Fresh

SXSW Interactive is almost here, so those months of giddy nerd anticipation are almost over! Hooray! But wait, have you studied the schedule yet? Picked your top panels? Perused the party lists? Researched the must-try restaurants and food carts? No?  Well don’t panic yet, you still have a little time. And to help sort through all the madness I’ve compiled a list of tools and sites that are helping me do some pre-planning this year. As a mere SXSW Sophomore I’m far from an expert on the conference or on Austin, but hopefully this post will help you get organized a little bit.

Finding Promising Panels

Sometimes a panel or session that looks amazing based on its short description in the official SXSW handbook turns out to be, ehhhh, not so great.  And of course the one you decided NOT to go to was the must-see panel of the day.  Although you’re not going to pick winners every time, you can help yourself by doing a little research beforehand.

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Over the last couple years I have been salivating over being able to attend the coveted SXSW Interactive Design Conference. This year I have paved myself a path to get down there and soak in the massive amount of inspiration that gets unleashed in Austin this time of year. I couldn’t be more stoked to take it all in… but how on earth am I planning on taking what I hear and retaining EVERYTHING I need to come away a better designer, thinker and doer?

Do I fill up countless notebooks with quotes and drawings, set up my handy tape recorder so next time I feel like re-living the whole weekend I can just flip a switch? Maybe I can just listen carefully and soak it all in, hoping the inspiration seeps in through my pores.

While I most definitely will have a pad and pencil in front of me, I will also have my iPhone, and where there is an iPhone in the hands of an interactive designer… there is the amazing micro blogging tool called @twitter. Have you heard of it? It is kind of a big deal these days. So much of a big deal that its use has become at times… well, overused. I am here to tell you a few easy steps to keeping your followers happy with your content stream. Remember kids, it is all about well placed, relevant content.

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While sorting through the cupboards in my bathroom this past weekend I was puzzled to discover that I owned 23 bottles of lotion: some of these nearly empty, some barely touched, and others well past their expiration date. This got me thinking as to why I seem to forget about all the products I already have at my finger tips, and instead go out and buy the first new item I hear about promising firming, moisturizing, and/or bronzing benefits in a bottle. Like myself, I often witness clients honing in on new technology, overly excited to snatch it up and apply it to their own online marketing objectives, before first asking themselves the question “Do I really need this?”

While change is good, there is something to be said to having a purpose behind each change. We are consumers by nature and always want that new best thing, but why not first take a look at the tools you already have at your disposal and assess if you are indeed using them to their full potential.

Here are some questions to ask when considering whether or not to invest in the next latest and greatest marketing tactic. These might help you figure out if your money is best spent on what’s new or if it’d be better spent fine-tuning what you’re already utilizing.

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While much of the country is still reeling from the effects of massive winter-ness, PDX has had an untimely run-in with Spring for the last week or so. Our cabin fever has been relieved for the moment, and so our thoughts turn towards happy hour on the patio and unplanned use of vacation days.

Now, some of us have a not-so-healthy idea of fun (spring cleaning, anyone?). Of course, often it’s necessary to purge clutter and bad habits, and spring is as good a time to do that as any. In this spirit we wanted to take a moment to talk about some of the best practices we’ve found when working with your design files. Good habits can make the difference between a seamless development process and a complete nightmare, one that will try everyone’s patience and waste valuable time. We’ve even included a little treat at the end to help get you started. Ready to clean house?

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I just found out about this site today, and I really dig the idea! Humble Pied features interviews with creatives (check out the latest post which features Aaron Draplin) over iChat. The advice they share is geared towards recent graduates and folks still finding their way in the industry.

The presentation is super clean and the idea is simple : “One inspiring creative sharing one piece of advice, all over iChat.” Go check it out for yourself!

Don’t drop the ball now that the ball has dropped! That’s right, it’s a new year, and time to make new resolutions and goals as well as re-commit ourselves to standards and quality in web design and development.  One of the most critical periods in the creation of a new (or redesigned) website is what we at eROI call the “Deploy” phase. This is when all the hard work the team has put into a project culminates to one defining moment when you flip the switch and the site “GOES LIVE” for the whole world to see.  But more important than the actual flip-switching is the pre-launch phase where we make sure the site is ready for prime time, so to speak.

