New Name. New Location. New Adventures. Same great service!

As you may have noticed, Just Design has been pretty quiet lately. Well, have no fear, we are still here. Recently, Abagail, Founder and Creative Director took a new direction in life. In the last month Abagail has relocated, married, changed her name and her day job. Despite all the changes Just Design still continues to deliver the same quality of work worldwide.

NEW NAME.
Although Abagail's last name is no longer a Polys, you will still be greeted with the same enthusiasm, ideas and creative outlook. Abagail Pumphrey is here to create customized solutions for your business, or perhaps just YOU!

NEW LOCATION.
Just Design may no longer headquartered in Manhattan, KS, but we still serve clients worldwide. Centrally located out of Kansas City we will continue to work locally with clients. But did you know that we serve businesses around the world? Want your city to be next, contact us today. 

NEW ADVENTURES.

Upon moving Abagail left her day job pushing pixels for Kansas State University in the education sector and went corporate. She now works for Creative Marketing out of Leawood in their Strategic Marketing in Communication Department. In addition, Abagail has expanded the services that Just Design offers. Originally, Just Design started as a way to serve small businesses and start ups in their entrepreneurial efforts to grow their business. Typical projects included identity packages and strategic marketing plans. 

In 2012, Just Design expanded and added the Joy line. This broke into the home decor and personal style market with products ranging from custom headbands, recycled wine bottle glasses and even illustrations. 

In 2013, after spending the year planning her own wedding, Abagail noticed that not only do other businesses need help, but so do consumers. In May, Just Design introduced a full line of custom stationery products (pricing sheet available upon request).

Well, if you know Abagail, you know she never stops looking for ways to grow both spiritually and professionally. Just recently, Just Design was approached asking if they could give back to other creative people. Of course, Abagail jumped at the chance. 

Starting August 2013, Just Design is proud to say we now offer private tutoring. No, not the math or science wiz kind, the creative kind. Interested in learning how to use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or Indesign? Well, schedule your appointment today and Abagail will work one-on-one with you or perhaps a small group. We can start at the beginning and do a basic overview, or for more advanced users she offers opportunities to learn specific tips and tricks. Like something you see on JustDesign.Me, Abagail will walk you through how she created it and how you can reach the same goals.

SAME GREAT SERVICE!

Have questions about how we could work together? Have ideas for ways to expand your business (or mine)? Want more information? Contact Just Design at: abagail@justdesign.me

Can Pinterest increase your business?

The quick answer is MAYBE.

If you missed the bandwagon, Pinterest is a virtual “bulletin board,” driven by social image sharing that allows “pinners” to view an image, write their own caption, and then link back to the original source. Users can browse other people’s bulletin boards, “repin” images to their own board, and comment on or “like” other images.

It is obvious that Pinterest can generate referral traffic to you website. However, what can this mean for your business and how do you start using this technology?

There are two approaches to growing your business using Pinterest: active or passive. For instance, if your car is dirty, would you take a passive approach and wait for it to rain, or would you take an active approach and get out a bucket, soap, sponge and hose and wash it yourself?

Of course we all wish it would just rain, but sometimes there is a drought and we need to be proactive and wash the car. The same principle applies to using Pintrest to promote your business. Don’t wait for people to accidentally find you. Instead, create an account, pin some images, gather some followers and start proactively building awareness. Eventually, you will drive more traffic to your website.

Navigating social media and learning how to use the tools to gain awareness and drive traffic takes time, practice and patience. What images are other people repinning? What are people searching for? Follow other people who are interested in similar topics. Just remember to be patient and have fun with it!

Pinterest is one of the easiest social media sources for tracking traffic back to your website. All pins linking back to your website are consolidated by source (whether you set up an account or not) at pinterest.com/source/ + yourdomain.com/. For example, you can see all pins from Apple.com at pinterest.com/source/apple.com/.

Need help navigating social media and understanding how to use it to market your business? Just Design can help! 

Brand Identity: It Starts with a Name

If you are about to start a small business, one of the first marketing activities is to select a business name. Your business name can either make or break your company. The perfect name can help drive new business, generate buzz and appear established and credible. The wrong name can quickly turn your new venture into obscurity and failure.

In an ideal world, your name and brand identity should convey the talent, value and uniqueness that sets your product or serves apart from the competition.

