Today, I want to tell you the story of how I solved a design problem and changed a business’ tagline in the process.

A few years ago, I completed this billboard project for a local business. Their existing tagline was, “Where realty means reliability… and results.” I wanted to create an impactful billboard, and using a long tagline such as this is not the best way to create an impactful billboard. I did some brainstorming and writing and settled on a simplified version of the tagline. It became just ‘Reliability. Results.’

I didn’t think much of this new tagline at the time, because my goal was to create a billboard that was effective, not on writing a tagline. However, I recently noticed new billboards popping up all over town with the tagline I created, ‘Reliability. Results.’ At this point, I realized that it really was a change for the better and was more important than I initially thought. Solving one design problem successfully can really impact a business for years.

If you are looking for a fresh, new tagline to represent your organization or business, get in touch and maybe we can work together. The benefit is that I can roll the tagline revision into a larger project that might include me designing a logo, billboard, brochure, website, or shooting photos. I love offering the full package, and many past clients have benefited from it as well!

So that’s the story of how I solved a design problem and changed a business’ tagline in the process.

The website not only looks great for the public, but it is also very easy to edit with customized editing screens for each webpage. The website editors don’t need to worry about breaking something down the road.

Oh – and the website looks great on any mobile device – from tablet to smartphone. Resize your web browser to see how responsive/mobile friendly the website – or you could browse to the website on your phone/tablet.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

VisitKirksville.com

Recently, my wife and I decided to sell our house and buy a new one. Our house sold in an amazingly short amount of time. We are now days away from moving into our new home. This wouldn’t have been possible without the help and advice from Mike LaBeth of Heritage House. Being a very happy customer of Heritage House, I was delighted when Mike asked me to design a billboard that would present the agency to the community in a fresh and new way.

I worked with Mike to come up with a concise headline that would draw attention. That headline was grounded in their tagline already in use. The headline became, ‘reliability. results. KirksvilleRealEstate.com.’ We also captured a group photo of the real estate agents for use in the billboard and future advertising.

Additionally, I captured some photos of Kirksville for large display in the Heritage House offices.

This project allowed me to practice old and new skills! Old skills = billboard design. New skills = photography.

Lots of personality

Just recently, we launched a new blog for a local Century 21 Realtor, Carmen Stanton. The goal? Create a blog that captures Carmen’s personality and gives her a place to connect with her potential customers. She loves the outdoors and her dogs, and so the design for her blog speaks to that,  aesthetically.
See the blog now »

Mobile and future friendly

Of course, I just had to make the blog mobile-friendly, so no matter how you are viewing the blog: on your phone, tablet or desktop computer, the blog will look great. No matter what new mobile device comes out (and the various size dimensions of them), this blog is going to look good, because it is fully responsive and flexible. In this way, the website is future-friendly. To see this responsive and flexible layout in action, check out the short video below.

Recently, this website was redesigned and let me tell ya – it was a fun experience. I spent about 6 months slowly redesigning this website (off and on). The old website was designed in early 2009 and it was definitely showing it’s age. This is only the first redesign of our website — probably because we are so busy creating cool work for lots of clients (and balancing full-time jobs).

Check out the video above to see how the site looks on various mobile devices. The video also covers a quick rundown of our goals for the new website. The goals center around responsive design and mobile first principles. Wonder what those are? They are the future of web design and something everyone who has a website should be thinking about. More about that here.

Check out CreativeImprov.com when you get a chance (simply click the ‘home’ button at the top of this blog).

For the last 3 years, I have designed the poster for the Mineral Area College, Carol Moore Memorial Jazz Festival. It has been a joy to do this sort of project being a jazz saxophonist and also loving jazz. It combines two things I love: jazz music and design.

The process

The design process for this poster began with breaking out the watercolor paint and drawing out legendary saxophonist, Phil Woods’ name and seeing what I could come up with. The big idea is that the poster needs to reflect the core of jazz music — jazz improvisation. Improvisation is an act of composing music in the moment and not always knowing what you will come up with. The beauty of improvisation is in the tension between structure and spontaneity. I wanted to reflect that tension with the poster by employing both hand drawn elements and computer generated elements.

If you live near Park Hills, MO – check out the concert on March 2nd!

I thought I would share some of my thoughts on the web design trends I’m seeing for the coming year. They focus purely on optimizing websites for mobile viewing. This is because it’s a huge shift that is already happening and is going to continue to happen even more in 2013.

Mobile first

An estimated 1.2 billion smart devices will be purchased in 2013 (source). This is huge, and because of this, we need to start thinking about mobile devices first and desktop second.

The goal is to create a website that first and foremost looks great on a mobile device. Notice I said ‘mobile device’, not iPhone or Galaxy SIII. Why? Because new and different mobile devices are hitting the market so rapidly that web designers need to focus most on creating websites that will look great on any mobile device regardless of the size rather than focusing on just the most popular device.

When we think about our next website project in terms of mobile first, it brings a lot of focus to our design. Mobile first will make us better designers as it stretches us to make the website communicate effectively on a small touch-based screen where the audience’ attention span is even shorter. Many times it will be even more likely that your audience is multi-tasking and only has a few seconds to look at your website. Prioritizing your design/content has never been more important. No longer can you get away with those extraneous bits of design or content that are niceties but not necessities.

