Jan 04

2017 Design Trends

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As we begin 2017, let’s take a moment and look at the upcoming design trends you need to be aware of this year. 2016’s design trends are still popular, but there are a few new ones making their way into the forefront of designer’s minds. There are a few different types of design, so we will be looking at a few trends of each of the most common types of design.

Print Design Trends

MODERN- RETRO

Modern-retro has been around for a long time and will continue to grow in popularity. This trend is made up of retro typefaces and colors, mixed with a modern flare.

MINIMALISM

Minimalism focuses on simplicity and functionality of the concept your company is portraying. White space is a necessity when it comes to minimalism and gives the design more breathability. It is often the simplest designs that catch your eye.

BOLD PHOTOGRAPHY & SLEEK TEXT

This is a huge staple in the world of graphic design at the moment. The mix of bold and sleek text, with images that captivate the viewer. This trend exudes class and style. The text and photography work together to create great contrasts and brilliant borders.

Logo Design Trends

BROKEN LETTERS

Designers have been pushing broken letterforms in logo design recently. This adds opposition to the positive and negative space.

LINE ART

This trend uses a steady thickness of lines with only one solid color integrated. Designers are finding creative ways to utilize negative spacing into their line art designs.

HAND-DRAWN

Hand-drawn designs feel fresh, comforting, human and grounded. This trend takes time and talent, but is worth the effort! They really add a touch of personality & authenticity to a brand.

Web Design Trends

MOBILE FIRST!

This cannot be said enough. When it comes to the web, always plan what your design will look like on a mobile screen first and then grow from there! 80% of people prefer to search the internet on their mobile device. Make sure your web items are easy to see and designed for smaller, mobile screens.

MORE ORIGINALITY IN DESIGN, LESS STOCK ITEMS

Now that photography and stock video is so easily accessible, brands need to step away from using stock imagery, videos and icons. They are being over used so much, that you have to think outside of the box. In order to stand out and grab the audience’s attention, you need to have visuals that are unique to your brand.

Authentic Photography & Illustrations

This means finding stunning, natural images or hiring out a photographer and videographer. They can take shots around your practice, office or city. Sevenhills Wholefoods does a great job of having beautiful, full-screen, authentic imagery to draw users in and assist with their brand message and story-telling.

Big, Bold, Beautiful Typography

Typography is a powerful tool that can create personality, evoke emotion and set tone. Over-sized, full screen type that breaks the grid, really adds hierarchy and uniqueness to a design, especially on the web.

Video has become King

A moving image on a page instantly captures the users attention. This draws your audience in, so your brand can get across their message in a more captivating way.

INTERACTIVITY

Adding interactivity to your site can help add new, interesting elements that keep your audience’s attention longer. Interactivity also helps to visually convey your message. Though, it is important to make sure you don’t over do the interactivity. Even though it is fun to have, if you have too much going on your audience may feel overwhelmed and leave your site.

Trends are a great way to stand out, but make sure they fit in with your brand message before applying them. As popular as some trends may be, using them could leave your audience confused. If you want more design tips, check out our helpful design blogs here!

Nov 28

1

How to Choose the Best Colors to Brand Your Practice

By social | Consulting, Graphic Design, Marketing | No Comments

Deciding on what colors will best represent your practice is an essential part of building your brand message! Color can evoke emotions and thoughts, so it is vital to keep this in mind when choosing the colors that represent your practice. The perception your patients have of your brand will be influenced by your color choices, so here are a few tips to help you decide what hues are best.

Understand the Psychology Behind Color

Color is a great tool to communicate with your patients. Depending on the shades you use to represent your practice, you can influence certain types of feelings your patients have towards your practice. For example, yellow and orange are perfect for evoking feelings of warmth, happiness and interest. And black will elevate your practice to appear luxurious.

Browse Pinterest

Pinterest is a great tool for inspiration. Try searching color schemes, or color combinations. As you search through content, save pins with color that you are immediately drawn to. Sharing this idea board with your administrator or marketing team will allow them to see what types of hues you are drawn to and give them a great starting point when building your brand.

