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Once Upon a Website (It takes two…)
Lessons learned from the client perspective—our friends at Chorus America share lessons learned during a major website project.
In the fall of 2010, we were lucky enough to be selected by Chorus America—the national service organization for choruses, choral leaders, and singers—to collaborate with them on a complete overhaul of their website. For non-profit membership organizations, websites are crucial. Not only must they communicate value, drive earned and contributed revenue, and market programs and services—they’re also often a primary means of delivering programs and services to the field. We’ve had plenty of experience over the years collaborating with non-profit cultural groups and membership organizations (including Chorus America’s peer in the orchestra world, the League of American Orchestras), and felt confident we were an excellent fit for the project.
We learned many things over the ensuing year, but what really sticks out is how excellent a fit the client was for this project. The team at Chorus America was prepared, hands-on, and ready to roll from the get-go. They understood that a project of this stature requires engagement at the highest levels of their organization, and that they would be partners in crafting the strategy and vision for the new site. Perhaps most importantly, they dug in and took ownership of their content.
Fast forward to earlier this year and the launch of the new Chorus America website. We’re certainly proud of the strategy, information architecture, design, and development work that ultimately led to their new website—one that places Chorus America’s value front and center, and dynamically connects individuals in the field with the information they need to do their jobs, further their careers, and advance their organizations.
But so much of the credit must go to the team at Chorus America, and we encourage anyone considering a major website project to read their story: Once Upon a Website (How Building a Website Can Transform an Organization) shares lessons learned from Chorus America’s point of view. It’s an excellent, honest piece.
Fit matters. And success always takes two.
Categories: Design, Digital Media, Nonprofits
A year’s worth of favorites
2011 was a tremendously busy year at Sametz Blackstone — and 2012 is shaping up to be another year of compelling projects, fantastic clients, and much time spent exploring opportunities and tackling challenges as a team. We’re thrilled to be embarking on some new collaborations, and to have some fresh projects ramping up with old friends.
This is a tremendously exciting time to be doing what we do: never before has there been such a diverse range of communication tools and venues available to help organizations tell their stories, and build a “mosaic brand.”
Blog posts around New Year’s often focus on reflections on the year behind us, or predictions for the year ahead. We’re going to land somewhere in the middle, and share a few favorite posts from our blog over the last 12 months. Technically, that’s reflective, I suppose — but some of them had predictions, too!
We’ll be sharing more of our thinking in the months ahead, and celebrating some great achievements by our friends and partners.
Stay tuned.. and the very happiest of New Year’s to you and yours.
Our New Year’s video from last year — a labor of love
What happens when great design and great music come together
A favorite identity from the past year — and a project we’re proud to be a part of
Everyone gets a turn with the markers and whiteboard around here
“Adopsters”… the hipsters of social media
Sametz Blackstone 101: so is it an actual “cup of tea”, or?
Director of Design, Joerg, looks back in time… and finds that it flies
A can by any other color would not taste as sweet?
Thanks for coming by today — and join us for more in 2012!
Categories: Branding, Design, Digital Media, Nonprofits, Outside the Square, Strategy and Management
Messin’ with mobile: a new way to serve visitors on the go
Recently, we had the pleasure of working with Brandeis High School Programs to develop some digital collateral for their recruiting and marketing season. Among them was a rich PDF of the program’s viewbook (a viewbook we designed initially for print): an image-heavy look at their students in action, complete with some interactive navigation and features.
But in order to provide materials for the widest range of digital users, we decided that the print and PDF viewbooks required a mobile counterpart — an option that could be used in conjunction with strategically distributed QR codes on print postcards, or simply be accessed via a link. This counterpart needed to be done expediently and efficiently… without, of course, sacrificing quality.
Enter JQuery Mobile, a framework designed to replicate the aesthetic and functionality of stand-alone mobile apps, but within the convenient environment of the mobile browser. We leveraged its broad platform support to create a product that could serve as many mobile or tablet-based viewers as possible.
Utilizing the framework’s collapsible blocks, we created a responsive, concise version of the viewbook. Users could use common touch-based behavior to navigate through a series of blocks containing streamlined text, mobile-optimized images, YouTube videos, and links. Some links were tailored specifically for mobile, allowing viewers to call the school with a simple press of a button.
Our team then developed a custom skin for the “app”, creating a singular aesthetic that fit the mobile viewbook into the client’s brand system with natural ease. The end result was an efficiently produced yet polished product that served the client’s needs without costing a fortune. It maintains its aesthetic and functional integrity on mobile phones, tablets, and desktop browsers.
With JQuery Mobile’s help, web developers now have a new window in to mobile optimization.
