Design Review

Memorial Day, 2013

2013-05-22T17:43:50Z

Summer is Here!

Well, almost, anyway. The point is, we just can’t get enough of the lovely sunshine we’ve been having, so we’re planning to take Memorial Day off. That means Phases Design Studio will be closed on Monday, May 27th. We’ll be back in the office on Tuesday, May 28th, all rested up and ready to get back to work.

While you’re enjoying the sunshine (or lack thereof – this is Colorado, you know), don’t forget to take a few moments to pay respect to the brave men and women who gave their lives for our country. After that, you can get back to the pool, park, or wherever you choose to celebrate.

Have an awesome weekend!

View the original post: Memorial Day, 2013 by Kandra Churchwell

The Marketplace Fairness Act and Your Business

2013-05-15T21:11:59Z

Have you ever noticed that buying things online is just a little cheaper? That’s because many online stores aren’t required to collect sales tax for individual states. Unless the store has a physical presence, it doesn’t technically reside in any one state, which means it’s exempt from local tax laws. The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, which recently made it though the Senate and is currently being discussed by the House of Representatives, intends to change all that. For online retailers, this could mean a big change in the way they do business.

What is the Marketplace Fairness Act?

The Marketplace Fairness Act essentially forces all online retailers to collect sales tax for the state they sell to. This means that if you sell an item to someone in New York, you have to factor in the sales tax for that state, even if you ship from Montana.

Technically, you’ve always had to pay sales tax on items bought online, even if the company doesn’t factor it in. You’re required to report untaxed purchases to the IRS when you file your yearly taxes, and pay any extra sales tax that you owe. The problem is that this is so difficult to enforce; who’s going to remember to report the 20 cents of sales tax they should have paid for a pair of headphones they ordered back in May of last year?

With the Marketplace Fairness Act, you won’t be required to report those purchases on your taxes anymore; that’s because the online stores will be collecting the tax for you.

Why So Many People Love It

Every state that charges sales tax pretty much loves this bill; after all, they finally get a cut of that untapped revenue. But what about the businesses who will be affected by this bill?

The Marketplace Fairness Act gets its name from an attempt to level the playing field. Many local businesses, who sell their items in person, can’t compete with tax-free online retailers. In an age where more and more shopping is moving online, local stores are struggling to get by; this act will force online businesses to compete “fairly”.

Why Small Businesses Don’t

On the surface, collecting sales tax doesn’t seem like a bad thing, especially since the money comes from the consumers. The problem comes from the sheer number of states that you’ll have to collect this tax for. Online retailers will have to sort through tax codes for 45 different states, figure out how to calculate that sales tax on their site, and report (and pay) the tax each year. If they mess up, they’ll be slapped with a fine.

Large retailers like Amazon are perfectly fine with this; they have an extensive legal and accounting department that can figure out those tax codes, no sweat. But small online retailers just don’t have the resources to deal with this. If you’re barely able to pay your employees, can you afford an expensive accountant each year?

For people who sell off of their own sites, the Marketplace Fairness Act means that they’ll need to hire a web developer. The site has to be able to automatically calculate the appropriate sales tax for each purpose, and keep a log of which purchases were made each state. There’s no escape for retailers selling through sites like eBay or Etsy, either; those retailers are just as liable for taxes.

Becoming an online retailer is already a difficult process. This bill could prevent start-ups from ever getting off the ground; the sheer amount of paperwork will likely be enough to discourage many people from even trying to start their own company.

Granted, the act isn’t all bad – there’s been talk of an exception for small business who make less than $1,000,000 in revenue each year, and states will be required to provide online tools to help calculate sales tax. But in a struggling economy, is it really a good idea to make starting a business even harder?

What Do You Think?

This is a seriously two-sided argument, and we’d love to know your thoughts. Is it time for online businesses to pay taxes just like everyone else, or is this an unfair damper on already struggling entrepreneurs?

