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The business of business cards

Business card design and printing

What small card plays a big role for virtually every business? It’s the business card! (Aptly named, right?) Actually, business cards are critical to building and maintaining a market presence for all sorts of businesses.

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O2-designed business cards, complete with logos, graphics, and Yetis!

Business cards are convenient. Usually no larger than 2 inches by 3.5 inches, these little guys can go just about anywhere – wallets, pockets, bulletin boards, countertop displays…you get the idea. They’re one of the fastest, easiest, most professional ways to share your business information to clients, partners, and prospects alike. And you’ll never know when or where you’ll have to share your business card with a new contact – don’t go anywhere without ’em!

Business cards do wonders for networking. You can easily exchange all sorts of contact info, from your phone number and email to your website and social media pages. Nowadays you can even include high-tech features, such as QR codes, that can direct smart phones to even more information about you and your business.

Business cards also play a distinctive role in advertising. A well-designed card that includes your business’s branding, logo, and other identifiable images and info will make you stand out when you share them with your contacts. They’re a crucial step forward in building brand awareness and market presence as you maintain and grow your business.

Did we say well-designed? That’s where things get real interesting. Business card design has grown leaps and bounds since the days of boring little black-and-white rectangles. There are virtually endless cool new ways to design a business card, including any number of colors, graphics, fonts, tag lines, shapes, sizes, or even unique materials from which to choose.

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For instance, you could choose a card made out of colorful translucent plastic, like the ones we designed for our friends at The Foundry…
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…to even a distinctive wood-grain veneer, like the cards we created for Tabernash Tavern…
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…or even a thicker, multi-layered material, complete with your business’s logo uniquely stamped onto each one, like our own business cards.

The point is, even business card design should be clever and creative. Business cards can do more than simply exchange contact info. They create great first impressions and they help your business stand out in your market. They also bolster brand awareness, especially when your business card incorporates the same logos and branding as your other marketing media.

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If your business needs new business cards, or if you would simply like to redesign your old business cards, contact O2 Creative today. We can work with you to design truly distinctive cards that will reflect the personality of your business and really separate you from the rest of the crowd.

To contact O2 Creative, give us a call at 970-726-8021 or email info@o2creative. Or, just stop by our office some time, and we’ll give you one of our business cards!

Click here for the next post – the blog about blogs!

The rap on vehicle wraps

Have you seen a wrapped vehicle around town lately? Odds are you have – it’s difficult to miss them!

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Grand Lake Brewing’s wrapped truck, designed by O2

Aptly named, a vehicle wrap is a custom design printed on special vinyl material. This vinyl is precision-cut and expertly applied, or “wrapped,” to the exact dimensions of a particular vehicle. Vinyl wraps cover every little corner and curve of the vehicle so perfectly that it’s often mistaken for a custom paint job.

A vinyl wrap is better than a custom paint job, though, in several ways. It’s much less expensive, it’s easier to apply, it actually protects your paint job underneath, and the vinyl can be easily removed or changed if you ever decide to change the colors or graphics on your vehicle.

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O2 Creative also designed this truck wrap for Grand Lake Plumbing.

What sorts of colors and graphics are available, you ask? Well, just about anything! We can design a wrap that includes your logos, taglines, contact info, colors, images, or whatever else you’d like on your vehicle. Yup, that’s right – we can turn your vehicle into an eye-catching advertisement on wheels! Everywhere your vehicle goes, so will the promotional power of your distinctive vehicle wrap. Few other advertisements can organically create attention as well as a vehicle wrap.

We’re big proponents of using vehicle wraps as promotions, too. A vehicle wrap is an advertisement that goes everywhere you go! It’s a great way to gain brand awareness and generate buzz within a community. A wrap is always working for you, even when your vehicle is parked. Vehicle wraps get you noticed!

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O2-designed trailer wrap for our friends at Rocky Mountain Catastrophe

And by “vehicle wrap,” we mean just about any sort of vehicle – cars, trucks, vans, trailers, you name it! We can professionally wrap a single vehicle, or an entire fleet. We are also able to create partial wraps or individual graphics as well. Your wrap can be as simple as a logo displayed on your door, or as extensive as a complete wrap that creates a whole new look for your vehicle.

Click here to read one of our other blogs

If you or your business is interested in vehicle wraps, contact O2 Creative today. Give us a call at 970-726-8021, or email us at info@o2creative.com.

The “Leaving Planet Earth” Sticker Campaign

At O2 Creative, we have a lot of hometown pride. We consider it a privilege to live and work in the Fraser Valley, with its beautiful mountain landscapes, endless activities, and quirky bohemian charm.