Categories: Digital Media
Time flies: digital collages illustrating observations about “psychological time”
Flashback 1993: As part of my Masters thesis at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach, Germany, I created a set of digital collages, which I recently came across while looking for some papers. Rediscovering these illustrations made me realize how much has changed in the world of technology for designers over the past 18 years.
I also realized how very much the idea of ‘time’ still resonates with me. We can’t turn back the hands of time, which is in opposition to our inner experience of time. How we perceive time is very much based on our current situation, and our way of seeing the world around us.
Obvious phenomena of the subjectivity of how we perceive time—like “how time flies”—are juxtaposed against the phenomenon of melancholia, where time often seem to move very slowly. Or how experiences from a week ago might slip our mind, while others—good or bad—linger seemingly forever.
Illustrating those observations was a challenge, but also lot of fun—and yes, the trying times are almost forgotten. Equipped with my own Apple Macintosh Performa (now vintage!), a scanner, and an inkjet color printer, I was experimenting and discovering all the features early Photoshop had to offer. I quickly learned how to use the program to create the image I envisioned. I researched and collected anything and everything that might have made good source material: various books, magazines, fabrics, papers; even objects set on my scanner (this was, of course, long before your everyday household owned a digital camera). So I scanned and scanned and scanned… one could say I actually became kind of a “digital hoarder”.
Unfortunately my Bernoullis became obsolete, which is why I no longer possess the digital source files for these collages.
What I do still own is my final bound theses with 22 illustrations that accompany the written part of my thesis. Here are some of my favorites…
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”—Bertrand Russell
“When nothing else subsists from the past, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered—the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls— bearing resiliently, on tiny and almost impalpable drops of their essence, the immense edifice of memory”—Marcel Proust
“Science has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10.”—Neil Armstrong
“At times everyone must go through a place where everything is temporarily called into question (the reason for all of our depression), the passage over the swinging mountain bridge. The new is not yet, the old is no more; you pass over an abyss between two walls of rock. Solid was the rock behind you and secure once again will be the new. But now emptiness lies under your feet.”—Ludwig Hohl
“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”—William James
all illustrations copyright Joerg Dressler
Categories: Design, Digital Media, Outside the Square
Thanks, Mr. Jobs.
Sametz Blackstone Associates is a 100% Apple shop.
We work each day on everything from MacBook Airs to mighty iMacs (with a couple iPads thrown in for good measure.) When we have a meeting, the only thing more plentiful than Flour Bakery cookies on our conference table are the ubiquitous glowing apples on the backside of our (11″ to 17″) screens.
This is due in part to our heritage as a graphic design studio — since Macs have long been popular with those who design for print, digital, and web — and in part to our current status as a bunch of raving product design and gadget junkies.
Out of our current staff of 15, 9 of us are iPhone owners. 4 of us are iPad owners. At least 2 or 3 of us are glued to the liveblogs of Apple product launches when they happen. And one of us has a full color wardrobe of cases for all her beloved gadgets (I have no idea who that might be.)
When I learned that visionary and Apple founder Steve Jobs had passed away yesterday (via a text from my Dad in Vancouver — his iPhone to my iPhone), I was standing in Whole Foods near my fellow Sametzian, Michael, who immediately fired up his Twitter app to see the news. I was struck by how sad I was — after all, I’d never met Mr. Jobs. But when I realized just how much of my life is touched by things he either created, helped develop, or launched, it seemed less surprising.
In fact, I posted this last night:
I have friends from dozens of cities, all sorts of generations, all sorts of backgrounds, and the only thing I’ve seen more of them mention than not on social platforms is the passing of Steve Jobs.
Reacting to a death outside of our friends or family always seems strange, like we’re co-opting something that we don’t quite have a right to feel. Especially when it’s related to something some of us already have an uneasy relationship with: technology.
But it’s powerful to see how many of us recognize vision, creativity, and passion as something to be cherished — and something worthy of a real goodbye.
So, from our iOrchard to yours, Cupertino, we send our thoughts and deep appreciation for a life lived the way we hope to each day: with big ideas, big goals, and the desire to create things that people love and take pride in.
Thank you, Steve Jobs, for making our little world a better place.
Categories: Digital Media, Strategy and Management
“Adopsters”… or the anti-social side of the social web
It started as a throwaway line in a post on Google Plus (adopter + hipster = adopster), and then became a tweet:
And lo, mere moments later, I realized that tweet was traveling far and wide:
That’s when I knew I’d probably hit some sort of nerve. (I got re-tweeted by a muskox!)
And, truth be told, I was pointing a finger at myself as much as anyone else.
