On the Eleventh Day of Creative: Eva Mann

As told by Senior Brand Manager, Amanda Schremser

On the Eleventh Day of Creative, I want to share a project that’s extra merry and bright, and nothing says bright quite like Hollywood runway models, sequin tailored uniforms and the lights of a fashion photoshoot!

When we think fashion, our minds immediately go to the likes of Channel, Marc Jacobs and Vera Wang. But what about the fashion that surrounds our every day lives–the fashion we don’t find on the racks at Nordstoms?

Eva Mann Designs is a fashion forward company who focuses on specialty tailored uniform wear.When you experience brands like Caesar’s Palace, Medieval Times or Margaritaville, Eva Mann Designs is in the details and their uniforms are playing a major part in delivering those experiences.

EM Designs has been around for over 20 years, and like any strong designer, knew it was time for a brand modernization. Jacob Tyler was tasked with updating the EM logo, directing a photo shoot for a new uniform line, creating a brochure to showcase their specialties and most important, redesigning their website.

Just like Eva’s one-of-a-kind uniforms, Jacob Tyler made sure everything we created for EM Designs was fabulously fashionable yet functional. And since responsification is the new black, we made sure to perfectly pair their site with innovation as well: evamanndesigns.com

So the next time you walk into the Hard Rock, Bally’s or one of Trump’s hotels or spas, make sure to pay extra close attention to your valet’s top hat, your waiters tuxedo or your nightly visual entertainer’s headdress. There is a good chance Eva’s team created it and Jacob Tyler is proud to have contributed to such a fine brand.

Marketing in San Diego

On the Tenth Day of Creative

As told by our Sr Project Manager, Heather Roth…

On the Tenth Day of Creative, I’m reminded of the user testing we did for one of our clients. We built a prototype for key pages of the new website. We asked users to navigate the pages and answer a series of questions related to the experience they had getting to those pages. Modifications were then made to make areas of the new site more user-friendly.

I’m a huge nerd when it comes to testing so it’s of no surprise that I would pick this as lucky Day 10.

Web Design by Jacob Tyler

On the Ninth Day of Creative: Nomad

As told by Developer, Jon Clawson,

On the Ninth day of creative, we are anticipating the launch of the Nomad Temporary Housing mobile application which will provide a better experience to process reservation requests for both clients and their internal team. Through the current website, and now the mobile app, Nomad offers a comprehensive search feature that allows users to quickly locate potential destinations for temporary living and submit a reservation request. The website also features many admin tools for communicating property information via email, PDF distribution and the soon-to-launch customer facing phone application.

The Nomad system has provided me the opportunity to work on a task orientated application with new, interesting technologies including server side code, data, API’s, and several JavaScript frameworks. Myself and the Dev team took the Challenge head-on. It has proven our ability to adapt and evolve with the technology industry and remain at the head of the curve by continuing to provide effective solutions. The phone application is scheduled to launch in January 2016 so keep an eye out for more to come!

Branding in San Diego | Jacob Tyler

On the Sixth Day of Creative: Thorsnes Litigation Services

As told by Brand Director, Sean Connacher…

On the Sixth Day of Creative, I’m hedging my bets on sharing the latest creative/strategic/business-driving work we are developing for our friends at Thorsnes Litigation Services.

This company has built a strong reputation delivering end-to-end litigation solutions to its end clients — everything from depositions to e-discovery to trial support (presentations/graphics/etc). We are currently working with them to strengthen their brand so that it represents the true value they provide to clients, and overhauling their website so that it is more intuitive and drives users to convert. As partners we’ve mutually identified and agreed upon a handful of exciting new opportunities, all of which are still ‘in the oven.’

Photos? No can do! We’re on an NDA basis and the last thing I’m going to do is give our friends — who happen to be in the litigation business — a reason to be litigious.

Happy Holidays Jim, Erik, Emily and Julie!

