of Park City, UT. They just came up on my “radar” when I noticed they were published in Print Magazine recently for their logo design.

I hope to occasionally profile local agencies, here’s an overview of ap*d: (the copy is summarized from their website)

angryporcupine*design
1720 Creekside Lane
Park City, UT 84098
435 655 0645 | studio
435 604 6970 | fax
info@angryporcupine.com
www.angryporcupine.com

OVERVIEW
Since 1994, ap*d has provided award-winning, successful design solutions for a variety of clients. angryporcupine*design was founded by studio principal, Cheryl Roder-Quill. Cheryl chose this unusual yet memorable name because 1) she married a Quill and 2) she wanted a studio name that was as unique as the design solutions she creates for her clients. Thus her tagline: angryporcupine*design â€“ not an ordinary name, not an ordinary studio.

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November 2, 2006

Amazing Commercials for Sony Bravia

What do the following add up to?

70,000 litres of paint
358 single bottle bombs
33 sextuple air cluster bombs
22 Triple hung cluster bombs
268 mortars
33 Triple Mortars
22 Double mortars
358 meters of weld
330 meters of steel pipe
57 km of copper wire

Read the rest of this entry »

November 1, 2006

Habits of Highly Successful Freelance Designers

I ran across a blog post the other day, that prompted me to think about what was good and bad about my personal experience on being a freelancer. The post, entitled 7 Habits of a Highly Successful Freelance Web Designer was written by Andy Budd, the managing director of a user experience consultancy in England. After being asked by a couple people on how to make it as a freelance web designer, he posted his thoughts as 7 ideas. Here’s a summary:

1. Love what you do:

…you need to have a passion for what you do. Passion (with the aid of caffeine) will keep you working late into the night when the rest of your friends are down the pub or fast asleep.

2. Never stop learning:

…the best web designers are endlessly inquisitive and always want to keep abreast of the latest trends and technologies.

3. Specialise:

Some skills are more in demand than others, but if youâ€™re the top of your field in a particular language or skill, youâ€™ll always be in demand.

4. Get a killer portfolio:

…donâ€™t post up every project youâ€™ve ever done. Youâ€™re only as good as your last couple of projects so put your best foot forward and showcase your most recent work.

5. Network like crazy:

…people much prefer doing businesses with somebody they have met and feel comfortable with. Next time they need help on a particular project, they are much more likely to remember you and get in touch.

6. Manage your time:

Make sure people know the difference between your work time and your home time. Just because youâ€™re at home doesnâ€™t mean you have time to do the dishes, clean the house and take out the trash. Conversely donâ€™t participate in avoidance techniques like doing the chores, making snacks or watching TV.

7. Build your reputation:

…become the person people want to do business with. That way, rather than searching for new clients, they will come to you.

Read the entire post here.

My addition to this list, would probably be:

Develop a dual personality:
Keep your personal life and work life completely separate by having separate phone numbers (don’t give out your home number), maintain a work email that is separate that your personal email, and divide your personal space into “office” and home (even if you work in a small space).

Find opportunities to be on-site:
Freelancing from home became a lonely experience for me, so I often found opportunities to visit my clients at their offices. I’d drop by in the morning with donuts (my business card attached), or schedule lunches in advance with my clients near their office. I even kept an extra computer that I could keep onsite with one of my clients to work in their office on larger projects. These clients were happy to give me some space and an Internet connection – and things moved much smoother when the client was right there.

October 26, 2006

Design Directory at Dexigner.com

So I’ve been watching my traffic the past couple weeks through my newly installed Google Analytics. I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of referrals from the Design Directory at Dexigner.com, so I thought I’d check out the site.

Their listings have a small picture of your webpage – here’s mine, and contains all the pertinent details of my web page:

Description: Portfolio of Utah-based freelance designer. Includes logo identity, corporate packaging, web site design, corporate branding through all print and electronic materials.
URL: www.bradmccall.com
Category: Graphic Design Portfolios
Page Size: 115 bytes
Visitors: 337
Date Added: 01 May 2004 16:48
Last Crawl: 23 Oct 2006 10:10
Status: Active (200)
Supporter: No
Submitted by: Design Directory

The parent site of this directory also has a design database, design forums, design agenda, newsletter and more.