I’ve been an “early adopter” of a number of social media platforms over the past several years — usually via invitations from friends who are REAL early adopters: the kinds of folks who know start-up founders or have start-ups themselves, or who happen to run in tech-savvy circles where everything is in beta (including the fish.)
Maybe that makes me more of an early “hanger-on”… but regardless, I’ve been given access a time or two.
When platforms are solely populated by early adopters, a lot of the conversation surrounds how the platform is functioning, how we should / could be using it, where it could be improved, and which existing platform it will “kill” when everyone can sign up.
I’m not an entrepreneur or a developer or a venture capitalist, so my contribution to those conversations is usually pretty limited. I tend to do what I do with my personal accounts on all social platforms regardless of how new they are, or who else might be there (share random links, rhapsodize about the bottle of moisturizer I just bought, talk about recipes and dinner menus, poke fun at my friends, fling non-sequiturs into the ether…)
In some sense, I’m probably actually doing most of the things that bug the early adopters when a platform is open to the public — just a few months early. And I know those things bug them because they make no bones about expressing disdain when their private club has their virtual doors opened to digital “riff raff.”
Or, you know… everyone else.
I saw it with various blogging platforms.
I saw it with podcasting (though that’s less a platform issue than a technology that become easier to use with certain platforms.)
I saw it with Facebook.
I saw it with Twitter.
And I have to admit — I was one of those people with Twitter. When we were just a few hundred thousand folks hanging out in a 140-character cocktail party, it was easy to have conversations about things I enjoyed without getting followed by a bot replying to all tweets mentioning the word “furry”.
Then came the spam. Then came the internet marketers. Then came the sparkly MySpacers. Then came the self-help people with bushels of inspirational quotes. Then came the relatives who didn’t quite get how things worked, but tweeted thoughts at me that were better suited for email. And I can’t forget how hard I shook my fist when Oprah platituded her way to a zillion followers.
But as soon as I realized how insular I sounded (“Email was SO much better when only six of us had it”), I cut it out. Because everything evolves over time, and opening up a platform shows what it is really capable of doing (see: national revolutions, emergency news distribution, health support networks, citizen journalism, live-tweeting the Oscars… okay, maybe not that last one…)
Now I’m seeing a number of folks who’ve been futzing around with Google Plus expressing irritation at how their channels are changing, now that the doors are wide open.
They rail at the rise in “spam” (some of which is actual spam, but some of which is just content they’re not interested in), they sigh at random comments that derail conversations on their posts (“Why is my uncle talking about Sarah Palin on a post about access to APIs?”)… and ultimately have embarked on an ardent search for their next treehouse.
I can take this from true nerds who still pine for old IRC channels (you’ve never made any bones about being truly “social”), but since many early adopters nowadays are social strategists, integrated marketers, community managers on other platforms, and the like, it seems absurd to pine for the days when the only people they had to talk to were… social strategists, integrated marketers, community managers on other platforms, and the like.
Yes, I know it’s more fun in the back room of the store, where you can complain about the crazy lady who tried on 14 red dresses before stating that “red has never been my color.”
Yes, I know it’s more fun to talk about potential ways you could use a tool than to have to actually USE the tool to talk to someone who uses your products, or wants to know more about your initiative, or needs you to use plain language to help them work something out.
Yes, I know that not everyone is as supportive as your five friends who comment on every post you make, and re-share every link you post with the world.
Yes, I know it feels like they’re “doing it wrong” (sure, there are best practices, but they’re not best laws.)
But.
You can’t…
- tell businesses that they “can’t afford NOT to be social”,
- tell conference goers in a 40-slide deck that there are “endless opportunities”
- tell everyone in a book that anyone can use these channels, even “dummies”!
- tell your friends and family they can get better customer service through social media,
- tell nonprofits that they’re going to have more access than ever to their communities and constituents,
- tell reporters that want to quote you about how social media is changing everything from government to education to art…
… UNLESS you’re genuinely excited when everybody gets a chance to use them.
Even if it’s not that fun at first.
After all… home runs are rare in inside baseball.
Categories: Digital Media, Strategy and Management
Resident Canadian defends metric system… story at 11
Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to guest post at the Radian6 blog on the topic of measurement in social media.
Here’s a quick excerpt:
“There are two sides to the power of measurement for achieving social media success: first, the way it helps you track, tweak, and re-jig your social efforts to ensure you’re meeting goals. It’s up to you to define what success looks like, and what your goals are, but by actually paying attention, you’re already headed in the right direction.”
You can find the whole post here.
Thanks so much, Radian6 team, for the opportunity to share my thoughts on strategies for tracking social engagement… and for giving me a chance to rant about the Metric system.
And feel free to share your thoughts here or there about social measurement — even any questions you might have. We’d love to help out!
