Pinterest is the hot new site that everyone’s been talking about. To many it is simply a fun tool to collect and learn new things. But have you ever thought of using Pinterest for your business? We’ve got a great way to use Pinterest to actually help you develop your brand’s visual style.

What is your brand’s personality? What are the adjectives you’d use to describe your brand? For many of our new business clients it is easy to describe their brand style with words. However, a key component to expressing your brand’s personality is being intentional about what visuals you use to represent these words.

An easy way to find a visual style to represent your brand personality is to create a style board for your brand. This process starts with gathering a collection of visuals that inspire you and reflect the adjectives you use to describe your brand. You may be inspired by:

Using Pinterest for Your Business

You can use Pinterest to house this visual inspiration and use it to determine your visual style. (Here’s a helpful article for those of you who are beginners on Pinterest.)

From robinredd.typepad.com

Step 1: Create a board on Pinterest.

• Call it “My Brand” or name it after the adjectives you are using to describe your brand.

Step 2: Start “pinning” things that represent your brand.

• Repin things from other people’s boards

• Go to your favorite websites and pin images from them.

• Use Google images or a stock photo site to search for keywords of brand-specific items, colors or concepts

Step 3: Review your board and find similarities in the items.

(Delete the images that don’t seem to fit or move them to a second board called “not my brand”.)

• Is there a consistent color-palette forming?

• Are the items similar in personality – all elegant and luxurious or handmade and crafty? Traditional or contemporary? Serious or fun?

• Do the items seem to be of a similar era?

Now you have a reference tool that you can keep coming back to. This will be helpful when working with your designers and writers and any vendors you may be using to help you market your brand. It will also help ensure that your style remains consistent throughout all the aspects of your brand from printed materials to web to social media and advertising.

We want to here from you! Did this exercise work for you? Once you’ve got your board created please share it with us in the comments or on our Facebook Page so that we can “follow” it on Pinterest. How else have you tried using Pinterest for your business?

And don’t forget to visit Studio Bold on Pinterest to see the latest style boards we’re cooking up for our current clients.

Here are some of our favorite grunge web font freebies:

1. Cabin Sketch 2. Chopin Script Medium* 3. Conrad Veidt* 4. DCC – Sharp Distress Black*
5. Dirty English* 6. Downcome 7. FF Tusj Bold 8. Happy Daze 9. Kingthings Scrybbledot*

Have fun getting your grunge on!

What are some current web design trends you’re interested in learning more about?

If you are planning on hiring an outside designer to create a logo or creating a logo yourself we recommend NOT using stock images or clip art unless you are familiar with the rules around the are you art using. The money you save won’t be worth it if you end up spending time and money due to copyright issues.

iStockPhoto.com’s terms in their Content License Agreement:

Prohibited Use #4: You may not use any of the Content as part of a trade-mark, design-mark, trade-name, business name, service mark, or logo;

iStock’s explanation:

The whole point of having a logo, business name or design mark is so that it will be unique in the marketplace. How can your logo be unique if you’re using a royalty-free file that millions of other people could have downloaded? Besides violating the iStockphoto Content License Agreement, using an image in this way also infringes upon the rights of the artist who created the file. If these aren’t reasons enough, good luck trying to develop or enforce rights in conjunction with a logo that uses a royalty-free image.

There is stock art out there that has no restrictions. Either it’s so old that the copyright has expired, or it’s being given away or sold with absolutely no copyright. Your local library or book store will most likely have a clip art book section there. And many of today’s clip art books include the art files on CDs. You may even find some copyright-free art that you swear you’ve seen before being sold on iStock.

But do keep in mind what iStock is saying about originality. Your logo or brand should be completely unique to you. So if you use copyright-free art that is available to millions, alter it or use it in a way that no one else will.

Of course the best thing to do is to avoid using stock art altogether and hire a designer to create a completely custom and unique logo for your brand.

1. FERUTOBags, 2. IUptownChic, 3. QUALITYcovers, 4. sandrassatchels, 5. MariForssell,
6. FERUTOBags, 7. QUALITYcovers, 8. portelbags, 9. MariForssell

Which one would you pick?

This upcycled record album design by Brinda Kay Designs uses the front cover of an album and the actual record and mounts them to a heavy mat board. The graphic portions are coated with clear acrylic resin. The case is handcrafted from real patent leather and lined with fleece. The hardware is all nickel. There’s even a tab on the side to hold your stylus. Check out her Etsy shop NOW for her pre-launch sale pricing! Also visit her main site www.vindicatedvinyl.com for more options and made-to-order items.

Here are some other unique designs:

The iPad Skins from street artist turned decal designer Frank Rizzo, of Decal World, are beautiful and practically indestructible! AND they’re running a 15% off iPad Skins tomorrow only to coincide with the iPad announcement!

These iPad cases from Finders & Keepers are a true example of upcycling creativity! Doesn’t the GAP one just crack you up? Plus I doubt you’d have to worry about your iPad being stolen if you (or, ahem, your spouse) left this on the front seat of your car!

Even my 22 month old can easily use and understand touch screens. Wouldn’t these animal iPad covers from Canadian shop BoutiqueID really make YOUR techno-savvy kids giggle?