ReBranding Company in San Diego

On the Third Day of Creative: Neofluidics

As told by our Visual Designer, Carli Cohen…

On the Third Day of Creative, I’m excited to share the project that we did for our client Neofluidics – a start-up seeking to improve and disrupt technologies in the world of Microfluiducs.

This was an especially intriguing project for me as I got to dive in and learn the technology behind the company while spending time in their labs. I was able to to get a first hand look into how Neofluidics is challenging a field that has remained unchanged in over fifty years.

It was an awesome experience to work with such a passionate and driven team. To see their brand come to life from the beginning of the process to the end could not have been more rewarding!

To learn more about Neofluidics and to see our work, check out neofluidics.com

Branding by Jacob Tyler

On the First Day of Creative: Visionary Realms

As told by our ACD, Rick Gray…

On the first Day of Creative, I’m stoked to share the work we did for our client Visionary Realms – a gaming company that is revolutionizing the MMO(Massively Multiplayer Online) Genre by setting new standards for immersion, quality and vision. What sets them apart from all others is that their games are not just played, but rather experienced, shared and remembered by their fans for a lifetime.

Tasked with creating a brand identity that their ever-growing community of “true gamers” could get behind, along with a corporate website and a site to announce the launch of their highly anticipated premier game, Pantheon, we had our work cut out for us. Just as their games promise to provide an exciting challenge, so to did this project. In the Jacob Tyler way, we worked hand-in-hand with the Visionary Realms team, collaborating on concepts, executions, and even providing art direction that will effect the actual Pantheon game itself.

With the goal of positioning Visionary Realms as the leader in the MMO genre, a truly social space to live in, what better way to gauge our success than with their Facebook community. With in minutes of posting the launch of the Pantheon site to their wall, the buzz was astounding. Likes quickly grew well into the hundreds, as did the comments. We heard things like…

“Outstanding Site!!!”

“Looks nice… A little too nice, sucked me right in!”

“The site looks awesome! Rejuvenates my interest!”

“Wow.. that is awesome ! didn’t expect that ! truly sick work “

“Site looks nice! and works good on Mobile Phone!(Easy navigation), Great work!”

The Visionary Realms community was thrilled with the work we provided for the Pantheon site, and equally as supportive of the brand we built for the parent company. Our success is a result of many facets of our overall process, but much credit is due to our unique discovery approach where we’re able to truly understand both our clients organization as well as the desires of their audience.

Check out Visionary Realms at: visionaryrealms.com

Check out Pantheon, The Rise of the Fallen at: pantheonmmo.com

Website Design in San Diego | Jacob Tyler

Microsites and Landing Pages: A Primer

Just about every business has a website – or at least should. But a website is not the only venue through which you can market your business on the web. The rise of online marketing and its various tactics have given birth to new forms of web engagement – including the microsite and landing page. Generally, both are an addendum to – or an extension of – an existing website, but each serve a particular function in guiding people along the buyer journey. Let’s take a look at the basics:

The Microsite:

What is it? A microsite is a lot like it sounds – a small, bare bones version of a traditional website. Comprised of no more than a few pages, microsites are built around a singular message (i.e., a new campaign, product or service offering).

What is its purpose? Microsites help to develop brand awareness around a particular product or service. By focusing on a simple and clear message, microsites cut through the clutter of a traditional website and allow potential customers to learn about a product or service in a quick, painless and easy to digest manner.

The Landing Page:

What is it? A simple, single page or form – usually hosted on an existing website – intended to drive a specific action.

What is its purpose? The landing page is singularly focused and intended to spur action (i.e. – download information, sign up for a free trial, subscribe to newsletter, etc.) and move a potential customer from awareness to consideration and eventually, purchase.

The Bottom Line:

Microsites and Landing Pages are great vehicles to enhance your marketing efforts and help drive sales. In some cases, they can even be utilized in place of a traditional website. Microsites and landing pages offer similar benefits, and determining the right solution for your efforts is entirely dependent on your needs.

