Skybox Creative Blog

Skybox Creative was proud to be one of the San Diego website design companies that participated in the internet blackout day January 18 to protest SOPA, but we’d like to remind everyone that the issue hasn’t been resolved yet. It’s been reported that Texas Republican Lamar Smith has supposedly “killed” the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill he sponsored, but PIPA (Protect IP Act), the Senate counterpart of SOPA, has only been tabled for a vote later on. Both bills still have some powerful lobbying efforts pushing for them, namely the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Obviously, the MPAA and RIAA have a vested interest in stopping online privacy, so why are the rest of us opposed to this legislation? Last week’s protest was about killing the bills, but it was also an effort to help others become more informed about the how and why of the whole process. No one wants to see the misuse or theft of intellectual property, but the approach used by both of these bills is an infringement on some of the basic freedoms we hold dear in this country. In fact, if you read the wording, SOPA and PIPA actually penalize American businesses for acts committed by foreign websites.

The motivating force behind SOPA and PIPA is the presence of pirated film, scripts, and music on foreign sites before they are officially released. Since the US government doesn’t have any jurisdiction over the countries these sites are based in, the proposal is that any US sites linking to them should be court-ordered to remove those links – within five days of receiving the order from the attorney general. Who’s opposed to that? Google, Facebook, eBay and PayPal are four of the major names speaking out against it, and the primary organizers in last week’s blackout.

SOPA also included language that targeted “harmful” products such as foreign pharmaceuticals, but didn’t have any guidelines or regulatory agency responsibility for determining what was considered “harmful” and why. It would also give US companies the option of shutting off sites like WikiLeaks, a move that reeks of censorship and a dangerous precedent towards limiting the free speech we all hold dear. While some may feel that Julian Assange is an irresponsible journalist, if we cut him off, where does the censorship stop? Are our newspapers next?

The justification being used by those who support SOPA and PIPA may seem sound on the surface – an attempt to protect intellectual property rights – but the bills themselves are a violation of the First Amendment, which protects the right to freedom of expression from government interference. They also penalize legitimate businesses here in the United States for the actions of others in foreign countries. We here at Skybox Creative are opposed to both of those. Hopefully you are too.

It’s awards season and while most of you are thinking about the Academy Awards and those fabulous or maybe not-so fabulous red carpet wears, awards season isn’t just for Hollywood, it’s also for the creative design and advertising community. So, without further ado, let’s roll out the red carpet for the 2012 International Creativity Awards! Ok – so maybe there isn’t an actual red carpet but hey, we’re leading-edge designers, and awards fabulousness can exist sans the Dolce & Gabana gown or form-fitting Gucci tux.

The International Creativity Awards is a prestigious competition that has been handing out awards in print, web, and advertising design for over 40 years. First established in 1970 as a traveling exhibit in conjunction with Art Direction Magazine, this independent annual awards competition grew in scope and size very quickly into a showcase for the most innovative and talented artists around the globe. Top works in each category are reproduced into what is now known as the 400-page Creativity Awards Annual – the leading book on where the future of design is headed. And the future of design is not only an arena for the professional aesthetic, students are also encouraged to submit their work – because as we know, creativity knows no limits…it just needs to get a nod by an esteemed panel of judges.

Not unlike the Academy voters, the Creativity Awards judges have a very difficult job of reviewing a multitude of submissions in various categories. But what’s refreshing about the judges chosen is that each design professional volunteers their time with the hopes of finding “the next new thing” — without bias or personal agenda. Every year new judges are selected for fresh perspectives and we’re excited to announce that this year Skybox Creative’s Angelina Sereno will be joining the international panel to judge the Media and Interactive Competition. Applause! Sereno has over 12 years of experience with web technology and emerging media. For the competition, her focus is in the interactive division where categories such as Email Design, Online Advertising, Web Gaming, and Website Design (whether Consumer, Catalog, or for Self-Promotion) will all be judged by her award-winning sensibility. It’s effective communication, creativity, and innovation that Sereno hopes to find in the submissions she reviews – so make sure you refine that work to the next level! And, the good news is, you still have time to do it. The 42^nd Annual Media & Interactive Deadline is April 6, 2012. So, sleek up that logo, streamline that game, simplify that website. It’s awards season. Let the Creativity Awards start buzzing about YOU.

