Web Design, Graphic Design, UI/UX - Rediscover Your Brand℠

How Web Presence Impacts Overall Brand Positioning

Recent research about how small businesses use websites and social media suggests some striking trends: One in five small businesses use social media in place of a website, yet 24% of small businesses report that they do not have a formal strategy guiding their social media presence. The findings come from Clutch, a research and reviews firm based in Washington DC. “Sometimes business owners think web design is the last thing they need to think about,” says Vanessa Petersen, ArtVersion’s Executive Director of Strategy. “But once you make that decision to put in the work to [build a website], it’s amazing what it can do to ease some of the burdens of doing business.” One such burden is managing a small business’ online reputation, which is significantly easier when a small business manages their own website and tends strategically to their online presence overall. Build Trust and Credibility By providing…

Cultivating Innovation: Viewing Constraints As Opportunity

With business growth as the goal of most brand strategies, innovation has become a necessary aspect of making market impact. Within the creative industry, stakeholders are faced with a daily challenge – given a set of guidelines to create the next big thing. To some, this process can be seen as daunting, cumbersome and even stifling with no creative outlet. But the reality is that creativity can actually flourish under pressure. When it comes to design, campaigns and brand initiatives – constraints may actually enable true innovation. Without this material direction – the process can continue without resolution, and therefore continues to loop. Giving form to the process ensures that the ideas and material that make it to the top can be realized, turning into projects that can authentically support the brand. Creative Positioning Once constraints are viewed as opportunities, there arises a positive tension that can be seen as an…

Design DNA: Achieving Brand Transparency

Creating the pathways to deliver the optimal brand experience through design requires the careful and meaningful integration of strategy and creativity to produce the ideal outcome for both company and consumer. There’s little question as to what a brand needs to serve it’s user – information, trust, intelligence, and speed – just to name a few, but it’s a level of transparency, delivering authenticity that is essential to creating meaningful engagement. An open view into an organization breeds a level of extreme trust not found easily. Whether explaining a manufacturing process in detail, providing clear deliverables on a service or offering true costs of goods sold – these are the aspects that can even go as far as to build a mission and become what a company is known for. One of the biggest questions for organizations operating, particularly in the digital sphere, is how to not only give the perception…

ArtVersion Presented With Nine Top Honors from Vega Awards

Celebrating the best in digital media excellence, each year, Vega Digital Awards recognizes and honors the outstanding performance, talent and effort of the best digital and creative professionals, web developers, web designers and web agencies around the world. Alongside the best ad agencies, public relations firms, interactive agencies, web designers – ArtVersion is pleased to have been awarded a record 9 honors for 2017, including four prestigious Canopus (1st Place) Awards and five Centauri (2nd Place) Awards. Members of the 2017 Vega Awards Jury is composed of a group of prestigious and highly respected individuals handpicked from the digital and creative industry around the world. Among the projects honored, ArtVersion was recognized across multiple areas of expertise inlcuding design and strategic concentration inclusive of three website designs: Cristaux, Tiara, and JetRails. Cristaux Tiara Salon JetRails 2017 ArtVersion Vega Awards Summary Canopus (1st Place) – W17007 Beauty and Cosmetics – Tiara…

Brand Centered Marketing: How The Right Imagery Affects Strategy

In marketing and advertising, whether print or digital, no element is arguably more essential than imagery. With roughly 80 percent of consumers more likely to read a piece of content that contains colorful, relevant visuals – an integrated and aligning image strategy is a highly effective method for increasing market share. If a brand is not effectively using imagery as a part of an overall marketing strategy – they are missing out on revenues and valuable conversion opportunities. Marketing strategy encompasses a wide range of activities, but they all work together to produce brand image. The presence of a positive brand image is critical to the longevity of a business, and imagery is a powerful tool in forging this connection with the consumer and overall industry performance. Brand-centric and customized imagery – including illustrations, custom photography and carefully curated stock photography can boost a brand’s position and recognition in the…

