We won a Davey!

Award Winning Avertisng Agencies!

Big news for O2!

Lots of folks already know we’re O2 Creative, that cleverly creative marketing and design agency up in the mountains…but now we have something to add…

As of last week, now we’re O2 Creative, that AWARD WINNING cleverly creative marketing and design agency up in the mountains!

Yup, that’s right – we won a Davey!

Our design and marketing work has been recognized by the Davey Awards, an international creative award organization that honors small firms with big ideas – you know, just like “Davey” took out Goliath with a small rock and a big idea.

We submitted some of our favorite work we did for one of our favorite clients, The Foundry Cinema and Bowl. Our work has been awarded a Silver Award in Davey’s “Integrated Campaign” category, a category that features 2-5 pieces of work from at least two different mediums – print media, website and mobile web design, signage, etc.

To showcase the consistency in branding that we’ve worked so hard to achieve for The Foundry, we submitted 5 different pieces of work:

The Foundry’s exterior signage:

The Foundry’s website:

The mobile website:

Promotional posters for tournament bowling:

And finally, a wood-fired pizza box packaging:

We wanted our logo and branding direction to be an extension of The Foundry’s retro-industrial building design. For the outdoor sign, we created a large backlit neon-style sign mounted atop The Foundry with metal scaffolding, similar to the signage of some of the more classic industrial buildings of days past:

For the website and mobile site, we wanted a very clean, simple design that also retained the retro-industrial elements of other Foundry designs. We incorporated an “eroded” look for some of the web graphics, to give the website an old school, broken-in sort of feel.

The mobile site features simple icons so users can easily find movie times and other info. The website features a rotating photo banner, which is meant to visually showcase the unique guest experience at The Foundry. Up-to-the-minute movie times are also displayed on the website’s home page.

The promotional posters were intended to generate buzz locally for The Foundry’s tournament bowling league. We again kept the design simple. We used the tagline of “Where Local Legends Are Born” to further entice local bowlers into signing up. To help illustrate bowling and to further create attention, we included bowling pins dressed up as characters from one of our favorite bowling movies.

The pizza boxes were again kept clean and simple. We included The Foundry’s logo to consistently bolster brand awareness. We tastefully added The Foundry’s contact info, and also included stylized flames to bring attention to The Foundry’s unique wood-fired pizza.

Almost 4,000 firms from around the world entered their work in addition to ours, so we consider it a real honor to be recognized among so many other talented agencies. We don’t mean to completely toot our own horn about this, but we really are just that excited about being recognized!

With that said – we want this blog post to be a big THANK YOU – to the Davey Awards, to The Foundry, to all our clients, friends, family, and to anyone and everyone else who have helped us become an award-winning creative agency!

Thanks again, everyone!

Contact us at [email protected]

Read about print vs digital media here

Photo files explained

Photo Files explained

At O2, we work with digital photo files every day. There are lots of photo file types to choose from, and it’s not always clear which one to choose. Here are a few of the more common photo files explained.

JPEG: This is perhaps the most common photo file format. A Joint Photographic Experts Group, or JPEG file, is the standard method of “compressing” an image file. This means the pixel variations in the file are “compressed” on a minute level so that the file will take up less memory space. Because they can be compressed, JPEGs are a good option when memory space is at a premium, but JPEG files tend to be a slightly lower quality as well.

PSD: This is the standard file format for a Photoshop image (Photoshop is a fancy image editing program we designers often use). PSD files have an advantage when it comes to image design and editing – a PSD file can be easily edited, layered, colored, filtered, and otherwise manipulated for design work. If you anticipate a lot of editing work to be done on your photo files, PSD is a good choice.

TIFF: A Tagged Image File Format, or TIFF, is an uncompressed high-quality file format. TIFF images maintain the most detail when saving an image, though they also take up the most memory space. TIFF files are good if you need the highest-quality images possible, though they can be difficult if your camera has a small and/or slow memory card.

RAW: This format is used with DSLR cameras. (DSLR stands for Digital Selective Resonance Imaging, which is a fancy way of saying a professional-quality camera). RAW files capture the “raw” image with no digital processing or enhancements. RAW files are arguably the highest-quality file format, though they also take up the most memory space because of it.

