Sounds a little scary, and very intriguing, so to get everyone pumped for this first-time KC event, here’s a video from the website to explain a little more about how it all works.

I have yet to learn all the rules myself, but basically a few designers get on stage in front of the booze-crazed crowd, and they’re given an assignment to be completed in a short amount of time on the provided computers, all while being watched and projected onto the screens behind them. It sounds like there may be a ‘People’s Choice Award’ for this event, which would be a real honor to receive.

When, Where, How Much?

KC Design Week will be at the end of February, and the Cut & Paste event in particular will take place on February 29th, 6-9pm. It will happen at the Vox Theater, 1405 Southwest Blvd, Kansas City, KS 66103. Tickets at the door will be $15, but you can purchase advance tickets now for only $9: BUY NOW! See you there!

• 1+ years prior experience in B2B consultative sales; marketing and/or interactive is a huge plus
• Exemplary written and verbal communication skills; requires the ability to communicate technical information clearly and simply to a diverse audience
• Strong educator with excellent articulation and communication
• Must be able to establish rapport and begin our partnership process
• Ability and desire to work in a dynamic, start-up environment

We are a fast moving agency and your ability to stay on task, work well with team members, and meet or exceed project milestones is key to your success. We offer a creative, dynamic environment made up of smart, hardworking, talented individuals. We’d love to talk to you – check out our careers page to apply.

View the whole email (complete with shimmer action) here

Here at Adcuda we’ve implemented the animated GIF throughout a few of our email campaigns, and while we can’t see any staggering statistics either way, as a user who’s received countless store emails, seeing some ‘pizazz’ in the design makes me pay more attention and keep it open long enough to read the entire message (and that could mean a world of difference for your click-throughs).

If you’re new to the animated GIF, you can check out one of my older posts about them, or you can check out this handy tutorial:

www.creativetechs.com

** Outlook users will only see the first frame of the animation, so be sure that can stand alone.

First on my cool-list, this is a website that uses photography as their background, which almost always looks rad. Keep in mind though, if you want to attempt this you need to size your images down so they won’t slow your load-time, and make sure it doesn’t distract.

www.sheltonfleming.co.uk

Secondly, here is some inspiration to think outside the box..or rather the square in this case. Although using obscure shapes in your printing can jack-up the price, it’s certainly worth every penny. You’ll always get an awesome product, and people will want to keep it around, even if it’s your business card or a coaster. And isn’t that the point?

Thirdly (..sure, it’s a word), here’s some fun typography mixed with some illustration. Not only is it funny, but the craftsmanship on the lettering is perfect. It looks like it’s being sucked into the fish’s mouth, and the fish appears to be moving really fast, all captured in a still image. Plus, the colors are nice!

Now quite surfing the web and create some stuff yourself! Feel free to share your works-in-progress for some feedback, or just to brag.

Either way, we’d love to see it! And now, a iconographic depiction of Bill Murray’s movies:

As much as I love Trader Joes the store, I hate hate hate Trader Joes the newsletter. Why? Well, first off:

Here is the link to the actual email

1) Make it Legible
I’m fairly new to the store (they just opened up in KC a few months ago), but every newsletter I’ve received so far has been a headache to read. As I’ve said before, I love the store, so I want to hear what they have to say. I expect that their newsletter will have tid-bits about how to use their products in new recipes, products on mark-down, etc. But when I open their email, it’s just teeny-tiny ‘print’ with crap covering half of it. That’s all fine and dandy if it’s just a background or supporting graphic, but this is their main event!

I’m not asking for live-text (as far as email marketing goes, we’ve been using image-only emails for quite some time with little backlash), but I am asking that you put yourself in the user’s shoes. “Hey, I want to read that Turkey Roasting Chart! What’s that say? 3 hours Unsalted? Oh, Unstuffed!” In the words of Steve Krug, don’t make me think. If you can’t read it in a split-second, neither can your customers.

2) Make it Clickable
Since I can’t read that Turkey Roasting Chart, I try and click on it to see if they have more information on their site about it. But it doesn’t click..nothing clicks!! What am I supposed to do with this?! The first link is over 650 pixels down, but my inbox is only 460 pixels tall. For most customers, that’s a deal-breaker. Make every single image clickable. You’re always trying to send people back to your site. No landing page? Make one. No excuses!