There are three schools of thought on selecting a business name. First, some experts believe abstract names allow a business to start with a blank slate with which to create an identity, such as the name Agile Group. Agile is a familiar word, but we can’t tell if it’s an IT company or some other type of business consultant.

Second, other experts think a name should be informational and immediately tell your customers exactly what you do, such as Johnson Mortgage Services. There is no question that this business is going to help you mortgage a home.

The third option is to be so abstract you coin a new word or phrase that no one has ever heard of to label their product or service. Pharmaceutical and car manufacturers are notorious for doing this by creating names like Tylenol and Prius that have no preconceived notion.

ENLIST EXPERT ADVICE

Just Design can help create a brand identity for your business. Together, we can create a name that takes all the guesswork out of success. We will decide what you want to communicate to your customers. This message should reinforce the key elements of your business and perhaps why you started it in the first place. Taking into account your competition and high-level corporations we come up with not only a name, but also a brand with a plan. Find out how Just Design can help you today. Contact Abagail Pumphrey at: abagail@justdesign.me

Software Does Not Create Design

I get asked many times if I am worried about amateurs saturating my field as so many are learning the software tools of our trade. I profoundly say “no”.  The software doesn’t create the design, it shows the design.  I am curious how many of these amateurs actually have strength in design; I’m guessing not many.  Unfortunately, my guess is not many. Let’s consider the other side of the coin.  What if the amateurs were catching up and will one day find their niche in our industry?  For me, that just motivates me more to excel in my field.  I will always be many steps ahead of the competition.   

Analytics – the Secret to Monitor Your Marketing

I am not sure how much you know about Google analytics, but it hit the market in 2005 as the premier tool to track detailed statistics about the visitors to your website. It is now currently the most widely used website statistics service, used on about 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites according to Builtwith.com. It tracks everything from the average time someone stays on a page, the origin of their IP address, down to the town that person lives in. Sound creepy? Don’t worry, it is about tracking who your customers are, and where traffic comes from, so new content can continue to be developed right for you.

In a perfect world this would be all you need to really understand your individual market. That was just fine until the major market shift in September 2006 when Facebook started allowing everyone with a valid email address, age 13 and older to create a page. It wasn’t long before Facebook let businesses and individual groups create their own pages. In June 2011 according to DoubleClick (a subsidiary of google), Facebook had reached one trillion page views in that month alone, making it the single most popular website in the world. Now why does this matter? Well if businesses can create pages, and the most popular website in the world allows you to make your own page, wouldn’t you want to know how much traffic your business gets from YOUR PAGE? Of course you do!

Well now you can. Webtrends.com allows you to finally access full demographics from your Facebook page, much like google for any other website. “Webtrends Analytics pulls data from your Facebook pages and apps using Facebook API. Additional conversion data is available with the Webtrends tag. Within a couple of clicks and less than 30 seconds, you start seeing ideas about what’s working and what’s not.” Sounds pretty perfect right?

Well what about other social media. It wasn’t like Facebook that was the only media source to sky rocket in the past 5 years. What about it’s obvious opponent Twitter? Well Tuesday, Twitter finally announced their solution. Twitter analytics currently in Beta is scheduled to roll out in the next couple of weeks. Get ready, your tracking is about to finally catch up with the rest of the world.

Don’t know anything about tracking, check out the following websites!
Google Analytics
Webtrends
Twitter Analytics

Get tracking today!!



Works Cited
Wikipedia
Builtwith.com
DoubleClick
Web Trends
Mashable

Design “Within” Brand

Sometimes I forget how fun it can be to design “within” a brand. When that look and feel has already been established, you have to reach out and find that perfect tweak that will continue to bring in sales while successfully communicating to new potential clients.

The last couple weeks have been all about Dymax. Pictures were edited to be used on Dymaxrail.com. Binders, folders and CDs were updated for their sales department. You can check out how my pictures fit into the new design on Dymaxrail.com, which was designed by Ben York at Imagemakers, Inc.

Jobfit Test - Find Your Career Path

I thought I knew a lot about what I wanted to accomplish as a designer and with my future career. But this test opened up some possibilities I may have never thought about and really helped define what I am good at and where I could make improvements. A lot of it are things I knew, but to see it written out is sort of a short-term view into how other people view me, more specifically in a work environment. A couple hours later and a few hundred questions you can have the same realizations about your own life. Take the Jobfit test today.