For eligibility, fees, and other must-knows please visit: Creativity Awards Eligibility

Increase the visibility of your brand using San Diego Social Media. What exactly does that mean? Most business owners are under the false impression that social media is a strictly national or international medium. The truth is actually the opposite. If you attempt to take your small local brand national before you solidify your local customer base, you’ll get lost in a sea of internet obscurity. Remember that “Big Fish in a Little Pond” analogy? Target your marketing locally until you outgrow the pond, and then expand.

Take a look at Facebook as an example. Inexperienced marketers look at the shear volume of subscribers and seek ways to reach them all. Seasoned professionals understand that there are millions of other businesses trying to implement that same strategy. You need unlimited time, and bottomless pockets, to compete on that level. Try and you’ll be that little fish who gets devoured in the big ocean. Establishing and growing brand awareness is all about industry dominance, not wishful thinking.

As a San Diego Website Design firm, we specialize in creating unique websites that consumers and clients will remember and identify with the company they’re doing business with. The brands of yesteryear, like the McDonald’s arches for instance, have evolved into visual internet images that capture the web surfer’s attention. Getting today’s shoppers and service seekers to stop and read about what you have to offer, even for a few seconds, is a challenge. Here at Skybox Creative, we pride ourselves on being able to build the branded websites that consistently meet that challenge.

Of course, if there’s no traffic coming to your site, there are no captivated visitors and captured email addresses to prove that your new brand is working. Local social media marketing is an effective way to drive the traffic, one that you can use to test your new site. It can also lead to viral marketing that costs nothing and can give you that national or international presence by word of mouth, the best form of marketing there is. What’s the first thing you do when you’re looking for a product or service? You ask a friend.

Social media sites work the same way that search engines do. If you want local exposure, use local keywords. You’ll notice in this post that we have incorporated the keywords “San Diego Social Media” and “San Diego Website Design”. We could have skipped the city name, but we wouldn’t get the local search engine indexing that’s so valuable to us if we did. You can do the same thing with your business when marketing on your Facebook wall or other social media. Use local keywords that will capture local searchers. We’ll provide the branded website that will keep them onsite once they get there.

What is the most important element of your website? If you as a consumer were asked to rank a group of sites in the same niche, you would no doubt focus on the visual aspects of the sites. Is the color combination pleasing? Are you able to easily navigate through the site and find contact information and purchase options? Were video or creative images used to enhance the design or are they overpowering and annoying? These are all questions our San Diego web design team asks whenever we build a website, but there’s more to creating a great site than just what human eyes see. We start our building in the back room first.

For those of you unfamiliar with web design terminology, the “back room” is where the coding is done. Your site may look great when you view it for the first time, but if search engines can’t find it, no one else is going to see it. The members of our San Diego website design team are also San Diego SEO experts. They have to be if our clients are going to experience any kind of success with their new websites. The design elements, content, and easy navigation of a site will create conversions, but it’s the coding that brings the traffic in the first place.

Preparing for Local Search Marketing

Are you in an industry where competition is intense, doing business in a saturated market where a spot on Google Page One could mean the difference between profit and loss this year? When products or services are so similar that consumers can’t tell the difference, those who are found first are most often the ones who will acquire the customer. One way to make sure you are that top ranked provider or retailer is to focus on local search marketing, beginning with modifying your coding in the back room. If you haven’t done it in a while it might be a good time to start.

Do your Meta Tags and Descriptions have your local community name in them? Adding the city is a good start; incorporating neighborhood names or nicknames could increase traffic flow even more. Does your site have videos or complex graphics on it? Those elements also have description tags. The term “Video SEO” seems to have been coined as a key marketing phrase by SEO companies this year. It sounds complicated; its not. The rules we apply when creating content for a website are the same ones we use when writing image and video tags – add local keywords, but don’t spam them, and make descriptions clear and concise so human visitors and search engine spiders know what they’re looking at.

The Whole Package – Not a Job Done Halfway

Skybox Creative provides our customers the whole package, not a job done halfway. Our visual designs are the finest you will find in San Diego. We credit this to the creative genius of our design team and the top of the line web design technology we have invested in, but that’s only half the equation. Our back room San Diego SEO team makes sure that you’ll see quality traffic when the site goes live – the kind of traffic that converts into sales. That is, after all, what you have a website for, right?

