Graphic Designers Virginia

In Fine-Tune PPC Keyword Selection with Google Insights for Search (Part 1), we started to look at some of the actionable insights that the Insights for Search tool helps you formulate about your keywords. This time, we’ll take our examples a few steps further to explore additional features of the tool.

Setting the Stage
Recall that for the sake of our examples, you own a plumbing, heating and air conditioning company in Maryland that serves the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Some of the keywords you target include

• hot water heater
• gas water heater
• electric water heater
• tankless water heater

Last time, we explored the search volume pattern for these terms from January 2004–present (remember “tankless water heater” came out on top?), and we took a look at the top related searches and rising searches for the “tankless” term. Last, we compared the long-term data with that from the most recent 12 months. Now let’s explore what happens when we filter the search data on geographic location and see what kinds of additional insights we get.

Filtering Data by Geographic Location
Filtering by geographic location lets you see search data from specific regions you serve vs. the whole nation (or world). The only drawback in using this feature is sometimes Insights for Search doesn’t have enough data to analyze, and you don’t get any results. So to see how this feature works, let’s compare results from the past 12 months for the more general term “water heater” for the Washington, D.C. subregion vs. the nation at large. Here are the results.







Top searches seem to be fairly consistent for DC and the nation, but Rising searches are notably different. Local rising searches center on Rinnai, while nationwide, there’s growing interest in Navien, hybrid, vertex and thermocouple water heaters. So you can use this information to see what’s hot today for your region and what might become hot down the road.

To decide whether to add “navien water heater” to your keyword list, you can use Insights for Search to find out where in the U.S. the interest is high. To do that, you can use the tool to produce a heat map of the U.S. for the “navien water heater” term, which uses color to indicate relative search volumes for each state: Darker colors indicate higher relative search volume. Here’s the heat map that Insights for Search generates for “navien water heater.”



Because neighboring Virginia shows a high search volume index for “navien water heater,” you might decide to add the keyword to your PPC campaign and test how it performs over the next few months. Similarly, you could check out some of the other terms in the national list to see whether they might be good options for your region as well.

Add Insights for Search to Your Keyword Research Toolkit
Insights for Search is a powerful tool for analyzing your keyword selections, and the examples we’ve looked at in this post and the last really only hint at how useful the tool can be. Like most other keyword research tools, the more time you spend using it, the easier and more valuable it will become. Try it today and see what actionable insights you discover about your keywords. Be prepared, though, it can be addictive!

If you’ve shied away from targeting your PPC advertising campaigns for local search because you want to reach as many potential customers as you possibly can, now might be the time to rethink your strategy. People typically use local search because they have a problem and they’re specifically looking for someone in a particular geographic area to solve it. Furthermore, according to SearchEngineWatch,

• 54% of Americans use Internet and local search instead of phone books
• 90% of online commercial searches result in offline transactions
• 61% of local searches result in a transaction

Isn’t it time to reconsider local PPC advertising?

Ideal Candidates for Local PPC Campaigns
Localizing PPC ad campaigns can prove useful for local businesses that don’t want to attract customers outside the region they service. For example, if you’re a plumbing, heating and air conditioning company in Washington DC, you might create a local PPC ad campaign based on a 25-mile radius from your office location. Anyone in that area (as determined by the location of their ISP) who searches for your keyword phrases would see your ad; people outside your service area would not. So, you get in front of the most relevant prospects with a specific (and likely immediate) need for your services.

Localizing also can be useful for national businesses that want to target specific geographic locations. For example, if you’re national coffee retailer that wants to run a special PPC campaign just for the World Series champion’s hometown, you can do that through local targeting. Your special ad will only display on search results pages of searchers in that hometown or those who include that city in their search queries.

3 Ways to “Go Local” in Google AdWords
Google AdWords offers three ways for you to address a local market through PPC advertising: geo-targeting via campaign-level settings, geographically modified keyword phrases and managed ad placements within the Google content network.

Campaign-level settings. Probably the simplest and fastest way to target a specific location (or bundle of locations) for your PPC ad campaign is through the campaign-level settings that you provide when you set up your campaign. You can target the audience for your ad by country, state, city, distance from a specific map point (e.g., your company address) or a customized region that you specify. These settings will affect all ad groups within the campaign, so you might find it useful to set up different campaigns for different target locations.