Look at Your Competitors

Another great method is looking at what colors your competitors use. When doing this, you will be able to stay original and get an idea of what color could help you stand out in the sea of your market.

Ask yourself, What do you like?

At the end of the day, it is important to choose the colors that you are drawn to. Essentially, your brand is a reflection of yourself. Stay original to who you are and don’t feel pressured to use certain colors, even if other practices in your market are using them. Using colors that express who you are will create a unique image for your practice.

Oct 05

0

The Importance of Brand Guidelines

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What are Brand Guidelines?

Brand guidelines are guides to help define your brand. They help guide agencies, companies or individuals by providing them with a clear set of fundamental rules about your practices’ principles, logo, color palette, typography, imagery, wording, ect. A brand guideline ultimately creates a stronger image through recognition and consistency. Continue reading to find out: what’s included in a brand guideline, logo tips and examples of a color palette.

To download and read more from The Importance of Brand Guidelines, click here.

If you want to learn more about creating a unique and memorable brand for your business, check out our blogs: 20 Design Terms Everyone Should Know, 5 Typography Tips, and Do You Need to Rebrand Your Practice?

Sep 23

0

10 Brands to Follow on Pinterest for Marketing Inspo

By social | Consulting, Graphic Design, Marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Pinterest is a great platform for gaining inspiration & organizing ideas, but is it a place for digital marketers? If you are looking for tips, content and infographics, check out 10 brands to follow on Pinterest for marketing inspo. After following these accounts, you will have tons of useful content to read, repin & post on other social platforms.

1. Social media Examiner

Social Media Examiner shares a lot of tips on how to engage with users on different social platforms. They post helpful blogs and infographics, covering everything from utilizing Pinterest and Snapchat for marketers to using Pokemon Go for business. This is a great account to follow, especially if your focus is social media marketing.

2. Buffer

Buffer is all about sharing new technologies, social platforms and trending stories on their Pinterest account. They pin great tips and infographics for social media managers and content creators. Buffer also covers general business topics like time management, tips for startups and analytics. Follow Buffer if you want to master content marketing and stay on top of all the latest trending topics.

3. Constant Contact

Constant Contact has essentially mastered Pinterest. With almost 20,000 pinned posts and 66,000 followers, they have created an account that is truly a great resource for marketers. Constant Contact has very detailed boards that are organized in an easy to dig through manner. You could spend hours sifting through their content to learn new tactics and find tons relevant resources to post to your business social media accounts. They have several boards dedicated solely email marketing. As the experts in their field, there is tons of strategies and original content on these boards. They are worth the follow for great info as well as inspiration on how to create an amazing business Pinterest account.

4. Canva

If you haven’t heard of Canva, check out their Pinterest account. Canva is a graphic design startup that strives to make design easier for marketers. Their account is a helpful resource to designers, photographers, social media marketers, content creators and small business owners. The majority of the pins are inspo for design and marketing materials, as well as ideas for social media content. Canva has crafted a beautifully curated Pinterest account that focuses on the design side of marketing and education for the non-designer.

5. Peg Fitzpatrick

Peg Fitzpatrick is an author with social media know-how, who is using Pinterest to grow her brand & educate other social media marketers. The pins that she posts can help take your social media game to the next level. She covers all things social, with her boards featuring platform strategies, brand building and tips for successful blogging. What makes this account unique & successful, is that Peg balances her business content with other popular categories on Pinterest. Food, crafts, beauty tips, traveling…these are the topics that Pinterest users are searching for. This makes her page not only valuable to marketers, but also a great resource for the average Pinterest user.

6. HubSpot

HubSpot is a great resource for marketers and small businesses to get inspiration. If you are looking for expert advice and shareable content for your accounts, look no further. They tend to post more tips about the analytical side of things, such as ROI on social media, SEO and marketing strategies. What makes them stand out on Pinterest is the amount of content they are creating (so many amazing infographics), as well as sharing a behind-the-scenes look at their company culture, offices, conferences and employees. They even share specific plans for seasonal marketing campaigns, such as back to school. While your at it, check out their board Bad Marketing Kittens.