3) Size Matters
The rule of thumb with email marketing design is 600px by 400px. If you don’t have your main message and at least one click-through within that box, you’ve pretty much failed. Sorry, buddy. 600px wide covers most email provider’s windows, so use as much of that space as you can. Unfortunately, this Trader Joes email was only 580px wide, and 80px of that was just plain ole’ white padding on the left and right. They’ve lost out on 100px to make that image larger and more legible.

So now that I’ve ripped apart poor Joe, I offer up this quick summary. Care about the user-experience, because if they don’t care about you, then what have you got?

This past Monday, Adcuda was asked to sponsor and participate in a unique marathon brainstorming session on how to best integrate Google’s new high speed fiber-optics into the lives of everyday Kansas City citizens. The session lasted from sun-up to sun-down and ended up cultivating hundreds upon hundreds of ideas – each written on its own colored note card and smacked to the wall with a resounding THUD.

I had complete access to film each brainstorming group as they spent the day churning out new and innovative ways to implement this powerful new technology. How do we integrate high speed Internet access our daily lives without it taking over who we are? (. . . “WALL-E” . . . ‘nuff said). How will this new speed make life easier for those who are immobile? Can it bring communities together? Will it make us better people or will we be become corrupted by the glow of our computer monitors – eyeing the world through a high-def peephole? All these questions aside the truth of the matter is we already HAVE all these opportunities in front of us. The speed provided by Google’s ‘gigabit’ wire is just a better method to help facilitate what’s already happening.

As I made my way across each room with my camera one topic that I kept hearing about was video. How will having instant accessibility to videos not only increase our enjoyment of online media but help reform our online experiences with video and improve the well-being of a society. The former is obvious – better looking videos and nearly zero lag time means we will soon be spending even MORE time online, sifting through the endless amount of media hoping to find what’s relevant to us. Soon we will no doubt see even longer pre-rolls and in greater quantities. Take loading time and poor quality out of the equation and I believe we can sit through much more gobbledygook in order to watch what we want instantly. The latter is less obvious and only time will tell.

When it comes to online video we are actually very spoiled already. A decent Internet connection gives you the ability to watch almost anything in rather decent quality with almost no wait time. You can load an entire Netflix movie in under 15 seconds – any HD Vimeo video in less than 3. Where online video is currently falling behind is live, high-quality streaming. Today, only top tiered organizations have the ability to stream content in anything remotely close to HD and the load time is excruciating at even the most competitive speeds. I generally avoid it and wait a day for the ‘syndicated’ version.

Now we could be looking at full resolution video and audio streaming almost instantaneously across the Google network into every home, business, and classroom. WAIT A MINUTE! Now we’re talking about TELEVISION. The difference here lies in the ability for anyone to create their own ‘station’ and broadcast anything to anyone at anytime. Think YouTube on steroids. That may seem scary to some, but it enriches the idea that we are all created equally (well – as long as you can afford the equipment/connection/computer) – we all have a voice and an idea, and as long as you have a camera, a microphone and an Internet connection you can create your own unique content. The question is what will we do with such power?

Probably screw it up.

But, maybe someday soon we’ll also get truly comfortable with being so easily connected and pull something remarkable out of the chaos.

My rules are – we still need movie theaters and we can’t end up like “WALL-E.” Other than that – go crazy.

Take a moment to watch our new ‘trailer’ of the Building The Gigabit City experience below.  Special thanks to the great folks at the Social Media Club of Kansas City and Brainzooming for help on the project and providing us with the opportunity to make it happen!

Google Image Search
There’s some basic background information you need to know to fully understand how Google ranks images. Its image rankings are much more complex than typical website text, so that means it’s more difficult for Google to analyze and sort them all out into its rankings. However, there are a few key factors that it focuses on, which you can easily isolate and use to your advantage. If you’re wondering how to rank on Google images, focus on the following factors:

ALT Attribute
The way Google and the other images typically read an image file looks something like this for example:

<img src=”http://www.domainexample.com/image-file.jpg” alt=”Adcuda SEO”>

The text that’s entered in the alt= attribute, which in this case is “Adcuda SEO,” is sort of a tag for the image that shows up if the link is broken or the picture can’t load for whatever reason. The purpose is to describe the image, and Google reads that tag to get an idea of what the picture is.

