If you’ve visited our front page recently, no doubt you’ve noticed the newest item in our work portfolio. We recently unveiled a logotype for Peepers Pet Watch, a pet services company based in Southwest Florida. The logo is part of a larger brand identity campaign we’re building for the company, and we’re excited to help Peepers build its market presence throughout the area (click on the image above to see a full image of the logo).

Peepers has also retained Elevation 7 to develop their corporate website. We’re still hammering out the exact timeline for the site, but we anticipate a launch date in November. Peepers — which provides pet sitting, pet taxi, dog walking and other pet services — is currently taking appointments for Nov. 10 and beyond.

You can view the company’s Coming Soon page and sign up for their newsletter at peeperspetwatch.com.

(Click image to see full-size sample)

The challenge: This Southwest Florida company came to Elevation 7 in search of a brand identity that reflects its passion, energy and joy for providing pet services with a personalized touch.

The solution: Elevation 7′s Matt Tarr devises a branding campaign for Peepers Pet Watch that’s fun, warm and functional. The centerpiece is a vibrant logo that combines a dash of retro inspiration with a bright, inviting color palette. The logo’s charming furry friends provide endless possibilities to expand the brand into a multitude of promotional mediums while maintaining its core appeal.

Elevation 7 has also been retained to develop the company’s website, which is tentatively scheduled for launch in November 2010. You can view Peepers’ temporary splash page and sign up for the company’s newsletter at peeperspetwatch.com.

With the quality of design-related resources available online these days, it’s hard to go a month and not come across a veritable bevy of outstanding blog posts and roundups. Here’s the best of an excellent batch spanning a broad range of design topics from music websites to business cards. My thanks as always to the contributors who took the time to share their insight, opinions (and freebies) with the rest of us. Click on any of the images or descriptions to visit the respective link:

25 Embossed Business Cards for Your Inspiration | Vandelay Design

Logo Design Inspiration: 66 Fresh Examples | Instant Shift

Inspiration: The Top 36 Musician Web Designs | Nettuts

350+ Seriously Awesome and Free Photoshop Brushes | Reencoded

50 Useful JavaScript and jQuery Techniques and Plugins | Noupe

300+ Free Grunge Textures | Design Mag

100 Seriously Awesome Retro Wallpapers | 1st Web Designer

– Matt Tarr is Elevation 7′s creative director and principal. He can be reached at 239.634.5281 or via email at matt@elevation-seven.com.

We always make it a point to invite our clients to bring their own ideas and suggestions to the table when we sit down to discuss a new creative project. We love to see what inspires our clients, and what motivates them to want to elevate their brand.

That’s why we like to offer these design link roundups from time to time. Whether you’re an entrepeneur considering an upgrade to your current branding/visual presence or a designer looking for a bit of inspiration, we invite you to take a look at our newest collection compiled from some of the industry’s top online design resources. Click on any of the images or descriptions to visit the respective link:

35+ Beautiful Examples of Creative Collage for Your Inspiration | 1st Web Designer

30 Unique Logo Designs That Actually Say Something | DevSnippets

37 Unusual Examples of Business Card Design | Freelance Switch

30 Well Designed E-Commerce Websites for Inspiration | Modny 73

The Dieline’s Latest Top 10 Package Designs | The Dieline

20 Creative Print Advertisements For Your Inspiration | Designer Daily

30+ Impressive Email Newsletter Designs for Your Inspiration | Dzineblog

One of the most interesting facets of working with small businesses is listening to the challenges managers face as they try to implement and sustain online marketing strategies.

Like many of my peers in the industry, I find that I hear a lot of the same issues voiced over and over when companies fail to achieve their goals with a web/social media marketing plan. Unfortunately, frustration often leads to confusion, desperation or — worst of all — apathy. A sound strategy can unravel quickly if it’s not cultivated properly, which is why I’ve decided to offer up seven critical pitfalls small business managers should try and avoid:

Wrath

Whether it’s a diatribe from a disgruntled ex-employee on a message board or a less-than-favorable review on a blog post, companies large and small have been faced with a similar dilemma: How do we react to a negative comment online? While the answer isn’t always simple, the first step always is. Ready for it? Here it is …

Take a deep breath and exhale.

