Our sales office design and installation at Signature Place at Garfield has been nominated for a 2011 NJBA Sales & Marketing Award at the Atlantic Builders Convention in Atlantic City!

Have you seen the new MIT logo? Featured on Fast Company, this logo represents the lab’s first true brand identity. Identity elements of the past were inspired by the IM Pei design of the lab building. This new identity is based on an algorithmic formula that allows 40,000 ways to customize it, so media labbers can make the mark unique to them – this takes the idea of changing a mark to its most personal level.

“Folks select a design on a web-based platform, and once they’ve made their choice, no one else can poach it; it’s as personal as a Social Security number.”

Importantly, this also expresses the cutting edge innovation that is at the heart of the MIT Media Lab brand.

So, what are your thoughts? Is this type of dynamism the future of identity design?

We planned, designed, built and installed a bunch of new signs at River Pointe by Del Webb. See them here.

It was also a cold day with the average temperature hovering around 15°. The install team set out at 9am for Carmel, NY, the first stop and highlight of the day to install amenity banners at The Retreat at Carmel. The banners are one of the two-part signage install at The Retreat. Once the ground thaws out we will be back to install our hand-hewn timber frame signage to establish a branded look for the community that will set it apart from the rest.

The next stop took the team over to Brighton Green in Newburgh, NY to deliver new directional signs that have gone missing after all the snow that has blanketed the area. Then they headed back south into New Jersey to check in on the offices at Signature Place at Garfield and Overlook at Highland Park. The office in Highland Park also suffered a loss of signage due to a snow plow so a replacement was delivered.

All-in-all it was a productive day, a banner day in fact.

There are plenty of analytics packages that you can plug in to your website. Google Analytics, is Google’s and besides being free, here are the advantages.

Google is not just the #1 search engine, they’re also a voting machine. They determine, through numerous factors, if your site deserves to be on the first page of search results or the next, or the last. Google is always trying to improve the quality of their search results. One way of doing this, is to follow the search user from the search (at Google) to the site they found in the search. Before Google Analytics, Google had no way of doing this. Now, they can remain tethered to the search user if they click on a search result that has Google Analytics installed.

For Google, it let’s them know if the search was a good search or a bad one. And that is determined by the bounce rate. How long or how short does a user stay at the website/page they found from the search. If they don’t stay very long, like less than 20 seconds, we can assume that whatever content they saw on the site they landed on was not what they were originally searching for, or was not compelling/engaging enough for them to stick around.

For you, reviewing and understanding your sites analytics helps you build better content and ultimately a website that attracts visitors. It also allows you to scrutinize minute details of each visitor. See the photos below. Since the beginning of May, 2010, our site has been attracting a specific returning visitor out of Manasquan, NJ. Just as recently as today they spent some time exploring our site. I’ve blocked their outgoing service provider for security reasons but as you can see, Google Analytics helps us pinpoint their exact location in Manasquan. Perhaps they like our site or are interested in what we are doing. Maybe they are looking for inspiration. Whatever the reason, we welcome them each and every day they visit with new and up-to-date content.

Whether you are Google or the owner of the site, knowing your analytics and reviewing them is pinnacle to understanding what your site visitors are experiencing. Having 15,000 unique visitors is great. Finding out they all came and went in one hour and you’re bounce rate was 85% for that day means that your marketing was awesome to drive traffic, but your content on the page scared them all away. And the bounce rate is just one many juicy analytics that is being collected all day long, month after month.

If you’re too afraid to look at your analytics, email me and I’ll introduce you to a world you need to know.

Cheers,

Stephen Foster
VP/Creative Director, Studio F Design

If you are anything like me, this is about the time you remember the resolutions you never kept or the bad habits you never improved. It’s when you decide to look forward, and promise to do, and be better than the year before.

However, I rarely reflect on what I’ve learned that made me grow in a good way. I may not have overcome my chronic over-snoozing or finished a project before starting another, but I worked hard, learned a lot, and hopefully became a stronger designer. Here are 10 things I learned as a designer in 2010.

1. Verbal communication is just as important as visual communication.

2. I can’t be afraid of change, and should design keeping in mind that everything is constantly evolving and plan to adapt.

3. I have a lot to learn but also a lot to offer.

4. Passion is key – in and out of work. Making time for the hobbies, people, and things that are important to me gives me more mental capacity to focus on design at work.

5. Run my ideas past people before getting too deep into them. Talking it out helps me make decisions faster.

6. Get opinions from people other than designers.

7. Always be open and aware, often times, inspiration doesn’t strike between 9 and 5. (or when you are awake)

8. Stand up for good ideas – but don’t be afraid to let go of ideas too. A new, better one will come along if this one doesn’t work.

9. Change it up. Trying new tactics for brainstorming and leaving the office to work helps me stay inspired.

10. It’s okay to be scared or nervous. It keeps things interesting.

What did you learn in 2010? Happy New Year and good luck in 2011!

Every snowflake has its own unique shape and is different than all other snowflakes.

The average snowflake falls at a speed of 3.1 miles per hour.

The largest snowflake recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records fell at Fort Keogh, Montana and was 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick.

A snow storm becomes a blizzard when visibility is under 1/4 mile and the storm continues for more than 3 hours with winds of 35 mph.

When combined, windblown snow and black dirt make what is called snirt.

Plans change, conditions change, all things change when there are two 4×5 foot concrete drainage tubes right under the entry monument where we had planned to dig and install the Windsor Cove entry sign. Drilling and attaching the sign to the wall turned out less painful than digging through the frozen earth.

It’s a labor of love and we do it right here in our workshop creating anything necessary from custom cabinets and display bases to full custom furniture and museum installations.

We built this custom cabinet with a handmade, expandable hanger system for architectural plans.

Detail of woodwork and metal work.

We have kept quiet, put our heads down and focused on the work for the past few months developing innovative installations, creating hand-crafted signage, branding bold identities and designing captivating campaigns. Now it is time to share what we have been doing and really speak out about our innovations in environmental design, touchscreen technology and compelling campaigns that jump out and grab peoples attention. This is just the beginning for our new design company and we are poised for more good things this coming year.

We have also been looking at other cool work. It is just as important to take a bit of time and see what others are doing, as it is to strengthen our own skills.

Samsung Tweet Wrap- Create wrapper paper covered in your tweets!
Pro: They will actually send you your own free roll.
Con: Nothing much to do with Samsung
http://pages.samsung.com/us/tweetwrap/

QRWrapping Paper- The world’s most interactive wrapping paper
Pro: QR codes connect to funny little videos
Con: I can’t direct it to my own site of choosing- no custom qrwapping paper
http://www.qrappingpaper.com/

Nespresso- amazing motion site for coffee machine company to feature its new variations for coffee pods
Pro: They have games you can play- like the almond gun- motion is very well done
Con: Seems like a very large spend that frankly doesn’t look like it is affecting the brand in any huge way. The intro sequence- while cool- takes forever. I didn’t make it to vanilla.
http://www.nespresso.com/variations/

PsykoPaint- Painting for those that are artistically challenged
Pro: upload your photo and use the special effects tools to make it look awesome
Con: if you are Mac savvy- you are probably laughing at me right now
http://www.psykopaint.com/

Unevolved Brands- Take the brand down to basic circles and colors-see if you can guess them
Pro: how smart you feel when you can figure one out without much thought
Con: There are no answers listed. Yep if one has you stumped- I guess you could try googling it?
http://unevolvedbrands.com/