Well, yesterday evening was a sad day for the world as we marked the passing of Steve Jobs. I consider myself a huge Apple fan and own just about every product they make. I have been fascinated with Apple computers since the first time I worked on one. I saw a piece of hardware and software that felt user-driven. It worked the way I thought. Since my first Apple in 2001 I haven’t looked back. I only hope and pray that Apple’s spirit and drive for design won’t be lost with Steve Jobs.

More importantly though in the passing of Steve Jobs is the realization of who he was as a human being. A man born to a mother shunned for being pregnant out of wedlock and forced to be put up for adoption. He was an entrepreneur who started one of the world’s most successful companies in his garage. He had an uncompromising spirit for quality that carried all of his endeavors and businesses to amazing heights. I like to think of him as a true techno-romantic. Someone who had a special place in his heart for things that were intuitively human. I think he tried to make things that made life easier, not just a product that made money. We can learn much from Steve Jobs in the way that when we do what we are passionate about and give care to the work of our hands we can make amazing things happen.

Steve Jobs you will be missed by us here at Crucé Design.

1. Get out of your comfort zone and do something that you are not skilled at doing.
2. Rediscover an old process of design or photography to recapture the passion of designing.
3. Take a trip to a place you have never been before.
4. Spend more time with your kids or family friends. They are wealths of energy!
5. Devote time each day to reflection and creativity!

My creativity refuel happened last week on a trip up to Omaha, Nebraska for a photo shoot with Jamie Orillion for a website client of mine. I thought it a good opportunity to test out my new Nikon FE film camera. I purchased the camera to help make me begin to break out of my digital crutch of my Nikon d90. It is amazing what begins to happen when you are forced to think outside of your normal environment and standard practices. It forces you to think, process and plan better. The images generated are grainy, a bit washed out, and some aren’t in focus, but the character of the images just got me excited. It did exactly what I needed. It helped me make sure that I keep my creativity up. Hope you enjoy the images! Let me know what you think by making a comment!

Come visit 2504 Creative for “A Night of Relief” on Tuesday, June 28th from 6pm-8pm for fun, food and fundraising! Coffee, calendars and paper products available with all donations going to the following causes. We will have amazing coffee and espresso drinks provided by Café Cohen as well as other paper products and calendars from the Southern Life Collection. My charity of choice is a mission/work retreat held every summer for youth of Acadiana to help those in impoverished inner city areas. Crucé Design will be collecting donations that evening as well as donating a portion of all new projects for the month of July to the retreat. So please help us provide those less fortunate in Acadiana with funds to put on this worthy retreat.

You can check out the Facebook Event as well here.

Charities to Benefit from Donations

• Joplin Tornado Relief
• Hope for Kids (Haiti)
• RISE Mission Retreat

Timing

The first step to consider before a website project even begins is to discuss the intended “go live” date. Maybe you have an event or marketing push planned in your business that would coincide well with a website launch. One way to get attention for your new site is to use an event that you are already planning to be the official launch party. Also take into account what else is going on in your industry or local area. If there is a huge festival happening the day you launch, you are competing with someone else for attention right out of the gate. It could mean waiting a couple of weeks with a finished site to make sure you don’t miss the best window of opportunity!

Promotions

When you launch a new product or service in your business you want to tell the world! You print flyers, brochures, banners, and billboards letting your current clients or potential new customers know that you have something NEW to show them. Why not put the same effort into your new online marketing piece? Contrary to popular belief, print is not dead! It will definitely pay off to create a print ad campaign to announce the site. Something as simple as a postcard given to customers can pay off big in the long run with traffic and visibility.

It can also be useful to involve the press or local social and professional clubs to announce your growth. Newspapers are constantly looking to show that businesses are building back up from a down economy and your business could be the next hot topic!

Site Updating

Keeping your site updated and current is equally as important as promoting it. There is nothing worse than telling people go check out “my new website” that hasn’t been updated in a month. Nowadays with systems like WordPress that make content updating super simple, there is no excuse to not keep things current. It might be as simple as spending 30 minutes to an hour every week making sure your site is up to date. Any changes can be news to your customers, whether you hired a new person or expanded your locations.Ultimately, a website is a great marketing piece, but remember it is just that…a piece. It should be an integral part of your marketing strategy, but you have to back it up with other advertising efforts to make sure it get the attention it deserves.

If you are looking for a total website and promotions package let us know and we can help you plan and execute a marketing strategy to successfully launch your website.

Web content should be attracting, informing, and calling your audience to some action. Essentially, effective writing for your website is a juggernaut of a marketing tool.

It’s sad that so many people are missing out on all of this because of a prevailing do-it-yourself (DIY) mentality about writing. It isn’t just that DIY writing sterilizes the marketing power of your site, poorly developed web copy completely cripples your website! DIY writing that doesn’t grab your audience’s attention tells your audience that it is not worth their attention.

Despite all of this, people are still flocking to DIY writing thinking it is cheaper and will save them time. Before falling sway to these delusions, consider the following top 5 reasons why DIY writing is a terrible idea.