In the last year, the number of Internet page views on mobile devices has doubled (source). This points to a shift from desktops to mobile devices that has been happening the last few years and it is going to continue ever-so feverishly in 2013. Web designers need to adapt (pun intended) to this and think… mobile first.

No longer can you get away with those extraneous bits of design or content that are niceties but not necessities.

Responsive design

While thinking, ‘mobile first’ focused on the overall concept of designing for mobile first and foremost, responsive design is more focused on how your website looks anywhere from a super-wide desktop screen to the smallest phone screen. The act of a website changing layout as you change devices or screen widths is responsive design. Simply put, responsive design is when a website ‘responds’ to the width of the screen and device to give the audience an optimal viewing experience.

The phrase ‘responsive design’ was first coined by Ethan Marcotte in a 2010 article. This article is the antithesis of the current trend that focused on creating separate websites for different devices. Responsive design means that your website layout is percentage based in order flex with the various device and screen widths out there.

2012 saw a big explosion in responsive design. Top websites like Time, USA Today, Microsoft and Mashable all went responsive. With these top sites going responsive, 2013 will surely see many more small and large sites following suit.

How can your website layout flex from a wide desktop to a smartphone? The answer is: simpler design, fewer graphics, less ‘pixel-perfection’, and more CSS3 replacements.

Simpler web design (but not simplistic)

As the number of websites going responsive rises, the design and layout of these sites will become significantly simpler than ever before (I said simpler, not more simplistic). Of course, this means that web designers need to adapt to these changes and think responsively: How can your website layout flex from a wide desktop to a smartphone? The answer is: simpler design, fewer graphics, less ‘pixel-perfection’, and more CSS3 replacements. This shift will reward great designers, because making a website simpler means it also needs to be effective. There’s a difference between simple and simplistic. A simple design is the result of many problems being solved and everything working just right. It’s just effortless. A simplistic design is the result of unresolved design problems and fear of the project at hand.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do for a living?

I am the senior writer/editor in the Communication & Marketing department at A.T. Still University in Kirksville, Mo. (I’m a Kirksvillian born and raised). Outside of writing and editing magazines, I’m a married mother of one brilliant little boy and have a daughter on the way.

Do you have any formal training?

I received my BS in marketing/management from Park University.

Describe your workspace.

I have to have things organized. Everything has a place. I prefer well-lit, bright spaces – it helps me when proofreading and helps me stay awake! I also have several photos of my family in my office.

Describe your creative process. What steps do you normally follow?

I’m always thinking about my audience – what are they going to think is cool? What do they want to read? Then I look for those things in everyday life. Once I have an idea, I brainstorm a shell for a story, and then I research information to fill in the missing links. I don’t usually go through many drafts. I’ve found that I write best when I correct sentence construction, punctuation, and grammar as I go instead of waiting until a revision.

Less is more. Explore new ways to write
in different formats.

What motivates you?

The final product. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing your words printed on the glossy pages of a magazine!

What is your advice to others just starting in your field?

Less is more. Explore new ways to write in different formats. Keep the end product in mind, visualizing how the article will look when it’s laid out.

What do you do to market yourself and/or your business?

I recently launched a portfolio website to market my freelance work. Other than that, I count on word-of-mouth from friends and family.

Who are your heroes in your field?

I read a ton of magazines for inspiration on content and design. Right now some of my favorites are Discoveries by Cedars-Sinai and Real Simple. The writing is so conversational and interesting, and the design is so clean it blows me away!

What do you do in your spare time?

When I’m not playing with my son I’m probably cleaning house (boring, I know). I love going out to eat, visiting friends, and drinking coffee.

This piece on military medicine is reader-friendly because it’s scannable.

As editor of an alumni magazine, I’m always looking for new ways to engage my audience. The website allows us to feature exclusive online content not available in the print edition.

1. Create social objects.

A social object, to me, is something that communicates an idea quickly. Whether it’s a short sentence, a photo, a video or anything else you can think of. The point of a social object is that the idea is so awesome that people want to share it.

2. Make ’em feel like VIPs.

Think about making things exclusive to only your Facebook fans. Examples include posting videos or photos only for your Facebook fans. Also, during live events, post what’s happening as it happens (this could be mobile photos, quotes from speakers, or an up-to-the-minute record of what’s happening.) This rich content will become ‘social objects’ and make it more likely that your fans will share it with their friends.

3. Create a dialogue.

Do this by sharing things that encourage conversation. Be as conversational, personal, and authentic as you can be. Ask questions. Encourage people to like, share or comment on the things you share…and that doesn’t mean you should write “like this post” at the end of every post. Instead, post things that people want to like, share or comment on.

4. Continue conversation.

How? By responding to comments from fans, thanking them, asking questions, continuing conversation

5. Create a local conversation.

Write content for certain locations or languages. While posting content from the fan page, look for the gray ‘Public’ button and drop down to find ‘Location/Language’. This allows you share content with a targeted group of people from a specific city, state, language, etc.

6. Create a tribe.

Create a tribe of people who believe in what you do and why you do it. Do this by sharing your passion every day, with consistency and creativity.

7. Be patient (and never give up).

It’s okay to only have 50 people who ‘like’ your fan page. It’s better to have 50 people who are richly engaged and love your product, service or organization than 1,000 people who could care less what it’s all about.