Stay Up to Date with Gay-Support Design

June 28, 2013

What grabs people’s attention more than the current news? Design that responds to what is happening in the world awes people. It makes people think “They know what’s up.” and see your creativity as you incorporate that into your designs.

Gay pride has been everywhere recently as the Supreme Court bolstered gay marriage by advocating DOMA and Proposition 8. With this in mind, many brands have designed their ads in honor of this historic week. Grey Poupon, Absolut Vodka and many other brands showed their support in this movement. Check them out!

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June is National Pride Month and what could be better than supporting the gays and their success. By advocating these supportive ads, these brands are making their stand to show that they care as well. This also opens up opportunity to get leads in the LGBT community! If you love the people, they will love you back and that is exactly what these brands are trying to enforce by designing these ads.

Designing for User Interface

June 27, 2013

The design of something is yes, made to be pleasing to look at but it is also made for functionality as well. Through graphic design, the throught process for creativity includes how a user will interact with your website whether it is through a desktop or a mobile device.

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However you are designing the site will set the stage to how people will interact with it but the trick is that it has to be simple enough for your audience to understand. You are not there to give people the step-by-step process of how to go through the site you created and therefore, you need to combine creativity with simple functionality. The communication between your site and its user is what makes your design successful or not for marketing advertising design. This is very important, especially for designing a landing page.

A landing page is where people go to first on your site but if they don’t know where to go from there, your site will be a bust. Navigation is key and you need to make it clearly visible and easy to go through throughout the entire site. It’s important to explore the changes in media as well to understand how people are thinking differently. Ten years ago, no one even though about responsive design until new platforms to view websites were created. Now, people will use each device differently and there is so much more to take into account when designing a site.

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Google has categorized people into three types of users:

1. Repetitive user: Someone who checks the same information over and over again such as e-mails or stock market prices or social network.

2. Bored user: Someone with time to kill that is just browsing through the internet.

3. Urgent user: Someone who is trying to find information about something specific as quickly as possible.

These types of users would each respond to your design differently and creative design agencies understand the difficulty of maintaining the site for all those users. It’s important to understand the necessity of balancing your creativity with the functionality of your site, especially in this day and age of growing technology.

What Are You Designing For?

June 26, 2013

Designing a product or brand has many components. Are you designing to stand out among the rest? Are you simply giving the people exactly what they want? These are aspects to think about when you create pretty much anything. Marketing advertising design needs a focus in order to thrive with potential. Without it, you would walk into the creative world blinded and you won’t know what design you are truly trying to achieve.

Here are some examples of the different types of design:

1. Standing out with a definitive image

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2. Designing for a purpose

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Redesign Your Website The Right Way

June 25, 2013

Marketing advertising design is one of the most important things for your brand. The market out there is evolving everyday and because of this, many brands redesign their website, logo or even both. Redesigning your brand may seem tedious and difficult but here are some steps to ensure you go about it the most efficient way:

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1. Understand Your Audience. Remember that you already have a defined audience as this is a redesign rather than one you are starting from scratch. The purpose of this step is see who is positively responding to your marketing and to ensure that they continue to do so. This step can also help you to broaden your audience with the information you obtain. By analyzing exactly what links and what ads you are getting leads from, you can enhance those ads more to give them the most potential in the future.

2. Determine an Effective Look and Feel. Are you going to maintain the design and impression you already have on your audience with slight changes or are you going to completely change your presence? Designing a landing page takes a lot of thought as to what you want your brand‘s appearance to be. This one ad can change the viewpoint of how people feel about your company in both a positive or negative manner and reputation and attraction is key in the marketing world. Make sure you are set on the theme you are planning on portraying as this is what people will see you as now rather than what you were in the past. It’s encouraged to take this step with an experienced graphic design company or creative design agency to help transform your vision into a reality on the web.

3. Establish your goals. Are you trying to gain more leads in the same areas? Are you trying to expand your design to become responsive with the growth in mobile technology? This is the most important step as it is the reasoning behind your redesign. If you were happy with the way things were going, there would be no need for one. A new design means that there are new goals you’d like to achieve. Therefore, you need to recognize what exactly is you want before going through the process.

Design and content are the most crucial parts of marketing. The look and feel as well as the message given to your audience is what makes them want to participate in your service or product. This list can help you to understand the process to recreate yourself to enhance your brand.

For more information on rebranding or help on the design and development of your website, contact us at 1-855-826-9378 or email us at info@vanwestmedia.com.

The Importance of Landing Page Design

June 24, 2013

A landing page is the first impression you have with your audience. It represents your name, brand and what your company stands for. Just like people need to make good first impressions, you need to design a landing page that portrays everything good that you want your audience to see about your brand.

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Marketing advertising design is best way to lure in new customers and gain new leads. Most people are visually inclined to participate in things and then they look at the content afterwards. If you have a poorly designed landing page, what would make people want to continue looking through your website to learn about what you have to offer? Image is everything and that is what a landing page is for your company online.

The mobility of our lifestyle in this generation makes it necessary to maintain a strong online image of brands to reach out to the people. Because of this, many companies have hired graphic design companies or creative design agencies for their marketing needs. It’s understood that a brand’s image is what stands out most to people and everyone wants the attention placed on their brand.

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Don’t fall behind in the creative aspect and make a strong statement of your brand with a great landing page. Let us help you to stand out among the rest by creating an amazing landing page for you! Check out the many sites we have created in the past at Van West Media to give you an idea of what wonders we can do for you!