The iPhone 4S, the most popular iPhone, has a voice recognition app called Siri. Siri lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. Ask Siri to do things just by talking the way you talk. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back.

Some experts are predicting that Siri will kill local SEO. Why? By using Siri you are no longer searching through search results. Siri is searching through search results and calling companies on the top of the list. Of course, that is just speculation. How Siri processes information is an Apple secret. We can only assume though that Siri is picking the crème of the crop in search engine results. So how can you optimize for Siri? Being on local directories will improve your standing on the internet and for Siri. It’s no longer enough to simply set up profiles on Facebook and Twitter and be done with it. Instead, establish a profile on the following directories, review sites and encourage customers to rate your business there for maximum exposure.

• Google Places
• Yahoo Local
• Bing Local
• Yelp
• Grubhub
• Open Table
• Urbanspoon
• Foursquare
• Savings.com
• Retailmenot
• Judy’s Book
• Citysearch
• Superpages
• Yellow Pages

To determine which of these options are the best fit for your business, do a quick search to see which business sites in your geographic area and industry are ranking well in Google and create profiles on whichever of the following sites they’re using.

If you find this article valuable, please send to a friend or share on your favorite social network (which would be Facebook of course)! Thanks!!

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Brand Consultancy with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Instagram, the uber-popular iPhone mobile app that lets users edit, stylize and share their photos, added an impressive 2 million users last month, coming close to the 15 million mark. The mobile app company attributes the boom to the launch of iPhone 4 and the holidays – more party photos to share! But their growth rate is strongly outpacing the other leading mobile-based app, Foursquare. And what’s really impressive about that is that Foursquare is on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Palm.

Sure, Instagram had its eyes set on mega-growth before its 2.0 launch earlier this year. And as we mentioned in an earlier blog, usability was its number-one improvement. Users can choose from four new filters with the 2.0 launch. And now, if you change your mind after you’ve taken a photo, you can apply a different filter fast – up to 200 times faster than in 1.0. But ease of use explains coming BACK. Why do people use Instagram in the first place?

Why? TTIUWP.

“This thread is useless without pics.” Now more than ever, with mobile devices and tablets, we are visual internet users. Everyone who’s friends with you on Facebook or following you on Twitter wants to SEE your San Diego SantaCon pics. Instagram offers this still-by-still and encourages users to comment on each other’s pics. They make it easy. And having a funny username, commenting on other users’ photos (especially with emoticons) and engaging people who comment on your photos really helps create a community of followers.

The Real Story

But Instagram does more than document activity. It lets the user tell a story. Using Instagram means participating in two key components of interactivity – creativity and inspiration. Instagram’s filters help you tell your unique story by adding emotion – a sepia filter for nostalgia, a color-pop filter for irony – and help you connect with your audience in, well, the blink of an eye. A single snapshot of a San Diego sailboat can be romantic or retro, depending on the filter. And not only can you add filters and effects, you can also easily add depth of field (something that can be tough to pull off even with more complex software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop).

And the best part is, you get to play around until you decide. This is really the key to Instagram’s success. They let us play, get inspired and get creative. All from our phones and all for free. It’s no wonder Apple named them 2011 App of the Year!

Instagram photos above taken by President + Creative Director of Skybox Creative, Angelina Sereno. Follow her by name or @happygumdrops!

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Branding Agency with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Skybox Creative is now located in Hillcrest:

Skybox Creative
449 University Ave. Suite 24
San Diego, CA 92103

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Once you’ve got a Facebook page as part of your social media marketing plan, it’s time to think about what to do with it. We know, from our own personal use of Twitter and Facebook that it’s all about staying active. We want to be in that news feed! And if you’re a business looking to engage customers, it’s even more important. After all, action – whether it’s foot traffic for your San Diego beachfront taqueria or “likes” on your small-business blog – means business. And nowhere is that more true than in the world of social media marketing.

But aside from posting company or product updates, commenting on industry news and answering customer questions, how do you keep your Facebook community alive?

The Social Media Examiner has recently published a list of the ten best Facebook apps for building community.

Facebook apps don’t just mean Farmville anymore. There are now tons of apps on the social media giant that help highlight top fans and helps you engage with your fans by sharing videos, photos, slides and get feedback from users. And what’s great is that, since they’re designed to be used and disseminated in the social networking world, they’re pretty easy to use.