Modified keyword phrases. Modifying the keyword lists in your ad groups to include geographic descriptors is an effective—if not tedious—tactic in local PPC advertising. The advantage is that your ads can entice people who have taken the effort to search specifically on location and seed keyword (i.e., they’re highly qualified prospects who quite likely will respond to an ad that targets their long-tail query).

The disadvantage is that generating the list of modified keywords (and quite likely modified ads and landing pages) can be tasking. For example, let’s say that you’re an Internet marketing firm located in Virginia, and you want to specifically target customers in Washington, DC. If your keyword list contained the phrase “Internet marketing,” you would need to add geographic descriptors in multiple ways to cover all the possibilities searchers might use in their queries:
While geo-targeting through campaign settings removes portions of a potential customer base, targeting through keyword modifications more assertively pinpoints prospects who stand a very good chance of becoming your customers.

Managed ad placements. The third way to take advantage of localized search is through manually identifying which content sites in the Google network you’d like your PPC ads to appear on. This tactic is particularly effective if there are certain sites in your community that your target audience frequents on a regular basis. These sites might include news sites, newspapers or magazines, sports sites or other highly trafficked sites—good places to advertise your local services.

Give Local PPC Ads a Try
If you haven’t tried out local PPC advertising, there’s no time like the present! As with all PPC advertising, you can start a campaign quickly and limit your spend to easily stay within your budget. Local PPC advertising can be more economical, too. Because the audience for your ad will be fewer in number than that of a US or global campaign, your CPC price will likely be lower. All in all, local PPC advertising just might provide the boost you need for your business.

So It's been a couple weeks since Part 1, so just-in-case you need a refresh....check out Part 1 here

Okay, so as I stated in Part 1, Social Media Marketing and Viral Marketing can be very effective marketing strategies...BUT, effective execution and implementation can vary from company-to-company. Let's take a look at a couple examples:

---
    Company: Higher-End Manufacturer Car-Dealership

        Key Facts:
            - Currently they do NOT participate (not active) in any form of social marketing and/or viral marketing
            - Have an existing customer base of around 5,000
            - Roughly 25% of existing customers use their service department for recommended tune-ups
       
After initial analysis, their desired marketing-breakdown is as follows:

        Horizon 1: GOAL = To Increase Yearly Revenue
        Horizon 2: OBJECTIVES =
                    A) To Increase # of Cars Sold (Used & New)
                    B) To Increase the # of Customers Utilizing the Dealerships Service
                    Department for Scheduled Tune-ups
        Horizon 3: STRATEGY = Hmm, let's see...

Given the scenario above, what strategy(s) would better support their goals and objects:
            (A) Social Media Marketing?
            (B) Viral Marketing Campaign?
            (C) Both?
            (D) None of the Above? (....bet you're thinking right now; "man I miss school" :) )

---

Although many-professionals could prove to you that all-4 are correct...however, within the context of this discussion, I like (A); Social Media Marketing the best!

Here's why...

--

7 Practical Uses of Advanced Search Operators
What makes the search operators quicker to use than the Advanced Search page is that you can type them directly into the search box. You can also combine them in creative ways to find very useful information. Furthermore, Twitter Search lets you create ongoing searches that deliver results to your RSS feed reader (e.g., Google Reader) for review at your convenience.

Here are seven ways to use the Advanced Search operators to help your business capture useful information from the Twittersphere. Have fun experimenting to see what works best for your business!

(Note: Twitter Search is not case sensitive—you can enter everything in the search box in lowercase. In the following examples, the use of upper- and lowercase is only to improve readability.)

1. Eliminate “noise” from your search results
Often when you do a simple word/phrase search, you get back so many tweets that you can’t find the ones that are most useful to you. Excluding retweets (when users resend another Twitter user’s message) can help eliminate a lot of duplication. Simply search on the word/phrase and append –rt to your query:

“Internet marketing Washington DC” –rt

This query will return a list of messages that contain the exact phrase “Internet marketing Washington DC” but not any retweets of messages that contain that phrase.