One of the most important steps in the pre-launch phase is an in-depth QA process, including usability and cross-browser testing.  But let’s assume that step has already been completed and your site is bug free and looks snazzy in all the major browsers.  Heck, let’s even say you’ve got a kick-ass mobile version and that everything degrades gracefully with javascript disabled, or on a horrible, outdated browser (I don’t think I need to name names here).

Aside from making sure everything works and looks good, here is a list of items to check on and implement (if you haven’t already).  Many of these may seem rather trivial compared to larger issues like site functionality, but the little details are important and you want to put your best face forward when presenting a new website to the world.  The lack of a favicon may not drive people away from your site, but those small details will be noticed and appreciated by users as well as peers in the industry.  Other items on the list can be much more crucial to the usability and success of the site.

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Nobody WANTS to have their blog hacked.  But without a few basic precautions, you could be practically inviting them in without knowing it.

When you install WordPress, you will automatically have a user account named “admin.”  Everyone who knows WordPress knows this.  And that includes the bad folks who want to get admin access to your site.  Because they know that your site probably has an administrator-level account with the username “admin,” half the work is done.  Then they just need to figure out your password.  One of the most common attacks on WordPress sites is called “brute force” password guessing. A script will keep trying different password combinations until it finds the correct one.  They usually aren’t successful, but sometimes they hit the jackpot – and you don’t want your site to be the lucky winner.**

To defend against this type of attack, there are three fairly basic things you can do:

1. Have a good password
2. Get rid of the “admin” account
3. Ban anyone with too many failed login attempt

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Face it: being “behind the times” is the last thing anyone wants. And yet so many brands can fall victim to neglect. This is especially true online, where trends come and go faster than you can say “2.0″and new technology is emerging every day.

Every aspect of a brand needs a little TLC here and there to keep it feeling fresh. Even huge brands with tons of equity in their logo will update it now and then. Expect to devote resources for maintaining your brand! Don’t send it out alone and without the support and love it deserves.

Logos are the Primary Touch Point of Every Brand

A successful logo should have lasting power. It should communicate the goals and values of a company or organization. This isn’t always the case, though. Sometimes goals and values change, sometimes mergers happen, and sometimes color schemes become iconic of an era you’d rather forget. Don’t get me wrong either, you can convey the ideas of history and trust and not feel dated.

A logo change does not need to be ground-breaking to be successful. Don’t feel like you have to re-design it completely. Many times, brands will make subtle changes to their logos as the years pass. Take the Firefox icon for example:

Old Firefox icon at left and redesigned version at right (image via Brand New). You can read the creative brief for the redesign here. Basically, they were looking to modernize some of the textures and the shape of the tail and play down the level of detail.

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This month at eROI there have been some great additions in our tool box. Now, squeezed between our trusty hammer (e-mail marketing), Ban Saw (Custom CMS Development), and shiny red power drill (eROI Event), we are proud to engage in the mobile design and development realm. Our process here at eROI has always been very important, and setting up solid action steps to be successful has taken a bit of trial and error, but what we came out with on the other side is a beautiful addition to an already magnificent house. Yea, that’s right, our tools build kick-ass houses, and here is how we did it for mobile.

First, it is all about the research. Do your research. It is very important to understand all the limitations that go along with designing and developing for mobile devices. There are plenty of online resources out there that can aid you in your journey. We have found a couple great tutorials such as Engage Interactive “Tutorial: Building A Website For An iPhone,” to be quite helpful for our internal team, and you can see a great post about some of our design inspiration right on this blog, “Menagerie of Mobile Madness.” It is always nice to learn the rules before you break them.

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Part of being a designer for “new media” means constantly exploring new tools and techniques to get the job done. Right now I’m geeking out on LittleSnapper, a sweet little app from RealMac software. It’s not really a new tool, but it’s found it’s way into my workflow quite nicely. It’s essentially a screenshot powerhouse, giving you the ability to capture anything you see on your screen and save it in a beautiful gallery interface for reference later. It uses a system of tags and categories to help organize, and with it’s built-in browser, it can make documenting a website a snap (no pun intended) for things like training guides and case studies.

LittleSnapper from RealMac software

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