You can state your opinion on the bill through PopVox, and send a message to your state representatives, regardless of which side you support. There’s also a running petition on Change.org to stop the bill from passing the House of Representatives.

So what do you think?

View the original post: The Marketplace Fairness Act and Your Business by Kandra Churchwell

Police Cars and Visual Branding

2013-05-09T14:59:41Z

Close your eyes for just a second, and picture a police car. What do you see? Our bet says that you picture something painted in black and white, probably with a police logo emblazoned on the side.

Fort Collins’ police force agrees with us. After a recent research study proved that the black-and-white cars are more recognizable and easier to notice when driving around, the city plans to replace 20% of its fleet with the new design by the end of the year. If you’re interested, you can catch the full article at the Denver Post.

This is a great example of almost perfect brand parity though color association. When you see a car – any car – painted in black and white, your first response is to tap the breaks, slow down, and make sure you aren’t violating any laws. This visual identity is so ingrained in the American sub-conscious that we’ll bet you do a double take the second you see a black car with a white door on it.

A lot of newer police cars have chosen to forgo this design in favor of a plain white or black background with discreet lettering on the side. We’re sure this leads to a lot more tickets, since there are a thousand single-colored car on the road. Yes, they’re labeled on the side – but should you really be reading the cars around you while you’re going 65 MPH down the freeway?

There’s a reason we all recognize the black-and-white police car; the design has been around as long as anyone can remember. Over the years, there have been variations in make, model, and paint job, but the black-and-white colors have almost always stayed the same.

If you’re anything like us, you don’t just want to read about these designs; you want to see them as well. So, without further ado, here are some of our favorite black-and-white designs. (To get the full effect, we recommend listening to the Cops theme song as you flip through the images.)

Here’s a classic “Black and White”… and look at the grill on the front of this car. So awesome!

We can’t be sure what color this car was, since it’s so old (1920s). But since the photo is black and white, it counts!

Another classic Black and White with badge emblem on the door.

Here’s an example of the current Fort Collins design. It’s pretty, but not as easy to recognize.

Here’s the kind of car we picture when someone says “police.” This traditional design has been around for what seems like forever.

The new Ford Interceptor police car, without any county-specific branding. Fort Collins is ordering 27 of these environmentally efficient cars. Check out that design on the side!

According to Sylvester Stallone’s Demolition Man, this is what police cars will look like in 2032. That’s less than 20 years away! We guess that, even in the future, police cars will still be black and white.

View the original post: Police Cars and Visual Branding by Kandra Churchwell

A Slice of TOMA Pie

2013-05-01T17:01:24Z

Quick, name first brand that comes to mind when we say “diner.”

Now, name the first brand that you think of when we say “diner with pie.”

This is an example of Top of Mind Awareness branding, or TOMA. If a company does this correctly, they will be the first name that pops into your head when you recall a specific type of product.

There are many different kinds of TOMA. Positive or universal TOMA means that you’ve set yourself apart as the one and only good resource for a product. A good example of this is Starbucks; favorite local cafes aside, what do you do when you want a fast, semi-decent cup of java to go, no matter where you are? You look for that smiling mermaid, or a telltale green building on the street corner. There are plenty of other coffee chains out there, but we dare you to name two off the top of your head, and no cheating with Google. (There’s another example of universal TOMA; Google is the search engine that everyone thinks of.)

There’s also negative TOMA. If your product is downright terrible, or if customers form a negative association with you, you’ll be at the top of their list – of places to avoid. You want to avoid this kind of TOMA at all costs.

But what do you do if you can’t win universal TOMA? If there’s too much competition, you’ll have a hard time become the one and only name in your business. If that’s the case, your best bet is to corner the niche TOMA market.

Did somebody say pie?

Today’s example of good niche TOMA is Village Inn. If you saw that coming, that’s because they’ve been doing a good job – the words “diner” and “pie” should have clued you in at the start of the article.