2. Use hashtags to enhance your search capability
Hashtags are words or strings of letters and numbers that are preceded with the # symbol. Twitter users include a hashtag in a tweet to indicate that the tweet pertains to a particular subject grouping. Hashtags make it easy for you to search for tweets that might be applicable to a particular topic. By searching on hashtags instead of a simple term, you eliminate any tweets that might include the term yet not be relevant to the exact topic you had in mind.

For example, if your company runs a special event (e.g., the Virginia Web Designers Meet Up), you could start a hashtag (e.g., #VAdesignersMU) that everyone in the group can include in their tweets about your event. Then, to find all the comments pertaining to your group, you simply enter the hashtag in the Twitter Search box:

#VAdesignersMU

If you want to exclude any retweets, you enter

#VAdesignersMU –rt

If you just want to find comments (excluding retweets) from a certain date range, you can enter

#VAdesignersMU –rt since:2009-07-12 until:2009-07-16

3. Find tweets about your company
To find all the tweets that mention your company name, you might simply search as in the following example:

“ACS Creative” OR ACSCreative OR “Affordable Creative Services”

Using OR lets you check for several possibilities that people might use for your company name in their tweets. In this example, because acscreative is also our Twitter name, this type of search will return mentions as well as all the tweets we sent out and any replies to us. To find only the comments that mention your company and exclude those from you or to you, you can enter

“ACS Creative” OR ACSCreative OR “Affordable Creative Services” –from:acscreative –to:acscreative

4. View tweets to and from your competitor
If you want to monitor all the tweets to and from a competitor that’s on Twitter (e.g., Twitter name acmevisual), you can enter

to:acmevisual OR from:acmevisual


5. Find tweets that refer to both you and your competitor in the same tweet
If you want to find all the people who refer to your and your competitor’s Twitter name in the same post so that you can be sure to reply, you can search for

@acscreative @acmevisual

Note that when you enter terms consecutively in the search box separated by a space, Twitter Search returns all tweets that contain the first term and the second term (and so forth) somewhere within the tweet.


6. Start conversations with Twitter users who live near your business
Are you a local business that likes to connect with people in your community? Perhaps you’d like to invite newcomers to visit your business or even offer a special coupon or discount to new customers. Twitter Search provides two operators to help you discover Twitter users in your area to engage in conversation: near and within.

To see tweets from people in your area, you can enter something similar to the following phrase in the search box:

near:WashingtonDC within:25mi

Note that if your city name has two or more words, enter them without any spaces between words. You also can enter a zip code or airport code in place of the city name. Twitter bases its search on locality information provided by users in their profile.


7. Become a local resource
Twitter Search also lets you discover tweets that satisfy certain conditions—for example, tweets that ask a question, those that have a positive or negative tone and those that contain links. By answering questions in your industry area, you can engage current and potential customers, help your community and establish your business as a resource.

For example, we’ve found that people have lots of questions about pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Here’s one way we can find Twitter users in our locale who have questions that pertain to that particular topic:

near:DC within:25mi “PPC ads” ?

This search would return tweets that contain the exact phrase PPC ads and ask a question, from people within 25 miles of Washington, DC.

You can use a similar tactic to find people who might be having a problem that you can solve [if they indicate so by including a frowny :( symbol in their tweet]:

near:DC within:25mi “PPC ads” :(


So, it's easy to see how you can quickly build some interesting search queries with the Advanced Search operators. Be sure to drop me a line about your successes!

As a strategic graphic design and marketing agency, I get asked this question quite often by some of our best clients. And as someone who believes in the holistic approach towards online marketing / digital advertising...I tend to answer with the 'ol "well both...but like most marketing efforts, they have to be done with a purpose and they must be used correctly."

Let me expand a bit deeper....
First off - Yes, I'm one of those "your marketing needs to have a purpose" types. Whether collaboratively with those clients wanting to be involved (preferred method!!) or within our own creative group, I always start the marketing planning process by establishing (from the top-down) the:

99.9999% of internet users are familiar with the Google Logo; in fact, it's probably the most recognized logo on the web.

The notable thing about the Google logo is that Google is constantly changing it —but NOT changing it. Even when letters are omitted completely, colors are changed, or images are added, it's still the Google logo.

