Studioblog (n): a blog by Studiobanks about design, marketing, internet, business, Charlotte and more.

Design Lecture by Muzak Design Team

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You might remember that Studiobanks gave a lecture for AIGA a few months ago. It was a part of their A Lecture by Your Next Door Neighbor series. Well, this month Muzak's in-house design team has been invited to speak. We have been working closely with their team on Muzak's various website projects. It will be interesting for us to hear more about what their offline design process is like. The event is next Thursday. Make it out if you can. You can find details on the AIGA Charlotte site.

About Muzak Design Team:

As the world’s leading provider of business music, Muzak creates experiences that reach more than 100 million people daily. Some of the biggest brands in business, from Aveda to Sur La Table to Boeing, work with Muzak to enhance their brand image in more than 350,000 client locations. Based out of its home office, Muzak’s in-house design group creates everything you can think of—from sales collateral and web sites to environmental design and apparel. The team of three designers and one copywriter create award-winning work to promote sales and the brand.

Who is Keeping You Down and Holding You Back?

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To help promote this year's ADDY® Awards and Gala Show, we've created a web campaign based on the "Call For Entries" mailer and poster designed by Limerick and Hot Sake. It was made for people in the creative industry to poke fun at their boss, a client or any other worthy foe. People can anonymously log on to the site, provide the person's name, upload their photo and dress them up anyway they see fit. From there, they can print it, email it or post it in the bathroom—it's up to them. Share it with the world, because we are going to print them all out and hang them up at this year's ADDY® Awards and Gala Show on March 6th.

Check it out and then let the rest of the world know who is keeping you down and holding you back!

Our upgrade to Leopard

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We've been waiting for the launch of Apple’s new OS X upgrade, Leopard. Well, it showed up last week and we have now all upgraded. I thought I would detail out some of the features we have found useful along with some of the major issues we have experienced.

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Know When to Say No

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This past weekend, our client Eric from Dilworth Billiards asked me to go jump out of an airplane with him. As you can see, I said "yes". It was a ton of fun, but one of the scariest things I have ever done. When I told everyone this morning about my temporary loss of sanity, they all said I should write a post about it. However, since this is our company blog, I thought I would try to relate the event back to design (while also letting everyone know I jumped out of an airplane!).

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Lecture at Studiobanks

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Big thanks to AIGA and everyone that made it out last night for the AIGA Lecture By Your Next Door Neighbor. This was the first time our studio had ever been asked to do a lecture. It was exciting for us to see so many people in the studio to hear about our work.

In the lecture, we discussed our creative process and highlighted nine of our clients. Those who attended even got a sneak peek at some of our website projects that are in the works and haven’t launched yet.

If you missed it, here are some photos we took.

Carolina Theatre to be Restored

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One of Studiobanks’ first pro-bono projects was to help the Carolina Theatre Preservation Society with the theatre’s 75th anniversary. It was an event to help raise funds for the restoration of Charlotte’s oldest theatre, which was closed after a fire 20 years ago.

To my surprise, we saw a new banner hanging on the long empty corner of 6th and Tryon yesterday while we were out to lunch. It appears that a new residential condominium is going to be constructed on the lot, and the plans call for a complete restoration of the Carolina Theatre!

The project will also include Charlotte’s first elevator system parking garage. Read about the project at The Encore website.

What Do You Want to Know?

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I have been asked to give a lecture about our studio on the 11th of October. The lecture is part of an AIGA series that highlights Carolina-based agency owners, art directors, designers and freelancers. It is geared towards introducing students and budding designers to the design happening right next door. Their website describes the event like this:

A Lecture By Your Next Door Neighbor
Ever wonder who the mysterious neighbor is across the street? Well, it might just be the Creative Director for one of Charlotte’s big agencies, the Art Director for a well-known national brand or the freelancer that designs for all the big names in town. Come out and meet Carolina-based agency owners, art directors, designers and freelancers. Hear them speak about inspiration, and what drives them to design award-winning work. See their portfolios and ask them all the questions you are just dying to know.

I am currently trying to figure out exactly what the lecture will contain. So for any of you out there that might be attending this event, I need your help! What do you want to know about Studiobanks?

The Light Factory

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Tracy Russ, a copywriter we work with, graciously invited us to join him for lunch at a fundraising event for The Light Factory. Their website describes the organization like this:

The Light Factory is a non-profit arts center dedicated to exhibition and education programs promoting the power of photography and film. Each year thousands of people visit The Light Factory in Uptown Charlotte's Spirit Square to experience our exhibitions, take classes, hear talks, and see films.

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Top 5 things to never do when inquiring about a graphic design position

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Studiobanks receives tons of email from young designers looking for entry-level design positions. However, the majority of the emails we receive I delete immediately. Having your email deleted is the worst thing that could happen. Even if the firm isn’t currently hiring, you should want them to save your information for when the time comes that they do need to hire someone.

To that end, here are my top five things to never do when inquiring about a graphic design position. While these will not ensure that your information is saved, it will at least ensure it is not deleted immediately.

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(Project Update) Heels.com

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We were recently approached by one of our favorite clients to help design a logo for a new e-commerce website he is working on. The site will sell women's shoes and was appropriately named Heels.com. In the world of domain names, a short, generic word like "heels" is very valuable - so that made it kind of exciting for us. This particular client has his own team of web developers and just utilizes us for look and feel. So along with the logo we also designed out what each page of the website will look like. As of today, it looks like the developers have not implemented our design yet and have put up their own coming soon page.