When we’re asked to redesign a website, our clients often tell us that it looks outdated or that the information is no longer current. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Here’s a strategic approach to help you evaluate your homepage design.

Set your brand tone

Are the images emotional, compelling, and represent what you stand for? Does the copy start a narrative that is interesting and compelling? Headlines should be bold and emotional, while subheads should provide more factual details.

Create an interesting, compelling main message

Does your content state the obvious, or does it say something new? Do the images and text complement each other or are they just there as placeholders? Remember — images can quickly tell powerful stories. Statistics, testimonials, awards, and customer logos all prove you are who you say you are.

Clearly define who you are and what you do

Does your content quickly define who you are and what you do, while differentiating you from the others? Customers don’t visit your site to be impressed or entertained—they’re looking for something. Help them decide to choose you.

Speak to your main audiences

You can’t talk directly to your audiences if you don’t understand who they really are. Once you do, you can craft powerful messages that appeal to their biggest needs.

Funnel users to a conversion

Remember your conversion goals and guide your customers to them as quickly as possible. For B2B, you need to capture their information so you can talk with them. For B2C, you need to make that sale. Understand the paths required to achieve your goals, and always offer shortcuts. Some users are learning, and some are ready to buy. Appeal to both with the correct Calls-To-Action (CTAs).

What a Home Page Design Doesn’t Have to Do:

You don’t have to tell a complete story

The history of your company, how your products work, and all their benefits are too much to include on the homepage. All you need to do is impress visitors enough to choose their path through your site. Until they click on something, you don’t know what story to tell them.

“Buy Now” might be too soon on the home page

Often times, the main conversion isn’t appropriate for the home page yet. It’s still a good idea to offer that shortcut, but understand that the customer’s journey will likely involve more of a story. Introduce yourself, offer benefits and options, let them view your product or services, possibly read some testimonials, and then they’re ready for purchase. It is important to keep all paths to a conversion in mind.

No need to explain ALL the benefits you offer

Your homepage should tease everything. Showcase a few clients or customers who have bought from or worked with you. Highlight some of the key benefits you offer. Mention your outstanding commitment to service. These are all things the customer expects you will have. By showing a little, you help them check that box. Let them click to read more if they want, or better yet — let them start down a quicker conversion path. Don’t slow the customer down with mission statements and lots of copy on the home page. Be brief and help them decide their next click as quickly as possible.

How Do You Evaluate the Effectiveness of Your Home Page?

Run through a few questions and answer them honestly. Include the different perspectives of Owner (for brand), Sales staff (for conversion goals and demographics insights), and Marketing team (for messaging and long-term influencing help.)

1. Does your home page “feel” like your brand?
2. Is it interesting?
3. Is it compelling, or does it say the same stuff everyone else is saying?
4. Is it believable? (Do you have “proof”?)
5. Does it have funnels for different audiences?
6. Are there CTAs?

You can do this yourself. We also offer a complimentary website analysis if you’re interested!

The post Take another look at your home page appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

Should you get all your content together first and then give that to the design team? Or is it better to let the design team come up with a new look and feel first, and then fit your content into the new design layout? The answer is a bit of both.

Lead with your messaging.

The first thing to understand, is that your current content is probably out of date. Ask yourself:

• Does it accurately represent your brand and who you are?
• Does it highlight your main product or service offerings?
• Does it speak to the most important market segments?

Most clients’ content needs to be updated first, but it needs to be updated from a marketing perspective. You shouldn’t update your content until you acknowledge your current marketing goals, who you’re marketing to, and what they want and need to hear.

Different types of content

Content doesn’t just apply to copywriting. It also includes images, videos, document resources, charts, diagrams, and animations. When planned out properly, they all help tell the right story and can do so in a complementary way.

The design challenge.

Most clients come to us looking for a visual refresh. But the designer really needs to understand the following things.

1. What is the intent of the page, who it is targeting, and what are the calls-to-action?
2. What types of content will be on the page (paragraphs, images, testimonials, diagrams, bulleted lists, comparison tables), and how much content will be in each area?

While making a website look better without understanding these things is possible, it’s more important to make it work better. When the copy is too dense, it tends to get ignored. When it’s too light, the message gets lost and misunderstood. The designer can balance sizes, colors, and white space to ensure that the right content gets noticed in the right order.