It begs the question: How far can you deviate from a visual concept while maintaining a solid brand identity? Google had the good judgement to represent itself with a colorful palette on a simple white backdrop, and refer to itself only by its simple six-letter name, making it flexible enough to work symbolic representations of current events and other visual messages into.

So when it was announced a few months ago that Affordable Creative Services was about to go through a metamorphosis, reemerging rebranded as "ACS Creative," we all got kinda excited. The Sterling office played the biggest role in the new brand development, but we all pitched in our ideas and concepts for the new ACS Creative, Inc. company logo.

This is the one we've been using for a long time:

Eventually, after months of comps, and revisions, and more comps, and more revisions, Russell, our President and founder, made the selection of our new logo: 

I think our previous logo had two powerful elements to it; one was the red swoosh. The other was the word "Affordable" on top, which appealed to small businesses and thrifty clients. I'd say the Creative part was important too, but if people were searching for a graphic design or marketing firm, they probably already understood that message.

During the new logo creation process I was strongly in favor of keeping the red swoosh intact for brand recognition. However, after taking the new logo in for a while I realized that the floating red glyph could be viewed as a different opportunity— could it be a sign that we should test out the Google deviation theory on our own brand? By itself, a triangular shape doesn't relate to our previous branding, and emphasis on the "A" character isn't completely necessary since the 'Affordable' part has been absorbed by the initials A-C-S. What it does have is the potential be a clean slate for our new brand to develop, and a way to showcase the "Creative" part of the acronym...

So a group of designers here did some focus testing on a recent afternoon. We tasked ourselves with quickly creating images out of the glyph. Granted we weren't wholly concentrating on relating the visuals to the brand at first. Sometimes it's necessary to take a thing to its limit before scaling it back. Not to mention it was really fun and we liked doing it.

And as Google has taught us, sometimes it's more important to show than tell when designing a brand identity.

 

Aaaaah … summertime, the season of sun, fun and easy livin’! A three-month breather from business-as-usual before you ramp up to full steam again in the fall, right? For most businesses, summertime also means people out on vacation, days off for holidays and perhaps a shortened work week or early closings due to “summer hours.” What’s the best way to handle your corporate blog during these atypical summer months?

With a little foresight and planning, you can ensure that your blog will continue to provide valuable content to your readers throughout the summer—regardless of who might be posting. Here’s a list of a dozen ideas for blog posts that you can use to create a simple content plan or editorial calendar to take you through the summer.

1. Lists
One of the easiest types of posts to write is a list-based post (like this one). You can highlight the best books related to your industry, top Web sites that customers can use as resources, best practices for using your products—you get the idea. Be creative and specific to make your list-based post one that readers will want to bookmark and pass along to others.

2. Data presentations
Presenting juicy data about your industry or market is another good strategy for a post. With so many research groups providing study results or executive summaries on the Web, it’s relatively easy to find interesting data to talk about. Search the Web, check for research that professional organizations in your industry have published, review trade magazines or browse the archives of research companies such as Forrester, Gartner or Nielsen. Not only can the data itself be fascinating to your readers, they’ll also appreciate your perspective and interpretation of the data.

3. How-to articles
Explaining step by step how to do something related to your products and services creates a valuable blog post. And the topic doesn’t even have to be complicated—just useful to your audience. For example, a garden center might explain how to clean out a backyard pond, an accounting firm might outline steps to set up a small business account in QuickBooks, a full-service marketing firm (like ACS Creative) might explain how to go about choosing a graphic designer.

4. Tips
Like lists and how-to articles, tips that make a customer’s life easier also make good blog posts. Perhaps you can provide 10 ways to optimize your product, 5 ways to improve customer service, a dozen ways to generate more sales leads, 20 ways to save energy in your customer’s business. And if your tips are seasonal-specific, all the better: Now your post is timely as well as relevant.

5. Interviews
It’s now easier than ever to interview someone and publish the results in your blog, and readers enjoy the personal connection from this type of article. Certainly consider interviewing someone in your company—the CEO, a product evangelist, a customer service representative—whom your customers would like to hear from and know more about. It’s a chance to put a human face on your company.