Benefits of microsites and landing pages include:

• Quick deployment (3-4 weeks vs. 3-4 months for a traditional site)

• Can be used as a short-term solution for specific goals and programs

• Promotes a specific call to action (CTA)

• Build brand awareness organically

• Easy to measure campaign engagement

• Simple navigation

• Allows for direct interaction with a specific promotion or campaign

• Great medium to tell a brand story

Want more info on this topic? Fill out the form to the right and let’s chat!

Digital Advertising in San Diego by Jacob Tyler

17 Quotes on Design Philosophy From Apple’s Sir Jony Ive

Recently, Apple announced it was “promoting” its lead designer, Jony Ive. The promotion is little more than a title change, as Ive has led Apple’s world-changing product design since joining the company in 1996. “Sir” Jony Ive (he’s been knighted by the Queen of England) is well known across the globe for his innovative designs that made Apple the world’s biggest company and changed the way we interact with technology.

As designers, we draw inspiration from a variety of sources – the word around us, the innovative products and services of our clients and the work of great designers past and present. Ive is certainly one of those greats. The following collection of quotes from Apple’s creative maestro offer an interesting look into the philosophy that drives Apple’s world-changing designs.

“Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that’s a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That’s not simple.”

“There’s no learning without trying lots of ideas and failing lots of times.”

“Different’ and ‘new’ is relatively easy. Doing something that’s genuinely better is very hard.”

“We shouldn’t be afraid to fail- if we are not failing we are not pushing. 80% of the stuff in the studio is not going to work. If something is not good enough, stop doing it.”

“There is beauty when something works and it works intuitively.”

“If something is not good enough, stop doing it.”

“If you are truly innovating, you don’t have a prototype you can refer to.”

“What we make testifies who we are. People can sense care and can sense carelessness. This relates to respect for each other and carelessness is personally offensive.”

“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products.”

“True simplicity is, well, you just keep on going and going until you get to the point where you go, ‘Yeah, well, of course.’ Where there’s no rational alternative.”

“What I love about the creative process, and this may sound naive, but it is this idea that one day there is no idea, and no solution, but the next day there is an idea. I find that incredibly exciting and conceptually actually remarkable.”

“A small change at the beginning of the design process defines an entirely different product at the end.”

“When something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical.”

“Designing and developing anything of consequence is incredibly challenging.”

“Making the solution seem so completely inevitable and obvious, so uncontrived and natural – it’s so hard!”

“It’s a very strange thing for a designer to say, but one of the things that really irritates me in products is when I’m aware of designers wagging their tails in my face.”

“The best ideas start as conversations.”

San Diego Digital Marketing Agency | Jacob Tyler

Is Anyone Watching This? – Video Ads and Viewability

In the beginning of this millennium, around when the DVR became ubiquitous and the Internet realized its potential as the platform for content delivery, the television ad was pronounced dead. The perpetual march of technology, combined with a growing distrust for traditional advertisements, was implicated in the TV ad’s demise. The death certificate, however, was written far too early. After all, the advertising spend on the 2015 Super Bowl was the largest ever, and shows no signs of slowing down. Sure, less people view ads on televisions these days, but the visual advertisement continues to dominate the media landscape – by way of the Internet. Both advertisers and publishers have increasingly focused on video ads over the last few years, resulting in both more video ads – and more questions about their effectiveness. Advertisers, in short, want to know – “Is anyone watching this?”

Web pages draw a much less captive audience than do TV screens. Visitors move about freely, clicking links and refreshing pages to locate the content they desire, rather than having it fed directly to them. Merely placing a video ad on a page offers no guarantee that the ad will be seen. Rather than base ad costs and effectiveness on delivery metrics, advertisers and publishers are now relying on a metric called “viewability, ” created by the Media Rating Council, which measures the percentage of the time a particular ad is seen. An ad is considered “viewed” when at least 50 percent of its pixels are on screen for more than two seconds. Viewability is an evolving metric, but it represents a shift in the way advertisers are doing business.

