Lionfield Technology Solutions Website

Once again, Tate Design was selected as a winner of the 2011 American Graphic Design Awards! This award was presented in honor of a website designed for an IT company, Lionfield Technology Solutions.

For almost five decades, Graphic Design USA, a prominent industry magazine, has sponsored national competitions that recognize creative professionals for areas of innovative design. The competition honors the influence of well-designed websites and other online communications that appeal to an audience, generate captivation and feedback, and endorse products, services and ideas. The competition is open to everyone in the community: advertising agencies, graphic design firms, corporations, institutions, publishers and more. It honors all kinds of exceptional work across all media: print and collateral, advertising and sales promotion, corporate identity and logos, Internet and interactive design, packaging and p-o-p, broadcast and motion graphics.

There were a remarkable 8,000+ entries submitted in 2011; of these, 1,000 are recognized with an Award of Excellence.

Business Card QR Code

Business cards
Why not add a QR code to the blank space on the back of your business card? A QR code will allow potential clients to link to a V-card, in order to download your contact information right into his or her mobile contacts.

Newsletter QR Code

Newsletters
Add a QR code to your company’s newsletter and expand your subscriber base by making the landing page a quick sign up to your company’s E-newsletter.

Feedback Request QR Code

Feedback request
When requesting feedback, add a QR code to allow your customers to complete an online survey about your service. This will allow you to have better relations with your customers, as well as useful information that will benefit your company.

Retailer Usage QR Code

Retailer usage
QR codes can be extremely beneficial to retailers. For example, a gift giver can record a personalized voice message on a gift tag that will be played when the recipient of the gift scans the QR code. Also, a QR code could benefit a retailer when used to offer promotions and coupons to potential customers.

Builder or Contractor Signage

Builder or contractor signage
Builders and contractors commonly place signs in the yards of houses that provide their business information. A QR code can be placed on these signs in order to provide potential customers with more information about the house. This could include a link to a virtual tour.

Don’t forget that QR codes allow you to track the success of your campaign through analytics.

2012 Pantone Color Of The Year Tangerine Tango

Tangerine Tango, an exuberant, reddish orange, replenishes us with the energy necessary to rejuvenate and bounce back to life. Tangerine Tango is alluring and exotic but in a very non-threatening way. A bright, cheerful spin on a classic fall shade, Tangerine Tango will definitely remain popular through the season of autumn.

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

Generic QR Code

Custom QR Code

QR stands for  “quick response,” and these codes provide immediate access to information. A QR code is a barcode read by a cell phone that can store any alphanumeric data within it. The codes are commonly seen in places such as billboards, product labels, business cards, and buildings. The system of these codes is starting to become more common due to its speed, readability, and giant storage capacity.

These codes are international, so a QR code is a QR code no matter where you are in the world. The popularity of these codes is increasing in Japan, Europe, Canada, and the United States. If a cell phone has the required decoding software someone can, just point the phone at the code, scan, and it will open up the browser and go straight to the URL. Mobile QR codes can also encode phone numbers that can go right into your mobile contacts; a video ready to watch; a social media page; an email address; an event calendar; an address located on Google maps; and many other types of data sources. The process of accessing the encoded information is quite simple.

Cell phones must have the proper software in order to use the QR codes. So a QR scanning application must be downloaded. Some of the applications that can be downloaded to scan QR codes are free, but the higher quality scanning applications can be bought for a very low price. The scanner will determine what type of information is contained in the code and will lead you to the appropriate source.

A QR code can be customized, so that the color of the code can be changed to the color of your brand. However, when generating a color code, the color of the dots in the code must always be darker than the background color in order to access the information.

The amount of information that can be contained within a QR code is increasing and in turn, making a positive outlook for the future of these barcodes.

For creative ideas in using QR codes in your marketing materials, contact Tate Design. 

The entertainment companies are extremely supportive of this bill, since these companies lose billions of dollars due to online piracy every year. If infringing content is discovered, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that is already in effect, allows rights holders to request the removal of that content. SOPA will grant rights holders a large quantity of power with a great potential for abuse. The bill may work in favor for entertainment companies, but internet-related companies argue the bill will over-regulate the Web and violate the right to Freedom of Speech.