Village Inn’s brand is entirely based around pie. Head on over to their website right now, and take a look; you’ll likely see a featured pie on the front page. Their logo is subtly shaped like a pastry fresh out of the oven; the tiny “vi” even looks like a fork next to a slice of pie.

Village Inn also features Pie Rush Wednesday every week. With any in-store purchase, whether it be an entree or a drink, you can get a free slice of one of their classic fruit pies (and some of the featured selections as well). When people go to a diner for dessert, where do you think they’ll be headed?

Obviously, Village Inn can’t completely corner the diner market. There are too many major chain diners out there, including Denny’s and Perkins. But by providing a very specific service, and marketing it effectively, they have put themselves right at the top of their customer’s “dessert” list.

How do you get your slice of the TOMA pie?

If you want to increase your TOMA, you need to find your niche. Once you know what sets you apart from the competition, make sure that your audience knows it, too. A good place to start is by staying in your clients’ field of vision, even after you’ve finished providing your service. Here are just a few ways you can accomplish that:

Stay active on social media
Blog about your industry
Send out a regular newsletter
Run ads in your local paper
Have special deals based around your niche

Do you have any special TOMA secrets to share? Do you know a company whose TOMA strategy succeeded (or flopped horribly)? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to go grab your slice of free pie.

View the original post: A Slice of TOMA Pie by Kandra Churchwell

Spring is in the Portfolio

2013-04-25T16:46:01Z

Despite a handful of recent snowstorms, Spring is definitely here. Flowers are blooming, birds are singing, and our portfolio is growing faster than ever. We’ve been busy all winter, and we wanted to share some of the results.

Adventos

Even the strongest brands need to update and modernize; when the company grows, it’s image needs to follow. Our work with Adventos started as a few small projects, and quickly developed into a full fledged graphic update. They now have a professional new logo and a consistent image that spans their entire brand. With spring cleaning out of the way, Adventos is ready to keep doing what they do best.

Advanced Pediatric Associates

In some cases, growth doesn’t mean updating your image – it just means updating your collateral. Our long-time clients at APA are opening a brand new office in Stapleton, and moving their Aurora office to a new location. To help them get ready for the big move, we updated their stationary, designed a few ads, and made sure that their content matched their new addresses. Now they’re ready for the big move, and we’re ready to watch them grow even further.

View the original post: Spring is in the Portfolio by Kandra Churchwell

A Few Brief Reminders About Facebook Pages

2013-04-10T23:23:08Z

Every now and then, we get a few questions about managing a Facebook page. From first glance, a page isn’t all that different from a profile. They have the same timeline, the same photos, and the same status updates. Sure, a page can’t be your friend – but you can still follow them, and they can still follow you.

They might look the same, but they’re actually fairly different. So for all of the Facebook page managers out there, here’s a brief refresher course on the limitations of Facebook pages – and the solutions we’ve found.

Difference One: Tagging

People can easily be tagged on Facebook. Just type their name, and you’ll see a drop-down menu of friends to choose from. But have you tried to do the same with a page? It doesn’t matter how you spell the name, or whether or not you’ve “liked” the page – no drop-down menu will show up. This is a big limitation, especially when you’re using your page to separate your business profile from your personal profile.

The Solution:

Facebook and Twitter are are more similar than either company wants to admit. To tag a page (or even a person), just use an “@” sign! If you wanted to tag us, you’d use “@Phases Design Studio”. You can include spaces – Facebook will look out for those as well.

Difference Two: Groups

Creating a Facebook group is a great way to share information with a select number of people. Everyone can post on the group wall, you can add or remove member, and you can even make the group secret.

Unless you’re a page, that is.

You can only add people to a group if they’re your “friends”. Pages don’t have friends – they just have fans. For whatever reason, pages don’t get to make or access groups; you’ll have to use your personal profile.

The Solution:

Since there’s no way to create a group as a page, you’ll have to use a personal profile. Choose a member of your organization, and ask them to be the group leader. As long as they uphold and reinforce the company brand, you can still gain all of the benefits that a private group will provide.