You also might consider interviewing an outside expert within your industry—simply pull together a list of questions and ask the person to respond to them via email. Lots of people might not make time for a face-to-face or phone interview, but they might agree to answer a few questions at their leisure.

6. Answers to customer questions
Chances are, you already support one or more ways for customers to ask questions about your company, your products and services or the industry at large. Gather up all those questions and use them as starting points for blog posts. Even if you have a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section on your Web site, you can answer the question in more detail or with more examples in your blog and link to your FAQ.

7. Polls
All types of free software and services (e.g., PollDaddy, MicroPoll) exist today to help you conduct simple Web polls. And even though these polls aren’t “scientific,” it doesn’t mean that they’re not interesting to your customers. People love to know what other people think, do, need and so forth. You also can ask questions on social platforms such as LinkedIn and Twitter to get data on a specific topic. With so many opportunities available, why not plan one or a series of polls and discuss the results in an upcoming blog post?

8. Opinion pieces
In most industries, there are compelling topics that evoke differing points of view and opinions that customers need clarification on. How does your company stand on these issues? An opinion piece is a great way to educate customers and provides another opportunity to humanize your company—not to mention giving readers an opportunity to add their opinions, too.

9. Expansions of a previous post
Perhaps you really didn’t have the time or space the first time around to fully explore a topic with as much detail as you would have liked. Now is your chance to revisit the topic on a different level, with a link back to the original post.

Or, perhaps you’ve updated a product or service and can revise your best practices article. Or, maybe you did a “best of” article in 2008 and can update that for 2009. Lots of research is conducted on an annual basis, so you can expand on a series of posts by looking at the trends over time.

10. Product reviews
Your current and potential customers expect you to be an industry expert who can provide sound advice about the products and services in the marketplace. Take the opportunity to review—or at least to summarize the uses, pros and cons—of those products and services to help your customers make a sound purchasing decision.

11. Audio or video posts
Really, it’s not hard to do! And so many topics that you might write about are much more interesting when you present them as a short podcast or video. Incorporating audio or video files in your post is a great way to show a different side of your company. Several of the ideas we’ve already discussed make good candidates for audio or video treatment: data presentations, how-to articles, interviews, opinion pieces, expansions of previous articles. Or, offer a video take on an industry trade show to give nonattenders a glimpse of the happenings. Here’s a chance to be really creative in putting together a unique blog post.

12. Industry news and developments
Finally, providing regular updates of key industry news, trends and developments is extremely useful to your customers. As is the case with product reviews, your customers look to you for this type of information. Often, you can expand this type of article in another post that’s an opinion piece or a comparison of products and services. Again, all you need to do is a little research on the Web (e.g., Google News is an option), check trade magazines and professional organizations, search Twitter or check local and national news sources to aggregate up-to-date news for your customers.

And here it goes...my first blog! This should be interesting. I honestly have no idea what to write about. I'm not a writer, I'm a graphic designer! Maybe I can tell you a little about myself...

Before graphic design came into my world, even from when I was little, I always knew I wanted to do something creative in life, but back then, I had no idea what my options were. I was also lucky to have parents that were supportive and not set on me becoming a doctor or engineer (seemed to be the hopes of a lot of my family members for their kids).

Once I got into the art program at Virginia Commonwealth University, I got a taste of all the different creative fields out there. I narrowed my interest into three: architecture, interior design & graphic design. In the end, I felt graphic design would allow the flexibility in creativity that I was looking for. Till this day, I have not regretted my decision :)

As I said before, I am not a writer, but I do think I am a "visual writer". I have to be able to say, visually, anything and everything about a client, what they represent, what they are trying to portray, displaying a certain mood, all with color and graphics...which can be very challenging at times. It would be easier to write, "I'm professional laundry service but different from others because i have a coffee shop and bar downstairs" vs. coming up with a logo that would portray all that.

Here at ACS Creative, I never know what kind of project I am going to be working on and/or what kind of industry the client is in. There is always something new. This helps keep design fresh and challenging. Keeps the mind working! :)

Wow! I wrote a lot. I guess this blogging stuff isn't so bad ;)

continued from part 1....

So I left the last post stating that the tools that marketing and sales need to be effective is where professional graphic design comes in. Allow me to go expand....