A negative comment is not the end of the world, and in fact, some might say it’s inevitable in today’s business landscape depending on the size and scope of your company. The bottom line is that wrath should never be answered with wrath. No matter how artful your writing abilities are, a terse response (either in e-mail form or a direct public response) looks, at best, petty and, at worst, defensive and mean-spirited. In other words, the best response is one that is tactful and honest. Kill your audience with kindness, yet explain your position in as forthright a manner as possible.

Of course, the worst response of all is a non-response. All you’re doing by not responding is letting the comment (and commenter) control the conversation. Acknowledge the gripe, and take control of the conversation on your own terms — you’ll be surprised by how quickly you can win over even the most fervent detractor.

Greed

One of the most common (and understandable) pitfalls many small business executives fall prey to is setting unrealistic goals for their online marketing strategies. It’s good to want to be on the front page of Google’s search results. It’s good to want to have eleventy billion followers on Twitter.

It’s not good to expect these things to happen overnight.

A sound web marketing strategy is one that takes into consideration the workload capabilities of your staff, budgetary requirements, infrastructure limitations and long-term goals. Eighteen hours a day on Twitter might get you 20,000 captivated followers in a month, but at what cost to the rest of your business (not to mention sanity)?

My advice? Set realistic goals, and embrace the positives of being patient with the process. Ultimately, you’ll have a better understanding of your consumer audience, and a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to engaging them.

Sloth

Plain and simple, laziness undermines more online marketing campaigns than any other potential pitfall.

Every day, solid marketing strategies wither away from inactivity or undernourishment. You can have the prettiest website in the world or the most tricked-out blog in the blogosphere, but it won’t mean a thing if your audience is starved for content. Set realistic goals for building your online presence … but then make sure you put the resources in place to feed your online platforms on a consistent basis.

Likewise, content updates that are seen as throwaways will be, well, thrown away by your audience. If you or your staff is going to take the time to put together a content update, make sure they devote the necessary amount of brain power to the exercise as well. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every update; just strive to bring quality information to your audience and you’ll reap the rewards.

Pride

Florida Governor Charlie Crist likes to say “God gave me two ears and one mouth, and I try to respect the ratio.” Political commentary aside, companies would be well served to follow Crist’s advice when navigating the online marketing waters. Sharlyn Lauby wrote an outstanding piece highlighting the importance of this issue a few months ago on Mashable:

“A lot can be learned by watching others. Don’t be afraid to ask questions on and offline so you can learn more.

(General Motors director of global social media Christopher) Barger encourages companies to remember ‘that few ideas should be rejected out of hand; not everything is going to work, but in 95% of the cases, even if something doesn’t work there is value to be gained and lessons to be learned from the ‘failure.’ The only exceptions to this rule are efforts that would contradict the basic etiquette and/or rules of social media – transparency, openness, authenticity, and avoiding ‘pure traditional marketing’ plays, etc.’”

Lust

Every day seems to breed new opportunities in the online marketing realm, particularly within the social media spectrum. But as enticing as each new opportunity may seem at first glance, make sure you take some time to analyze a new platform for its potential pluses and minuses before jumping in head-first.

The social media landscape is riddled with sites that seemed like a potential bonanza at first, only to slowly languish as other technologies and opportunities passed them by. Take care to determine if that shiny, new opportunity addresses your core objectives. Will it help us be more responsive to our audience? Does this particular platform allow us to fully express our power and personality as a brand? Will it help us cultivate a new audience, or broaden the reach toward our existing market?

If the answer is “maybe” to any of the above, you might be better served to watch and wait.

Envy

After 15 years in the design and marketing industry, I’ve come to one irrefutable truth when it comes to online promotion (and really, promotion in general):

Someone will always do something better than we’re doing it.

That doesn’t mean we don’t strive to be the best design firm we can be, and that doesn’t mean we don’t strive to provide the best marketing solutions we can. All it means is I don’t lose sleep at night over the fact that someone might have a better Twitter background than we do. The key to successful online marketing — be it on a website, blog or social medium — is finding your own “sweet spot” as an information provider. If you’re communicating the values of your product or service in the voice that accurately represents your brand, then you’ve fulfilled your mission as a content provider.

Observe your competitors, learn from your competitors. But resist the temptation to get into an arms race. It’s not about bells and whistles, it’s not a contest to see who can do the most the fastest … it’s about communicating your brand’s benefits to your target audience with honesty, transparency and authenticity. If you’re engaging your audience and building a following, then the strategy is working.

