We’re excited to announce the launch of the brand-spanking-new web site we designed for Ultima Health Assessments in Vancouver, BC.

Ultima’s existing site had grown stale and was no longer an accurate reflection of the company’s high standards and precision. Ultima asked CFX to bring a more scientific feel to the site and increase the site’s flow and Search Engine Optimization.  We also wanted to better track the site’s traffic, so we installed Google Analytics to allow the client to better track the effectiveness of their marketing and SEO efforts.

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We’re excited that our client, Innergy Corporate Yoga, has been selected as a Top 5 Finalist in the Best Company category of the Successful You Awards.

Good job, folks! Hope you take home a win on March 29th!

Learn more about the criteria for choosing winners at the Successful You Awards.

Getting MS Office applications to play nice can be a challenge. It seems that every time a new version comes out, things that worked fine before no longer do. We’ve been hesitant to upgrade to the newest version of Office because of the fact that, in the 2007 version, it did not seem possible to get Outlook to use a custom HTML email template on replies and forwarded messages. For the sake of consistency, it’s preferable to have the same look appear on all outgoing messages, regardless of whether it’s a new conversation or part of an existing one.

So, I set out to find out if the 2010 version of Outlook was any more flexible. At first glance, it seemed that it was similar to 2007 – you could paste an HTML file inside the stationery folder on the hard drive and you could then use that from within the list of “themes” shown. Still, our replies and forwards were left out in the cold, so a solution had to be found.

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With all the corporate and real estate design projects our studio does – and the more conservative design limitations that can sometimes go with corporate branding – it’s  a welcome change to have a job come through the door that lets us flex our creative muscle and have a little fun.

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You’d think that big companies would have web site usability down to a science – and a lot of them do. However, there are some sites that seem to have slipped through the user-friendly cracks, as I just found out today when placing an order at Staples.ca

The login link was found easily enough, but once logged in, tracking down the link to edit account details was like finding a needle in a haystack. All the usual areas were searched – at the top of the page near the Logout and shopping cart buttons, on the right side, at the bottom of the page where site map links are located. No luck. Finally, I had to call someone else over to the screen and after another minute of both searching the screen, there sits the My Account button, all but invisible on the main navigation because it’s next to a bunch of other buttons listing main product categories on the site. Needless to say, you don’t expect to see an account-related button alongside a list of product categories.

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We’re excited to announce the launch of our new social media marketing service, BOOST Social Media. Social Media is a natural companion to the design and branding tools that we create for our clients and we’re pretty excited about what social media marketing can do for our clients as part of a well-rounded branding and marketing effort.

Check out the BOOST Social Media web site and let us know what you think: www.gimmeaboost.com

Already plugged into social media? Let’s connect! Become a fan of BOOST on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

In addition to graphic design, corporate identity/branding and web site design/development, we’re expanding our service offering to include the following:

- Social media strategy, planning & management
- Social media profile setup
- Corporate blogging
- Event live-blogging
- Search engine optimization
- Search engine marketing

Want to get your business connected with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Flickr and YouTube? Contact Us today for a free consultation.

OK, so this project was launched a few months ago, but we just got our blog up and running again, so we figured it would be a good time to show off some of our most recent work. NALH Bookkeeping Services has been one of our clients for a number of years and, after the successful integration of their re-designed logo and corporate identity, it was time to freshen up the web site so it more closely matched the identity we designed several years ago. The key was to integrate imagery and testimonials from actual clients to put a more human face on the services the company provides.

NALH also wanted to incorporate social media into their marketing efforts, so we set up profiles for them on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Plaxo, as well as incorporating a WordPress-powered blog into their site.

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We’re excited to announce the launch of a web site we’ve been working on for our client, Intricate Glass Ltd, a glazing contracting company based in Chilliwack, BC that serves developer clients in Vancouver, lower Mainland BC and Alberta. Intricate Glass has worked on numerous high-profile projects in downtown Vancouver such as Shangri-La, Shaw Tower, Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel and many others.

Check out the new site and let us know what you think! www.intricateglass.com

I was at a presentation on Thursday at the Yaletown Rotary Club being given by Kemp Edmonds (@KempEdmonds), a social media educator at BCIT. One of the topics he discussed was cross-posting on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking web sites. Cross-posting – posting the same information on multiple sites at once – makes it easier to keep all your social media profile up to date, but there are also potential downfalls.

Kemp discussed the idea that using tags and symbols in your messages – particularly those employed by seasoned Twitter users – on sites where they’re not typically used can result in alienation of the audience on other sites.  In this case, cross-posting would negate your efforts to reach more audience in less time.

Have you ever seen an @ or # symbol in someone’s Facebook or LinkedIn status? What does RT mean anyway?  Kemp had a great point in stating that not everyone is familiar with these symbols and abbreviations. Furthermore, no one likes to feel like they’re out of the loop. So, in the interest of education, let’s examine what these cryptic Twitter symbols and terms mean:

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Mashable wrote a great article on how small businesses can take advantage of some new features being offered on the LinkedIn site. With the addition of a number of Facebook-like features for more easily sharing content, LinkedIn adds more value than ever for its users.

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Whewh! It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve finally gotten our blog migrated over from Blogger and are thrilled beyond measure that we’re up and running with WordPress. This means – for better or worse – that you’ll hear from us more often since we can, once again, actually update the blog without dealing with the major hassles of the Blogger backend.

We should also mention that, if you’re looking to integrate a blog onto your company’s web site, or if you’d like your site set up in a content-management system so you can make changes to content yourself, get in touch with us. We can do some pretty awesome things with WordPress that will make your life a whole lot easier!

Check out a couple of examples of client sites we’ve built using WordPress to power the blog or, in some cases, the entire site.

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WHAT?
Design is omni-present. It cannot be escaped. Everywhere you look, every object you see, every book you read, every billboard in your line of sight, advertisements in magazines, newspapers and on TV, every article of clothing in your wardrobe, the plates you eat from and even the bed you sleep in – all are the result of a design process.

HOW?
The design process begins with a core idea – what are we making, what purpose does it serve, to whom is it directed or being sold?  From there, the idea is refined into a solid concept – what is the general look and feel of the object or piece? Will it be a high-end product or a dollar-store item? Next, artistic renderings give the idea visual form – sketches and/or digital images are developed, various visual representations are explored. Once a graphic direction has been chosen, the visual is further refined until a final design is produced. From there, the object or piece is taken through a production process, whether it be printing for business cards or brochures or manufacturing of a cell phone or pair of shoes.

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