Effective Graphic Design conveys your marketing efforts in a clear, concise, and pleasing manner to its viewer (i.e. customer, investor, employees, industry, etc..).

Effective Graphic Design links your companies strategic mission to your audience. Whether it's your online marketing (or digital marketing) or more traditonal marketing methods, it will deliver YOUR solution in a way that best fits your audience.

Effective Graphic Design helps your salesforce deliver value-creating materials, insight, and thought to your potential customers.

And finally, Effective Graphic Design helps to establish your companies credibility, value, and trust with your customer.

Don't let all of your valuable time spent on strategic marketing and sales efforts go to waste, by poorly designed communication tools.

As one of our Creative Director's here a ACS Creative, I get to talk to clients a lot about marketing, sales, graphic design, and how they all fit together. More specifically sometimes, the important role graphic design plays in their marketing and sales efforts.

(I like to keep things simple, so excuse my rather "simplistic" definitions)

Marketing tactics (both online/digital and traditional) should help a company position itself to the marketplace. It should identify WHO it helps, WHAT problem it solves, and HOW it will benefit you....which, if done effectively, will help build awareness to the marketplace and hopefully create leads for its sales force.

Sales tactics should help position the companies product or service to the specific customer. It should help provide awareness to potential problems (known or unknown by the client) that your product or service helps to solve.

The effective tools needed to assist (both marketing and sales) is where professional graphic design comes in......(Stay tuned for part 2, when I expand a bit more)

...continued from Part 1

How Your Company Benefits
Besides simply spreading out the writing workload, team blogging provides several other benefits to your company:

• High-quality/low-stress posts: Writers have more time—and less pressure—to deliver a steady supply of fresh perspectives and in-depth content
• Opportunities for non-writers: There’s more to producing a top-notch blog than just writing posts, and you can share all the other blog duties (design, planning, scheduling, commenting, promoting, project management) among non-writing members of your team to involve more people. I especially like this one as you really get to see the creative side of folks.
• Morale building: Being part of an important PR and marketing initiative that enhances your company image and delivers tangible results brings people together and builds camaraderie and morale through working toward a common purpose—and besides, it’s just fun
• Opportunities for press coverage: Especially when you start a blog to launch a new product, your posts build excitement and provide fodder for new press stories
• Flexibility: Depending on the size of your team, you can schedule bloggers for specific days of the week, month or quarter or make them responsible for a week at a time—whatever works best for your company and your team
• Coverage for vacations and illness: Rather than skipping a post (or two or three) when your writer is away from the office, you can schedule around vacations or illnesses and keep your blog alive and well, creating a seamless experience for your readers

Executed wisely, team blogging offers significant advantages to both your readers and your business. If you haven’t given it much thought up to now, you might find the team approach to blogging is a refreshing alternative for your readers and your staff. After all, summer vacations are just around the corner.

You might have noticed that several of my colleagues contributed posts to the ACS Creative blog over the past several weeks, and maybe that gave you an idea:

“Hey, we could do that and really spread the blogging workload around!”

While that’s certainly one benefit of team blogging, it only seems appropriate to highlight some of the many other pluses that come into play when you decide to give team blogging a try.

How Your Readers Benefit
First and foremost, you need to think about the benefits to your readers—presumably, your target audience of customers and prospects. How will their experience improve? Will your readers welcome a broad selection of writers and topics vs. a single voice? If you have a loyal following already, how will they handle the change? Fortunately, from a reader’s perspective, the benefits of team blogging usually outweigh any potential drawbacks.

One of the key reasons for writing a company blog is to reach out and build relationships with your target audience. And team blogging helps you do just that—in fact, many times over because the variety of personalities, perspectives, experiences and points of view that your blog can include will appeal to a wide variety of readers. For example, if your company produces technical products, some of your readers might be very interested in getting the inside scoop on the nitty-gritty, technical details and capabilities of a product, while others might seek basic how-to information about using the product, and still others might want only high-level news and updates. By including writers that regularly address these different viewpoints, you’ll attract and satisfy a broader audience than you might reach through one writer alone.

Another big plus of team blogging is that by involving numerous writers with specific strengths or specializations, your readers get the best knowledge and expertise your company has to offer.