We thought the town’s iconic “Leaving Planet Earth” city limits sign was such a fun way to express the unique Fraser lifestyle. In many ways, this town really is “out of this world.”

Fraser, CO - Leaving Planet Earth

We were a little bummed when the Leaving Planet Earth signs were recently removed from the city limits signage. (Whyyy!?) We wanted our town’s extraterrestrial reputation to live on either way, so we designed these fun stickers to keep the sign alive.

Perhaps you’ve seen them around by now. The big green stickers are popping up more and more on car bumpers, snowboards, guitar cases, and all the other fun places stickers get stuck.

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We wanted to get a little more out of this particular campaign, though. We wanted the stickers to do more than simply represent our community. We hope to give something back to the community as well.

That’s why we’re taking a unique direction with this campaign. We’re offering the stickers for just $3 bucks a piece. Or, simply bring non-perishable food items into the O2 office (you know, canned goods – soups, tuna, peanut butter – stuff like that). For every food item you bring in, we’ll give you a sticker for it!

All the proceeds we can raise and all the food we can collect will be going to our friends at the Mountain Family Center in Hot Sulphur Springs. This nonprofit organization provides food and help to Grand County residents. Their services are invaluable to our communities, and they could always use more support themselves, which is why we hope to help them with our sticker campaign.

In fact, if you’re already closer to the Hot Sulphur Springs-side of the county, you can simply stop by the Mountain Family Center to support them. They even have some of our Leaving Planet Earth stickers, so if you make any donations or canned food contributions directly to them, you’ll still get hooked up with a sweet sticker! While supplies last!

We like to have fun with our campaigns. We also like to help out a good cause in our community. So if you want to score a super cool sticker that represents our hometown, while also supporting and strengthening our community, stop by O2 Creative today.

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We’re located in downtown Fraser at 345 Zerex Street, in our new (to us) office on the corner of Eisenhower and Highway 40. If you pay us a visit, we’d be happy to hook you up. Or, if you’re out of the area, we can mail you stickers as well. Simply send us a check made out to O2 Creative, as well as a self-addressed and stamped envelope, to:

O2 Creative
PO Box 1349
Winter Park, CO 80482

You can also contact us by phone at 970-726-8021, or email us at info@o2creative.com

You can do it to support the Mountain Family Center, and all the folks in Grand County who depend on them. Or you can do it just for the stickers. Either way, just “doo eet!”

Click here for our next blog – e-commerce websites!

Case Study: The Foundry

When The Foundry Cinema & Bowl came to Winter Park, they approached O2 Creative with an interesting task: build a brand from scratch. We welcomed the opportunity (we’re kind of dorks like that) and promptly began developing ideas for every detail of the brand development.

Fortunately, we were well aware of the work we had cut out for us. We knew we had to design a logo, signage, a website, rack cards, business cards, posters, advertisements, and lots of other media, not to mention all the other little efforts it takes to make a brand successful.

We knew we had to remain consistent in our branding efforts, so customers could consistently recognize The Foundry’s brand. We also knew everything we designed had to lend itself to the marketability of The Foundry as a whole. We had to express the market identity The Foundry sought to achieve.

We began by designing a logo. We worked closely with The Foundry to create exactly the logo they wanted. In this case, they hoped for a retro-industrial sort of style. We ultimately came up with a classic round logo and combined it with a more modern letter font, which yielded us a handsome logo that we think is bold, clean, and recognizable.

The Foundry Logo design
The Foundry Logo design

We took The Foundry’s new logo and began applying it to other branding efforts. We designed The Foundry’s outdoor sign that lights up big and bright along Highway 40. We think the retro-inspired logo looks especially sharp atop The Foundry’s old school factory-inspired building.

The Foundry outdoor sign
The Foundry outdoor sign

We then wanted some tangible marketing media; something that The Foundry could pass along to customers. With the goal of building brand awareness for The Foundry in mind, we created an integrated mix of branded marketing materials – everything from business cards…

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Foundry Cinema & Bowl business cards

…to pizza boxes.

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Foundry pizza box (even just looking at this one makes us hungry).

After we designed The Foundry’s tangible media, we agreed it was time to get digital. We designed a website and mobile website, both of which make extensive use of The Foundry’s branding and logo. Now The Foundry has a robust online presence. Customers can look up movie times, menus, and bowling info from computers, tablets, and even smart phones.

O2 designed website for The Foundry
O2-designed website and mobile site for The Foundry Cinema & Bowl

We continue to work closely with The Foundry, creating new media to promote all the new events at the cinema and bowling alley. Whenever The Foundry has new movies, bowling events, food and drink specials, or live music shows, we’ll design some fresh promotional media. Each promotion consistently has The Foundry’s familiar round logo and design, which helps maintain and grow brand awareness.

