Skybox Creative San Diego Website Design

So you have 3 kids, a lively variety of ages, and the toys are piling up faster than you keep track, not to mention the bills. Guess what, it’s time to move to a new house! You cringe as you peer into the garage where dozens of barely-used toys are tossed in a heap covered in a thick layer of dust. If dust was the only problem, you might be able to sell them, but the sun has gotten to them, so there is really no good option. Sadly most of them end up in the trash…you think to yourself, there’s got to be a better way!

This is exactly what happened to Carlos Algarin, founder of rentAtoy, Inc. (http://www.rentatoy.com).

With a genius idea on his hands, he started his research and found out that a few successful toy rental companies already existed, most of them outside of the U.S. It was confirmed, he had a valid business idea on his hands, the brainstorming process began. How would rentAtoy create a superior brand in an industry that is still unfamiliar to the average consumer?

Enter Skybox Creative (http://www.skyboxcreative.com). With extensive B2C experience and local landmark clients, such as Pangaea Outpost (Pacific Beach), Flower Hill Promenade (Del Mar) and the San Diego Film Festival, rentAtoy sought out their award-winning branding + web design expertise. Skybox Creative pulled up their sleeves and got to work on the promising new brand.

Everything from the candy color palette to the shinny, playful logo scream ‘kid-friendly’. Skybox Creative wanted to create a memorable tagline that would drive the message home for parents: Happiness Delivered. Short and sweet. The tagline curves under the logo to form a smile, reinforcing the message non-verbally. The meerkat mascots were modeled after Carlos’s 3 munchkins, personalities, favorite toys and all.

Brand Identity + Character Development

The biggest challenge of all was that often the first thing that came to mind was germs! With a ‘clean feeling’ baby blue in the background and an impressive flash video reinforcing that the toys are GUARANTEED Safe and Clean, the web site was an instant hit! Skybox Creative also encouraged a safety tab in the main navigation for those concerned, where they could read about rentAtoy’s strict safety standards. As a father of three, Carlos would never allow anything to be shipped that he would not give to his own children.

On the Back of their business cards, it says it all: fresh toys delivered to your door every month. save time. save money. be green. This concise statement became the staple of their advertising and branding campaign for one good reason, people get it.

San Diego is excited about rentAtoy! They have already received tons of press from Channel 8 News to Fox News and more. Their stellar brand image and messaging give rentAtoy a competitive advantage over their single U.S. competitor who clearly did not invest much into their brand identity.

Filled with ambition and armed with the right tools, rentAtoy is on their way to the top. Thanks to Skybox Creative, their dream is now a reality. Watch as they grow.

There are now forty iStock Inspectors around the world. It’s their job to dig into the Queue and give every single submission the thorough eye-balling that it deserves. Many of our designs have been selected for display on the worldwide iStock community’s Designer Spotlight! Have a look at some of our featured web designs below:

Skybox Creative Web Design

http://www.istockphoto.com/design_spotlight_details.php?ID=20628

Gelato Web Design

http://www.istockphoto.com/design_spotlight_details.php?ID=11666

Skova Design Website

http://www.istockphoto.com/design_spotlight_details.php?ID=20629

Your Fit Friend Web Design + Social Network

http://www.istockphoto.com/design_spotlight_details.php?ID=20630

Century Transportation Web Design

http://www.istockphoto.com/design_spotlight_details.php?ID=20631

Now share your PPT and PDF presentations with the world! Simply add the SlideShare Application to your LinkedIn profile, then upload your files, up to 100MB!

You can embed the presentation with a code provided or share the URL, like you see below, with friends and business associates! Great tool. The internet is crazy!

We uploaded our corporate brochure >> Click here to view!

Our client rent A toy launched their new web site this month!

The website is http://www.rentAtoy.com/, it is the Netflix of the toy industry. A green company with a big idea. It’s genius really. Already showing a promising future, on December 4th, they received thousands of hits to their website from around the world.

rent A toy is steps ahead of the competition. 1. They have a better selection of toys (including Nintendo Wii, Leapster and more!) 2. More affordable monthly rates 3. Toys for a wider age range 4. An impressive brand image + website 5. They are local! In fact they have a booth set up at the Fashion Valley Mall for the holidays (next to Santa)

rent A toy Booth - Fashion Valley Mall

Skybox Creative was responsible for the brand creation, character design and web development including complex Flash animation and back-end database system.

Watch the News 8 feature story

Click the link below to view the photo gallery from the event!!

The hottest networking party of the year!

Skybox Creative in combination with Lets Play Downtown host the hottest networking mixer of the year!! Click on the images below to view the media clips!!

Skybox Creative celebrated our 2 year anniversary with a very special networking mixer. We have built our business on relationships and this was our chance to give back. We knew our clients and friends would benefit from coming together to network and mingle. The outcome? Everyone had a blast and great connections were made!

We raffled off gifts totaling hundreds of dollars in dining gift cards, beauty treatments, boot camp classes and more! As we grow each year, we plan to celebrate with a mixer for all of our clients, business associates and friends!!

Skybox Creative - 2 Year Mixer

Skybox Creative - 2 Year Mixer

Link building is one of the most important search engine optimization steps. Without good inbound links, your website cannot get high rankings. Although it is very important that your website has optimized content, without the links to your website, search engines won’t consider that content much.

It’s important to get the right links to your website. Link spamming doesn’t work. You must make sure that you get high quality links that Google and other search engines like.