Difference Three: Advertising

If you’re using a page for a business, you have to be really careful about the promotions you advertise. One big rule is that no image can be more than 20% text. This includes cover photos, promoted posts, and any ads you choose to run through Facebook. You also have to follow all of the rules for advertising, even if your post isn’t strictly an ad.

The Solution:

Tread carefully here; Facebook has been known to outright delete pages if they don’t like them. If you’re ever unsure about whether something is okay, just check their page guidelines. Unless you’re flagrantly abusing the terms of use, you should be fine.

Have you noticed any other limitations on your Facebook page? Let us know in the comments!

View the original post: A Few Brief Reminders About Facebook Pages by Kandra Churchwell

A Guide to Responsive Breaking Points

2013-05-03T00:29:09Z

Planning, designing, and coding responsive websites can be a daunting task. For every type of mobile device or monitor, you have to accommodate yet another media query. With new phones and tablets hitting the market seemingly every day, it’s just not possible to include them all.

When it was our turn to tackle the responsive challenge, we wanted to find a way to accommodate the majority of devices with the simplest code possible. We can’t code for every unique device – but we can code for each type. We hit the digital “books”, looked at what other sites were doing, sought after the emerging industry standards, and determined that the base breaking points found in the Bootstrap framework were spot on. We love the flexible platform that the framework provides, and currently use it as the base for all of our website designs.

Since we work in a visual industry, and we’re visual thinkers (just like you), we complied an infographic containing visual guides for the breaking points, testing tools, and a few key resources from our research.

Without further ado, here it is: our visual guide to responsive breaking points for the responsible designer.

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Please include attribution to DesignFiles.net with this graphic. <a href='http://designfiles.net/blog/responsive-infographic/'></a>

View the original post: A Guide to Responsive Breaking Points by Kandra Churchwell

CUNA Diamond Awards for Westerra Credit Union

2013-04-16T22:28:58Z

Designing for a company you love can really pay off – two of our designs for Westerra Credit Union recently won Diamond Awards from the Credit Union National Association; one in the category of Direct Mail (single), and the other for Plastic Access Card Design. CUNA’s marketing and business council awards the best designs in a wide variety of categories, from credit cards to direct mail pieces to email marketing. Entries are submitted from all across the nation – imagine how surprised we were to hear that we’d won!

Nothing inspires you as much as working for a business you care about, so we’d like to say thanks to Westerra for the awesome relationship we’ve developed over the years. If you want to see our winning designs, we’ve included them below. You can also head over to our portfolio to see the rest of the work we’ve done for Westerra over the years.

Diamond Award
CATEGORY: Plastic Access Card Design
Assets $1Billion and Above

Diamond Award
CATEGORY: Direct Mail (single)
Assets $1Billion and Above

View the original post: CUNA Diamond Awards for Westerra Credit Union by Kandra Churchwell

Simply Circles Social Media Icon Set

2013-03-21T04:38:41Z

We know we were recently complaining about circles, but we take some of it back. Circles are an awesome shape, and make for sweet and simple designs.

In honor of the circle, we give you Simply Circles, our latest icon set. We like them so much, we’re even using them ourselves! If you want them, just download and unzip the file, and they should be ready to go.

We’ve also rounded out a couple of our other icon sets. We couldn’t forget one of our favorite members of the social media family, so our Uplinks and Flyby sets now include Pinterest icons in the standard download. Now you can represent all of your profiles with any of our snazzy badges.

Do you have any ideas for a new icon set? Let us know in the comments!

Download the zip file containing the PNGs and Illustrator vector files.

View the original post: Simply Circles Social Media Icon Set by Kandra Churchwell

Friday’s News Roundup

2013-03-15T05:14:39Z

There’s a lot going on in the world today, so we thought we’d throw together an extra post.

First, Happy Pi Day! Yesterday’s date was 3/14, the annual celebration of math and delicious things baked in a crust. (Kandra used it as an excuse to bake.)