Here at our Ad Agency we have many talented folks. Most all of the designers have formal training in graphic design and/or website design....however, most of the folks in our creative group have further nurtured their skill into becoming experts in digital advertising and online marketing. Sharing their knowledge, with their unique creative perspective is of priceless value for us and for some of our clients.

Another example would be, large companies that produce many product lines (e.g., Microsoft comes to mind) often organize their blogging efforts around a network of team blogs that address individual products or product families. The benefit to readers is in-depth knowledge from a team of passionate experts with a vested interest in the product they’re writing about.

Finally, using a team of writers means your blog will be updated more often, which results in a livelier, more dynamic experience for your followers (not to mention better traction with any of your online marketing and/or search engine efforts). Maybe your readers have requested more frequent posts from your company, but you don’t think your current blogger has the bandwidth to supply them and complete his “real” job as well. By taking a team approach, you can satisfy your customer wishes and inject additional energy into your blog without overwhelming any single member of your staff.

Stay tuned for Part 2 (where we explore further benefits for your company)

Next up from Team ACS is Jill Artman Boehm, Art Director/Graphic Designer and an awesome Catalog Queen. From brochures to catalog production to logos and identity, Jill brings compelling designs to the table and always delivers high quality work that exceeds expectations.

1. What do you most enjoy about being a graphic designer?

I enjoy the constant changes that occur during any given week. I might work on a logo, a brochure, a tradeshow booth and a website. It keeps your "design mind" fresh and it challenges you to come up with new ideas.

 

 

2. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got started in graphic design?

I have always liked ads and advertising. One of my earliest memories is of getting a scrapbook for Christmas when I was five. I drew a few pictures but it is mostly filled with ads from magazines. I picked out anything that was interesting or really eye-catching. The Speedy Alka-Seltzer ads were a big favorite of mine.  I always knew I wanted to be an artist of some kind. When it came time to go to college, I picked the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. Partly because of the weather (I grew up in Indiana) and partly because they have extensive training in Advertising, Typography, Design and Photography.

 

 

3. What is the most challenging part of your work and can you share a project that you are working on right now?  

The most challenging part of any design is interpreting what the client wants and needs. We worked with an established hair salon in Virginia who was moving to a new location. Their signage on the overhang of the shopping center had to match the others in the center, so it didn't really match the design aesthetics we had created for them. When they moved in, a lot of their clients didn't know they were open because the windows were tinted and it didn't look like the space was occupied. We created a look that matched their aesthetic and created collateral materials to support that aesthetic. The window design incorporated their logo, the website and phone number and we used part of the brick wall to showcase photos of the inside of the salon to show how beautifully renovated it was on the inside. Now the eye-catching graphics make people stop and take note of what they had to offer.
 

 

4. How do you stay creative when you are working under pressure?

This business is all about deadlines. Sometimes those deadlines can create stress but sometimes they can spark a great idea. It is hard, but you have to stay focused on the end product. I work on a sportswear catalog project that is several months long and has many different aspects and variables. You have to make a schedule and delegate different tasks associated with the project, all the while keeping your vision for what the end product will be.

If you have any questions or if you would like Jill to work on your next project, please do not hesitate to give Team ACS a call! You can visit us at www.acscreative.com.

...Next up will be Ed Ruff for our Thursday interview. Stay tuned!

I don't think success is quantitative— it's an art form to keep yourself satisfied with your own work, and it's less about money, fame, or winning than it is about balance and perspective. 

 

Outside the office, I've entered illustrations into two art annuals this year and both books rejected my work. You'd think that might be discouraging (ok, maybe it is just a little), but it really made me want to try harder. In fact, I ended up so inspired that my next piece went on to receive multiple awards, has been published in two magazines, and got me a nice letter from the editor of a third art annual saying "You really need to enter this in our book!" 

 

Engaging in healthy competition is one of the best ways I've found to keep my designer fire burning, no matter what the outcome. And there's been no shortage of that at the Fairfax office lately. This morning I finished up a "rehash" design comp for a data management company's website that will be reviewed alongside an upcoming new design from my cohort Michelle.

