Google Doodlegami. Genius.

Did you see today’s Google Doodle? I think it’s so clever the way they graphically alter the logo to convey the key element of whichever event they’re highlighting on a particular day. Today it happens to be the anniversary of the death of Akira Yoshizawa, a renowned origamist, often referred to as the Grand Master of origami.

The beauty of Google has always been the incredibly clean interface. Do you recall the tedious, overwhelming landing pages of search engines like Yahoo! and Alta Vista? In fact, before Google came along, I was a certified internetphobe. Google’s simplicity, focus and long term view has set them apart from the teeming masses by light eons. And when they choose to bring something to your attention, it’s a subtle, fun, sometimes irreverent little doodle that, while not distracting from your quest, might well provide a interesting and scenic pit stop along the way.

Using simple design techniques and a keen mind for strategy and timing, Google has created a mini-masterpiece. As usual.

Using origami as a logo design device has become popular in recent years. Here are some very good examples. And here’s a tutorial, in case you want to try it yourself.

Twoops!

… even AT&T! As I’ve mentioned, HubSpot is one of my favourite sources of industry information and they recently shared this interesting article about AT&T’s Twitter automation failure. Read it here.

The summary is that AT&T hired a company they’d never used before to schedule a marketing campaign that was time specific, and it backfired with a deluge of unfortunate and “spammy” tweets to seemingly random tweeters.

The lessons?

• Use a social media scheduler you can trust.
• Don’t get a brand new social media management company just before you launch a massive marketing campaign (or even a small one).
• Use Social Media schedules with extreme care.

If you’d like to find out more about managing your social media in a strategic, targeted manner, or learn how to schedule your posts to make the most of your time, give me a shout.

Typography is beautiful. Art is breaking the rules. More here.

It’s no secret that I LOVE fonts. For me, as a designer, typography is next to godliness, and I fairly shriek with excitement whenever I stumble across a new font disbursement site. I also absolutely adore places that give away free, beautiful graphics, saving me hours of hard slog in composition.

So today it is my great pleasure to share links to some of my favourite sites. Enjoy.

ICONS & PNGs

• WikiMedia Commons
• Iconspedia
• EasyIcon
• PSD Graphics
• VectEezy

FONTS

• FontYukle (my personal favourite)
• Font Palace
• 1001 Free Fonts
• FilesTube

And just in case you live in some alternate universe and haven’t yet tried Da Font’s awesome What the Font tool, here it is: http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/.

Really good stuff.

That’s why we breathe a universal sigh of relief when we stumble across an article like this one on word-wrap using CSS. Great stuff!

Head over and read it, and let me know what you think.

Art Incentive: the facts

In 2006 my husband and I bought a business that specialises in printing artwork onto canvas. The system uses the giclée technique to transfer photography and fine art onto prepared canvas. The finished artwork is then sealed and stretched, ready to hang. This gives the product durability and quality.

The company came with a name, Art Incentive, a small client base, a logo and a website. Before long, though, I simply couldn’t resist to mark this territory as my own. Over the years we’ve had a number of logo and website variations but finally, in 2008, we settled on an identity and a direction.

This was achieved by working closely with Caroline Hastings-Brown, at that time a freelance writer and marketing strategist, and later my business partner. She helped us to refine and focus our ideas into a clean, attractive package.

The biggest challenge on this website was the print cost calculator. Creating a script that took into account all the factors involved in accurately pricing a canvas print took a lot of time and rather a lot of maths. But it works very effectively and is a valuable tool.

By the time we started Art Incentive, I had seven years of website design experience, and this was the beginning of my practical marketing strategy training. Simple, elegant changes have had a significant impact on the success of our business since 2008, and the business continues to thrive, nearly four years later.

Visit the website at www.artincentive.co.za

News. Whose is it?

News monitoring agencies such as Newsclip provide a valuable service for clients. Spending hours and hours trawling every form of media, they collate all the results that match their clients’ requirements, and provide these results to clients for a monthly or once-off fee. This fee covers the time they spend on the research, and the resources they need to purchase (magazines, books, newspapers, internet access, telephony etc).

For clients, this is a valuable way of measuring sentiment and tracking PR. In some cases it is the only way to avert a crisis; in many more cases, it is a simple opportunity to measure the effectiveness of a marketing or awareness campaign.

Now the Dramatic and Literary Rights Organisation (DALRO) has launched a new copyright licence, the result of which is that news monitoring agencies will have to pay for the newsclips they provide.

What do we think about this? Is news really copyright? If a photographer takes a picture of you, he owns it, and can use it in pretty much any legal way he chooses. Does the same apply to news? Surely news  is public domain? Do you own the news item, because you happen to have recorded it in some way?

Read the full article here: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/News-monitoring-agencies-to-pay-royalties-20120306

The Vision Team: creating success for everyone they meet.

The Vision Group is a team of dedicated business owners focused on developing sound health and nutrition principles in their families and the lives of their clients. Founded 30 years ago, their principles of support and empowerment are inspirational, and it has been a privilege to work on this account for the past two years. Their motto, We Create Success, truly is the guiding principle motivating all their actions and philosophies.

aXent’s services for the Vision Group include:

• A detailed website showcasing the wide range of products available, with useful, easy-to-read information about each product. This website serves as a marketing tool for each independent distributor within the Vision network.
• Event invitation designs. Click the image for a larger view.
• An informative newsletter to be sent to distributors.