The Foundry 2013 Winter Bowling League Poster
The Foundry 2013 Winter Bowling League Poster

Overall, this is just a few of our branding and marketing efforts for The Foundry. Each element has played a role in helping The Foundry become the successful brand it is today.

We’d also like to mention that we actually enjoy helping our clients with branding efforts. We like the creative challenge of helping a business express its identity to a market. We even kind of have fun with it! With that said, we’d be happy to help you build your brand. If you or your business has any questions with branding, marketing, or design, please contact us. Let’s get creative together!

To contact O2 Creative, call us at 970-726-8021 or email info@o2creative.com.

Click here for our next blog post – Leaving Planet Earth!

Livin’ the Pug Life

At O2 Creative, we’re animal lovers. Anyone who has ever visited us in the O2 office quickly realizes one thing – the dogs are in charge here. Wylie, Sophie, and Thumbelina roam throughout our office, setting the professional tone for the workday. From early Monday until late Friday, the pups are in the office, regardless of rain, wind, snow, sleet, sickness, or even a bad hair day.

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Wylie Fro, pug life

The morning usually begins by responding to lots of important emails.

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Thumbelina checking her work email

They eagerly await the arrival of clients, business contacts, and FedEx deliveries. Well, they’re mostly just eager for the FedEx guy, because he gives them treats.

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Is that FedEx? Treats…

They stay so busy, there’s no time at all to get out of the office. Well…okay, maybe there’s just enough time for a nice walk…

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Who’s ready for a walk?

But they can’t walk for too long. Gotta get back to the office – they have to sit in on lots of important meetings.

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The pooch’s greatest professional strength would have to be their teamwork abilities. They put their heads together to tackle some of the biggest group projects…like napping (which is coincidentally another professional strength of theirs).

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At this point, perhaps you’re thinking all this puppy in the office business is silly – that it’s not actually hard work, it’s just the proverbial piece of cake…

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But, we assure you, these pups all take their jobs very  seriously. It’s all stone-faced business as usual. Does Wylie look like he’s joking around?

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To meet these pups in person, stop by and say hello at the O2 Creative office. You can also follow Pugs and Buggs on Facebook.

Click here for our next blog – Goodbye to the cabin office!

What should your business be doing with social media?

Should your business be on social media? To answer this question, simply ask – are your customers on social media?

The answer is likely a yes, considering how many folks use social media these days. Virtually everyone, every business and organization, and even dogs have an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or some other site. Odds are good that most of your customers already use one or more of the many social media networks. This means that unless your business is making the most of its social media opportunities, then you’re probably not maximizing your marketing potential.

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Social media marketing has many benefits. First of all, it’s free. Most social media platforms don’t charge money to activate, access, or post. The advertisements, specials, and other promotions your business can run on social media will reach both existing customers whom you have already engaged, as well as their friends with similar interests who are potential new customers – social media marketing is viral in nature. With social media you can reach a large customer audience (Facebook alone has over a billion users).

Paid advertisements on social media obviously cost money, but they also offer “geo-targeting,” which works within the social media to direct your message to the most relevant audiences. This means paid social media ads can offer a better return on investment than many other ad mediums.

Publishing on social media can be done almost instantly, so you don’t have to wait for the turnaround and production time that other media may require.

Your business can increase traffic to its website by using social media to direct customers there. If you do not yet have a website, a social media page can serve as your business’s online presence until you get a site up and running.

Social media also allows you to better interact with and understand both your customers and other businesses. You’ll be able to see what your markets are up to, based on their posts and comments. You’ll also be able to communicate directly with your audience, since customers will be able to message you and post on your business’s wall. This allows for new channels of customer service.

Of course, just because most social media is “free” doesn’t mean it comes entirely without cost. An effective social media page takes time and effort to be managed. Accounts must be checked several times a day to make sure your business is maintaining the presence it wants.

Since social media can be published quickly, it also means most messages have a short shelf life before they’re buried at the bottom of everyone’s news feeds. Social media must be updated regularly to stay fresh to your audience. Customers expect a quick response when they message you or post on your wall. Your business must also be prepared to account for and mitigate negative comments if they are posted on your wall. A poorly maintained social media account can look bad in the eyes of customers and hurt a business’s reputation.

Often, a business may not have the social media savvy it takes to build a quality presence, or they may not be able to afford the time and effort that social media requires. That’s where O2 Creative comes into play. We’re experienced with all kinds of social media for all kinds of businesses. We can offer advice and consulting on better social media practices, or we can even manage accounts for businesses. We’ll help your business utilize social media to its maximum potential, and get you better connected with your market.

