Yep, this is an awesome promotion.
Looks like its outside of a radio station. Not 100% sure. I actually have no idea where I found this pic. Its been on my desktop for over a week now. Not even sure why I saved it. Maybe because it rocks.
Crossline Church has been a client of ours for a few years now. We designed their first site over 2.5 years ago, and we have been performing on going work ever since.
I am really pumped about this site launch. It may be the biggest site we at factor 1 have ever built. I’m talking multiple site designs, crazy coding, way cool features, and even streaming video on the home page.
Really, this is one of my favorite sites to date. Be sure to check out the connect section. There are some sweet jquery gadgets going on in staff, serve, and small groups. Also check out Men’s, Women’s and Young adults as they all have a custom skin.
Testimonial coming soon.
Since I am finding out that many of our readers are actually designers, I thought I would kick off things with a web geek post.
So I am a mac guy. I always have been. I grew up with a mac since I can remember. Since becoming a web designer a few years ago, nothing has frustrated me more than Internet Explorer. I mean really, its baffling how different IE can be compared to other applications. It even renders sites differently across its own versions.
So we test. and test. and test. This means having multiple PCs in an all mac office, just to run different IE versions (Unless you are a PC geek and can figure out to install IE 6 & 7 at the same time, which I guess is possible).
Anyway. I came across a great tool today. DebugBar Its a tabbed browser, for windows, that emulates different IE versions. 5.5, 6, 7, and the new Beta 8. So I installed it on my parallels virtual Windows XP machine.
So far its pretty cool. Much easier than us IMing across the office to have some one test in their version of IE for us.
So go, check it out. It wont get rid of IE off of the worlds PC computers (Im still waiting for that app), but it will make testing and fixing a bit easier.
So we received a project about 2 months ago from a new emerging church in Georgia. Now, we have a lot of churches in georgia, nothing new there. The cool thing about this project is that they are launching a church in downtown Savannah, down the street from a large art college.
So needless to say, a site to appeal to artists was the challenge.
I really love how this site came out. It is different from a lot of our sites, the navigation is really smooth, and overall its a great site. Plus I am a sucker for dark black sites with great photography.
Doug Garvin had this to say
Hats off to the team at Factor 1 for creating a great looking site for us. We gave them a few points about who we are as a church and then really let them run with the ideas. I believe what we ended up with is a truly unique site that is not only easy for us to manage, but also speaks volumes about Canvas Church. Thanks again guys!
So I dont see many comments on this thing, not sure why. Maybe I am not speaking to my audience very well. So I had an idea. Let’s see who actually reads this blog. I know there are a few dozen subscribers, and maybe you are a designer, competition, clients, my mom, etc. I don’t actually care who you are, but I want to know who you are if that makes any sense.
It’s my goal to be effective. If I need to shift my conversations and topics to better suit my actual audience, so be it. I just want to know who you are.
So if you dont mind, comment and let me know who you are. Share a link to your blog or website, let me know what interests you that we can discuss here. Otherwise I’ll keep talking about whatever I feel like (ohh maybe next week we’ll discuss baking tips for high altitude and their role in web marketing).
If you feel like remaining anonymous, thats fine too, maybe just let me know what interests you here.
thanks
matt
So I was watching this interesting video on the importance of interaction design in products. (found via forty)
In the video they had this sketch.
Here they are describing the process a customer takes as a relationship.
So the M is marketing. Getting the customer to the point of purchase (P). The area after that is the Interaction Design. Most businesses and organizations focus on the M.
So here is where the illustration / video left off. Why is interaction design important? The customer already paid right, so who cares. Wrong. Great interaction design, will feed the marketing side. Look at products with good interaction design, in relation to their marketing.
Examples that come to mind for me: Apple, Nintendo WII, In-n-Out Burgers, and toyota Prius. All barely have to market at all. They have created such a great user experience or product, that word of mouth marketing is free and in abundance.
So the moral of my story (as it often is), Focus on your end product, the interaction design, the customers experience, and the marketing will be cheap(er) and easy.
So maybe I am an apple geek, or their marketing department knows how to get in my head, but I still find myself wanting (not by any means needing) an iphone. What is it about apple that does it? Its not that the phone is that much better than my Moto q, Maybe its faster, syncs better, and has some cooler toys. But in the end its still a phone.
Once my contract with verizon (which i really like their service) I may toy with the idea of switching more. So I guess right now I am glad I am stuck in a contract and cant be in line for the iphone. Otherwise Apple’s grip on me may have put me in line.
So who is going for the new iphone?
On another note. We all should look at what apple has done here. They made a PDA / music player / phone. Big deal right. Motorola, Samsung, & Blackberry have been doing this for years. Here is the business strategy take away homework: Its HOW apple does it. They set the bar high. They do it better than anyone else.
So sure there are other churches, web designers, widget makers, plumbers in your direct competition. But If you can do the same task as the other guy, but sexier, smoother, faster, more powerful, and your customers will flock to you.
We have a nice little profile on us over at 85239.com. our towns local media source.
http://www.85239.com/BUSINESS/BusinessArticleDetails.aspx?mid1=432&&ArticleID=3760
Yes I find it odd to have my head that large in a photo.
So a lot of our clients love the flexibility we give them on their websites. They can add images to pages or blogs, and often a nice marketing / promotional type image to their home page. Here is the catch. Most of our clients dont have a solid resource for these small graphics. We dont always have the time here at factor 1 either.
So here are some great resources I have seen that will allow the average, non-photoshop user to crop, edit and rotate images for use on anything print or web related.
Picnik is pretty cool. I actually really like using it. It can even be fun. Their interface is quick, and very intuitive. It also has some great auto enhance effects that rival photoshop quite well.
Coming from adobe, this is not as much like photoshop as you would think. While its all flash, and pretty quick, I found it somewhat limiting. Still, a great resource, and solid tools for free.
This site felt a lot like myspace, photo bucket, and flickr to me. I found its tools to be pretty good. It does feature layer, and the ability to edit some adjustments after you complete them (think Undo, and photoshop smart filters).
This site i liked for quick edits. you can upload and edit a photo immediately. No accounts, no sign up. But because you dont have an actual account, your changes are gone once you leave the site. No saving and finishing later. Also no text editing / adding. So its pretty basic.
What other free, Mac & PC tools do you like for editing photos sans-photoshop?