A collaborative workflow

Designers and content-creators should work together to make sure everything fits the layout, and the intent of the page. A good designer understands how important it is to get accurate content and messaging on the page, and the writer understands that the right design will get their story read, and understood. Together, a marketing symphony can be created that communicates your message perfectly to your audience in an interesting and compelling way. If you can do this well, your website visitors will be drawn to action by clicking on a product or filling out a lead-capture form for more information.

The post Which Comes First — Content or Design? appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

What personality traits work well for people in UX/UI?

What does the future look like for UX/UI?

Where do you find design inspiration?

How do I start a career in UX/UI?

The post Do you have a future in UX/UI Design? appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

In Your Office

• The Workspace: How much time do you spend at your desk? Is it big enough, or even at the right height? Standing desks help you burn calories while you work. And larger desks can help with your productivity. Get rid of the clutter, and you’ll be able to clean it easier too. I have a coffee warming plate to keep my coffee warm all morning!
• Organization: Are you organized and are your files (and office supplies) easy to find? Consider moving older things you don’t use as often to a less-used space or the garage. Less stuff around usually means less stress for you. Schedule a time to get through those piles that have been sitting there for months (or years?)
• Privacy: Is your workspace comfortable and private enough? You’ll be more productive if you can keep your co-workers (or kids and pets) out — even if for a short while. Perhaps you can identify or create a second space where you work more privately when needed.
• Lighting: Your space should be conducive to how you work — whether it’s bright and sunny, or dramatically lit with overhead and on-desk lighting. I’ve been playing with some inexpensive color-changing LED bulbs I found on Amazon ($18 for 4!) My desk lighting is bright, but I can change the colors in the corners of my home office depending on my mood.

Energy Boosts

• Planning meal times (and the meals) ensures not only that you’re actually eating and not snacking, but it also offers valuable bonding time between co-workers or family.
• You eat what you buy. If you think about this when you shop, you may start to replace some of the chips with healthier snacks. We signed up for a veggie delivery service which has lead to more salads, roasted mixed vegetables, soups, and stews.
• Snacking: You eat what’s in front of you. When you go to grab a snack, grab some nuts instead of crackers. Or better yet – some crunchy veggies. When you’re working, you don’t care what you’re eating, you’re just blindly putting things in your mouth. And the less salty they are, the less you’ll eat.
• Caffeine: We have invested in making our favorite coffees and teas at home. We love coffee subscriptions allowing us to try unique fresh brews.

Communications and Technology

• Tech Options: Take a little time to set up your “systems.” You might be able to eliminate (or reduce) the other paid apps and services. Most of these technologies integrate really well with each other — just see if that’s a good system for you. We’ve also found that the simpler systems are quicker to adopt by our team, and our clients. We use GoTo Meeting (a Zoom competitor) and it integrates beautifully with Google Calendar and Slack. Because of this, we don’t need to also pay for the Pro version of Slack to enable video chats there.
• Availability: Most of these apps will work on your phone too. You just need to decide if you want that or not. You can set yourself to “away” when you’re eating lunch and after hours. Some apps can do this automatically, and then you still have the option to respond to alerts, but it’s up to you.
• Headsets: While they might look funny, they work really well to eliminate background noise. Have you ever been on a group call and can’t get a word in? The software tends to “focus” on the loudest person. Headsets make you sound clearer, and sometimes louder. It also helps to hear and understand others, especially if they have background noise in their office.

Most of these thing are easy to think about and try, and have made a difference in our day-to-day work.

The post Workplace Productivity Tips from the Metropolis Team appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

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1. Tell a Story

The first goal of your homepage is to set the brand tone. There’s something unique and special about your brand that your core customers care about. Careful use of headlines and imagery can tell that story quickly. Don’t illustrate what your headline just said, but add to it. For example, if you pride yourself on quality and style, your headline could speak to the style, while the photo could show a close-up of of the materials you use. Visitors can be at different stages of their purchasing journey. If you can tell a complete and concise story about who you are and what you offer, you should be able to propel them into your site.

2. Connect With Your Customers

Get to know your audience and offer them what they want, not just what you want to sell the most. Focus on what makes your brand stand out, and show your customers what makes you special. Everything from your site’s images to the organization impacts a user’s decision to make a purchase. Beautiful high-quality photos are a must, as they bring your product to life! Also, include people in your photos using your products.