Praise Your Customers

Everyone likes a little positive feedback – especially in social media. I mean, why else do we post our best San Diego sunset pics? We want the “likes”! A couple of the apps noted by the Social Media Examiner – “Fan of the Week” and “Booshaka” — track your fans’ activity on your page and get points or even a personalized shout out for being active.

Interaction Action

Many of the Apps in the top ten have to do with company-customer interaction. Livestream lets you post live video events to your page and even has a chat feature for interaction. ContactMe lets you customize fields for fans who want to get in touch and Constant Contact lets fans sign up for newsletters right from your Facebook page. Scribd, the company that offers document-sharing services in the real world, also offers a service for the virtual one, Scribd for Pages.

Other apps can help you manage updating content and scheduling posting. For the rest of the top ten, check out the article. Or, for a deeper list, check out Top 75 Apps for Enhancing Your Facebook Page.

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Branding Agency with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

When Applied Fiber, the world’s leading provider of terminated fiber tension systems, noticed Skybox Creative’s online portfolio, they knew they’d found a fit for the re-branding and web design they’d been looking for. San Diego-based Skybox began work on the rebrand in April, 2011.

The client was looking to develop a more modern, masculine look. New products and growth in the Florida-based company prompted them to reconsider the message they were sending with their old color palette – soft blue, light gray and a thin font.

Applied Fiber Logo - Before + After

Skybox jumped in to give the company the look and feel they aspired to. Keeping the icon on the left of the logo was important to Applied Fiber — it’s the universal symbol for fiber. But we identified darker tones of blue and gray to give the design a more modern feel. The darker shades really hit on the growing company’s maturation and expanding business. It also adds gravity, masculinity and sophistication to the look and feel of the brand. We also designed new typography for the brand. Slightly thicker, it has a more substantial feel and really fits an established company that is growing its brand along with its business.

For the website design, multiple layout, design and color options were explored. A few of the initial design comps are shown below.

Web Design Study - Multiple design directions and color options were explored.

Web Design Study - Multiple design directions and color options were explored.

For the final website design, the client chose a simple, clean design direction focusing on the products and expertise.

Applied Fiber Final Web Design

Part of delivering that sleek, modern feel, too, was simplifying the design. Each web page now features simple, clean design and easy-to-navigate web pages. The photography we chose is sleek and the close-up product shots foreground the technology without losing the visual appeal.

Our design choices were in-step with the company’s goals for growth and their forward-looking philosophy. For Applied Fiber, reaching out to a San Diego-based company for rebranding and redesign turned out to be a good move – and we’re proud to be working with them!

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Branding Agency with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO. Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Fonts equal personality. If you’re a San Diego beachfront motel, your sign’s going to look different from that of a Napa Valley spa. If you’re a San Diego scuba outfitter, you’ll choose different typography from an Aspen ski lodge. So what typography a web or graphic designer chooses will say a lot about the personality of the company. And now, just as happened in the shift to high-def television, our high-def screens are showing every wrinkle in our existing fonts. So . . . what to do?

Get a facelift! Recently, the world’s most common fonts — Verdana and Georgia – did just that.  In the time of high-def, high-resolution screens on tablets like iPads, mobile devices laptops, Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., has released updated versions of Verdana and Georgia fonts.

These fonts were originally commissioned by Microsoft in the 1990s. And the typefaces were designed by typographer Matthew Carter. The typefaces then only featured four weights.

But with the move to tablet and mobile internet usage and higher screen resolutions on the iPad or iPhone, for example, users expect cleaner, clearer design. So Microsoft decided it was time to update the font. Carter returned to work on revising the font families and worked with David Berlow of The Font Bureau, and Steve Matteson and Tom Rickner of Monotype Imaging. Microsoft owns the pro versions of the typefaces, but Monotype Imaging and Font Bureau will distribute the fonts.

The new Georgia and Verdana typefaces include 20 different weights and extend sets of characters to help web and graphic designers adapt to the higher design demands of tablets.

The updated typefaces include weights light, semi-bold, and black, each with italics, small caps, old-style figures, and condensed sizes (for the smaller screen space on tablets and mobile devices).

You can download these typefaces now from Fonts.com, linotype.com and itcfonts.com.

Try out the new fonts to show off that “in the know” personality!

Skybox Creative is a San Diego based Branding Agency with an emphasis on Web Design and SEO Get in touch for a free quote on your next design project or search engine marketing campaign! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825.