Prior to their graduation, Casey and Melanie joined their fellow students to showcase their work for friends, family, and prospective employers. Their VIEO co-workers dropped by to take a look, provide a little comic relief, and hoard free coasters.  Below, enjoy a few pictures we took at the event! Just click to enlarge each image.

Check back here for more news, web design and development tips, weird things we find on the Internet, and local color. Say hi in the comments below!

You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!

You may not have heard of Polyvore (yet), but if you or your clients sell clothing or accessories, you will.

Like Pinterest, Polyvore is a highly visual social medium, and they are among the pioneers in the new territory of social commerce. Currently, Polyvore’s biggest foothold is in the style community, because it allows users to create and share virtual outfits. Polyvore can then send users directly into an ecommerce site to purchase the items that make up the outfit, making it an ideal way to funnel into your store.

Polyvore accomplishes this by use of the “clipper,” which is just a javascript shortcut that a user can drag to their bookmarks (similar to the way the Amazon Wishlist or Instagram shortcuts work). The clipper then pulls a selection of images and a price from the product page a person is viewing.

However, if your ecommerce site uses Bigcommerce,  Polyvore’s clipper may be having trouble capturing the price as well as the image, and social media statistics demonstrate that including the price has a significant impact on clicks and purchases. But we’ve fixed it!

The panels and snippets that are used in Bigcommerce templates include native HTML that is structured in a way that makes it difficult for the Polyvore clipper to capture the price. Polyvore determines a product’s price by examining the HTML surrounding the image you’ve selected. When you are viewing the “slideshow” of product images of a particular product, you are actually looking at an iframe containing the ProductImagePopup.html panel. This panel does not contain the price in the HTML anywhere, nor does it allow the %%GLOBAL_ProductPrice%% variable to be accessed (for some odd reason).

The quick and dirty way around this is to manually include the price in the image description. Of course, that breeds a whole new set of problems when you change a product price. Until Bigcommerce allows the %%GLOBAL_ProductPrice%% variable to be accessed in that panel, you’ll have to use the following javascript fix.

First, open the ProductDetails.html panel and place this line of javascript inside the script tags:

var ProductGlobalPrice = “%%GLOBAL_ProductPrice%%”;

Next, open the ProductImagePopup.html panel and put this line near the title section:

<div style=”position: absolute; left: -99999px;”>

<script type=”text/javascript”>

//<![CDATA[

document.write('Price:' + parent.ProductGlobalPrice);

//]]>

</script></div>

The CSS there just offsets the price so it doesn’t show up in the description area. If you WANT it to show up, you can leave that part out.

Thats it! Your Polyvore clipper should work perfectly now.

Check back here for more web design and development tips, weird things we find on the Internet, and local color. Say Hi in the comments below!

You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!

The event, which took place on April 8, 2013, recognized students who have excelled in the fields of Design, Engineering, and Media Technologies.

Casey was chosen to receive the Communication Graphics Technology Outstanding Graduate Award, one of only four awards given out to students in Media Technologies.

Casey was also selected for Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges 2012-2013 after being nominated by a faculty member. The national Who’s Who program recognizes deserving students “for academic excellence, college/community service, and potential for future achievement” based on GPA, faculty and staff recommendations, extracurricular activities, and community service.

We’re so proud of Mr. Casey Owens! If you’d like to see his work, stay tuned – both he and Melanie Chandler, our other graphic design intern, recently displayed their work at a showcase, and we took pictures. Lots of pictures. So brace yourselves. Like I said, we’re very proud!

Mac, Maria, and Emily are strongly dog people, and Paul and Melanie are passionate cat supporters.  Everybody has an opinion, but there’s no way to win. Until now!

As a design and marketing firm, we love innovative visual approaches, and so we’ve decided to put the question to you in this way –

Who makes better font mascots, cats or dogs?

The post “If cats were fonts.” was originally published on I Waste So Much Time, and takes a humorous approach to the idea (appropriate, given the subject matter).

In response, Vienna-based studio Grafisches Büro created elegant designs of Dogs as Fonts that was featured recently on Design Taxi.

Judge for yourself:

 Let us know your favorites in the comments!

You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!

*Many thanks to Melanie Chandler for reformatting the cat images… though I happen to know she didn’t mind promoting Team Cat.

Everybody loves summer blockbusters, and we at VIEO are no exception.

Sequels (and the hope of sequels – see Tim’s choice) dominated our list this year, though some of the most widely promoted big-budget follow-ups didn’t make it.

Sadly, Superman didn’t capture our staff’s attention – Man of Steel is nowhere to be found on our list. We also spurned the moderately-anticipated sequel Thor: The Dark World, though the ladies in the office are quick to point out that both Henry Cavill and Chris Hemsworth are welcome to drop by the VIEO office anytime for advice on their film choices.

Without further ado, here are our picks for the best milk-duds-and-popcorn tentpole films of the summer!

In order of release date:

Paul, Rob, and Melanie

Iron Man 3 (PG-13, in theaters May 3)

The Great Gatsby (PG-13, in theaters May 10)

Star Trek Into Darkness (PG-13, in theaters May 17)

The Hangover Part III (R, in theaters May 24)

The Heat (R, in theaters June 28)

Despicable Me 2 (PG, in theaters July 3)

“Whatever my kids are watching,” but he’s holding out hope for Tommy Boy 2 (release date…never)

Tommy Boy (PG-13, released 1995)

We hope you enjoyed our picks… what are yours? Let us know in the comments below!

Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices are rapidly becoming a primary web content platform for many people. Web developers are responding to these changes by designing content that can be easily viewed on any device, an approach known as “responsive design.”

Websites that are built to be viewed on mobile devices and widescreen monitors as well as traditional PCs are referred to as having “responsive design,” because the site design “responds” to the size of the browser display in which it is being viewed.

For example, a traditional static website with a multi-column format may become unreadable on a mobile device, because the page will simply zoom to fit the screen. A responsive website, on the other hand, can be designed to shift those columns into a single long column, so the reader could simply scroll down to view the whole site on a smartphone.

To see this in action, visit a responsive site and adjust the size of the browser window in several directions to watch the elements of the site adjust and even move around on the page. Here are a few of the responsive sites we’ve designed if you’d like to try it for yourself:

Responsive design represents a fundamental shift in the way websites are created, and it will only become more prevalent as web-enabled mobile devices become more common and accessible.

In the words of VIEO’s Lead Designer Paul Gibson, “Responsive design is the most logical way to approach the problem of the broad range of screen sizes on the market today. This is one reason we recommend responsive design to many of our clients”

Cisco, the multinational manufacturer of networking equipment, reports that global mobile data traffic grew by 70% in 2012, and projects that by 2013, web-enabled mobile devices will exceed the world’s population.

“By 2013, web-enabled mobile devices will exceed the world’s population”

Many sites are seeing larger portions of their web traffic coming from mobile devices; in December 2012, Mashable.com reported that 30% of its web traffic came from mobile devices, and they anticipate reaching 50% by the end of 2013.

If you’re deciding whether to upgrade your business website to a responsive design, it’s important to consider the expectations of your customers or clients. In certain industries and among certain demographics, cutting-edge web design is expected and use of mobile devices is high. Another powerful tool in making that decision is Google Analytics, which provides data on what portion of your web traffic comes from mobile devices and other details.

If you’d like to talk to us about building a responsive site, you can contact us any time. You can also look through our portfolio, which includes our ADDY Award-winning responsive site for Elle Boutique.

If you want to know more about responsive design or are looking for some basic technical information (e.g. about fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries), there are some great resources out there. As usual, the Wikipedia entry is a good place to start, but here are a few useful blog posts on the topic as well:

Why 2013 is the Year of Responsive Design (Mashable)

Beginners Guide to Responsive Web Design (Treehouse)

Responsive Web Design: What It Is and How to Use It (Smashing)

Do you use the Internet primarily on a mobile device? Have you noticed a shift toward responsive sites?

We’d love to hear from you in the comments below about your experiences with or questions about responsive design!

Welcome to Emily Winsauer, our new Content Marketing Manager!  Emily joined VIEO in February as a copy writer and recently accepted the position of Content Marketing Manager.

As VIEO’s Content Marketing Manager, Emily will be responsible for creating and consulting on a wide range of compelling content designed to help our clients better connect with their customers.

With a varied background as a writer, editor, researcher, and media liaison, Emily has broad experience with web and new media outlets as well as traditional print and broadcast media. She recently earned a Master’s degree in Environment and Development from the University of Edinburgh.

Emily loves creating content that genuinely serves and connects with its readership, which she credits to her journalism background. With 8 years of experience as a writer and editor, she is dedicated to creating the highest-quality content, whether working in web formats like blog posts, e-books, social media, and infographics, or in more traditional marketing formats, including white papers, promotional materials, print advertisements, press releases, and more.

Welcome Emily, we are thrilled to have you on board!

Today we celebrate the International Women’s Day to commemorate the achievements made in human rights and honor women from all over the world.

The International Women’s Day originated on March 8th 1857, when garment workers in New York City staged a protest against inhumane working conditions and low wages. Police dispersed the protesters, but the movement carried on leading to the creation of the first women’s labor union in the United States.

On March 8th, 1908 fifteen thousand women marched the streets of New York chanting “Bread and Roses” with bread for economic security and roses for higher standards of living. Many of the protesters were European immigrants who came to America seeking opportunities for better life and equal human rights.

The International Women’s Day was proclaimed the official holiday at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Denmark in August 1910. Clara Zetkin, a German human rights activist, proposed the establishment of an annual  holiday honoring the strike of garment workers in the US.  The proposal was unanimously approved by the 100 women from 17 countries.

Today women around the globe receive flowers and gifts to celebrate the tradition that has continued for more than 100 years.

How are you celebrating International Women’s Day? Let us know in the comments below.

Before joining VIEO, John worked in digital design, magazine production, photo retouching, and web design. He also has experience in marketing, public relations and media management.  In his new career with VIEO, John will be managing marketing projects in the “traditional” areas such as magazines, newspapers, and billboards.

On the personal side, John is a loving husband and father of two wonderful children.  He enjoys many outdoor activities such as hiking, canoeing, greenway biking but his favorite is mountain biking the trails of East Tennessee with his son. He is a Cub Scout leader, active in his church’s leadership, as well as helping in various charities.

VIEO Design welcomes our newest Graphic Design intern Melanie Chandler!  We are so excited to have the talented Melanie join us in our new office space.

Melanie has a BS in Communications from UT where she majored in Advertising and minored in Psychology and Business.  She is currently pursing an AAS in Communication Graphics at Pellissippi State Community College where she attends class with fellow intern Casey Owens.

Melanie is already rocking and rolling as she produces amazing design work along with Casey and our Lead Designer Paul Gibson.

Welcome Melanie we are so glad to have you on board!