Skybox Creative Blog

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

“Green” is practically a brand in itself. It’s a label put on products from lightbulbs to SUVs that always brings with it its own design considerations. Images of palm fronds and panda bears used to say ecology, but now, with the green explosion, companies are looking for less literal, more creative ways to say they care about the planet. The San Diego web design and branding firm, Skybox Creative was brought in to bring the brand to life.

We approached their branding from a holistic perspective taking into account everything from product name – “Save me” which is short for “Save Mother Earth” – to their logo design, packaging design and temporary landing page/web page. Each one of our design choices support the feel and philosophy of the company.

Simple Design

Skybox Creative chose a clean, simple and (literally) green design scheme that underscores the company’s eco-friendly message. Their logo features smooth lines, a friendly font and creative use of batteries inside the lettering. The tone of the company is clear – the lower-case lettering tell us that they’re young and fresh and the clever use of batteries inside the letter “m” speaks to a fun and friendly attitude. Their tagline, too, “Save a battery. Save the planet.” is short and sweet – see how simple their green solution is?

The web design color choices underscore the simplicity of the product and the mission. A white backdrop with green and charcoal lettering makes for an easy to read, clean website.

Custom Info Graphics

Save Me’s website makes great use of fun, friendly graphics. We created custom “How it Works” illustrations that are bold and completely stylized to match the look and feel of the brand. Save Me’s overall message that saving the planet can be easy is clearly communicated throughout the brand materials. The illustrations are clean and simple, like the rest of the company’s design. And the Info graphics – the single icons against green circles anchor the page with color, without veering from the clean and clear design look of the company.

Maybe Kermit was wrong. Maybe it IS easy being green. At least Save Me makes it look that way.

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

If less is sometimes more, then nothing is sometimes everything. When designing a logo — whether it’s for web or print –  memorable is key. And as you think about branding your company or launching your print or web design campaigns, one of the most memorable ways to approach logo design is to consider the negative space.

Negative space logo design makes the background a part of the overall design by creating a shape or form using the background color. A number of brands big and small – established and up-and-coming – have created striking and memorable logos with negative space design. They do it in two ways.

Suggest an Image

Probably the most famous example of negative space logo design is the FedEx logo.  Corporate colors, simple font — the logo looks simple. But look again. The white space in “Ex” creates an arrow…pretty clever, huh? This “power of suggestion” design touches subtly on the theme or vibe of a company without hitting the viewer over the head. Negative space is perfect for this kind of “read between the lines” logo design. Another great example is Bull Entertainment — menacing horns just visible in the B!

Create a Complete Image

The other way to go with negative space in logo design is to use it as part of the whole image, or to create a complete form that pops out.

For more inspiring examples of negative space design in logos and web, check out Web Design Ledger.

There’s something about making the viewer do a little figuring that makes them just a little bit more invested in the final image. It feels good to figure something out, and with negative space design, there’s a definitive click of recognition. Look no further than the image that’s gone viral by the billions in the last week to see how negative space can resonate: An iconic tribute to the genius behind Apple, Steve Jobs

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

It’s hard to imagine that brands like Apple, IBM, or Coca-Cola haven’t always sported the iconic logos that we’ve grown up with. But their branding – like everyone’s – has evolved with the times.

Apple

Any discussion about branding has to include Apple. The software, consumer electronics and computer giant wrote the book on marketing starting with their iconic 1984 commercial that shattered preconceptions about computers from San Diego to Seoul. But their first logo was a far cry from the simple silhouette it’s been promoting since the late 90s.  An illustration of Newton under the apple tree captures the breakthrough nature of their first computer, but doesn’t speak to the sleek design that the company has now become known for. Notice the move toward simplification as their consumer electronics brands – iPods and iPads – became their top sellers.

IBM

The evolution of IBM’s brand also traces the shifts in the company’s business focus. Originally named “The International Time Recording Company”, the company anchored its first logo with a centered capital “T” that emphasized its focus on a cutting-edge time recording machine. By 1924, after merging with the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, the company adopted the name International Business Machines – IBM – and changed its logo to reflect its global reach. In the 1970s, looking to emphasize speed, the company adopted a striped logo, which has remained synonymous with the brand ever since.