Google’s recently released State of Ad Viewability report offers some important insight on ad visibility, including where ads are being seen, how often they’re being seen, and how format and placement affects viewability. The following are a few major takeaways from the report:

Averages

The average video ad viewability across the web (not including YouTube) is 54 percent. With YouTube, it’s 93 percent. The difference between YouTube and non-YouTube ads isn’t quite as striking as it appears, since only the YouTube numbers accounted for viewability on mobile devices.

Heard, Not Seen

Video ads that played in the background (in a separate tab, etc.) but were not technically “viewable” still resulted in a 33 percent increase in ad recall, when compared to those who had no exposure to ad at all. It’s better to bee seen than heard, but better to be heard than nothing!

Going Mobile

The massive shift to mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, is reflected in viewability data. YouTube video viewability is 94 percent on mobile devices – due largely to the fact that videos often utilize the entire screen on these devices.

Why Videos Fail the Viewability Test

The majority (76 percent) of videos not seen were due to the video playing while in a background tab. The remainder (24 percent) was due to visitors scrolling away from or clicking off the ads in less than two seconds.

Size Matters

Unsurprisingly, viewability increased step by step with screen size. The largest format (848 x 477) had an 87 percent viewability rate, while the smallest (300 x 250) had less than 20 percent viewability.

It’s All About Location

Google’s report showed that not only player size, but also location on the page is an important factor in viewability. Ads placed at the top of the page vertically, and in the center of a page horizontally, had far better viewability rates.

What Does it All Mean?

While viewability is an important step in determining where advertisers should focus spending, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Ad content, audience identification and a solid marketing strategy will ultimately determine an ad’s true effectiveness, and move potential customers from viewing to conversion.

Jacob Tyler | San Diego’s Best Branding Agency

Are You Ready for Mobilegeddon?

In April, Google officially rolled out its “mobile-friendly” search ranking update. In short, this means that Google will now boost the rankings of what it considers to be “mobile-friendly” pages – and penalize pages that it does not – on its mobile search. The update is intended to reflect the rise of Internet access through mobile devices, which now constitute more than half of all Google searches. The update is expected to negatively affect many websites – popular industry blog TechCrunch found that 44 percent of Fortune 500 companies failed Google’s mobile-friendly test – and could impact revenues for those websites who do not meet the new mobile-friendly standards.

Let’s take a look at the basics of the new search update and what it means for your website.

What will change?

The mobile-friendly update will impact web page search rankings based on accessibility and usability on mobile devices.
The change affects only search ranking on mobile devices.
The update applies to individual pages, not entire websites.

What makes a website mobile-friendly?

According to Google’s blog, the following basic criteria will be used to determine “mobile friendliness” in search results:

Websites that avoid software that is not common on mobile devices – like Flash.
Websites that use text that is readable without zooming.
Websites that size content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom.
Websites that place links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.

Is my website mobile-friendly?

If your website features responsive design or adaptive design, or has been configured specifically for use on mobile devices, it may not be affected by the new search algorithm. Older, more “static” websites, however, will likely suffer a loss of ranking under the new search rules.

To determine if your website is mobile-friendly, simply paste your URL into Google’s quick and easy mobile-friendly test.

How can I optimize my website for mobile?

Google recommends responsive web design as the best way to ensure sites remain relevant across all platforms. According to Google’s blog, responsive design:

Makes it easier for users to share and link to your content with a single URL.
Helps Google’s algorithms accurately assign indexing properties to the page rather than needing to signal the existence of corresponding desktop/mobile pages.
Requires less engineering time to maintain multiple pages for the same content.
Reduces the possibility of the common mistakes that affect mobile sites.
Requires no redirection for users to have a device-optimized view, which reduces load time.
Saves resources when Googlebot crawls your site.

In a nutshell –

The new mobile search ranking is an undeniable shakeup of the status quo, but should eventually optimize the search experience for both consumers and businesses. If your website lost rank status on April 21, it can regain that status once it is optimized and becomes mobile-friendly, as Google will reclassify the newly updated site.

If you would like to learn more about how to optimize your website for mobile, fill out the form to the right and let’s chat!