Next, we have some unfortunate news to report: Google Reader is closing its doors. We don’t know many people who still used the RSS feed, but we’re sad to see it go. Google said that they need to pour the energy and resources into other products that people use more frequently. Of course, this caused and outrage among the thousands of people who still do use it every day. What’s your opinion? Should it stay, or should it go?

Of course, not every social media site is cutting back. Pinterest has announced its new web analytics function. You can now check how many people are pinning your content, which will be a great way for artists to keep track of their work.

Perhaps the biggest news of all: remember the Higgs-Boson? They found it. Don’t get too excited right away; the researchers say they still need to do more tests. But so far, it’s showing all of the signs of being the god particle. If it is, they have even more work ahead of them; Higgs-Boson particles are said to hold the fabric of the universe together. If they can figure out how they do that, will there be anything that they won’t be able to discover?

And speaking of God, there’s a new pope around too. Pope Francis (the first to choose that name) was elected two days ago. Like every other pope, he as some good qualities and some bad qualities. We’ll just have to wait and see how he turns out.

Last, but by far not least— our good friends seOverflow are now listed as a recommended SEO company by SEOmoz, one of the most trusted sources for SEO. Congratulations indeed!

Long story short: We lost a service from one website, and gained a service from another. The Higgs- Boson was discovered (maybe), we have a new pope, and a great group of folks received much deserved kudos. Talk about a crazy week!

View the original post: Friday’s News Roundup by Kandra Churchwell

Pinterest Profile Template

2013-03-14T00:36:27Z

Pinterest has become one of our favorite social media sites recently. We’ve been so busy collecting fonts for our Typography Tuesday pinboard, sharing our favorite knitting patterns, and gathering inspiration for our projects, that we nearly forgot to make this profile template for you!

Luckily, Photoshop smart objects come to the rescue. Unlike other profiles, there are very few items to customize with Pinterest; most of the images on your profile come from your pinboards. But if your client would like to see what their Pinterest page will look like, we’ve made it easy for you to make a mockup of the front page. Otherwise, just use the specifications to upload the perfect profile picture, and get pinning!

Download the Zip File and Enjoy!

View the original post: Pinterest Profile Template by Kandra Churchwell

Spring Break, Parts One and Two

2013-03-13T17:37:55Z

Spring is almost here! The birds are singing, the snow is (almost) melting, and we’re ready to end our season-long cabin fever.

This year, Phases Design Studio is taking a split spring break. The studio will be closing briefly on Wednesday, March 20th, so we can all catch a little fresh air. Our doors will reopen on Monday, March 25th.

We’ll be taking off again on Monday, April 1st for a two day hiatus, but we promise to come inside and do our work again on Wednesday, April 3rd.

While we’re gone, make sure that you take some time to enjoy the fresh air, too. It’s spring in Colorado, which means it will snow at least five more times before summer. Enjoy the brief warmth while it lasts!!

~ Phases Design Studio

View the original post: Spring Break, Parts One and Two by Kandra Churchwell

4 Reasons Why We Don’t Like the New Google Plus Layout

2013-03-07T17:53:59Z

Yesterday, Google+ surprised everyone with a new profile layout. While scrambling to put together a new Photoshop template for everyone, we didn’t take the time to decide if we like it or not. Now that a little time has passed, we’ve made up our minds. It’s terrible.

Since opinions usually need a little backing, here are the four main reasons why we just don’t like the new layout:

1) The Profile Pictures are Circles

We get it. Google+ is all about the circles. Add someone to this circle, get updates from the other one. While circles are great for sharing information, and might even be okay for pictures, they just don’t work for logos. 90% of the logos we see every day are square or horizontal. You can fit a circle in a square, but you can’t fit a square inside a circle. There isn’t enough room.

So, anyone with a square logo is going to get their corners cut off. It makes the image look worse, but you can still recognize the company. But what about the people with text logos? Half of the words get cut off completely, leaving an abbreviated version of the company name. Granted, uploading a new image that has your logo positioned specifically for the circle resolves the cropping issue, but does leave you with a much smaller logo being displayed in your “circle”.