Gluttony

A good marketing strategy will invariably find a way to strike a balance between the various platforms it utilizes. So take heed not to gorge yourself one particular avenue of promotion.

In other words, if you find yourself (or your staff) focusing so heavily on YouTube, for instance, that your other marketing outlets begin to suffer, then it’s time to take a step back and look at the big picture. YouTube is a wonderful marketing platform and is certainly worthy of a substantial time/effort investment, but it’s just not smart business to rely too heavily on one avenue. Any financial advisor worth his or her salt will inform you of the importance of having a balanced retirement portfolio; the same principle should apply to marketing.

Find that balance between your marketing platforms, and you’ll find the long-term rewards will be to your liking.

– Matt Tarr is Elevation 7′s creative director and principal. He can be reached at 239.634.5281 or by emailing matt@elevation-seven.com.

Whether you’re a business owner pondering an upgrade to your current online/branding presence or a web designer looking for a dash of inspiration, here are seven current collections of some of the industry’s most creative projects. Click on any of the images or descriptions to visit the respective link:

30 Insanely Awesome Websites using WordPress as a CMS | 1st Web Designer

26 Unusual but Very Creative Business Cards | DevSnippets

30 Fresh and Exceptional Flash Portfolio Websites | FlashMoto

20 incredible examples of smooth horizontal and vertical sliding navigation websites | 2 Experts Design

The Dieline’s Latest Top 10 Package Designs | The Dieline

30 Websites with Amazing Navigation Menus | Best PSD to HTML

Forget About Classics: 75 Crazy And Creative Textured Websites | 1st Web Designer

(Click image to see full screenshot of STL Outdoors beta site)

Here’s a sneak peek at our newest project, a blog/social community for recreation enthusiasts in the St. Louis area called STL Outdoors.

This custom WordPress design will utilize a dynamic social networking system and robust calendar platform. Elevation 7′s personalized training program will also allow the site’s administrators to update the site easily and quickly.

The new site is expected to be completed by summer.

Each month, Elevation 7 creative director Matt Tarr offers a roundup of his favorite design resources available from the web’s top websites. Click on any of the images or descriptions to visit February’s collection — fonts, freebies, tutorials, inspiration and more!:

High Quality Vintage Web Design Textures | Cookie Labs

A Collection and Resource Motherload of Textures and Patterns | Design Cubicle

20 Classy Free Serif Fonts | D-Lists

Design a Grungy Minimalistic Poster in Photoshop | Circlebox Blog

40 Black and White Stylish Websites | 10 Steps

65+ Smashing PSD Files on DeviantArt | Metamags

115 Creative Advertisements That Feed Your Inspiration | Desigg

60 Awe-Inspiring 60’s Movie Posters | Digital Art Empire

35+ Stunning Photoshop Smoke Effect Tutorials and Brushes | Tripwire

18 Outstanding Typography Photoshop Tutorials Of 2010 | Designussion

23 Professional Facial Photoshop Retouching Tutorials | Web Design Booth

35 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Web Design Layouts | Blue Blots

40 Beautiful Corporate Websites | Vandelay Design

70 Fairly Creative Fresh Logo Designs for Design Inspiration | Instant Shift

11 Most Popular Blog Design Styles | Hongkiat

Textures In Web Design: Examples And Best Practices | Spyre Studios

50 Packaging Designs That Pack A Punch | Pelfusion

Newsletter Design: 50+ Great Examples | Designer Fix

“The Page Can’t Be Found” Coolest Error 404 Pages In Web Design | Smashing Apps

Massive Collection of Over 1,000 Floral Photoshop Brushes | PSD Tuts

Tuesday Total Textures #2 | Abudeezo

BK Ink Strokes Brushes | Brush King

33 Absolutely Free E-Commerce Icon Sets | Naldz

Grungy Green Tileable Photoshop Patterns | Web Treats Etc.

25 New High Quality Free Fonts | Smashing Magazine

Freebie: Distressed Bark Texture Pack | Design M.ag

Free High Res Wood Carvings Brush Pack: SR Carved | Six Revisions

500+ Free Exquisite Vintage Textures and Backgrounds | Graphic Design Free Resources

Beautiful Free Vector Downloads Roundup | 2 Experts Design