Written By: Patrick on January 30th, 2011
When a business or organization comes to us for a project, the first thing we often have to do is figure out what makes them special. Unless your products truly are commodities, there’s something about your company that makes it a little different from the next guy. It’s important to show your potential customers just how you’re different, and we really work to do that, whether the project at hand is a website redesign, a tv commercial, or whatever. Sure, all this is about branding. But it’s deeper than that, and not a lot of companies take the time to differentiate themselves.
When I first came to Los Angeles, we needed a business attorney for our company. We spent a lot of time trying to find one who understood the convergence of digital/Internet and Hollywood. What was the problem? Well, every piece of marketing material put out by every law firm in LA looked exactly the same. The similarity of these lawyer tv commercials, marketing brochures, etc made every one of those lawyers seem part of a bland sea of faceless, interchangeable cogs.
Now, I know a lot of those law firms spent a lot of money marketing their businesses. Too bad they were mostly failed efforts and wasted money, because nobody took the time to figure out why their firm was special. And yes, eventually we did find a good attorney, but it was through a personal referral.
Sure, there’s tons of books and seminars designed to help businesses figure out their USP (unique selling proposition) and the basics of branding. But after working in this digital marketing business for the last decade-plus, it’s become painfully clear that business owners and their staffs typically don’t have the time to do all this on their own. They’re so busy running their business that it’s tough to find the time or the vision to really look at their company and figure out what makes them different from everyone else. It’s up to their marketing resources- whether internal or external, like us, to help them down this path.
More than ten years after coming to Los Angeles, almost every lawyer’s marketing still looks the same. I’m starting to see some changes, though, including one law firm we work with in the midwest who really seems to get it. Every organization has something special about them. Once you find out what that is, and make sure that your marketing reflects that, you’re golden.
Written By: Patrick on January 20th, 2011
Back in 2009, our very first “real” project shooting on RED in a greenscreen environment was our own promotional video, as seen on our website’s homepage. Well, one of the huge advantages of shooting in the state-of-the-art RED RAW format is the color science improves with each build of the camera’s system. This means you can go back and get better and better results as the color science improves.
We shot our original promo using RED version 16, and now we’re at RED version 30. Just for fun, I thought it’d be fun to resurrect our old footage and see what re-rendering it through build 30 did for it. I was blown away! The quality of colors, the ease of pulling the greenscreen key, and so on really blew my mind.
You see, this particular video shoot wasn’t shot under the best of conditions- not only were we using an early version of RED, we also were shooting without enough light (the footage was underexposed by a stop or so), and we had some very serious IR (infrared) contamination at the soundstage to deal with. It was a mess.
Bottom line: I spent days massaging the old footage to get it to where it was good enough to present to the world. In the end, I was reasonably happy with the results. But this time, I spent one day working on the video. And it’s far superior to the original.
Here’s the results, courtesy of Vimeo. You’ll also see this on our homepage shortly:
Written By: Patrick on January 13th, 2011
Jeffrey Zeldman over at Happy Cog wrote a post recently about how it’s our responsibility to design websites that are better than good. As he wraps up, he asks an interesting question:
“Engaging sites and apps have that extra something that commands our loyalty without demanding our constant attention. It isn’t a showy opulence, and it isn’t a technology—bragging that your site is built with HTML5 and expecting users to care is like Certs hawking Retsyn. So how do we set our sites and apps apart? What ways of thinking and working lead to the details and touches that aren’t just special, but are special in a way people care about, and to which the right customers will respond?”
To me, it’s all about story. All the whizzy CSS3 and HTML5 stuff, all the killer layouts and so forth don’t mean a thing without it. If you’re designing a website and have a solid understanding of your client’s story, you’ll be inclined to make design decisions that enhance and support that story. Sort of like how Zeldman’s ceiling moldings and sweet hardwood floor enhance, support, and define the space that is his NYC apartment.
The best stories are true. Certs hawking Retsyn feels weak, and possibly untrue. I mean, I’ve never seen that drop of Retsyn, and it really feels like an artificial device created by a copywriter. However, Altoids do indeed feel curiously strong to me. That story resonates, because it feels true. Curiously enough, Altoids’ marketing (online and broadcast) is decently well designed to support and enhance their core story. Certs doesn’t even have a website, anymore.
Now, yes, we do a lot of video over here, and I do live in Hollywood so I’m a little inclined to want to yell “story!” like a psycho wants to yell “fire!” in a theater. But most of the website redesign projects we’ve undertaken need a lot more than a new design. They need a real rethinking of the project from the ground up. Done right, that starts with a clear and solid understanding of your client’s story.
Without it, all the whizzy stuff just doesn’t matter.
Written By: Patrick on January 12th, 2011
We just got our copy of The FabJob Guide to Becoming a Web Designer from the publisher, and we’re in it!
Author Barbara Lightner quotes me in a few places, as I talk about my experiences starting out as a website designer back in 1993, and how cutting edge website design has changed in the past 17 years. The book is a good, fast read, and probably a great introduction to the business of web design.
This is the second book that’s come out recently which talks about our expertise in designing and building successful websites.
Written By: Patrick on January 11th, 2011
Wow, 2011 came up fast. We spent a record-busy 2010 cranking out video and web-based projects for clients from around the USA, and although we’re a week late, Happy New Year!
This year will probably be filled with all sorts of adventures, and I expect some trends will continue:
- Video will continue to grow. Clients know they need great video content, as online and broadcast converge. There’s a place for lower quality video, but if you want to look great and tell your story best, smart companies hire a professional video production team. Last year, almost all our clients, even our website design ones, hired us to create video for them.
- The distinction between online and broadcast video quality will continue to blur.
- Most clients will begin to insist that their websites work on mobile devices. You can do this with web standards, which every design company should embrace.
- Internet Explorer will continue to suck, causing problems for web designers worldwide and holding back the development of the web in general.
- On cameras: RED will release Epic-X, and we’ll get one. Because we rock.
- iPhone app development will keep getting easier, and more clients will need said services.
- iPad/Tablet magazines and specialized content design and production will become a part of more digital studios’ offerings.
- Every website we launch will have a CMS backend, probably based on MODx. There’s just no excuse not to, anymore.
Awesome 2011 fireworks photo by AleGranholm
