keep your gifts looking unique and stylish with some of these great patterns by design army, available at the felt and wire shop.
paper foldables are endless fun!
paperfoldables.com is a super-fun site dedicated to engineering cute, funny figurines that can be folded from a flat sheet of paper, cut to spec. click on any of the samples on the site and you’ll download a pdf that can be printed, cut and assembled. looking at some of these makes me want to start creating my own.
check out designer bryan’s paper foldables blog for new releases and more info:
biznik article of the week
How To Create Relevant SEO Content by Alexander Valencia
since more and more of my clients are adding wordpress web sites to their identity packages and writing a lot of their own content, here’s another great article on how to make sure everything you post is SEO-effective. you already have a highly search-friendly site with wordpress, so keep these things in mind when uploading new copy: provide well written, engaging and relevant information about your business, and use industry-specific keywords that anyone searching for someone like you might put into their search engines. valencia outlines the basics on how to collect clues from your target audience and how to best write to their specific interests & needs.
what’s new in the hood?
there are some new & exciting things happening on the east side of town! first of all, my favorite neighborhood wine bar and fellow echo park chamber member citysip LA started blogging at sippin the city. owner nicole daddio runs a wonderful wine bar & shop staffed with people who really love wine and all have great recommendations. i’m looking forward to reading more about exciting wines to try.
another thing i’ve been watching & waiting for: the silver lake branch of the LA library just opened. there is a full article on laist.com which includes this quote: “Built to the environmentally-friendly gold LEED standards, native plants line the building, solar power dot the roof, showers and a changing room for cycling-inclined employees is found behind closed doors, among many other aspects.” i pass this site all the time, and have been really curious to visit and use it.
finally, the metro gold line eastside extension is now open! watching the train system grow in los angeles has been a wonderful thing. i didn’t ride on opening day, but i will be sure to take a tour of all the stations in the next month, hopefully using this awesome foodie guide to gold line eastside extension!
the process of a rebrand
if you’ve ever wondered what goes into updating a widely-known brand, under consideration’s brand new blog has a great article, an iconic lion for an iconic institution detailing the objectives, showing the original & final logos with brand touchpoint applications, and all the sketches, notes & iterations in between.
biznik article of the week
well, it’s a triple-header this week with a spotlight on helpful web advice.
Flash Is For Famous People — Not New Businesses by Lucy Beer
this isn’t exactly cutting-edge advice, but there are still a great many people out there who either want flash because it’s flash, or because of the design control and multimedia advantage flash can have over traditional web design. the main problem with this is that flash has such limited searchability that, unless you’re already famous, you’re literally hiding from the people who might want to find something just like you based on criteria searches. using flash sparingly, embedded in a site using a more search-friendly framework is the way to go. beer breaks down the pros & cons for you!
Organic S-E-O Spelled Out by Erin Wiles
i get this question often, “what exactly is SEO and how does it work?” it’s simple really, despite what we’ve made it into, the web was invented as a simple wide-area-network indexing system, and it’s still based on searching for relevant text under hierarchical tags. SEO = search engine optimization, and what that means for you is, gearing the page titles and text on your web site to be as relevant as possible to people who might be searching for you. and organic SEO is just that–when the organic text you put on your web site is so geared to what you’re doing and what people might search on, the search engine can organically find it on your site and deliver your results to those searching for it. get a more in-depth explanation from wiles by clicking the link.
What’s Stopping Your Website Visitors from Buying?: FAQ Page Lessons from the Encyclopedia Man by Judy Dunn
after reading enough of her engaging articles, i’ll say it–i love judy dunn! she weaves in a good amount of prose with great advice. in the vein of building out your site with lots of information about you & how you work, she sets out 5 steps to improving your FAQ section to better target the people you’re trying to work with. getting inside their heads and gearing your questions toward solutions they’re looking for helps them really know you’re thinking of them. set aside some time to review your site and see if you can implement some of these suggestions.
spotlight on business cards
need some inspiration on how you can really grab your target audience’s attention with something as simple as a business card? the web designer depot blog has released a great selection of 100 (really) creative business cards for your perusal. check out how different designers solved the visceral communication of so many different fields and industries with simple yet direct solutions. sure, some of these cost a good deal more than your average business card, but in many cases, the concept can be scaled down into several iterations. do you really need a meatcard printed on jerky? probably not, but now that it’s been done, you can come up with something just as original that drives the point home.
the complete guide to codes for homeowners
coming soon from creative publishing international is the complete guide to codes for homeowners, a must-have guide before you start for anyone interested in diy home improvement. this guide covers all required and recommended parts, materials, and setups for all types of home improvment building projects with full-color photography for clear and easy identification. keep this resource on hand so you don’t risk losing the value of a home addition that fails to meet building codes.
biznik article of the week
Social Media: Is Your Brand Talking or Listening by Matthew B. Olson
more good info on how to create personal interactions for your business in social media. olson gives good advice on listening to your customers and their participation online, creating rapport, and ways you can turn them into brand evangelists on your behalf through solid customer relations. still think social media won’t benefit your business? he also addresses 2 common excuses for why businesses don’t think they need to be participating online.
parlato design studio 