Dexigner Design Portal
Dexigner Design Portal delivers latest design news, events, exhibitions, conferences, and design competitions.
http://www.dexigner.com/

Design Directory
The Design Directory is a web directory of design resources.
Designers, design companies, design studios, portfolios, consultancies and many more.
http://www.dexigner.com/directory/
http://www.designdirectory.net/

Design Database
A comprehensive database of designs, designers and design companies.
Listings include photos, material, field, location and contact information.
http://www.dexigner.com/database/
http://www.designdatabase.com/

Design Agenda
Dexigner Design Agenda keeps you up-to-date on current design competitions,
exhibitions, conferences and upcoming events.
http://www.dexigner.com/agenda/
http://www.designagenda.net/

Dexigner Newsletter
Monthly roundup of design news and competitions from the #1 portal for design related information.
Already more than 26.000 subscribers.
http://www.dexigner.com/newsletter/

If you haven’t visited here already, or list your site (as a freelancer), I’d do it. It seems like a very popular site (800,000 unique visitors a month according to their about us page). I just signed up for their newsletter, so we’ll see how that goes.

October 25, 2006

Are You Paid What You’re Worth? Graphic Designer Salary Calculator

Are you being paid what you’re worth? This designer salaries link, sponsored by AIGA (the organization for designers I recently became a part of) and Aquent (a marketing and creative services group) has a link to give you an idea of what your worth.

Check it out –>AIGA/AQUENT Survey of Design Salaries 2006

October 24, 2006

Utah Creatives – Designers, Agencies, Firms and More

So there use to be this great site called ampUTate.org that would contain links to all the local Utah advertising agencies, graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, etc. Recently, because of time constraints (and from what I’ve found in message boards around the web) a “hack” to the site, the author has taken the page down.

So with a little digging, I found the link page still live, and grabbed most the links (half of them were old and broken). I checked every link to make sure it was still live (deleted the ones that were not) and still in Utah. (I’m sure I missed some) I also scoured the web to find a whole bunch of others. I’ll be managing from here, but I just wanted to credit ampUTate.org for the good start.

If you know anyone that needs to be added to this list, feel free to comment, or drop me a note at imcre8tive [at] yahoo.com . You’ll always find the most updated version of this list in the main navigation under “pages”. (this list/post was last updated Dec 1, 2006)

Utah Graphic Designers
( Click Here to View Most Recent List )

Alan Peck [Menacing Tourist]
Andrew Burt [Moondog Studios]
Angie Wingert [Ridgeline Creative Design]
Ashley J. Gay [Studio525]
Ben Childs [BC Design]
Brad Ford
Brad McCall [Brad McCall, designer]
Bryan Green
Chad Garrick [Fubbs]
Chad Maxwell [Xzude]
Charles Plummer [Chasworks]
Cory Maylett
Curt Snarr
Curtis Morley
Dan Decort [Decort Interactive]
Darin Warren
Dave Boyd [Boyd Interactive]
Dave Gibson [Listen Design]
Davina Pallone [Design Wrench]
Ed Harrach
Eduardo Cuellar [EdWorks]
Eric Harrison [Dzin Forge]
Eric Russell
Eric Turner [Stremph]
Erik Lono [Neubrucke]
James Bowden [Bowden Visual]
Janice Mataya [Mataya Design / The Very Idea]
Jared T. Strain [Drool Collection]
Jason Gill [Gilluminate]
Jeffrey Whitehead [Jeffrey's Fridge]
Jennifer Gyllenskog
Jennifer Straus
Joanne Maass [Jomass Design]
John Lepinski
Jon Bybee [Bybee Creative]
Jordan Mazziotti [Mazziotti Design]
Josh Penrod [Amishrobot]
Joshua Steimle [Don Loper]
Kim Reynolds [Kimbolt]
Kirk Rawlins
Kyle Follett [Folco]
Lance Clark [l4nc3]
Luke Baker [LMB Studio]
Maria Q. Stultz [MQStudio]
Matt Maxwell
Matt Wigham [I Hear It Hurts]
Matthew Jorgensen [Creative Insights]
Mel Milton [Melmade]
Micah Bauer
Michael John Burgoyne
Monique Heileson [Moneek]
Nate Smith
Paul Consiglio [72 Pixels]
Paul Mayne [Forml Design]
Paul Solomon [Solomon71]
Pete Hawkes
Ray Elder
Rob Harris
Ryan Mansfield [Mansfield Company]
Ryan Tanner [fourthdaydesign]
Steven Jerman
Zac Bernstein [740creative]