Image Filename
At first glance, this factor doesn’t seem to hold much value – most image filenames are not very descriptive and Google has a limited amount of opportunity to get solid data on what the image is about. However, since the majority of images don’t do a good job of describing the content, taking the time to do so will definitely make your image stand out. Plus an additional use of your keyword never hurts.

Image Dimensions
This one’s pretty simple. If you’re reusing a common image or one that’s regularly shared, resizing helps make the image appear unique to Google. Otherwise it may view the image as duplicate content, which is never good from an SEO perspective.

Text Around Your Image
The text surrounding an image typically describes its content. Using keywords in the caption and the text in the immediate area around the image will give Google better context for figuring out what the image is about.

Traditional On-Page & Off-Page Factors
Other SEO factors still play a major role in the image ranking for your target keyword. That means the page containing your image should be well optimized using the same keywords. Off-page, the number of links and overall popularity of the page will also help the image rank. If Google values the site itself, that will translate just the same in the image search results.

Flickr
Flickr is one of the top dogs when it comes to social image sharing and searches in general, so if you’re optimizing your images, it makes sense to get involved here. Here’s the downside of ranking on Flickr – since it’s owned by Yahoo, Flickr images don’t show up in Google results very often. However, they dominate Yahoo images and also show up quite often on Bing. Flickr also offers additional opportunities from a social perspective to interact with potential customers and integrate your brand and message into your photographs. For example, if a clothing brand were to post and optimize “behind-the-scenes” pictures from a photo shoot, they could endear themselves to both current and potential clients. So how does Flickr rank photos? Its key factors are much more transparent than Google’s:

Photo Name
Regarding ranking on Flickr’s own internal search engine, simply having your target keyword in the photo title will help immensely.

Photo Tag
Photo tags work similarly to the titles, but give you more opportunity to be descriptive. Don’t just limit your tags to your keywords – include where the image was taken, who it was taken by, commentary on the style and whatever else might be relevant. Remember, we’re looking to completely utilize all the features Flickr provides.

Photo Description
Though not as relevant for ranking, photo descriptions are important for Flickr results in much the same way that meta tags are for websites. They provide the user with information about the picture within the results before it is even clicked. Use the description as a way to tell the user, ‘you’re headed in the right direction, check out this picture.’

What I’m angling towards here is for you to consider what sets you apart from your competitors, what is it that your company offers that endears customers, what’s that little unique thing that keeps them coming back for more? Follow-up, potentially most important question: are you telling potential clientele your unique selling points? We constantly meet business owners who have either buried their USPs deep into their site or assume visitors will put together how amazing they are as they browse around. Sadly, that isn’t how the internet works; there is no patience online, because that greener grass is only a mouse click away. Regardless of what it may be, how minor you may think it is, you need to be promoting whatever sets you apart.

Here are some examples of “offerings” from a few of our clients that show the sort of things I’m talking about:

• A moving service advertising the professional appearance of their crews. It seems minor until you really think about it. Do you want clean-cut “moving specialists” touching all your personal items or the local chain gang?
  
  

  The boys and I were just curious to which room the Hummel collection will be going.

• A water and mold remediator who makes it clear they’re available 24/7 for emergency water damage services. When your basement has become a pond in the middle of the night, you’re going to be quick to pull the trigger on a website that plainly assures you they are in fact open no matter what page you land on.
• A fishing resort in the Ozarks has a daily fishing report, giving the weather, along with news about what’s biting. You don’t even have to be staying there to find this useful.


Biting today: your nightmares



• A Chinese tea importer that maintains a FAQ, health benefits page, along with a well-updated blog that provides not only a wealth of information regarding their product, but a resource to engage current and potential clients. This makes for educated customers while showing they’re an authority in their industry.

You don’t have to have some crazy, mind-blowing offer, in fact, providing information can work just as well as giving away something tangible – just make sure people know about it, because that little bit extra could be what turns a new customer into a repeat customer.

Most CSS and fancy designs may have looked cool on your desktop, but quickly became unusable on a cell phone.  So, the best bet was a plain text experience for your mobile website.