Long story short: circles and logos just don’t mix.

2) The Cover Photo is Too Big

The new profile cover photos are responsive. The bigger your screen is, the bigger the image gets. If the image were small initially, this would make sense; but their new cover photo monstrosities swallow the entire screen. On some of our monitors, that image was 16 inches across. No profile picture should be over a foot long. We usually love responsive design, but not this time.

3) It’s Hard to Design For (the Cover Photo is Too Big – AGAIN!)

Between the circles and the massive cover photos, we have’t been able to figure out what to do with the space. The logo ends up tiny, and no amount of creativity can effectively fill the ever-growing cover image. We thought the intent was to share information with our circles, and gain information back in return Instead, w’re forced to slap an over-sized advertisement in their faces; that really seems to discourage the user from getting to the content. I’m not saying we didn’t see some great creativity yesterday as new cover images emerged, but the space is simply too large for the purpose. In this case, form is not following function.

If you already had a great cover image, you can forget about putting it back; the new minimum 480 X 270 image requirements mean that your sleek little cover photo is never returning to its old location. You’d better hope you saved the Photoshop file, or you’ll have to recreate your design all over again.

4) The Pages are Less Usable

The second you go to someone’s page, the only thing you will see is an image. If you scroll down past that, you see their posts. What about all of the information that used to be on the front of the page? Where did the office hours and company bio go?

They’ve all moved to the “about” tab. It’s nice that they’re all in one place, but we really preferred having the information front and center.

In Summary

Google+ went from its trademark sleek and minimalistic design to something big, clunky, and in-your-face. Whether this was an attempt to draw in users from other social media sites, or just a failed idea by their design team, we will never know. The one thing we can be sure of: adding circles everywhere might work for Google’s brand identity, but it’s messing with everyone else’s.

What are your thoughts? Do you love the new layout, or do you just hate it? Let us know in the comments below.

View the original post: 4 Reasons Why We Don’t Like the New Google Plus Layout by Kandra Churchwell

Google Plus Template for 2013

2013-05-21T13:04:24Z

Sudden changes to our social media profiles aren’t exactly our favorite way to start Spring, but sometimes they happen anyway. Google+ surprised us today with a new profile layout. (We guess “pulling a Facebook” is catching on.)

Changes include a HUGE HUGE cover image, and your logo is now required to sit inside a circle. Note, that the cover image is responsive and will grow even larger on wide monitors.

In order to help you keep your social media sites artfully branded, I quickly put together a new profile template for you, complete with smart objects as always.

Download the file, unzip it, and enjoy!

View the original post: Google Plus Template for 2013 by Kandra Churchwell

Design Review

Memorial Day, 2013

Summer is Here!

The Marketplace Fairness Act and Your Business

What is the Marketplace Fairness Act?

Why So Many People Love It

Why Small Businesses Don’t

What Do You Think?

Police Cars and Visual Branding

A Slice of TOMA Pie

Did somebody say pie?

How do you get your slice of the TOMA pie?

Spring is in the Portfolio

Adventos

Advanced Pediatric Associates

More Places to Read Design Review

A Few Brief Reminders About Facebook Pages

Difference One: Tagging

The Solution:

Difference Two: Groups

The Solution:

Difference Three: Advertising

The Solution:

A Guide to Responsive Breaking Points

Share this Image On Your Site. Copy and Paste the Code Below

CUNA Diamond Awards for Westerra Credit Union

Simply Circles Social Media Icon Set

Friday’s News Roundup

Pinterest Profile Template

Spring Break, Parts One and Two

4 Reasons Why We Don’t Like the New Google Plus Layout

1) The Profile Pictures are Circles

2) The Cover Photo is Too Big

3) It’s Hard to Design For (the Cover Photo is Too Big – AGAIN!)

4) The Pages are Less Usable

In Summary

Google Plus Template for 2013