3. Traffic Funnels

Customers have different interests. Identify the largest area of interest and promote that first, then the next area, etc. This could be a new collection, a product category, or a specific product. There’s no limit to the number of funnels you should have on your home page, just keep going down the list. If they’re not interested in one thing, they’re most likely interested in the next.

When you develop an honest story, you start to form an emotional connection between your brand and your customers. A positive and memorable user experience can turn visitors into customers, and turn customers into repeat customers.

The post 3 Things Your Ecommerce Homepage Should be Doing appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

One thing you’ll notice, is that it looks like the “design” doesn’t happen until step 7. That’s not actually true — the design has to start at step one to lay the proper foundation. One of the biggest derailments we see with any project, is when the marketing strategy shifts mid-project. Minor shifts are generally fine, and are expected over the life of a website anyway, but if you’re selling a product, but don’t have the product ready to sell, then you’re really selling interest in your product (viability, technology, brand awareness…)

High-level Step List:

1. Know Who You Are

A company’s brand and identity can change, especially with younger companies. Reassess who you are now, and your path. Don’t try to be something you are not.

2. Understand Your Audience’s Needs

Offer what your customers need, not what you sell.  This will define your key messaging and conversions (product sales, lead capture, etc.)

3. Budget

Once you understand the potential benefit of your conversions, you can establish an ROI. Compare that to what you can budget over the next few months.

4. Form the Team

This will include the project leader, the designer, and the developer. Also know who will gather/create content, who has the hosting and domain passwords, and who will test the site.

5. Plan the Architecture

Identify markets to target, better content organization, navigation improvements. What else do you need the site to have or do? List pages (sitemap) and plan page hierarchy (wireframes.)

6. Content & S.E.O.

Copy may need editing or additions, newer photos and videos take time to create. Downloadable resources, blogs, and news all help with lead-capture and S.E.O. Create even a basic S.E.O. plan.

7. Designs Should Meet Your Goals

The design is just the icing on the wireframes. Make the site look good after it works properly.

8. Coding and CMS

Choose a content management platform that works well for you. Your site should be coded to easily allow for future changes.

9. Content Entry

All content should be ready prior to this stage. Who will enter the content? Developer or you? How is it entered? Remember S.E.O. at this stage.

10. Testing & Launch

Define what needs to be tested (forms, e-commerce, APIs), and who will test them. User testing can be done internally or with customers. Understand (technically) what it takes to launch the site early on to avoid delays at the end. Enable analytics and have a post-launch marketing plan in place to drive traffic!

The post The 10 Step Website Design Process appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

Does Your Website’s Content Represent Your Brand?

Start with the home page. You offer high quality products or services. Images should be high quality and not tiny. They shouldn’t look like stock images either. Ideally, they help tell your message and work with the copy, not repeat it. Copy should be direct, on-brand, and on-message. Headlines can further your message in a branded way. A contact page that says “How can we help you?” says more than one that just says “Contact” on top. When all of your copy is written, consider looking at the tone of it. Decide if you want to be super-friendly, or quick and factual. Do you want to offer advice and teach with it, or keep it short and brief?

Who Are You Talking To?

With very little effort, you can identify the main audiences who are looking at your home page, and other pages of your site. If you can give the customer what they want, without making them look around for it, you’ll convert faster. So how do you talk to specific types of customers on the home page where everyone is going?  With content funnels. Keep your high-level messaging brief and to the point, but have areas of the home page that attract specific groups of people and compel them to click into that sub-page. You can address more specific pain points on those pages to aid in a quicker conversion. Keeping in mind a customer’s journey map, you can determine if they are ready to buy or still doing research. Do they have a need that desperately needs a solution or are they looking for a longer-term solution?

What Are Your Website’s Goals?

At this point, you understand your audience’s needs, and you have figured out how to position your product or services as the obvious solution to them. Now merge that with your goals and create the headlines and calls-to-action. For example, if they need their research lab to run more efficiently, your headline could be “Our product does the work so you can do more.” vs. “About our product.” CTAs should be leading, like “Learn how we can save you money” vs “Learn more”. Don’r forget the secondary goals if they’re not ready to buy right now. Those include lead-capture forms in front of gated resources, watching a product demo video, or just signing up for your e-newsletter “to be informed of our newest and latest offerings!”