For more bold iPad case designs visit these other blogs:

Web Urbanist — Cover Up! 15 Ingenious iPad Case Designs

She Posts — Tech Style: Twenty-four iPad Cases to Match Your Personality

Apartment Therapy Unplggd — 10 Great iPad Cases

Is your blog in a mid-life crisis? Does it stand out from the rest—but not in a good way? Is your blog’s look overshadowing your writing? Then Studio Bold’s Blog Mini-Makeover is just the thing you need to help refine your blog design so you can grow your readership and achieve your blogging goals.

This package is normally valued at $350, but as my gift to you today (OR because of my commitment to beautifying the web OR because of my love for the SITS Community), I am giving away a Blog Mini-Makeover!

Here is what the package includes:*
• Logo
• Blog header
• 125×125 pixel badge (Perfect for your SITS Featured Blogger Day!)
• 4 social medial icons, such as Facebook, Twitter, RSS, and e-mail

To qualify to win a Mini-Makeover for your blog (a $350 value), check out my portfolio and then tell me something you saw that you’d love to have on your site. A button? A color scheme? Let me know in the comments!

For Additional Entries (separate comments, please):
• Comment on my post on SITS to learn How Not to Design when making changes to your blog.
• Follow @StudioBold on Twitter.
• Like Studio Bold Graphic Design on Facebook.
• Tweet the following message: Have you seen the design portfolio for @StudioBold? Swoon! I want to be a best dressed blog too! http://bit.ly/gtcbEY

It gets better! If you pay a deposit on a design from Studio Bold between today and March 3, 2011 you can take 15% off your order just by leaving a comment below.

Fine Print:
If the winner has purchased a design from Studio Bold within the last 7 days, the cost of the makeover will be deducted from her invoice. Not eligible for work previously completed by Studio Bold. Contest ends February 17, 2011 at 11:59 PST. Winner will be drawn with random.org and notified via email. Winner must respond to email within 24 hours to claim prize.

* One draft will be presented for each item in the Blog Mini-Makeover. Additional concepts can be purchased if you would like more options to choose from.

Congratulations to Jean of Mommy to Two Boys for being the winner! Stay tuned for the big reveal!

Welcome new #customerlove readers!

I’m feelin’ loved today so I thought I’d share. This weekend I was invited to the end-of-season soccer picnic for our neighborhood organization. They invited me because I had helped out by designing a new “logo” for the team. I merely took the neighborhood organization’s logo and put it on a soccer ball that I’d quickly sketched. At the picnic (and when I say “picnic” I mean freezing cold, everybody’s wearing hats and mittens and standing up to eat because sitting down would mean you had to stop moving) I was surprised by Kevin, the team coordinator, with this beautiful gift. Wow. I was speechless. On a typical client project I average between 10 and 20 hours. This took me less than one. And it’s the nicest thank you I’ve ever gotten from a client.

So THANK YOU Kevin and the soccer kids!

Now I’d like to pass the love on to my readers. I just updated my Etsy shop today with my Print-Your-Own Holiday Photo Cards ($15 ea. for templates or $25 for a custom design). Convo me on Etsy and mention this post and receive 1/3 off your card. Because I love you, of course!

What’s the nicest thank you you’ve ever received?

Aren’t these file tabs beautiful? This is the home filing system that I use called JOYS (Just Organize Your Stuff). I’m a huge fan of the JOYS system. When my oldest son was born we found it harder and harder to keep track of all the paperwork that was piling up. I began to rethink my paperwork organization and I came across JOYS. I LOVE it! It appeals to my designer-self because it’s pretty, simple, and ever-so functional. The cheery colors and lovely icons make opening up the file drawer a pleasant experience. I love that the system allows me to file things in steps: the every day filing, the when-I-can-get-to-it filing and the year-end filing. There’s a place for everything and it’s very clear what needs to be kept, how long to keep it, and what needs to be tossed.

I recently connected with Cathy Anderson, graphic designer and creator of JOYS, after I commented about the system on a Design Mom post about paperwork organization. She contacted me about using my comments as testimonial for her website—which I happily agreed to. Cathy’s bold design and bold thinking have lead her from disorganized graphic designer to organizer extraordinaire (although she’d never admit it). The system took her over 3 years to develop but the hard work has paid off as JOYS is functional, stylish and at $30 for the file tabs and instructional manual—easy on the pocket-book. Want to know more? Here’s a recent interview she did for Metropolitan Organizing.

Do you use a system to organize your mountains of paperwork?

Original ORGHA Logo Art

I don’t know if “logo restoration” is a real term but it describes this project so perfectly considering it was for my homeowners association. And in our 1920′s neighborhood, “restoration” just comes with the territory.

The original Old Rosedale Gardens Homeowners Association logo had been beautifully hand crafted decades ago by a graphic designer who used to live in the neighborhood. Over the years the logo had been photocopied a billion times and was appearing very muddy and a bit crooked on all the current collateral. I rescanned the original logo so that they could have a crisp, clean version. Even on the high res scan the type was a bit worn looking and I wanted to reset the type but I didn’t recognize the font. I submitted the logo to MyFonts.com’s WhatTheFont Forum and after a few weeks I got a response on the font name. I reset the type using the font and voilà—a newly restored logo.

Do you have a logo that could use some “restoration”? Contact me. I’d love to help!

Photocopied Logo

Restored Logo (horizontal version)

Restored Logo