May
18th

Oneupweb: Best in Show at 2010 BMA Tower Awards

Posted by Maureen on May 18, 2010 at 9:14 am

I’ve always wanted a tattoo. Please, don’t tell my mom. I may be 28, but the wrath that she would inflict…I shudder to think about it. However, mom aside, the real reason I haven’t taken the plunge is that I can’t find anything that means so much to me that I want to wear it on my body forever. So when I arrived at the 2010 BMA Tower Awards at Hotel Sax in Chicago and saw that they were handing out free spray-on tattoos, I got in line.

I ended up with a green frog with sparkles.

Now, if you’re wondering why I’m talking about a national awards ceremony and spray-on tattoos, you’re not the only who is a little confused. When I saw the tables sprinkled with fake tattoos, and business men and women running around in skirts and ties with blue sparkly dolphin tattoos on their arms and legs, I was a little thrown off as well. But you see, what we missed was the theme of the event: Where Business and Creativity Mingle.

It’s an appropriate theme, one that resonates in all of the work that we do at Oneupweb. Yes, we’re a B2B company, but we still like to be creative and have fun with our work. And the 2010 BMA Tower Awards were all about recognizing outstanding B2B marketing campaigns that are not only creative, but get results.

More than 70 companies entered over 300 campaigns in 38 different categories for this year’s awards. Oneupweb won a Gold award for our website, OneUpWeb.com. It was pretty cool to see our website “tower” over all the others—including some pretty big agencies from the Chicago area.

But then the evening got really exciting.

Our website was awarded the 2010 “Best in Show” award! I can’t tell you how much this meant to all of us who worked on this site. The long hours, the number of times we had to “start over”, the pressure, the stress, the late nights with pizza and Mountain Dew—this made it all worth it.

I think those big Chicago agencies didn’t quite know what hit them. When they announced OneUpWeb.com as Best in Show, the room was kind of quiet. But honestly, our website is just an example of the kind of award-winning work we produce for our clients everyday. It’s all about being relentless—something I’ve learned during my three years with this digital marketing agency.

Sadly, my green frog tattoo was gone the next morning. But the relentless drive I felt to top our Best in Show next year—that’s not something that’s going away anytime soon.

GD Star Rating
loading...

Socialize This Post

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you
leave a comment.

May
6th

Oneupweb : Judging a Book by its Cover

Posted by Jak on May 6, 2010 at 8:21 am

I’m all about judging a book by its cover! In fact, I judge just about everything on its first impression. No matter what the object is, the first impression is most important to me. Within the first minute of meeting a person, I either like them or don’t care for them at all. If packaging for a product looks like a three-year-old made it, you can bet I won’t be spending my money.

If I go to a website to purchase hardware or software, and the site was designed by a friend of a friend who knows how to use Microsoft FrontPage, then I won’t be staying long. I don’t waste my time on amateur websites and neither should you.

A first impression of a site conveys a great deal of things to me. Within seconds of visiting a site, I can get a good idea of the company’s target audience and the type of customer service I should expect.

That first viewing is like a job interview. If something appears to be less than average, then I am going to assume the services or products will be of poor quality. A company needs to put their best foot forward when designing a website. It’s important that companies don’t cut corners when creating their image, because it’s easy for customers to turn to a different source.

If I don’t feel intrigued with a site, then I don’t need to waste my time or money with that particular company. In fact, this all holds true whether we are talking about a website, an individual or product packaging. When you take the time to do it right, people see that and they appreciate it.

You know what I’m talking about…think about all the times you have looked for a product online and you came across that one site that just made you laugh. There have been many times when I was looking to purchase something and found “That” site. The pathetic site may have had the product listed for ten dollars cheaper, but there was no way I would risk my credit card information with them.

I’m not saying that companies have to spend a bunch of money to do their websites right, but I do suggest they seek experts to create professional looking and functioning sites.

Does anyone have any sites they’d like to give a shout out to for having great design and function? Please do!

GD Star Rating
loading...

Socialize This Post

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you
leave a comment.

Apr
20th

Oneupweb : Converting CMYK to PMS in Illustrator CS3

Posted by Ashley on April 20, 2010 at 8:29 am

There are seven designers and developers on the Oneupweb Creative team. Together, we have a combined experience of well over 60 years. All seven of us have used Adobe programs throughout our education and work experience—some of us even date back to Illustrator 6 and 7. However, when one of my colleagues was trying to determine the PMS of a CMYK object the other day, not one of us knew—without a bit of research on the topic—how to convert CMYK values to PMS directly in Illustrator.

Converting the opposite of Pantone to CMYK or making the conversion in Photoshop or even InDesign were known alternative solutions, but we all knew it was doable in Illustrator—somehow—because there’s no way Adobe would have let that one slip through QA!

What I found in my research were two quick and easy ways to make the conversion—one directly in Illustrator using the Live Color feature (released with CS3), and the other using an online color key compliment of Zedimage.