At this point, you can take a look at your current content and see what you can re-use. Let your needs and your customer’s needs drive the content. This creates a customized targeted approach that will keep prospects on your site longer, gives them a positive brand experience, and compels them to make that final purchasing decision.

The post When Was the Last Time You Read Your Own Website? appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

3 Simple Marketing Tips You Can Do Now:

Communicate

Keep reaching out to your customers. They haven’t gone away, they’re just taking it slower now. Let them know you’re still operating, and call attention to things that might help them right now — even if it’s just advice or comfort. You should send out periodic emails. These can be designed and formatted nicely in any service like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, or could be simple ones right from Outlook. Professional, regular communication will make your company look strong, steady, and reliable. And don’t forget an obvious call-to-action in there.

Stay active on social channels. People are spending more time on them while at home, and they want to see how you’ve adapted to the new way of working, and perhaps how you can help them. Remember — social media is for telling stories, not selling. Make it interesting, relevant, and a little personal if you can.

Come Up With Something New

Modify what you offer, how you offer it, or get creative in another way. Can you offer something that would be helpful to people and business struggling right now? It might be a free monthly webcast, or could be a creative rebranding of a product or service you already have. Maybe it’s time to enhance, or create an e-commerce web store so you can sell directly to consumers. Or add tools to your site that enhance communication methods such as instant messaging/chat tools, appointment schedulers, or video conferencing.

We just helped PBS International create their first virtual conference. We created a microsite that is easily duplicated for future conferences, and tied it all into their existing website and customer login system. We levereged their Zoom account (which is pretty powerful at higher levels) for the conference programming. They are moderating the Zoom chatrooms while presenters speak. Salespeople are connected via Calendly so customers can schedule appointments throughout the week — just like popping in on them at a tradeshow!

Stay Positive

Keep your messages positive and not political. I’ve seen agency heads go off on rants on social media. Regardless of whether you agree with a position, it comes across as very negative and uninspiring. You can (and should) stand up for what you believe in. But stay away from the negative commentary. Write from the heart, not out of anger. Jeff Friedman of Small Army does a great job promoting personal and social causes via his monthly emails. He really knows how to write from the heart. Also check out VC firm York.ie for another great montly email full of warm stories about how they support startup companies.

If customers are short on cash right now, maybe come to another agreement or let them spread out payments. We have a client that roasts coffee. When the pandemic hit, restaurants closed and his business shrunk drastically. He needed to make his website more B2C retail-oriented, but timing wasn’t right to spend a lot of money. So we ordered a bunch of coffee for our team who were all working from home. It’s a win-win-win situation there. We also extended payments out for whenever his business bounces back. It will, and should become stronger now that he’s effectively hitting both consumers and retailers.

We’ll get through this together. Build your community now, and they’ll remember you later.

The post How to Market During a Pandemic appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

How Would You Describe Rev’d?

At Rev’d, our mission is to help you achieve your best self, both mentally and physically, by providing you with a supportive culture and motivating instruction. Our signature Rev’d Ride is a 45 minute, athletically-challenging, body-changing experience.

You’re Expanding Like Crazy — What’s the Secret to Your Success?

Our growth is a product of calculated risk taking and cohesive teamwork. Oh, and we GRIND.

What Do You Love Most About Rev’d? What Gets You Motivated to Go to Work Each Day?

Our team is incredible, it makes working every day an absolute joy. Our rider community is also top tier, we are amazed at the stories we hear and the love that pours out in our studios.

How Does Your Website Help With Your Business? What Makes it Indispensable?

Our website is incredibly integral to our business. We have our entire class registration system on our website so it is of utmost importance that it is easy to use and navigate. We also rely heavily on our digital presence and so our website has become the perfect showcase of our brand.

Is There Anything Else You Want Folks to Know? What’s Next For Rev’d?

Rev’d will be the biggest cycling studio in the Boston area after our three new locations open this Winter (Copley Place, Providence and Hingham). We look forward to building our brand further and incorporating amenities and lifestyle partnerships along the way.

To learn more about Rev’d Indoor Cycling and maybe even sign up for a class, visit their website.

The post Client Spotlight: Rev’d Indoor Cycling appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

On one level, content marketing allows brands to connect with their audiences  — prospects and clients alike — so they can demonstrate their expertise and market knowledge, and remind buyers and end users why their brand is important. Content marketing isn’t direct selling, and there shouldn’t be a hard pitch embedded in the content, but of course the end goal is to convert potential buyers into customers. It’s an indirect process that can be incredibly effective when executed well.