With the rise of smartphones into the more mainstream, like iPhones, Androids, Palm, and Blackberries, the internet is once more accessible on the go, as it should be.

“The number of consumers accessing the mobile Internet in the United States has jumped from 54 million in May 2009 to72 million in May 2010, a year-over-year increase of 34%” – The Nielsen Co.

Those numbers are from 2 years ago, and they continue to rise.

The great thing about smartphones is that most of them are now using legitimate browsers with a universal rendering engine (typically WebKit, or at least based off of it) that render mobile websites the same way.

However, it is important to remember that even though many of these browsers are using the same rendering engine as your desktop; a mobile device is not a desktop.  There are many factors that differentiate the two.  For example: screen size, hardware (RAM, processor), and controls. Consequently, a mobile website should not be developed the same way as a regular website.

When designing and building your mobile website, remember a few important notes:

1. There is no mouse on a cell phone, thusly, there is no hover.  Keep that in mind.  Don’t make your mobile site depend on this for navigation or cool effects.
2. Limit animations, images, and scripts.  You may be tempted to have your title come flying out, spinning all around before stopping at its final resting place in your header.  Don’t.  Remember that the typical visitor to your site via a mobile is going to be using a cell network, which is slower than most wifi.  They have to wait for all those things to load.  Also, they are using a cell phone with hardware limitations.  What may look smooth on you MacBook may be choppy and ugly on a phone.
3. KISS.  No, I’m not hitting on you.  KISS is a good ol’ military term that fits very well in mobile development.  It stands for Keep It Simple Stupid.  Your mobile visitor is coming to your site from his phone, on the go, using cell coverage, and is probably looking for something specific so they can go on with their day.  Make your site VERY easy to navigate.
4. Give your site’s search center stage!  Like I said above, your visitor is probably coming to your site looking for something specific and might be in a hurry.  Put your search at the very top of the site.  I like to put mine before anything, including the title.
5. DON’T USE FLASH.  I can’t stress this enough.  It doesn’t matter that Android supports it.  iPhones, iPads, and some older Blackberrys and Palms don’t either.  All the annoying “device” wars aside, Flash is very memory intensive, and slow loading on a cellular network.  Don’t use it.  It’s 2011 anyways.  Flash is about dead.  HTML(5), jQuery, and CSS3 are more than capable for 90% of the websites out there.  Leverage them.

When designing and building your mobile website, keep all these things in mind.  They make the difference between happy repeat visitors and some angry people slamming their phone on the ground because they just waited 5 minutes for your site to load, only to find that your mobile website was frustrating or even unusable.

You (or whomever handles your professional web design) need to consider your brand and your customers’ interests. You don’t want to distract from the main content on a page; instead you want to subtly reinforce your brand through appropriate textures and colors. That means your brand-spanking-newly-designed website needs a good background.

You can go two routes: you can design the background yourself using Photoshop or Illustrator, or you can download a free repeating background.

HOW TO: Design Your Own Repeating Background

First: I like to make my backgrounds in Illustrator, because you can have more precision, but it depends on the look you want to obtain. For this professional web design tutorial, I created a 20×20 pixel square and gave it a light gray background. Then, I drew a white circle with a light gray border, so from far away it looks like it has some depth. Copy and paste this multiple times to make a grid.

When working on such a small scale, ‘Snap to Grid’ unfortunately won’t be much help (the grid is much larger than the 20×20 square you’re working in), but if you have ‘Smart Guides’ on, you’ll be able to align the circles to each other.

Second: Make sure the circles are equidistant from all boundaries of the box, because if the left side has more space than the right, when the pattern repeats, it’ll have an awkward gap. Now ‘Save for Web’ as a JPG or PNG.

Third: To see how your pattern looks as a repeat, open up Dreamweaver and write this simple code in the < body > tag:

Save the file, then preview in a browser for the full effect!

Congratulations! You’ve just created your very own (and unique!) repeating background. If you don’t have access to Illustrator or Photoshop, or would just rather download a free pattern, there are a plethora of sites to choose from. One in particular that I really love is www.subtlepatterns.com: there aren’t many colors to choose from, but the textures and patterns look great and will certainly give you that professional web design you’re looking for.