Step 1: Make your website linkworthy

You must make your website linkworthy. You cannot expect that other websites link to your website if your site is basically a collection of affiliate links or an online shop that looks like a thousand other online shops.
Your website must be different. Try the following:

• Add articles about your products or services to your website.
• Add tutorials and how-to articles about the topic of your website.
• If you have a lot to say, add a blog to your website.
• Add a directory with links to valuable resources on your website.

Step 2: Check your competitors

The best way to start link building is to duplicate the links that your competitors have. Find all websites that link to your competitors and then try to convince them to link to your website.

You can then check the websites one after the other and convince them to link to your website.

Step 3: Get links from blogs

There are millions of blogs on the Internet and they all need something to write about. Getting links from blogs is a good way to get links from related websites.

Bloggers give out millions of free links each month. Make sure that you get your share of these links.

Step 4: Get links from Internet directories

Submitting your website to Internet directories can be a good way to show Google that you have a reputable website. Low quality websites usually don’t invest the time and money that is needed to be listed in Internet directories.

An easy way to submit your website to many Internet directories as possible is IBP’s directory submitter.

Inbound links are very important if you want to get high rankings on search engines. You should optimize your web page content first to make sure that search engines find your website relevant to your targeted keywords.

If more than one website has been optimized for the same keywords (and that’s usually the case) then the website with the best links will get the best rankings.

Suppose that you have a great website with great content. Your web pages are perfectly optimized for visitors and search engines and you have found many related websites that could link to your site.
How do you convince these websites that they should link to your website? Here are five tips that will help you to convince other webmasters.

1. Offer something in return
The easiest thing that you could offer is a link in return. However, not all webmasters want to exchange links.
There are many things that you could offer in exchange for a link. This could be a discount for your products, an ad on your website or even a simple hint.
If you find a broken link on a website, inform the webmaster about the link. Tell him that your own website might be a good replacement for the broken link (if it is).

2. Ask your current link partners
If another website already links to you then they might add another link to a different page on your website.
Getting a second link from existing link partners is much easier than getting new links because you don’t have to explain yourself anymore. The other webmaster already knows you and your site.

3. Make friends with people from your industry
Networking can help you to get links to your website. This works best with blogs that are related to your website.
Contact the blog owners and compliment on their sites. Do not ask for a link in your first contact. When you’ve a good relationship with the blog owner, you might inform him about a new product or a new article that you’ve written.
Chances are that you’ll get a link from the blog then. These links from related blogs have a great impact on the position of your website in Google’s search results. IBP can help you to find blogs that are related to your website.

4. Show that other webmasters already linked to your website
It’s easier for people to do something if they see that other people have done the same thing before. If many other websites link to your website, you could mention this in your link request.
If a well known website mentioned your site, that’s even better: “As you might have seen on NYTimes.com, we’ve published a new product. This might be interesting to the visitors of your website.”

5. Offer something that other people don’t have
This is the easiest way to get links. If you have a report with ground-breaking new information or something other that’s very interesting and only available on your website then it will be very easy to get links to the page that contains that information.

Getting links from other websites isn’t difficult if you know how to do it. Further information about link building can be found in our free SEO book. The book explains everything you need to know to get links from related websites, Internet directories and other sources.

Google is usually really great about launching something exciting.  Wow - they had people excited with chrome.  A comic book release and some gorilla marketing never did so well for a company as it did for Google Chrome.

Then they dropped the ball.  Google has this incredible arsenal of tools that they give out to the masses for free.  They include, but are not limited to:

Custom buttons
Send To
Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Enhanced Search BoxGoogle
Safe Browsing
Google Safe Browsing
AutoFill
WordTranslator
Auto Update
Bookmarks
Google Account Sign-in
Subscribe to Feed
Send with Gmail
Custom Layouts
AutoLink
SpellCheck
PageRank Display
Highlight Search Terms
Word Find Buttons

And how accessible are they in the new Google Chrome browser?  Well… they aren’t there.  As a matter of fact, there isn’t even a toolbar.  Well, I am sure the browser is totally awesome and has lots of great features just ready to emerge when the open source community gets going on it.

Well Google - I could have been using your browser to write a nice blog about you today, but alas, I am let down.

Google Chrome Beta

Can you believe it?  Google is about to launch it’s web browser.  First they released a comic about it.

Now every internet news source is talking about it, as if it creeped up from nowhere.  Well, lets’ be real for a moment.  We have been talking about a Google Operating System for years.

Google Chrome Screen Shot

This browser is is unique because not only is it built from the ground up by Google, but it is also build with web applications in mind. You can get your list of features at the unofficial Google Chrome Browser website.

When the Download for Google Chrome is available you should be able to download it here.

So, what does this mean for us?  Well, first off, it gives us another browser to test our sites in and to verify that our designs are cross browser functional.  If gives us more toys to play with.  It gives us the secutity to know that it is likely Google will once again find another way to track our information and likely, deliver ads.  At the end of the day, I am ok with that.

So far, the “Do No Evil” company has done a fine job of delivering us with the best, most useful features, apps, resources and advertising opportunities.  We talk about Google hell as if it is a bad place for our sites to be in, and that is because it is.  We need Google to help us, and in turn we should help them.  I am happy to let them know about my viewing trends and the products I like.  They will just serve up what I want faster and more accurately.

As it is right now, they have been playing more on popularity than qualitative results (as far as I am concerned) however, I have faith that they will come around, and when they do - it could be fantastic!

Next up, gOS - not the Google OS, but a Linux Distro that has some great features!