 

 

Several designers at ACS Creative have been working with the folks who brought us this site for a few weeks now and they've picked Michelle's designs every time. Michelle is a fantastic designer it's no surprise these guys were hooked on her aesthetic after the first comp. In the end it doesn't really matter whose design they pick, as long as it's best for the client— but like with the art books I've really enjoyed the extra push to work hard.

And speaking of Michelle - she's interviewing everyone at ACS Creative Fairfax this week to make personality profiles for the blog... this could be an antidote to people like Matt not knowing how awesome the Fairfax graphic design team is.

Okay, so I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I'm sure I'm not the only one......NO, I don't know my fellow team-members as well as I should! Okay, now I feel better! Moving on....

We here at ACS Creative have started the process to open-up our blog to all of our team members (who BTW are the most talented Graphic Designers, Web Designers, people in general in the Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC area). So as they posts are beginning to trickle-in....I'm fascinated by what I'm learning.

Take Cynthia for example, I've seen her web design and graphic design work, and while she's one-of-a-kind in those disciplines....specifically, I had no idea just how talented her Illustration work is (you gotta check it out)...all I can say is WOW!

The best part is, I know that this is just the beginning of my on-going adventure in reading and learning more about my fellow ACS Creative group members.

So Cynthia, all I can say to you (and of course Ed, you too) is.....GOOD STUFF!!

Writing this introductory blog entry, I'm experiencing a rush of panic. I feel like I just got handed the keys to someone's shiny new Camaro. I'm no stranger to driving cars, but with a history of flat tires and bad brakes, this is totally different. The training wheels are off. This V8's got power, and the owner has trusted me to know how to use it.

 

"One Designer's Perspective" is my 5th or 6th blog. It's really hard to keep track of all the blogging I've done since my first foray into the blog-world in 2002— That was LiveJournal, and believe it or not I still use it. After that came MySpace in 2004, followed by DeviantArt, Facebook, and a section on my personal illustration website sheppard-arts.com I call "Cynthia's Current Rambling." All these blogs have served different purposes, whether it was for humor, to keep in touch with friends or promote my personal artwork.

 

But this is different. Those were 'starter blogs.' This is the OFFICIAL ACS CREATIVE COMPANY BLOG. A blog that carries with it some... responsibility.

 

I've spent some time trying to figure out why anyone would want ME to be a voice for their graphic design firm. They say they want the personality of the designers to show through, and I think that's really cool of them. I think it's the kind of transparency people want in a company these days. But while I have a great phone voice and my design skills keep me gainfully employed here, I have a tendency toward blunt honesty, sarcasm, and speaking out of turn. So we'll see how that works out. At least they have Matt, the creative director in the Sterling, VA office administrating. And he's a nice guy.

 

Then I was wondering, now that I have this new ability to talk about my company and my job, what the heck should I write about? Who would want to read this, and why?

 

So I decided I'll write about what I know: Being a designer. Who might want to read it? Maybe you're looking to become a graphic designer in the DC/Metro area, and you want to know about what you're getting into. Maybe you're a client and you want to know what goes on behind the scenes. Maybe you're bored at work and tired of reading Failblog and FML all day (although there may be similar content here, if it passes through Matt). No, I have stories, both good and bad, and you can take what you want from it.

 

Lastly, if we meet our office blog quota, our creative director Ed says we can paint the walls and get some new lights and stuff in here. And that would be sweeeet.

 

Till next time - I'm Cynthia Sheppard, a graphic designer at the Fairfax, VA location of the most super-awesome full service marketing firm in the DC area - ACS Creative. 

 

Welcome to "One Designer's Perspective."

Often times in a company's excitement to get up and running, they rush through the identity creation process. Such luxuries as hiring a graphic design firm may take a back seat to the little things, like paying the rent or making payroll. Thankfully, hard work has a tendency to pay off and the old adage of "the harder you work the luckier you get" allows many companies to grow in spite of a less than thrilling identity or structured marketing strategy. 

 

Maybe it is time to consider refreshing your brand like some of our other clients have recently done. Modifying your existing identity without sacrificing the good branding that you have developed over the years is a delicate procedure. But one that we are very skilled at. 

 

Below is just one example of how we have been able to update one of our client identities.