5. Web Copy is Demanding Work

Effective web content should be both compelling and interesting. The window of opportunity with which to be compelling and interesting on the web is virtually microscopic. If you don’t have your audience’s attention within the first 30 seconds or so, then you’ve lost them. Overcoming this obstacle demands a lot of creative thought and many critical revisions. In short, it requires a lot of time and a lot of effort.

4. Writing About Yourself is Terribly Difficult

Writing about yourself is a very difficult process—even for the most skilled of writers! The problem is misestimating confidence; for some it is a serious lack of confidence while for others it is a problem of having far too much confidence in what they write.

When you are the subject of your writing, it is challenging to be objective (about what actually interests audiences about you and how to use those interests).

3. Copywriters are Efficient & Effective

Copywriters specialize in crafting content that engages and informs readers about a person or business. Most copywriters are also skilled at search engine optimization (SEO) and can offer these services so that your content is not only engaging but also directs traffic to your site.

2. Your Time is Valuable

Writing itself takes time and a lot of it. Developing content for a website is a special case of this time sucking process. Doing it well can often cost you more than just an enormous amount of your time: it may well cost you the resources of your business!

Your interest in a website suggests that you have a valuable skill or service to offer people in the first place. Unless you are a professional writer, your job is not writing. DIY writing means that you or one of your employees will have to take a huge chunk of time to devote to this process. As a consequence, the services that are crucial to your business are neglected.

1. Do-It-Yourself Writing is EXPENSIVE!

When you factor in the time, resources, and effort that it requires, DIY writing is extremely expensive. As expensive as it can be, it still does not offer any actual guarantee that the end result will attract and engage your audience. As a matter of fact, DIY web writing often ends up being more expensive than simply hiring a copywriter; and with DIY writing, you end up with a fraction of the quality you would have gotten from most copywriters. Why would anyone pay more for an amateur product when there is a much better professional product that is available, the professional product is easier to obtain, and it’s cheaper?

If you are investing in a website and are considering writing your own content, there is really just one simple question you should consider: At the end of the day, can you really afford DIY writing?

Article Contributed by Crucé Collaborator and Word Nerd, Kyle Albarado. Want to start a project, click here?

Kyle Albarado

Kyle Albarado (copy writer/cognitive analyst)

Kyle brings a new thought to copy writing which focuses on people as subjects who experience the world by virtue of their minds.

Dionne is a Senior in Graphic Design at ULL and also holds a degree in Psychology from LSU. She is a fan of coffee, likes scaring bears away, and laughs at all our jokes, what’s not to like! Dionne is a great addition to the team and we are thankful for her help.

Thanks to Jason Cohen for the quick headshot.

As far as design was concerned we attempted to pull from the heart of Mamou to showcase an area with rich tradition and color. Saint Ann is an older and more traditional Catholic church with a strong Cajun congregation. Our use of color was to provide a sense of depth and a feeling of an ancient connection to the past. We also creatively directed a photo shoot with Jamie Orillion Photography and Design to bring a updated look to the front of the church as well as to develop a collection of stock images for the parish to use throughout the site. Cruce also coordinated the branding of their new logo and identity. Their logo draws from their very recognizable steeple. Our goal was to provide Saint Ann with a solid identity to use in future print media.

See more of their site here: www.saintannmamou.org

]]> http://crucedesign.com/news/our-office/feed/ 0 http://crucedesign.com/video/on-the-road/ http://crucedesign.com/video/on-the-road/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:00:09 +0000 Daniel http://crucedesign.com/?p=681 Over the next few weeks I will be in and out of the office for a couple family vacations and some on location client projects. My good friend and collaborator Jamie Orillion did a blog post a few months back about running your business from your phone. I thought it could be helpful to do a post with some details about how I do work on the road.

You can also check out a video below about what I generally carrying my laptop bag when I am out of the office.

Click here to view the embedded video.

iPhone/iPad Apps

To be completely honest, between my iPhone and my iPad my laptop has almost become a waste to bring on the road. I can do just about everything I need to do from my iPad or iPhone. I can do billing, estimates, edit HTML files, markup and comment on PDFs, and of course the standard smartphone stuff like email, calendar, and contacts. It is amazing now with 3G internet access just about everywhere, I am never to far from internet access, so much of what I need to be “in the office” for is irrelevant now. Below are a list of a few iOS apps that have been lifesavers and are key to me working on the road.

iPhone Apps

• Are My Sites Up (http://aremysitesup.com/)
• Things (http://culturedcode.com/things/iphone/)
• MiniBooks (http://www.freshbooks.com/minibooks/)
• FTP On the Go (http://www.ftponthego.com/)
• WordPress App (http://iphone.wordpress.org/)
• Google Voice (web app) (m.google.com/voice)
• 1Password (http://agilewebsolutions.com/onepassword/iphone)
• Evernote (http://www.evernote.com/about/download/iphone/)
• Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/iphoneapp)
• Chase (now with deposits) (https://www.chase.com/)
• Maps (http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/maps-compass.html)

iPad Apps

• Analytics HD (iTunes)
• Air Display (iTunes)
• FTP Write (iTunes)
• Evernote (http://www.evernote.com/about/download/ipad.php)
• iMockups (http://endloop.ca/)