We spend a lot of time working on the right font pairings in our projects. We try not to get super geeky on you, but sometimes we do want to share the process, get your feedback, or just communicate why we did something.

This is a great short animation on the history of type, showing great key points for anyone.

Also a great read is Seth Godin’s Simple typography for non-professionals (who is Seth Godin you ask?)

I love reading about designers and what their personal mantras are. Dieter Rams is one of the most influential industrial / product designers in our time. He made Braun a household name in the 50s and 60s by creating simple products that worked well. Design trends that are still being followed and copied today.

When asked if he thinks his work was good, he responded with the statements he designs by

Good design:

1. Good design is innovative.
2. Good design makes a product useful.
3. Good design is aesthetic.
4. Good design makes a product understandable.
5. Good design is unobtrusive.
6. Good design is honest.
7. Good design is long-lasting.
8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
9. Good design is environmentally friendly.
10.  Good design is as little design as possible.

I look at these 10 guidelines, and I think they apply to every facet of design. Web, print, branding, but further, and into architecture  interior design, landscape design, fashion, etc. Im pretty sure Ikea, Apple and Audi follow these rules as much as they can, and I think it shows.

It’s a common dilemma  you want to build a fantastic new web presence, but you have many voices in the office competing to be heard and postulating about what will make for the most effective next iteration of your website. A lot of questions get thrown around in brainstorming sessions, but what you might need is a very simple roadmap to make use of all of the opinions and allow key players to weigh in and be heard. Matt won’t brag about it, but he has written some fantastically helpful articles that will aid your team in mining your internal data about what you already know about the web in such a way as to put your thoughts and insights into some groupings that any design or marketing team can use.

So, go read this ARTICLE on Church Marketing Sucks.

And you can also read THIS ONE that Matt outlined and wrote for the author.

If you want to follow up with us to launch or lead your next big project, you can share your team’s findings HERE.

Every team that is deeply involved in the success of your organization possesses valuable knowledge, insights and  understandings of your core audience. Don’t leave that data un-mined; put it to work for you and take ownership in communicating about who you are and what you do in a powerful, creative and beautiful way.

Just a quick preview of a new brand we recently developed for Crate Coffee. Featuring locally roasted beans with unique blends specific to their markets. We designed the logo to have a rough, painted look, so to finish the brand implementation we used a rubber stamp on the business cards and coffee bags. It is a very manual process, but the look is spot on.

Full details coming soon in the portfolio.

As designers, we like to say inspiration can come from anything. The following video showcases just this. Mine Kafon is a project from Massoud Hassani, a designer who grew up in Kabul. Using childhood toys, he modeled a land mine detonation device. It’s fascinating to see how much like his toy the final result is.

Mine Kafon | Callum Cooper from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

We’ve talked before about info graphics.

It is an extremely powerful tool when you can take your data and simplify it into a easy to understand graphic that your target audience can read, see, experience and most of all, understand. Visual information moves people to act.

And now it seems that Pinterest is info graphics on steroids which translates into sales and also donations. Have you ever questioned the need to invest a little more in your marketing or in your digital design budget? When this article by Fast Company publishes I think it will be well worth our time to study and then translate into our businesses and nonprofits.

Consumers are shopping and they make decisions based on what they can see and understand.

More sales.
More donations.
Bigger impact for you.

Just a great example of a big, giant, corporate site, having some fun.

Lowes.com has a promotional banner highlighting their new paint calculator. The focus is partially on wasting less. So what better way to highlight that message than show some wasted paint. Dripping down the entire home page.

I applaud their creativity and ingenuity in pulling this off in such a classy way. Well executed!

Man… it has been a super busy and fun summer. We are stoked about some of our latest projects so be sure to check them out.

Stop Traffick Fashion

http://www.stoptraffickfashion.com/

The leaders at Stop Traffick Fashion have an incredible mission and now they have a more robust online presence & very user friendly online store to aid them. We were excited to take on the challenge of making a client friendly, easy to use online store for their website that is easy to expand and enjoyable to use.

Hollingsworth Home Finders

http://www.homes-in-chandler-az.com/

If Ron & Renee Hollingsworth sell homes with as much personal interaction and eye for excellence as they with crafting their business website, then we are sure you will be pleased with their services. This site came together with great interactivity between them and our creative team and that certainly enhanced the visual appeal.

This was a really exciting project to work on here at factor1. Ace Hardware Phoenix is a regional site to represent the collective marketing efforts of all Phoenix metro valley stores. A total of just over 50 stores.

The new website features a Do-it-yourself video archive, news, sales & promotions, seasonal tips, and a Google Map™ store locations page. The new site is built on the cutting edge software Expression Engine—which also powers many large government and retail sites around the world. Factor 1 Studios worked with local Ace Hardware Phoenix staff to develop this beautiful, easy to navigate website. Visit the new Ace Hardware Phoenix website at http://www.acehardwarephoenix.com and see more work from Factor 1 Studios at http://www.factor1studios.com.

The Core design was planned around the focus of our unique location. Phoenix Ace Hardware stores have a different season of marketing than other states. They sell grass seed while other stores in the US sell snow salt. We had to make sure that the visitor knew they were local to Arizona. So We have a cycle of quarterly images to rotate into the background of the site, all with very clear Arizona landscapes.

The home is very short and to the point. We know the audience is not here to shop online, but to find a store, or watch video DIY tips and messages.

The locations page was built using Google Maps API for a dynamic store browsing experience. A user can pan and zoom to a location near them, or select a store from the list to see it pinpointed on the map.

Videos were a must. Ace Hardware Phoenix has several media relationships that keep the content rolling in on a routine basis. We built a system where Ace can simple add a new video, add the YouTube code, notes and any associated files, and our tools would sort them, newest up top, and rolling archives below. This makes management of the videos a breeze.

News operates similar to the videos page. Simply add a new news article title, description and content.

I love how a good clean site can be so simplistic and yet so aesthetically pleasing. Minimalism is hard to accomplish without seeming boring, but when done properly, the outcome is amazing. Check out these great sites that have nice color and typography choices, and a stunning minimalist layout.