KRFTWRK

Pintresting…

jwood — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 05:05:12 +0000

It's important to stay inspired. To find more, check out my Pintrest.

PUF! Festival Brand Identity

Kargos Coffee Branding

Headline Font

Top Tweets: Oct 28 – Nov 3

jwood — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 11:59:58 +0000

The Devil in the Details

jwood — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:20:33 +0000

I don't know how I got this email. But I did. It's Rogers letting me know that they doubled my internet speed.

I'm happy for them, I really am. But my inbox can get flooded with e-mail and notifications, so I decided to go out of my way to unsubscribe to this one. Whoa, not so fast. After clicking unsubscribe, I was brought here

Name, cool. Postal code, sure. Even though I don't see why I should go through this effort, I did it. Then I get to the bottom. Give us your account number. Oh, okay, because I have that memorized in the back of my head. Seriously? I go to rogers.com, I login, I navigate to my account, I copy and paste my number into the form, I click submit.

Customer Not Found

This is a lesson in bad user experience. Bad UX frustrates customers and damages your brand. I was supposed to be impressed by Rogers today. I was supposed to think they were an internet leader and run to my phone to upgrade my internet package. Instead I feel like they don't value my time or even see me as customer.

When sending any communication online, always take your reader into consideration. How often are you messaging them? Can they unsubscribe? Are you making their life easier? Simplicity and usability go a long way on the web, so make sure when you reach out to your customers - the technology and planning around it make sense to the people using it.

Ad Rant: Mark’s Work Warehouse

jwood — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:19:11 +0000

It's funny how two words can totally skew what you are trying to say.

Recently, Canadian Tire run Mark's Work Warehouse (re-branded as "Mark's) launched a campaign aiming to change its perception as a supplier of rugged work boots and towards a more women-friendly shopping environment. Across Toronto, ads were posted with a happy group of Women leaving a Mark's in utter joy with the caption "Now Welcoming Women".

So what, Women weren't Welcome in Mark's before? While I've seen the brand come up with clever concepts such as this handy vending machine, this one is a total strikeout. A poor choice of words has done the exact opposite as it has intended. It makes Mark's out to be much less open and inclusive as it hoped. It's a blanket statement that screams target marketing.

What could have worked? Focusing on the stories of working women who have used and will continue to use your products much like they did in their TV spots (above). Or if you really want to dumb it down, just say "For Women". Unfortunately, a poor choice in words looks to have backfired and we are left with a billboard run that contradicts the brands original goals.

Essential WordPress Plugins

jwood — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:25:40 +0000

Ahh, WordPress. The Magic Content Management System that changed it all.

Working with WordPress can be great - especially with the full toolbox of free plugins and extensions. Sometimes it can be a difficult task selecting the right tools for the job. After working with wordpress for a couple of years now, here are a list of some of my essential plugins for starting a new project.

Just Custom Fields

This plugin makes it easy to add custom fields to your posts, giving you almost endless options when creating new page templates.

Contact Form 7

I've tried many contact form extensions, and Cform7 still remains my most used contact form plugin. Although I'm sure there are plugins with a slicker UI - I've yet to find one as functional.

ChimpPress

Having a website is great, but having a website that can sign people up to an e-mail subscriber list is even better. Mailchimp's free e-mail service is amazing, and it gets the best results when you have a solid subscriber list to back it up.

Quick Post / Page Redirects

Big ups to @maark0_o for pointing this out to me. This is a simple plugin for redirecting pages and posts.

Looking for the right WordPress plugin can be like looking for a needle in a haystack sometimes. Do you have any that you can't live without that you would like to share?

Way Easier Embedded Tweets

jwood — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:31:40 +0000

Embedding your Tweets into a website isn't anything new. But this week twitter made it a little easier. You can embed your account's tweets with a single line of HTML code. In addition to embedding tweets for your account, you can add hashtags and have users reply in-line in a simple scrollable frame.

For more info - head over to Facebook's developers blog to learn more.

Here it is in action

Tweets by @team_krftwrk

Device PSDs

jwood — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:29:54 +0000

A project I am currently working on requires me to assemble screenshots on the coolest, most awesome devices. Rather than duplicate this process, over and over I hope to keep up to date to share. Enjoy, and please feel free to comment below on any devices I should add.

Apple

Apple Cinema Display (requires log-in)

Google / Android

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Google Chromebook

Spirit of Sound

jwood — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:32:01 +0000

Life as a musician can be rough. Between tour vans and smoky studio sessions, it's a wonder bands have time to squeeze out a tweet, let alone build a full website.

That's why we're giving away thousands of dollars worth of our code, copy and marketing energy to give you and your musical pals the best online presence possible. Here's how it works...

We'll Give You

A full online branding experience. Including:

A fully custom website
Full branding and identity workshop
Branded Twitter, Facebook and Youtube Experience

Two Ways to Enter

Twitter

Follow us and send your soundcloud tunes, youtube videos or just a simple tweet to @team_krftwrk that shows what your music is all about.

Tweet to @team_krftwrk

Facebook

Like our Facebook Fan Page and post a video or photo showcasing your music in action.

After we have received all the submissions, we'll review and select the most deserving musical group and shower them with a bounty of design, development and marketing spoils.

Any music, any instruments any genre.

Key Dates

Feb 28th - Contest Opens

March 28th - Contest Closed

March 29th - Voting Begins

April 3rd - Winner Announced

SEO Wisdom from the SEO Rapper

jwood — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:53:03 +0000

A few years ago, I was introduced to the SEO rapper through his YouTube hit Page Rank (see above). I ultimately gained lots of respect for the rapper who, aside from having a great flow, provides some amazing insight on SEO and online marketing.

Fast forward to 2012, and I visited his page to find a few more gems that I wanted to share with everyone. The newer songs focus on coding + design and content management systems.

Conversion Closing

Design + Coding

Content Management Systems

#SMWTO – Social Media Week TO

jwood — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:12:12 +0000

Just a few quick thoughts on Social Media Week TO (aka #smwto ). First , here at some events I attended and some thoughts.

Gamification - Perspectives from Both Sides

Ryan was a great presenter and brought some great perspective to the social gaming world. He showed how online games, competitions and social media really boil down to our human desire to compete, collect and organize.

Storyselling: How to use great digital content to help make the sale

Lisa gave some great insight into building stories with video for making compelling web content.

Social Storytelling: Creating and Curating Content Strategies That Work

Pretty much an iron-clad content strategy from the social media team at Critical Mass. This is the right way to approach the social space and serve up digital content. But as she stressed, it's a lot of work and not always for every organization. Regardless - it was a highly organized and well put together strategy.

As a whole, Social Media Week was huge and I feel like I only saw a small part of it. I met some great people and had some really enticing conversations. If you get the chance - make sure to visit some events next year.

Have any rad stories from #SMWTO - post em up or tweet us!