 Click here for our next blog post – web design!

Digital vs. Print Media

Digital vs. Print Media

Nowadays, consumers are exposed to digital media at least as much as print. The growing prevalence of smart phones and tablets, and the wireless networks that connect them, mean that more and more folks will view media on a digital device. Of course, this also means more and more consumers will view advertisements on digital devices as well.

For marketing and advertising, digital media has several benefits. It can be less expensive than print media, depending on the details of each campaign. Digital campaigns can also usually be produced, launched, and updated faster than print.

Digital media can be interactive in several ways. A promotion on social media allows for marketers to communicate directly with consumers, using messaging, commenting, tweeting, wall posting, and other methods to answer questions and offer incentives. Users are also usually able to search for a digital document, or search within the document itself. A digital advertisement could also be interactive, such as a game or contest that allows for participation and further engages consumers.

Digital ads allow for relatively more control over exactly who sees them than print ads, so marketers can more easily target them toward specific demographics. Many digital ads can generate consumer information as well, offering insight over who exactly is viewing the ads. For instance, Google AdWords and Facebook Ads offer analysis on user trends and successful referrals generated by the advertisements.

This is not to say that print media is dying out – not by a long shot. Print media offers a more physical, tangible medium to consumers. It’s something folks can take with them. It’s more professional, more convenient, and just nicer to be able to give someone a brochure or business card instead of having to say, “Hey, let me email you real fast” or “Hey, go find me on Facebook real quick” every time you want to make a contact.

Print ads can also have a localized presence that’s much harder to achieve with digital media. Signs and banners can create attention and help consumers physically find you. Well placed posters, flyers, and other print media can be distributed within a community to help generate exposure and direct consumers to you. Plenty of consumers also still get information from print media such as newspapers and magazines.

So which one is better – digital or print? That’s a complex and nuanced question, but we think there’s really only one good answer – BOTH.

Each medium has unique advantages, so a good campaign should incorporate both digital and print media. The best ad campaigns utilize the right combination of media, depending on market size and scope, demographic targets, products or services offered, budgetary considerations, and other factors. Certain consumers are best reached on digital media, others still prefer print. The right combination of media channels allows for the best communication with your entire consumer audience, and also maximizes your campaign’s return on investment as well.

At O2 Creative we work extensively with both digital and print media. We can create the most innovative advertisements and get them distributed on the most effective media channels, whether it may be digital, print, or the right combination of both.

After all, the end goal isn’t simply to debate whether digital or print media is better. The end goal is to create a campaign that will be most successful for you.

Click here to read another blog!

Digital vs Print Media
Digital vs Print media

O2 Creative’s new brand logo!

At O2 Creative, we’re always trying to keep things fresh. New concepts, new perspectives, new designs, and new ideas are just another day in the life for us. We’re constantly trying to push the limits for both our clients and ourselves. We strive for a spirit of innovation, and avoid simply reworking the same old tricks.

That’s why we’ve recently decided to rebrand ourselves.

(Considering we spend so much time thinking up new branding for so many other businesses, we thought it was only appropriate to give ourselves a new look as well.)

With our new logo, we went with a design we think is clean, cool, and one-of-a-kind, just like everything else about O2 Creative. We hope you like it, because we sure do.

We want a brand to be unique and recognizable, as individual as the company it represents. We look for branding designs that are contemporary without just being trendy; timeless without being dated; something that will make folks stop and wonder, “Why didn’t we think of that?”

We believe every business should stop and revisit their brand identity every now and then. A well-executed rebranding can improve a business’s presence within its market. It can generate attention from new audiences while also revitalizing the interest of existing customers. And it can ultimately refresh a business’s identity to help it move onto bigger and better things.

If you’re a new startup that is trying to establish an identity, or an existing operation that is thinking it’s time for an updated look, let us know. We’d love to help you design a brand that is sure to make your presence known in your market and your community. And since it’s coming from the clever folks at O2 Creative, you know your new brand is going to be original and exclusive, instantly recognizable yet unlike anything anyone has ever seen.

In other words, we’re all about the freshest, most exceptional brand designs. Because cookie cutters are for baking, not branding.

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O2CreativeOldLogo

To the left is our new logo, which is the one representing us going forward. For reference, our old logo is to the right, which you still may see around from time to time. It has served us well, but over time we decided it wasn’t quite as identifiable as we wanted it to be, and ultimately agreed it was time for a crisper design.

Click here for our next blog post – mobile websites!