There are many other files we could have mentioned, but these are the ones we probably encounter the most. So which files do we prefer? Actually, we’re accustomed to working with any and all file formats. As a rule of thumb, however, we find that JPEG files are easiest to work with for digital media (e.g. designing a website or online ad), and higher quality TIFF files work best for print media.

If you have any other questions about anything we mentioned in this week’s post, from file types to print media, give us a holler! You can call us at 970-726-8021 or email us at [email protected].

Is Print Dead? Read here to find out.

E-commerce websites

Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, is the term used to describe transactions conducted over electronic systems, such as the Internet or other computer networks. And nowadays, just about everyone has shopped online before. Businesses large and small are taking advantage of the Internet marketplace to generate sales online.

So what can e-commerce do for you business?

Actually, e-commerce offers a lot of advantages to retailers and wholesalers alike. They can be considerably less expensive for businesses, allowing transaction costs to go down in the long run. They can allow for better, more efficient customer service opportunities. And e-commerce is not bound by geography or physical location, which can allow businesses to easily gain unprecedented presence in markets both near and far.

Establishing an e-commerce site can be a very cost-effective way of selling your product or service. Once your e-commerce website is up and running, the shopping and billing processes are automated, which allows for transactions to be conducted with fewer employees on the clock.

E-commerce websites can also save businesses money in the form of rent or property expenses. With e-commerce, a physical location is not even necessarily necessary, though many businesses enjoy a robust increase in sales by offering an e-commerce website in addition to their brick-and-mortar store.

Better customer service can also be achieved with an e-commerce website. Online messaging and emails can be used to better interact with customers. Product information is much easier to convey and maintain as well. A product description online, complete with information from manufacturers, is often more thorough than the info an in-store employee could provide on the spot.

Products and services can be found more easily, since simply entering terms into a search engine can go a lot faster than having to search up and down the aisles of a physical location. E-commerce also allows for 24/7 transactions, and customers will never have to wait in line, so they can buy from you whenever they want.

In addition to buying whenever they want, customers can also buy your products from wherever they want. There are no geographic or travel limits with e-commerce – you can do business with just about anyone who has access to the Internet. This helps increase your exposure not only in your existing market, but also exposes you to new markets as well. All this increased exposure means increased sales for your business.

E-commerce also offers unique business opportunities, such as targeting niche markets. For instance, if you sell unique or individualized products or services, it may be difficult to attract customers to a physical store location. However, an e-commerce site makes it much easier for customers to find you, since your niche offering is now just a few quick clicks away. Proper Search Engine Optimization efforts can make it even easier for new customers to find your e-commerce site online, which makes it even easier for you to grow as a business.

One example of using e-commerce to serve unique markets is our friends at Rare Finds, a business that specializes in selling rare and collectible furniture and antiques. They have a physical location, but they wanted to increase sales and grow to new markets. We recently designed an e-commerce site for them, rare-finds.com, which allows them to offer their unique products to anyone on the Internet. Now their customers range near and far, not just in one corner of one geographic market.

E-commerce can also…shoot, are we still listing all of e-commerce’s benefits? Perhaps we should try to wrap this post up, before this blog becomes a novel. That said, we really could go on and on about the benefits of e-commerce websites. We can even help you set up a secure e-commerce website of your own, just like we did for Rare Finds. So, seriously, feel free to give us a shout some time. Let’s get together and discuss what an e-commerce website could do for you!

If you’d like more information, contact us today! Call 970-726-8021 or email [email protected].

Click here to read one of our other blogs.

Also, check out this helpful article at kennesaw.edu.

Cartoon credit: Lynch

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.

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.

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…

…to pizza boxes.

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.

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.

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 [email protected].

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

The New Office!

Yes, we have moved! After spending most of the long weekend packing and unpacking, we are finally settling into the new space. Our location is now 345 Zerex Street, on the corner of Highway 40 and Eisenhower in Fraser. Last Tuesday was the first day we were officially open for business in the new location. To celebrate the new office’s grand opening, we felt a toast was in order, so we enjoyed morning mimosas toasted in oh-so-classy red party cups.