On a whole other level, well-executed content marketing increases a brand’s “share of mind” – increasing the likelihood that buyers will think of your brand first when they need a solution to a problem you solve. Content marketing strategies that engage on an emotional level, linking your brand to a concept far greater than your brand — be they “positive” emotions like love, happiness, satisfaction, or (unfortunately) “negative” emotions like fear, loss, anger — are the most effective campaigns for any brand. A well-told story that connects emotionally and makes a potential buyer think of your brand when they have a problem they can solve — well, that’s a story that’s worth telling! Check out this successful campaign from Always:

Start with a blog

The most popular, easiest, and arguably most effective content to produce for your content marketing campaigns is blog posts.There are dozens of other types of content that might be right for your brand, but blogging allows you to tell your story the way you want, and then easily share those stories with the world. Your blog posts should be well written, they should look good, and they should help your audience better understand the topic you’re discussing. 

Of course, simply writing and posting a blog (or producing any content, for that matter) isn’t enough. You need a well designed and well organized blog section on your brand’s website where you can promote and archive your blogs. Some blogs can even be formatted more like a magazine than just a list of posts, further increasing the reader’s sense of consuming “information” and not “marketing messages”. To get the most out of your blog you also need to focus on an effective SEO strategy, and you need to push your content out into the world so it can be seen.

Your strategy needs to include ways to distribute your amazing new content so you get as many eyeballs on it as you can — social media, press release, newsletter, email, event, etc. etc. Done right, your content will take on a life of its own, and a week or month or year later someone will buy your product because they saw your content. That’s pretty cool.

The post Storytelling with Content Marketing appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

Inventory and Hierarchy

The wireframe serves two purposes. 1) It is a visual inventory of what belongs on that page. 2) It allows you to arrange the content in a hierarchy from most important to least. How do you know what belongs on the page, and what order it belongs in?

Brand / Audience / Conversion

Before starting on the wireframes, we hold a Brand Discovery session to help us, and the client, understand what their brand really is. If you think of brand in terms of audience perception, we need to understand how the audience perceives our client’s product or service before we know what to say to them. We discuss who the most likely audiences are, and what solutions they are looking for. And finally we define what the conversions are (buy, lead capture, mailing list signup, etc.)

Messaging & Hierarchy

Once we know who we’re talking to and what their needs are, we know what to say to them. Messaging includes much more than what’s in the headlines. Colors and photos set the mood. Diagrams and icons help clarify the main points. We can’t start looking for photos until we know all of this.

What if We’re Targeting Two Different Audiences?

Once you define the audiences, you need to prioritize them. You have to take into consideration current conversion rates as well as potential conversions for new audiences. Ideally on the home page, you can find some common messaging (usually brand-related) that convinces most of your audiences that you have a quality offering and they’re in the right place. Next, you want the customer to choose what they’re looking for so you can start talking specifically to them about their specific needs. That’s where user funnels come in.

User Funnels

A user funnel is a block of content that grabs the user’s attention. If your website is a pizza shop, most users are either looking to place an order, view the menu, or get directions to your shop. Through the Brand Discovery process, you can determine rough percentages for those needs. The user funnels then become; an area to place an order, a link to the menu, and clear contact info – perhaps with a link for directions. Showing anything else on the home page will delay them getting what they want.

The Rest of the Wireframe

Most wireframes include a top navigation area, a “hero area” where you make that initial brand statement, and have branded imagery, user funnels, and a footer. Latest announcements, news, and blog can all appear on your home page, but not at the expense of quickly directing users to the content they need.

Level of Detail Required

This varies for different clients. Wireframes should be in black and white, with little to no icons and logos. No photos or illustrations should be on them as they’re distracting. That said, the more details you include in the wireframe, the fewer questions everyone has going into the design phase. Details such as where buttons link to, interactive or technical thoughts, and other content thoughts definitely help. But too much detail can stifle the creative process in the next phase. You really want time to explore different user interface designs, navigations, fonts, and overall themes. And those aren’t the point of the wireframe. Remember: Inventory & Hierarchy.