Schools and Facebook: striking the right balance.

When it comes to social media policies, particularly in schools, here are some very general guidelines that may prove useful:

DO:

• By all means use social media to organise and manage events.
• Keep people abreast of dates, activities, and changes to calendars.
• Share achievements and successes, such as winning the inter-schools rugby final.
• Allow free comments but moderate these carefully. Often a well-worded, well-timed reply to a scathing remark does infinitely more good than not allowing the remark in the first place.
• Use social media to market your school more effectively.
• Have a clear, simple Fair Use policy – to protect yourself, your staff and your pupils.
• Create very secure user profiles that can only be viewed by direct friends, to avoid some of the horrible happenings described in the article above.

DON’T

• Allow teachers or any staff to befriend pupils on social networks.
• Allow private conversations between pupils and teachers on social networks. (Rather make the appropriate communication channels very clear and encourage the use of these).
• Allow photographs to be posted without the permission of those appearing in them.
• Post any photographs of yourself (or colleagues or pupils) in compromising positions of any kind. It might seem light-hearted and entertaining, but these kinds of things can be career enders.
• Ban social media.

The simple fact is that social media is here to stay. This is the way people communicate now, and whether we like it or not, restricting access completely will ultimately do mroe harm than good. Even so, we can exercise discretion and wisdom, maximising the potential benefits while minimising or, better yet, eliminating the potential pitfalls.

This “Do’s and Don’t’s” list is far from exhaustive. It is useful to do the research and create a fair use policy that will work in your particular scenario. Should you need any assistance, contact me to start the process of establishing your school’s policy.

The web is the number one spot for job hunters and employers - and social media is taking centre stage.

A friend of mine, who runs a recruitment agency, recently posted a link to this very interesting article on the web. According to the predictions of the author, 2012 is going to see some interesting changes in the way recruitment happens in companies, including a much stronger focus on social media.

Please head over and read the full article, but here’s a short summary:

1. Intense hiring competition will return in selected areas;
2. Retention issues will increase dramatically;
3. Social media increases its impact by becoming more data-driven;
4. Remote work changes everything in talent management;
5. The need for speed shifts the balance between development and recruiting;
6. Employee referrals are coupled with social media;
7. Employer branding returns;
8. The candidate experience is finally getting the attention it deserves;
9. Forward-looking metrics begin to dominate.

It sounds a lot like the recruitment playing field of the mid- to late 90′s, with the addition of social media and a much stronger reliance on intelligent metrics. In short, relationships and reports have never been as important.

Good news! Just what I like.

(The evolution of Google Search since 1996.)

There’s also a very useful timeline which, frankly, I totally love. (I’m all about chronology). I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a fascinating look at the change not only in how we find data, but how we think.

Google Search Timeline: click for full image (2.2MB)

Over the past fifteen years I’ve developed a theory about how Google has changed the way we think and the way we know stuff. I’m sure I’m not unique in this. It goes something like this:

Around 15 – 20 years ago (less for some of us), we knew things. I can clearly recall having loads of useful (and sometimes useless) information in my head, available at a moment’s notice. I could tell you things about history, geography, science, music, English, art, French (not maths!) … even current events, politics, philosophy and many other things. It wasn’t just that I was in school and needed the facts for my big test on Monday. They were readily available at any time. And the more interested I was in a subject, the more I knew. This spilled over into other areas of my life, as well. I knew where stuff was. I could tell you the location of any object I owned, or any place I had been to, with hardly a second’s thought. (And not just because of vague OCD leanings).

Over the years I have noticed a distinct change. It was very subtle at first and in fact seemed more like the addition of extra features –  an upgrade, if you will – than an actual change. I began to know how to find things. Where to look. What to ask. It sounds like simple growing up, doesn’t it? Well, let me fast forward a decade or so to illustrate my point. Now, I know pathways to information. I don’t know much at all (and that’s not the result of double-porridge-brain delivered as a side order with two pregnancies). I have detailed pathways to information stored in my brain now. So I no longer remember the difference between dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous (okay, bad example because I do), but I know where to find out. And if you can’t Google the information, it doesn’t exist. Even axolotls are on there, and I really thought I was The Business when I knew what those were.

The point is, I look stuff up on a scale I would never have dreamed of before, despite my addiction to Encyclopaediae. In fact, my children (aged 6 & 9) even ask me too Google anything they don’t know. This very weekend I was asked to Google “how artistic is Daddy”, for genetic research purposes (I am assured).

I’ve veered off track somewhat, but I do have a point. We no longer store data. We store the location of the data. Our brains have become giant data maps, for want of a better word. We know which questions to ask Google to get the information we need, and we long for a similar search function for real life on those miserable days when we can’t find the car keys or our favourite shirt.

It’s happened at such lightning speed that one can’t help but wonder what the final outcome is going to be. Will we know anything, or will be permanently linked to the Net, spouting Wikipediaisms rote, as if they reflected our own thoughts and opininons?