Episode # 26 Meet Taylor Brough
This week I interviewed our graphic designer Taylor Brough. A graduate of The Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Art at Indiana University, Taylor brings a unique artistic style to our design projects.
In the last 18 months, he has truly masted the art of the WebBanner and the effective 6 x 9 postcard, but his favorite projects are definitely his logo designs:
Click here to listen to the interview
Breathing New Life Into the Lung Care Group
Over the past few weeks, the Roundpeg staff has been working on a redesign for the Lung Care Group, a team of pulmonologists in Carmel, Indiana. The Lung Care Group already had a website in place, but it was obvious that the site did not adequately capture how talented the team at LCG was.
We got to work on a fully interactive overhaul of the website. We created a new layout which included downloadable forms for patients who didn’t want the inconvenience of filling them out at the doctor’s office. We also generated an interactive map for those who need directions to the Lung Care Group’s office. Not only do we feel that the final product goes a long way in improving the Lung Care Group’s brand image, but the LCG team loves it as well.
We’ve had a blast creating a website that the Lung Care Group could be proud of. Below you’ll find before and after screen shots of the site. Make sure to visit the site and check out all the new features.
I Don’t Love Hearts and Flowers!
About two weeks ago I was looking for a ” heart” image for a Valentines Day promotion I was designing for a client. I went to Google as I often do, and searched for “heart” images. Finding one I liked, I clicked on the link to take a closer look.
Unfortuantely, the link took me to a porn site, which launched a virus on my computer. We spent several hours trying to delete the virus, and finally gave up. We called Hans Soine, who came by and picked up our computer. Several days later ( It was after all New Years Eve) he returned, with a clean, virus free computer in hand.
Fortunately, we back up our entire system, so nothing was lost, except some time as we were battling the virus, but it could have been much worse.
Tough Lesson Learned: No more “free images” from Google, we are going to stick to downloads from sites we trust!
And from a design standpoint, the flyers turned out really cool. I couldn’t find a heart I liked, so I ended up creating one of my own!
This event is for people of all ages. If you have any questions or want more information on the event talk to Sunny Moon!
Local HVAC Company Gets Web Face Lift
With a little help from Roundpeg, Make it Mowery has relaunched their website – www.makeitmowery.com.
The new website provides visitors with a more organized view of their wide product and service line. The addition of a blog offers visitors information on new trends as well as the ability to see what other consumers say about their experience with Mowery.
“Mowery is well known in the local community because we’ve been in business for 40 years,” says owner Chip Cochran. “While we wanted a fresher look, we did not want to reinvent ourselves so completely that our customers did not recognize us.”
An additional benefit of the redesign was the migration to a Wordpress Platform. With the installation of the “All in One” plugin, the site is performing well on search engines and the members of the Mowery staff can keep the content fresh with small, regular updates.
To learn more about Make it Mowery and to see the new website please visit: www.makeitmowery.com.
CoolIris in Progress
We showed off how we could use CoolIris to display videos. It works equally well for graphics. Here are just a few items from our design portfolio displayed with CoolIris.
Happy Holidays from The Roundpeg Elf Crew to You…
At Roundpeg we have worked hard to develop a unique brand, which extends well beyond our logo. Our brand is about positive energy, creativity and collaboration. These three elements are conveyed in the words and images we choose, as well as the way we present ourselves in social media and face to face networking events.
It is important to create credibility with our brand, so clients trust us. At the same time, we know that while we are serious about what we do, we do not take ourselves seriously so our brand incorporates this lighthearted part of our personality, too. As we were designing this year’s holiday card, Lorraine challenged me to create something which would reinforce the brand, with standard colors and fonts, but would also let people see the fun part of our personality.
This is often a challenge for small business who work hard all year long to build their brand image, then compromise on their holiday card. They buy “stock” business cards, which do not convey any sense of who they are to distribute to all their clients and strategic partners; missing an important marketing opportunity.
I enjoyed creating our holiday card this year, because after we redesigned our website, the door was open for creativity and a bit of fun. For the front of the card, I created a hand drawn snow flake , colored in our standard blue and teal so it resembles wrapping paper. Combined with a red ribbon on our hand wrting style font ( Complete in Him) the card has a “hand drawn feel” . The text, “If BIG business ran the holidays”, speaks to our bias for working with small businesses.