When we began our search for a new office we wanted a better location, more space, and more features. So far, we’ve gotten all that and more.

Our new office affords us a location with even more exposure. We’ve been in downtown Fraser for a while now, but now we’re even that much more downtown. We have a sweet new sign on the awning over our front door, displaying big and bright over Eisenhower. A second sign is also in the works, soon to be displaying right along the highway for all to admire.

The new space also actually has more space. The old cabin office had its charms, but this place feels like it’s at least twice as big. Between the wide room, lots of windows, and more actual square footage, we now have more space to stretch – both our legs, and our ideas.

With our new office comes new everything – new furniture, new decorations, a new coat of bright green paint on the walls, even a new bed for the pups.

Our new space has new features as well. We have a large conference table for important meetings and brainstorm sessions.

We also have a lounge area in the corner, complete with a big cushy couch, for those times when we want a meeting to be a little more comfy.

Indeed, we found our better location, bigger space, and new features. It’s even starting to feel like the office we wanted all along, though we’re still putting some finishing touches on the place. Even though there’s still a little unpacking and decorating to do, the office is just beginning to have that familiar, broken-in sort of feel.

So, now that we’re just getting settled in, we’re pretty sure the only thing our new location is missing is…you! Most importantly, we wanted our new office to be a space we could share. We wanted somewhere for us to sit down and comfortably collaborate with clients and share stories with friends. So seriously – stop by and say hello! (mimosas optional).

O2 Creative Design, your Website Design, Graphic Design, all in one marketing stop!

Click here for our next blog – The Foundry!

Web design

When should your business redesign its website?

That can depend on several things. Does your current site look contemporary and professional? Is it intuitive and simple for visitors to navigate? Is your website search engine optimized? Does every page on your site still work? Does your business have the ability to update or change its own website?

There are plenty of do-it-yourself website templates. All too often, though, they are cheaply designed, and totally look that way too. Website templates are intended for amateur bloggers. If you want your business’s website to look professional, then it should be designed by professionals.

Website design and technology is changing constantly, so if you haven’t done much with your business’s website lately, it’s probably already dated. Graphics and images that looked good years ago probably just aren’t as sharp by today’s standards. A site that looks obsolete or cheap can make your customers think the same of your business.

Many websites – especially dated ones – become increasingly difficult to navigate. The behind-the-scenes coding and structure of a site designed years ago may not display correctly in modern browsers and on mobile devices. If your website isn’t optimized for today’s Internet, then customers may think your entire business is not up-to-date. Customers may even become frustrated while trying to navigate your page and simply go to someone else’s site instead.

Many older sites do nothing for modern search engine optimization (SEO). This means they don’t have the right content, or coding and site architecture, to make it easy for search engines to find and list your site among search results. A professionally designed website will keep you optimized for search engines. This means your website, and not someone else’s, will appear at the top of a Google, Yahoo, Bing, or other search page when your customers look for you.

Optimizing your website for social media can go a long way as well. Linking your website to and from your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media pages can increase traffic for your website and bolster your business’s overall online presence.

Perhaps your website is difficult to update or change. Old websites can be clunky and tough to work with. Maybe your business doesn’t even have control over its own website, instead having to contact your web designer about every little change. New website designs can be very user-friendly, giving your business the option to easily access its own site and update or revise without having to wait for someone else to do it.

What if your website has pages that don’t work? Those broken links to the “page not found?” Worse, what if your website has been hacked, and displays someone else’s unsavory content, or doesn’t even work right? Designing a new site can clean up those messes, and also prevent them from happening again.

(Some of O2 Creative’s web design for one of our favorite clients, The Foundry. Click HERE to see more!)

All things considered, there are plenty of reasons to consult a professional web designer about creating a new website, or overhauling your old one. At O2 Creative we can create the freshest websites that utilize the latest technology. Our websites are professional quality, secure, intuitive to use and navigate, search engine optimized, and easy for your business to control and update.

To get the most out of a new or improved website for your business, consult the friendly web design professionals at O2 Creative today.

Click here for additional reading. Also, Credit Gregory Kogan for the sweet cartoon!

Click here to read our next blog post – an intro to O2 culture!