7. Post Planner

Post Planner is social media engagement app that can be really helpful to drive engagement to your website and social profiles. If you can’t take advantage of their paid app (starting at only $7 a month), do utilize all the FREE content and education they are distributing on Pinterest. Their boards are very organized & easy to navigate, with each platform having it’s own unique board. When it comes to social media questions, you can almost always find your answer within their pins.

8. Social Media Today

Social Media Today focuses on publishing and distributing posts from the best minds in the industry. It makes perfect sense that they would have a very active Pinterest page ( 8,000 pins and counting) to further their distribution. They tackle topics that some marketers tend to avoid, like mobile marketing, e-commerce, metrics and data. Social Media Today also pins trending up-to-the-minute topics; such as implementing Facebook Live, Pokemon GO and Snapchat for your business. Follow their page for endless shareable content to keep your social profiles fresh and relevant.

9. Rebekah Radice

Rebekah Radice is an award winning content marketer with over 28,000 followers on Pinterest. Aside from the useful content she provides via pinning, she is also using Pinterest to help drive traffic to her blog. If you follow her account closely, you can get an idea her blogging strategies and tactics. She covers all things social with her boards; featuring social platform strategies, brand building and tips for successful blogging. Rebehkah strives to help small businesses and marketing professionals by offering tons of advice, focusing on blogging. Follow her account for everything from how to create and promote your blog, to blog SEO and monetization.

9. Digital Information World

Digital Information World prides themselves in being a visual stream of social media, business and online marketing. This page is a helpful resource to marketers and designers alike, showcasing advice for blogging, branding, email marketing, social media and productivity. An interesting tool they are utilizing, is the use of community boards. The board Top Blogs – Pinterest Viral Board has almost 4,000 contributors pinning content and is a great way to discover new blogs, covering a variety of topics.

Is your brand on Pinterest? We are! Check out our Pinterest page! Follow our account for tips on social media, online marketing, branding, web design, practice and consulting and we will follow you back!

Sep 07

0

Is Your Website Working For You?

By social | Consulting, Graphic Design, Marketing, Web Design | No Comments

After investing time and money in your website, you might question if it is helping your business. The problem may not be your practice, it may be problems with your website. There are many steps to consider to build a useful website, so there is a chance you may have missed some key points. To make things a little easier, we compiled a list of what to look for in an effective website. These might just be the things that you are keeping your website from being successful. Try to use these ideas to get your website in the best shape to better fits your user’s needs.

Does your website have the look and appeal to attract and retain visitors?

Your site should reflect who you are and what you represent; whether its products, services or just a personal site. You need to have a base set of colors that go well together to set the appropriate settings for your visitors. Don’t over do it and try to stick with two to three main colors for your site. Make sure that your text is readable and the font size and color don’t make it disappear into the background of the site.

Keeping your site simple is also one of the best ways to send a clear message of what you are about. Try not to overload the viewers with too many images or images that could either clash or just not make sense to the overall theme of your site.

Don’t overwhelm the user with text. You should be clear and to the point, but break it up so your users will not lose interest. You have try and retain your visitor, so don’t run them out with a page full of text that is hard to read or takes a while to give them the info that they are looking for. Make sure to change it up with updated content every once and a while, to keep users coming back.

When you bring visitors to your site, you should strive to make the experience as pleasant as possible. We have already addressed ideas like keeping text easy to read and not overwhelming, but you should also consider the simplicity of the overall experience.

You should have fast loading pages so that your user will not close out and try to find a new site. Also, keep page scrolling to a minimum. The easier it is to find the information a user is looking for, the more likely they are to keep using your site. Have important links up front and make them easy for the user to find.

Make sure your site flows properly. You should have easy to access navigation and content elements utilizing logical placement. If you have ever heard the phrase “above the fold” pertaining to a website, you might know that it means the space that will appear first without being cut off from the bottom of the screen. This is the space that a user first sees where there is no scrolling required. Any content you place below that should be either be secondary information or a follow up to the information that you provide above the fold, when the user first sees your page.

Graphic Design