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.

Easy.

Make it Easy

Ease of use is key to web design for a mobile device, whether it’s an cellphone or a tablet. Keep in mind that some users have data limits — if sites are bogged down with too many slow-loading graphics, they’ll move on to another site. This can be tricky as designers now need to use graphics at a higher resolution than 72dpi, lest they come out pixelated on high-res screens. Designers need to be mindful of making sure image files aren’t too large.

Clean, simple design can also help the mobile user experience. Easy-to-read fonts and simple layout mean you don’t make the user work to find what he wants. Part of keeping web design simple is to limit the depth, or number of layers, on the site. The rule of thumb, according to a designer at Computer Arts is to build a website with no more than two layers. To do this, you need to know why users are coming to your page. Do they want to see a menu? Check the San Diego weather? Do they need to make reservations? Give them what they want as early in their user experience as possible. Don’t make them work too hard for it.

Keep Em Coming Back

If the user experience is quick, easy and gratifying – that is, if it’s clean, loadable and lets users do what they came to do – chances are, your customers will keep coming back. When in doubt, of course, it’s never a bad idea to check the competition. Sites like MobileAwesomeness feature stand-out mobile web design and let users rate the best of the best. There are some great ideas there — just don’t forget to watch where you’re going.

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.

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.

From the awesome Google Calendar that lets you share your schedule or embed on your website to Google Wave for collaborative projects, Google Feedburner to update followers of new blog posts right to their inbox, to Google Docs for file sharing and form tracking…Google has what you need to make your business run more smoothly!

This post is specifically about Google Docs and the ability to create surveys, or any other type of form for that matter, and track the results in a spreadsheet. You even have the option to “Show Summary of Responses” where the data is compiled into bar graphs and pie charts – so easy a child could understand. There are a variety of templates to choose from (although we hope they add more template design options or at least the ability to customize colors sooner than later, nonetheless, they get the job done). You can create a form with ease, specifying whether you want a checklist, multiple choice question, paragraph answer, etc. Once you have completed the form, you have the option to email it or embed it on a web page (see below).

The results are tracked anonymously in a spreadsheet. You also have the option to share the ‘Results’ spreadsheet through Google Docs sharing options (now available for individual docs and entire folders). We have embedded our Client Satisfaction Survey below so you can see what it looks like. We had to force the width and height of the iframe in order for it to fit in our blog – not perfect, but again, gets the job done. If you embed the form on your blog, make sure to click on the HTML tab first, then paste the code. You can easily adjust the dimensions, just make sure to calculate the proportions to make sure it displays optimally. It’s also good to know that (for whatever reason), if you tab back to Visual, it might erase the iframe code – for this reason, we recommend copy/pasting the code in a text editing application so you can grab it again if needed!

Clients ONLY: Feel free to fill out the form with your feedback! All others, if you are interested in speaking to us about the services we offer, please email us at info@skyboxcreative.com

At Skybox Creative, we love providing the best in web design + branding without ever compromising client care and support. With that in mind, Skybox welcomes to the team Carly Bartkiewicz; account manager and latest addition to an already impressive pool of design field professionals. She’ll be hitting the ground running Рensuring your design, branding, eCommerce, search engine optimization, print and related needs are given their necessary attention to detail and some TLC, too.

Leadership, editing and project management fall directly under Carly’s wide-ranging and knowledgeable skill set. She comes to Skybox from Wheelhouse Media in North County, where she was the managing editor of Carlsbad Magazine, Encinitas Magazine and several contract-publishing projects. Outside of the office-world, Carly enjoys long walks on the beach and puppies. Seriously? Well, no, and although that may be partially true, you will more likely see her out on the soccer field or debating the latest March Madness upset. (She’s a Syracuse University journalism graduate, a central New York college known in part for both their basketball program and top-notch communications school).

Carly is here for our clients, community, friends and fans, so feel free to pick her brain or ask for some web design and branding solutions by emailing carly@skyboxcreative.com.

Now we have quite a few articles here and plan to keep the news coming, so it was time to upgrade our blog. We added an RSS feed for those of you who want to stay in the loop. It is very simple. Just click on the Subscribe RSS icon which will take you to the ‘feed’ page: http://www.skyboxcreative.com/news/feed. Simply choose the reader of choice, if you use Google RSS Reader, which we recommend, all you have to do is copy and paste the feed link into the reader.

If you are an RSS novice, contact us and we would be happy to walk you through the process.