Illustrator CS3 Live Color:

Select the CMYK object(s) you want to convert to PMS. Live Color will convert multiple colors as a group.
With the object(s) selected, click Edit > Edit Colors > Recolor Artwork.
Select the Swatch Library icon as indicated on the screenshot above, and choose Color Books > your swatch library of choice.
Click the New Color Group icon—your color palette will appear as a new group in the right pane of the screen.
Select the arrow to expand the colors and view your Pantone matches.

Zedimage—This is an online tool that can be useful if you have your CMYK values close at hand:

Browse to the Zedimage CMYK / PMS key
Hit Ctrl+F (shortcut to Find)
Type in your CMYK color values, including spaces, i.e. 76 0 64 63, to locate the Pantone match.

Although I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that not one of us were familiar with the Live Color feature (which was actually released with CS3), I’m sure that most designers on Adobe can relate to our short-lived “duh!” moment—the programs are just too intricate to have working knowledge of each and every detail. But I’m always curious to know whether or not the Adobe program developers actually do—thoughts?

GD Star Rating
loading...

Socialize This Post

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you
leave a comment.

Apr
19th

Oneupweb : Vitamin O—Just What the Doctor Ordered

Posted by Anne on April 19, 2010 at 8:21 am

With recent news stories littered with opinions from both republicans and democrats regarding health care reform, even the strongest proponents of this are left with a few concerns. Released yesterday was an article regarding one of the downsides to the Affordable Care Act. This is estimated to release an additional 32 million newly insured patients on a system already burdened with a shortage of primary care physicians—they say the results won’t be pretty.

As one who works closely with individuals who work hard and care deeply for their families, it causes me to pause and reflect on the word prevention. Last week, our company spent some time focusing on wellness and the importance of preventative care. And we heard that if we really want to enjoy a long-term, quality-of-life journey here on this planet, we have to work at it. We cannot exist in a world where we are exposed to more toxins than we were ten years ago, and not make every attempt to live a lifestyle that defines quality of life.

As we listened to these words (and yes, they did ring true for most of us), I couldn’t help but think about how this same rule applies to companies who don’t pay attention to their own healthy existence online. Often times, they simply just exist and don’t bother to find out about what “supplements” could be added to their site, allowing them a healthier existence! Websites, too, need “preventative” care, and one cannot rely solely on keywords within their content as the only preventative measure in increasing traffic to their site.

A few of the “vitamins” that extend the limbs of your site and allow you to “pump a little iron” consist of social media, mobile marketing and SEO/PPC campaigns. If you don’t have the time to look up and down the aisle for just the right potion to cure your ailing website, check out our new services magazine. We offer an easy, at-at-glance cure for any website pain you may be experiencing. And like any good massage, we can help you release those toxic embedded codes that are simply existing and taking up air space. We like to call it our Vitamin O (I’m sure you can guess why). We guarantee it will boost your immune system, allowing you to weather any forecasting storm. And the recommended daily allowance is tracked by us 24-7. We know our stuff.

Everyone knows that a virus is not restricted to humans; an online virus can impact those sites that don’t take preventative measures. It’s like any bad cold—if not treated properly, your days in bed recovering are just what your competition needs.

Did I hear you ask me for some Vitamin O? It’s just what the doctor ordered.

GD Star Rating
loading...

Socialize This Post

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you
leave a comment.

Apr
16th

Oneupweb : Happily Ever After?

Posted by Angie Reed on April 16, 2010 at 11:04 am

We did our research, found a great deal and made the purchase. If only I could then say we lived happily ever after…

Just over two years ago, we were giddy with the thought of our soon to be new arrival—a baby girl!—not to mention a bit stressed over the fact that we had several new items to purchase. I’m not the type of person that makes a decision based on looks, but more on the functionality of a product. I want my purchase, or in this case, multiple purchases to last and work for our lifestyle.

So what did I find when I went looking for these important purchases for our new baby? Well, I wasn’t able to get the information that I was seeking from most of the product sites I visited. As frustrating as that was, I turned to forums and social media sites to get the latest word on what to buy and why.

Now, two years later, I’m still having a hard time getting answers on recalls and expiration dates on purchases I made. For instance, did you know that car seats expire? I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for those trusty social media sites I frequent. And when I went to the manufacturer’s site after learning this, I still was unable to get my questions answered.

I couldn’t help but think, are they trying to hide the fact that this so called “only seat you’ll need to buy” won’t really be? Or am I dealing with a company that just has poor web design (as is likely the case)? Either way, I now feel sketchy about them and the products I’ve purchased.

My last resort to get the answers on the car seat is to call the 800 number listed on the website. If you’re anything like me, that’s the last thing I want to do. It means instead of spending a few minutes online to find the answers, I now have to spend my lunch hour trying to get through to customer service.

The lesson: If you’re an e-commerce site, think about your customers as people just like myself. I want a great product, a good deal, and most of all, information that gives me a reason to keep coming back. Because you just never know when I might be shopping for our second addition!

GD Star Rating
loading...

Socialize This Post

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you
leave a comment.