Trying to figure out where to go for St. Patty’s? Make sure to check out The Rose & Crown. The only Saint Patrick Day Block Party in downtown Phoenix! 13,000 square feet of live music, Djs, Irish food, an awesome outdoor bar and you can start your binge drinking at 10am. Wahoooo!
Not to mention that I had the opportunity to work on a great design piece with Jason Hackett and the HAPI team to help celebrate the famous Green Beer Drinking Holiday. Check it out!
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Axe Grind Studios is often faced with the role of industry leader, expert, “know it alls”, or at least “figure it out alls” in some cases. Through many team meetings we have discussed the topics of being advisors, critics, cheerleaders, and unbiased opinions for clients we work with. In our discussions we discovered one thing to be more true and consistent, “Be Truthful…at all costs”. To most this is painfully hard. In a downed economy and over saturated industry you would think we would fight for every lead that walks through the door. This is true to a degree. We often times come across “visionaries”, those who contain…or think they contain the next billion dollar .com. Then reality, budgets, and time set in and expectations slightly alter. Then we come across the “mother gooses” who are sitting on an unbelievably precious idea, brand, product and just need to make it interactive and introduce it to the world. Finally we come across the “ugly babies”. This is where our jobs, pride, and ear drums get a little bruised. The “ugly babies” is a group that may have an idea, brand, product, that is amazing but is unable to convey that message. This is also sometimes vice versa where they have a great idea and their product or idea may not be up to par. This is where “Be Truthful…at all costs” gets tricky. No one likes to hear or wants to hear that the idea or design they have been working on for the last year is for the lack of a better word garbage. We decided as a company that is one of our roles. While working, learning, and accepting projects we try to look at all products from an unbiased opinion. That way we can deliver the most truthful feedback for the best overall experience through a company’s entire brand.
We recently came across this exact situation. Out of respect for the company I won’t name names. We had a company approach us with a phenomenal product, there is a huge potential market for it, and could easily sell. He approached us about heading up a huge interactive campaign and tying into his existing traditional marketing and creating landing pages for lead tracking. One major flaw stood in our way. His website…His website was a yahoo website overnight that looked like it was built by someone using a computer for the first time. To be 100% honest it was so bad our team initially thought it was a scam. We recommended he updated his website before pushing his brand out to the world. The cost to redo his website was less than 1% of his total marketing budget. From industry experience, going to a website does more than deliver content. It builds a brand, trust, integrity, and creates an experience. Unfortunately the company felt their website was fine and didn’t really need the update. We decided it would be best to part ways. I followed up with an insider and found he ran his campaign as is, spent an enormous amount of money and only made 2% gross of his total marketing budget spent.
The moral of this story is as a company we felt it was better not to do business with a client than to do it poorly. We knew from years of experience that the campaign and technology had disaster written all over it. We feel that making the correct changes, within budget, will increase the probability of a successful productive campaign from start to finish, even if it means calling your baby ugly!
Often times I find myself venturing to the local bookstore to help inspire myself with new creative ideas. Last week I came across a book called, “1000 Ideas by 100 Graphic Designers” and it has quickly become one of my favorites. 320 pages dedicated to helpful quotes, tricks of the trade, designer oaths and tid bits of information to keep you from losing your mind.
I’d like to share a few of my favorite tips…
#4 Surround yourself with talented individuals. It is an old adage but very true; you are only as good as those you work with
- I’ve been very blessed throughout my design career so far to have worked with some amazing and insanely talented individuals. They have taught me so much and helped me grow into the artist that I am. Now that I have the opportunity to work side by side with Nic and Matt I learn new things everyday especially when it comes to programming and organization. They’ve helped me to be a jack of all trades and allowed me to broaden my horizons beyond just my sketchbook.
#65 Keep your friends close but your critics closer. It’s nice that people like your work but you can actually learn much more from people who make valid criticism.
- Ok so I’m not saying that I’m looking for people to bag on my work, but it’s always refreshing to have some constructive criticism thrown your way. I also think it is good to have people who are non creatives check out your work before presenting it to your clients. I’ve realized that not everyone thinks the way that I do so having a person like Matt, my conservative project manager who is all about business, doing things the right way, simplicity and functionality analyze my work he often sees things in a different light and will provide me with additional solutions that I hadn’t thought of. It’s all about working together and feeding off of ideas like a big pot of stew…mmmm
#78 It’s important to work with good printers.
- Nothing is worse than working with a printer that is not necessarily up to par. They can hands down ruin a great project and design and make you want to throw things. If my team and I are handling the printing of design materials I always have preferred printers that I like to use based on the budget of our clients. Always remember Printers are your friends! Not your enemy.
#247 The Job is as fun as you make it. Fun is a key factor for quality of work and life.
- It’s important to enjoy what you do. I like to get my clients and the people around me excited and inspired about my work and the fun that I have doing it. There are always going to be bumps in the road, but no one said that you weren’t allowed to go off roading! Working with 2 business partners that are just as excited about their work as you always helps and it makes clients want to work with you too.
#835 Thou shalt not kill any ideas.
- I always tell people when I’m concepting that no idea is a bad idea and that often times you have to get the bad ideas out before you can get to the good ones. Same thing goes for clients. Sometimes clients come up with some pretty funny ideas, but it’s our job as the pros to help guide them into masterpieces. Don’t be afraid to throw out some randoms, cause who knows what can come of it.
Alright guys that’s it for now. Let me know what you think and if there are any tips of your own that you would like to add to my favs.
- Rachel
Axe Grind Studios has arrived!! After carefully planning and creating our company we are ready to present ourselves to the world. We are a full service company that builds and creates websites and branding for companies and helps drive traffic and solutions for your business once it is up and running.
Axe Grind Studios was created by the trio of Matt Stein, Nic Feinstein and Rachel VanBuskirk. This team came together because they all specialized in their respective areas and saw that together they could offer exceptional, quality products with excellent value to the world. With being a smaller “boutique” style studio, every project that comes through the door is being handled by the best of the best from start to finish unlike larger agencies. Simply said, we broke away to create something special, something better!
This being our first blog we are looking for feedback from our followers on what is important to you. What are you looking for when you visit a site and what matters most to you? Are you someone that judges the site based off of the look, feel and color schemes? Maybe the navigation and functionality are most important to you? Or maybe it’s the meat and potatoes of the site which would be the content? Please share with us your thoughts and opinions on what a website is to you and what features are most important.
We look forward to stimulating thought, discussion and opinions from you on many different topics so stay tuned and look for our blogs to come.
