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

Over Half of Your Website’s Mobile Viewers are on an Apple product, does your website know that?

Michael 2 Comments

It’s very easy to forget about how many devices may view your website on a daily basis, simply because when you factor in mobile internet, the options can become overwhelming. It’s important to consider the popularity of these devices when planning your website strategy because most budgets will not allow for a site that both looks and works great in every mobile device in the market.

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BarCamp Charlotte 3

Michael 1 Comments

After oversleeping for the last two years, I finally got a chance to attend Charlotte's (third) annual BarCamp event.

BarCamp is an "un-conference", where typical conference layouts are discarded for a more attendee-based approach that allows anyone at the conference to pitch an idea they would like to talk about, then have everyone vote on the topics that interest them most. The pitches with the most votes get to present.

I admit I was a little concerned about the event as from what I had gathered, the topics were more focused on social media and other aspects of technology that I was not hugely interested in. To my pleasant surprise, nearly the opposite was true.

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Bing Ups the Ante With Some Wicked In-Map Augmented Reality

Michael 0 Comments

I was linked to a TED Talk the other day by a friend whose only description of the video was "the crowd actually gasps in the middle of the presentation". Knowing that TED usually features the brightest and most innovative minds of today, you could imagine my surprise when the presenter of the video was an employee of Microsoft.

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Outlook's Broken. Let's Fix It.

Michael 3 Comments

Of the many pangs of being a web developer, one that rises to the tip-top in terms of pain-in-the-assness is backwards compatibility. Whether it means discarding cool features, scaling back designs or even creating a separate site altogether, the steps we take to ensure backwards compatibility for browsers and email clients not only hinder our creative potential, but also costs considerable amounts of time and, therefore, money.

In their latest victory over progression, Microsoft have declared war on advancements in email design. FixOutlook.org has taken a stand and is encouraging people like me and you to let Microsoft know that we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. From their site:

Microsoft have just confirmed they plan on using the crippled Word rendering engine to display HTML emails in Outlook 2010.

This means for the next 5 years your email designs will need tables for layout, have no support for CSS like float and position and no background images. Not to mention the long list of bugs and quirks that break the simplest of layouts.

Outlook 2010 is still in beta and Microsoft have confirmed they want to hear your feedback on this decision. It's time for the email marketing and design community to rally together and encourage Microsoft to embrace web standards before it's too late.

They have launched an aggressive Twitter Campaign and an impressive site to go along with it. Join the cause, fight the power, Viva La Resistance!

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Studiobanks Holiday Hunt!

Michael 1 Comments

2008 was a year full of changes for Studiobanks. We took on larger projects than ever before, welcomed great new members to our team and said goodbye to some good friends as they moved forward in their careers.

As we move forward to a new year, we wanted to create a fun way for you to not only see this year's changes, but even find them for yourselves!

Test your sensational seasonal search skills at holiday.studiobanks.com.

Don't forget to record your scores when you're done, there may be an awesome prize in store for you!

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Constructing Usable URLs

Michael 1 Comments

When discussing usability, I tend to bounce from element to element - menu this, font-size that and so on. The last year or two introduced some non-design elements to the conversation, like AJAX, accessibility and semantics. Not until the last few months, however, have I considered URL construction an important part of usability. SEO, sure, but usability? Never.

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5 SEO Tips to Consider While Planning a Website

Michael 0 Comments

Hidden at the end of most website task lists is that pesky little duty of search engine optimization (SEO). Many consider SEO to be a post-production part of a website; a job for the marketing department or search engine marketing (SEM) vendor that is typically handled by the client or copywriter, not the developer. While this may be true to a degree, many of the more advantageous SEO tricks fall solely on the developer to implement before the website even launches.

With that said, I'd like to point out five SEO tips and misconceptions that hold true with nearly every website.

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