Categories: Digital Media, Outside the Square, Strategy and Management
Small team… big ideas. Come be a part of it!
One of the most interesting things about working at a “small shop” is that everyone tends to have a range of responsibilities and interests that extend past their job description. If you’re good at something, you’ll likely get a chance to do it.
This also tends to come up in how we hire new team members: we look for people who have diverse experience and interests, who show initiative in making things happen (even if it’s a little outside the parameters of their role), and who value collaboration in all things.
Everyone has a voice, so we want to make sure we bring in people who have good ideas—and who listen (and get excited) when other people come up with them, too.
Right now, we’re in the midst of hiring two key positions to fill out our team: a Brand Strategist, and a Designer.
In the time since we’ve been on the hunt, we’ve learned a few things (well, we kind of already knew…):
- Most people are used to a certain kind of hierarchy when it comes to creating communications for clients: the client wants something, the strategist comes up with something that something should say and an idea of how it could look, and the designer takes the creative brief and makes it happen. Lather, rinse, repeat.
- The idea of “brand” is one that has taken a big hit as of lately, what with the notion of “personal brand” running rampant through social media, and the reality that many people think of a logo and a color scheme as “branding” (which leaves out the meaning side of things: a brand’s foundation, positioning, messages, etc. )
- We’re a bit different.
(And that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it’s why we’ve been around for 32 years.)
We’re “system thinkers”: we make sure everything we create—from top to bottom web projects for financial companies, to postcards targeting potential applicants of a summer high school program—strengthens our clients’ brands. If the visual elements don’t jive with their other communications… if the message doesn’t ring true to the organization and their goals… if you can’t point to where it “moves the needle”… well, we’re wasting an opportunity.
To us, a “brand” isn’t a logo or a tagline or an eye-catching color you choose. A brand lives in the hearts and minds of an organization’s constituents: it hinges on how people perceive them and what they do, both in the context of the communications they create, and what others are saying (in the press, via social media, through word of mouth… and beyond.)
And no matter how big or small an organization might be, they are only so much in control of their brand—which means that at the moments when they are in control, they need to do a great job of sharing who they are.
That’s where we come in…
Designer
We’re seeking a Designer who makes beautiful things—beautiful things that do what they’re meant to do, within functional, smart, compelling systems. You will work on a wide range of projects—across an equally wide range of clients, both for- and nonprofit—in print and electronic formats, from worldwide brand identity systems to multi-year capital campaigns. Versatility is a must (if you couldn’t tell already!)
If you:
- do exceptional work on projects large and small, and across media
- work and communicate well with clients, and can articulate the thinking behind what you create
- make “problem solving” a priority in meeting the needs of organizations
- have a passion for innovative, progressive design
- have experience in both print and digital media
- are typographically savvy
- can multitask like a pro—without missing details or dropping the ball on communicating
- enjoy a collaborative environment, both as part of a deeply creative design community, and as part of a focused client team…
… then we’d love to talk to you. Scroll down to learn how to get in touch!
Brand strategist
We’re seeking a Brand Strategist who sees both the forest and the trees: you understand how brands are created, maintained, and loved, and how every aspect of an organization’s communications can reflect and strengthen that brand. You’ve ideally worked with both for- and nonprofit organizations (because we do!), and see each one of your clients as a unique, complex entity with their own needs and goals. In fact, you’ve thrown out all your cookie cutters… because you haven’t used them in years.
This isn’t an “account exec” position or a “brand manager” position or a “project manager” position, though all of those things are wrapped in to what you’ll do with our team.
If you:
- see “brand” as a never-static, living, breathing thing
- believe that stories are important
- can capably research (both qualitative and quantitative—stats AND in-depth conversations), envision, and implement brand-focused strategies
- love to dig into a new industry to learn all you can in a short space of time
- can articulate, write, and present in a compelling way
- can lead multiple client teams simultaneously, with efficiency and respect
- are conversant with both traditional and new media
- collaborate with designers, writers, and developers with respect and open ears
- manage and grow healthy, productive client relationships, and
- want to help find and realize new opportunities
… we’d love to talk to you. Our ideal candidate has 5+ years experience in and around branding, business and communication strategy, marketing, and website development. Experience in nonprofit marketing and fundraising wouldn’t hurt, either.
Ready to join us? We’d love to meet you—and we think we’re pretty fun to work with, too.
Please send your resume (directed clearly to one of the positions above) and some words about who you are and why you’re interested in being a part of our team to Human Resources, Sametz Blackstone Associates, 40 West Newton Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02118. You can also email hrATsametzDOTcom (no phone calls, please!)
Categories: Branding, Design, Digital Media, Nonprofits, Strategy and Management
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