Inbound Marketing in NYC

June 21, 2013

In the greater NYC area, there is an abundance of almost everything. Advertisements cover walls and streets as well as all the devices we use in our everyday lives. Outbound marketing has so much risk in a city like NYC and therefore, inbound marketing strategies make a difference out here.

Inbound marketing is proven to be the most effective strategy for doing business, especially online. This method uses quality content to attract customers and convert them into leads. By using this strategy, people are drawn in to your product or service naturally rather than forced or bombarded with ads in their faces.

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This marketing technique brings upon genuine interest and attracts people. The steps in this inbound marketing strategy start include attracting, converting, closing and delighting. This friendly and useful manner makes for happy clients and happy businesspeople. With the abundance of ads throughout NYC, the best way to gain leads is to make happy people and inbound marketing makes this happen.

Social Media Consulting

June 19, 2013

In this day and age, social media makes a huge impact on where your business can stand amongst the rest. The growth you can achieve from a social network is endless as people from all over are connected to each other in ways you can’t even imagine. As a marketing agency, we understand the impact of such a strategy.

Social Media builds Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and therefore, brings more traffic to your site not only through the social media networks themselves, but through large search engines as well. Here a chart to help you understand the capabilities:

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Using Profanity to Build Your Brand

June 17, 2013

Some people see profanity in media as a negative aspect but then again, what can make an ad more real than adding language that relates to people at one point or another. Marketeers saw the “realness” in having profanity in ads, but for a family-based audience, the allusion worked just as well. Many brands such as Jell-O and K-Mart followed this route to an entertaining and memorable campaign.

Jell-O made a twist on the popular acronym FML by changing the phrase to “Fun My Life.” Through this campaign came the tagline: “We’re on a mission to fun things up one #FML tweet at a time.” This idea makes for an ad that’s both familiar to the people and quirky. For those who use profane language, it’s hilarious, and for those who don’t, it’s a cute new saying. This works for both groups of people, making it the best kind of ad because it’s appealing to everyone. With the #FML hashtag, the ad is also easily spreadable through all social media aspects.

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Similar to Jell-O’s “FML” campaign, K-Mart also alluded to profanity to grab the attention of audiences with their “Ship your pants” commercial. This phrase that sounds similar to the common crude saying, but is actually informative and makes sense to the brand. The fact that it implies profanity, yet is relatable is what makes this commercial hilarious.

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Click here to watch the “Ship My Pants” commercial!

Having an ad that makes people laugh is one easy way to get it to click with an audience. It’s what makes it memorable and most likely shared with others. Although profanity isn’t usually something advertisers want to place in their ads, the allusion of it makes for great marketing material. The relativity to the crude language is what makes it seem more “real” to audiences. It’s what can make the ad seem like one with the audience rather than just some informative brand that seems to be on a higher level than the people. Sometimes, brands need to have that feel for the people to want to partake in using that product or service and profanity seems to be one of the great ways for these large brands to make a statement in the advertising industry.

Apple iOS7

June 12, 2013

As technology updates, many new features are made and designs often become sleeker and more minimalist. iOS7, the iphone’s new operating system has a new look and feel with flatter icons and thinner typefaces. However, Apple hasn’t changed the basic gestures and most of the interactive motions are pretty much the same, with a few exceptions.

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“It’s like getting an entirely new phone, but one you know how to use,” said Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi. Apple CEO Tim Cook dubbed it the “biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone.”

There is a “cleaner” design with a brighter color scheme and simplified icons for common apps such as iMessage, Calendar and Camera.  The extra shadows and lines on apps like Weather, iTunes and Notes are gone as well. On top of making the apps you’re using sleeker, iOS7 added a translucent feature so that users can see their phone’s background through their keyboard while typing in certain apps and while checking their notifications.

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Control Center is also a new option that helps people reach options that are normally 3 levels deep in settings such as Bluetooth, Airplane Mode, Do Not Disturb Mode, and Brightness. These options easily available at the Control Center save your fingers the trouble of going through so many levels within the Settings Panel. I personally find this very convenient as I go through the Settings Panel very often to change my mode throughout the day, espcially when I’m out and trying to save as much battery life as possible.

Yes, there is a lot of criticism for the design of the new iOS7 but there are some very good features to this new update. Some design aspects do need some work as they look very tacky. The sleek look is there but objects do look very flat as well. This both hinders the look but makes it easier to look through the phone and its features. I’m sure Apple will think of a way to combine the good on both parts in this beta test and come up with something amazing come fall, which is when this new operating system is said to be released.

Say It With Bacon This Father’s Day

June 7, 2013

As Father’s Day is soon approaching, we understand that sometimes it’s difficult to find the perfect present for your beloved dad. Oscar Meyer understood men and their universal love for all things meat, especially bacon. Through this, the famous brand of lunch meat made a parody of those commercials connecting jewelry with love to women.

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This twist of the typical commercials we are all so used to seeing gives audiences a sense of familiarity. It creates irony because we expect to see something extravagant like a watch or other piece of jewelry presented to the men but instead, we see bacon. This ironic notion makes you laugh and smile, bringing about a positive attitude for people. When something makes you laugh, you’re likely to remember it and want to share it with others.

Another thing about bacon is that it is a very popular food. This brings a high advantage to Oscar Meyer and their beloved meat. Many people understand the wonderous feeling when one is consuming bacon as it is delicious. Some people may even see this commercial and think “Bacon really is amazing. I would love to get bacon as a present.” Because the meat is so popular with crowds, this parody can actually turn into a reality by making people want to go out and buy bacon to experience what those in the commercial are feeling.

presentClick here to watch the “Say It With Bacon” Video!

Through experience and familiarity, Oscar Meyer wins in presenting this commercial.