Brand Experience is All-Inclusive

It’s easy to get immersed in the digital aspect of a brand experience with measurable ROI and supporting interactive elements, but creating a total brand experience goes far beyond virtual. Successful brand strategy and campaign development encompass touchpoints that expand to all aspects of a user’s relationship with a company or brand. From the first point of contact to conversion all the way to customer retention strategies – brands must leverage all platforms possible to guide the experience to sustain a lasting relationship. Since attending PRINT 17 earlier this month, the ArtVersion team has been reflecting on the strength of graphic communications when paired with great design. Discussing industry-ranging innovation, education, and methodologies – the team was given an up-close look at the latest technologies and trends for pathway implementation. With the power to forge connections and change the face of business, marketers, and designers must utilize these tools to…

Trending Web Design: Card & Dynamic Grid Layouts

Whether a website design is minimalist or maximalist in style, one layout element remains true – the design must be sharp and easy for the user to navigate. Grid and card layouts have become widely used for sites of all types, but primarily for pages with a high volume of data or relevant calls to action. The popularity of cards can best be attributed to the rise of mobile usage. Though it is used widely by designers and developers – the trend will certainly continue – and for good reason. Delivering digestible information in a clear way allows a user the ability to consume a great deal of information at one time. Acting as ‘containers’ for content, their usually boxy shape lends easy arrangement across multiple devices. Originally gaining ground via image sharing and social media platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram, cards have become one of the go-to implementations…

Right Now: Five Packaging Trends Driving Brand Growth

Packaging design trends provide us with direct insight into what consumers feel, what problems they need to solve and what is coming next. Today, it’s all about connection, understanding and engagement. Designers are tasked with uncovering, realizing and articulating what is important to a consumer and to direct that experience. Through story, shape and structure, designers and brands can deliver the experience to make invaluable connections that last a lifetime. Brand Basic Gone are the days of generic or in house brands being a bad thing. House labels from brands like Amazon, Whole Foods, Target and Trader Joes – even luxury brands are emerging to focus on simplicity and clarity. A departure from the often headache inducing ‘world of choice’ that permeates store shelves, basic brands are the ‘unchoice’ making purchasing a straightforward affair. Heritage Nothing quite strikes a chord with consumers than a brand who has been around the block a time…

Merging Marketing, Design and Sales Efforts Into An Aligning Digital Strategy

Today, standard business operations increasingly exist primarily on digital platforms, challenging users’ relationships and interactions with an organization. Vital to a successful business, these channels must be recognized, developed and thoughtfully implemented. Acting as the fundamental delivery method of determining this engagement, the use of a digital strategy is essential for any organization. With the goal of brand awareness, increased outreach and market share gain, business owners make investments in these critical pursuits without having core strategies in place and even more worrisome – jumping into resource draining marketing plans that simply don’t align with their business goals or brand messaging. Often marketing, design and sales departments operate in linear motion with only a few essential cross functional touch-points along the way. This results in duplicate activities, watered down results and a disjointed overall experience. So how can these efforts merge – allowing a digital strategy to align with business…

Key Principles of Creating an Immersive Web Design

It’s now more important than ever to deliver an online experience that authentically delivers the perspective of the brand it represents. Leveraging a combination of visual, contextual, graphic and textual elements – a brand has the ability to make stronger connections. From initial perceptions to emotions and behavioral responses – the more connective the experience is, the deeper the loyalty between brand and user will be. By approaching a strategy inclusive of immersive web design – users are greeted with new developments in interactivity, design technique and integrated engagement. These implementations create an experience that is both memorable, useful and provides an ease of use to the user. Immersive web experiences are truly the next level of engagement, creating an environment that is seamless and entertaining to the user, but is actually quite complex. Though immersion can be any number of implementations inclusive of animation, transitions, webgraphics or micro-interactions – one of the…