The back side of the card was inspired by a JibJab Elf Dance of the Roundpeg Crew. It gave me the brilliant idea dress all of the team in elf costumes, including Clyde the Cat and Bonnie the dog. Playing off this idea brought humor to the card in a style consistent with our brand.
Happy Holidays to everyone! I look forward to working with you in 2010!
No Experience? No Problem!
I am putting the finishing touches on a brochure design project for a ballroom dance company.With several locations around Indianapolis. Five Star Dance Studios is a part of a ballroom dance industry that has more than 35 years of experience.
This brochure design was interesting because we decided to do something a little different then a traditional tri-fold. Using a 8.5×14 double gate fold brochure, I had a larger canvas on which to design.
We had room to spread out the copy and use a dramatic image for the center of the brochure with only the company’s tag line: No Experience, No Problem in the center.
Finding the right pictures for the brochure was tricky, because their clients range from young children to seniors.
After hours of looking through stock photography libraries, including istockphoto.com, and using Photoshop to crop the angles just right, we found a series which worked well together.
We were also able to use a few images, including the one on the cover, of real students at Five Star Dance. The result?
The pictures are what make the brochure, because you see the movement and excitement of the people.
I can’t wait to see see the final version printed!
Crew Property Improvement Specialists Announce New Website
We recently launched Crew Property Improvement Specialists new website – www.crewspecialists.com.
There old website had an attractive landing page, but without much text or SEO planning, it was not a productive site,
The new website provides more information regarding their home repair services, annual maintenance programs, pictures of past projects, testimonials from clients and company news. The creation of a blog was a major change for this site.
It allowed the firm to move away from a single testimonial page. After seven years in business this page was so long, the testimonials were lost. On the new site each testimonials is an individual blog. They don’t get lost in the shuffle.
The same was true with all the awards and press releases. This is a firm which makes news in the community. The blog allows them to share new information!
“Our old site was attractive, but confusing for the average visitor,” said Crew owner, Eric Schneller. “The new site makes it easy for consumers and realtors to easily find the information they’re seeking.”
To visit the site please go to: www.crewspecialists.com.
To learn more about some of the other features we added to the website Click Here.
Taking a Different Approach
Creating a flyer for long term care and disablity insurance is challenging because there are only so many images of sad or injured people. And, let’s face it, those images don’t make you want to look at the information. So, when we were asked to develop a promotional flyer for Innovative Individual Insurance , we took a different approach…
Our client sells supplemental products to compliment the primary insurance offered by employers. With the holiday season right around the corner, we thought it would be fun to draw a parallel between the side dishes served at Thanksgiving and their Insurance products. Our headline: ”Turkey without the sides…isn’t so appealing” was paired with eye catching photos of of turkey and the trimmings.
“What Ala Carte options do you need?” Health, Life, Disability, Dental and/or Long Term? Innovative Individual Insurance offers a menu of items where you can pick and choose the types of insurance you need.
At first, grasping the different approach of this flyer was challenging, but now as I look at the appetizing food pictures and the “Ala Carte” menu, I think this ad could also be used in Bon Appetit magazine!
Eloquence Language Services Has a New Website
Eloquence Language has a new website: www.eloquencelanguage.com.
This was my first website project at Roundpeg. While I had helped Erica with other projects, this was the first one I was responsible for. I learned quite a bit along the way and am really happy with the way it turned out.
While similar to many of the sites Roundpeg has done in the past, it does have some unique features. One of the more challenging elements was the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) section.
Owner, Karen Friedman, had written fairly lengthy answers to each question. If we had simply listed them all on one page it would have been hard for visitors to quickly find the information they were searching for. We decided instead to build a question page, which you can see in the image above, with links to answers which were actually individual blog posts.
This makes it easier to search the content and creates more opportunities to optimize each question for search.
Eloquence Langauge is a language translation and interpretation company. They translate a wide range of documents and websites, including legal, medical and health related documents and human resource information. They also provide interpretation services for meetings and conferences. To learn more about what they do visit their website at: www.eloquencelanguage.com.