Conclusion

A solid set of wireframes is the first visual solution the customer has for their website. Keep it clean and simple with clear explanations of user funnels and conversions. When done right, it will clarify how the website captures the attention of the target audiences, and show a clear path to conversion. This will save the designer (and the client) time in the long run because it puts everyone on a clear and confident path towards the design phase.

The post What is a Wireframe? appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

WordPress 5 introduces a new way of adding and editing content with the ‘Gutenberg’ editor. Instead of pages and posts being built with a single content editor and a bunch of added custom fields specific to each template, the Gutenberg editor allows you to create flexible page layouts by adding and rearranging blocks on a page. If you have used Squarespace or Wix in the past, this concept may be familiar.

It’s always a good idea to keep your website up to date, so we do recommend upgrading to WordPress 5. However, you may find that some of your website content is no longer accessible and will need to take additional steps to ensure compatibility.

Along with the core 5.0 update, WordPress released a plugin called “Classic Editor”. You can install and activate this plugin to revert the functionality and appearance of the editing workflow back to the old style. This way, you can update without worrying about the additional work necessary to make your website compatible with the Gutenberg editor. As with any update, we recommend starting by backing up your website in the event that something goes wrong, or that the new core software is not compatible with an existing plugin.

Moving forward, custom WordPress themes will be built with the Gutenberg editor in mind. Instead of creating a fixed number of rigid page templates with custom fields, developers will begin creating blocks for you to add, customize, and rearrange on a page in any way you need.

We are really looking forward to working with these new enhancements and the freedom they will allow our clients in creating compelling, and attractive, page layouts.

The post What You Need to Know About WordPress 5 appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

Project highlights include a home page product animation with a carousel of add-on patches to help illustrate how they can be swapped out. Due to the nature of how this product collection works, we wanted to give customers an easy way to browse through the available patches while in the cart. We created dynamic up-sell areas in the cart and on other key points of the website.

The awesome apparel designers at McGarry & Sons managed the photo shoots and defined the initial brand identity. We worked closely with them to match our website design with the brand direction.

Larkshead is an apparel company that focuses on personal details. They believe that everyone has something special to say about themselves. What’s unique about their products is that you can customize them with patches as a subtle way to show what you care about — whether it’s a school logo, a graphic icon, or anything you can think of! Check out their new website design here!

The post Website Launch: Larkshead Apparel appeared first on Metropolis Creative.

Step 1:

Find a photo and bring it into Photoshop. I added a little space on top to add the top of her head later.

Step 2:

Boost the contrast by adjusting the levels. Notice how close the triangles are in the middle of the histogram.

Step 3:

Use the magic wand tool to select a darker color — in this case: the red. Then go to the top menu and choose Select -> Similar. This will select all the red on the page. Add a new layer on top and fill that selection with black.

Step 4:

Do the same with a lighter tone — in this case: yellow. Fill it with white. Do the same with any other values. Make the darker ones black, and the lighter ones white. Also, I’ve drawn in the top of her head here.

Step 5:

Now that we have a black and white image, we need to make it carvable. The template needs anchor points. For example, you can’t carve the eye out, or it will just fall out. A circle around the edge of the image anchors the top of the head, her arm, and the shield. The more anchor points you have, the stronger it will be.

Step 6:

I’ve duplicated her hair to make another anchor point. It’s sloppy but we can fill it in later.

Step 7:

Using the same levels technique on the hair, I’ve filled the darks with black and the lights with white.

Step 8:

Lastly, I used a heavier brush to cheat some of the lines thicker and to connect more anchor points. Look at the hair on the bottom left, her arm, and her eye got connected to the nose. There are a lot of thin wispy details still that we’ll just ignore when we go to carve it.

Step 9:

I chose to reverse the image. The black areas are what will be cut out.

Step 10:

Size the final template to the size of your pumpkin. Thick masking tape worked well to tape the template on. Blue painters tape doesn’t stick very well. I started with the face and worked out from the middle. Leave the large areas for last because they provide a lot of support while you’re cutting. Also, it helps to try and thin out the inside of the pumpkin with a large spoon where you will be carving.

For tools, I used the little orange pumpkin tools that come in any kit. I also had a selection of sharp kitchen knives for straighter lines. And a power drill with a small bit is great for making starter holes for the pumpkin carving saw or just for tiny details. Plus, it doesn’t shake or wiggle the pumpkin as you cut.
 

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