Coca-Cola

One of the world’s most recognizable brands, Coca-Cola and its red and white is famous from the beaches of San Diego to the markets of Singapore. That white script is immediately familiar – whether in English or Arabic – but did you know that the original look was typeface? Once the company struck on the turn-of-the-century script look, though, they stuck with it. Except for a moment in the 80s, Coca-Cola has been the name in cursive writing. Notice the Pepsi logo began as script, too!

Now, as you think about your logo development, how do you want to be branded?

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.

Watch our 1 minute video for a behind the scenes look at our video shoot yesterday!

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Branding, Web Design + Printing to elevate your brand.

Skybox Creative is a brand consultancy with an emphasis on web development and technology solutions. Get in touch today! info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619.381.3825

Part Brand Development, part “Product Evolution”, Skybox Creative gets hands on with Vigor Systems Inc. to help create their new product line: Advertio™. From naming to logo development, product design, packaging design, vendor coordination and more, Skybox Creative assisted in the making the product launch a reality.

A pre-NAB celebration at Vigor Systems Inc. allowed the team to revel our combined hard work. The team even had an Advertio™ cake made to have a little fun! Our client is attending NAB Las Vegas this week to roll out the new products to potential clients.

Vigor Systems Inc. currently provides custom video solutions for clients such as Warner Bros., CBS and Ascent Media, just to name a few.

For more information on Skybox Creative’s services, such as Brand Development, Product Evolution, Custom Web Development and more, please email us at info@skyboxcreative.com or call us at 619-381-3825.

There has been much discussion and debate around the proposed launch of the revised Starbucks Brand Identity. I’ve been involved in forums and branding groups that have been discussing the topic over the last few months and have heard a lot of conflicting opinions on the topic.

I stepped into Starbucks yesterday to grab an afternoon Mocha and witnessed the brand roll out first hand, from the signage on the door, to the gift cards, mugs, sleeves, coffee packaging and more, the new logo was everywhere (except the cups, strangely enough)… these things take time. As any company knows, the roll out of a re-branding campaign takes time to implement, leaving old logos floating around for months and sometimes years. Think about the overhaul of such a decision in a large corporate entity like Starbucks! On the inside, we’re talking letterhead, corporate binders, internal communication documents, email signatures, etc. On the consumer side, there is each individual store to overhaul (all 17,009 of them) along with ad campaigns, packaging, promotional items, etc. This is no easy task!

Personally, I love the new logo, I think it is a natural evolution of any iconic brand to morph into a more simplified and memorable stamp that speaks for the name. Look at Nike, a classic example of an icon that no longer needs a name, this shows the power of symbolism and brand recognition. It certainly didn’t happen over night though, the powerhouse has been at it for 40 years… longer than I’ve been on this planet!

What do you think of the new brand? Better or worse? Let us know your thoughts below!

Questions? Email us at info@skyboxcreative.com

Skybox Creative, Inc. – Elevate your business with iconic brand + web design.

San Diego Based Award-Winning Creative Studio, Skybox Creative, launches it’s first video to give you a sneak peak into their branding strategy, design process and proven results. Our documentary-style video includes a bit about our services, work samples and testimonials from a few happy clients.

Best Web Design and Branding Studio from Skybox Creative on Vimeo.

Watch the video and get in touch with us today! info@skyboxcreative.com

Skybox Creative is currently in the process of making a promotional video about our company and what we do here on a daily basis (which is a whole lot of varied design, from branding and print, to web and user interface). We thought it was high time this award-winning San Diego branding and web design firm put ourselves, but mostly our work, out in front of the camera in a creative, docu-style video. Our production team – R&R Productions, have been incredibly professional and helpful in achieving our story board vision. The video will be posted here LIVE in few weeks, so definitely check back for the final product!

For now, we’ll wet your appetite with a few BEHIND THE SCENES photos…