In order to stop the bill from being passed, websites such as Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and many others put large, black boxes over several parts of their site in protest, causing an “Internet blackout.” Wikipedia went as far as shutting down the entire English-language version worldwide, for 24 hours. Wikipedia editors expressed that the blackout is to protest the breach of the right to free and open Internet. This protest of blacking out sites proved to the House that opponents of the bill would not go down without a fight.

According to CBS News, on January 20, 2012, the bill was postponed until “wider agreement of a solution.” Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar S. Smith, did not even put the bill on the floor for discussion. He stated that after the blackout, many original supporters of the bill now proposed it, causing a reevaluation of the bill’s policies. The SOPA bill may have been postponed, but the fight against government regulation of the Internet has not ended for its opponents. The House is working on a different bill to end copyright infringement that will have more supporters within the House.

In addition, blog posts will also show up in blog searches such as Google’s Blog search, and Technorati Blog searches.

With that said, there are available tools that can provide you with some competitive analysis such as Comscore, KeywordDiscovery competitive Intelligence, and Hitwise.

In order to achieve top rank in online directories listings should be:
– Submitted by the business entity
– Enhanced to contain valuable data such as brands carried, hours, payment options, languages spoken, multiple phone numbers, web address, e-mail address and other data that is important to your local audience
– Refreshed on a regular basis — currency of data is an important online directory ranking factor

Your highly valuable online directory listing can be created, optimized, distributed and maintained by us — allowing you to reap the rewards of top online directory ranking without the work that would be necessary to manually create, submit and manage your local business data to multiple online directories.

Do you have a clear and concise agenda for growing your business?

- Is your plan in writing?

- Does your plan include specific goals, strategies, dates and expected results?

- Do you know whether your plan is realistic?

Have you established a unique marketing advantage (UMA) that helps you?

- Can you clearly identify your target audience?

- Are you familiar with their demographics?

- Can you speak to them in their “own language”?

Do you maintain regular communication with current and former clients, and market to them in an effort to generate referrals?

Have you set aside a monthly or annual marketing budget that you can realistically stick to?

Are you using a variety of methods to market your business, or do you rely on only one method?

Do you have a strong and well-defined online presence that allows you to capitalize on the popularity of the internet? Do you have a professional-looking Web site? Does your Web site rank high on search engine results pages?

Do you regularly attend networking functions and other events that put you in front of a captive audience?

Have you used direct mail, publicity generation, “pay-per-click” advertising or print advertising to grow your business?

Do you track where your business comes from?

- Do you regularly fine-tune your marketing initiatives to improve your return on investment (ROI)?

Pantone 18-2120, Honeysuckle, is Pantone's 2011 Color of the Year

A Color for All Seasons
Courageous. Confident. Vital. A brave new color, for a brave new world. Let the bold spirit of Honeysuckle infuse you, lift you and carry you through the year. It’s a color for every day – with nothing “everyday” about it.

A dynamic reddish pink, Honeysuckle is encouraging and uplifting. It elevates our psyche beyond escape, instilling the confidence, courage and spirit to meet the exhaustive challenges that have become part of everyday life.

“In times of stress, we need something to lift our spirits. Honeysuckle is a captivating, stimulating color that gets the adrenaline going – perfect to ward off the blues,” explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Honeysuckle derives its positive qualities from a powerful bond to its mother color red, the most physical, viscerally alive hue in the spectrum.”
Eiseman continues, “The intensity of this festive reddish pink allures and engages. In fact, this color, not the sweet fragrance of the flower blossoms for which it was named, is what attracts hummingbirds to nectar. Honeysuckle may also bring a wave of nostalgia for its associated delicious scent reminiscent of the carefree days of spring and summer.”

Excerpt taken from www.pantone.com

A brand manager oversees the overall brand performance, from boosting the product’s perceived value to the customer through successful marketing techniques, to increasing the brand franchise and equity, while managing the tangible and intangible aspects of the brand. A successful brand can only be created if the brand management system is competent.