12.1.08 – it was made official today, the US is in recession. Likely you have already felt the effects and they don’t feel good. If you are like many other worried business owners, you may be thinking that times like these require cost cutting and withdrawal from non-essential business practices, and many of you may be forced to do this. Once this all blows over (not that I’m an economist, but it will) the winners will be those who find the opportunities in this situation. Investing in design and innovation, as always, will result in a payoff down the road. It will help assure that your message is finding its audience, communicating with them, and reassuring them that you're here to stay. It's also an opportunity because your competition may be reclusive in times like this, and getting your message out now could have greater impact without the chatter of your competition.

When considering how to weather this economic storm, you should be vigilant as ever about thinking toward the future. Just as the storm dissipates, your company could be the one poised with exciting new offerings, while your competition’s products or services were left to die on the vine. Think about the poor battered Dow Jones, there will probably never be another time like this to “invest” in stocks, it's an opportunity. Whether you believe that now is the time to invest or not, the opportunity is there. If your organization has the resources, seize it.

APL Logistics provides a suite of online tools to its clients giving them on-demand visibility into their supply chains.

The FLASH animated demo we created to promote this system tells the story of a typical logistics professional and the issues she grapples with on a regular basis. This story was developed through a series of strategy meetings with our client where we discussed the pain points for their clients and how the SeeChange products help control those issues. MUELLER provided all aspects of design and development for this demo, as well as musical composition and production.

Sales agents for APL Logistics now have a strategic suite of tools to sell their “SeeChange Portal”. Developed with FLASH, this suite of demonstrations allows agents to walk prospects through their set of tools via animations and detailed descriptions of the various aspects of the system. The feedback from APLL sales agents has been overwhelmingly gracious and anxious for additional modules – slated for development in 2009.

This sustainably-farmed and maintained ranch and vineyard in Santa Barbara County is not only a grower of four ultra-premium Cabernet Sauvignon clones, but also a horse and Highland Cattle ranch. The identity we developed for them focused on the iconic Highland Cattle supported by a rustic treatment for the company initials. The added benefit of this emotional icon is that it translates well to an actual “brand” (as in, cattle brand).

In addition to the stationery system and cattle brand, several outdoor signs were also designed for the ranch and vineyard.

For college bound students there is much to do in preparing their journey into secondary education, and no shortage of online resources to help them. With the launch of EMBARK’s newly redesigned http://www.embark.com web site in September 2008, students now have one place to research and apply to schools as well as find help with financing their educations. The graphic user interface (GUI) we designed for them “considerably improved site usability for end users with a cleaner, less cluttered user interface and simpler site navigation making it easier to make use of site features.”

In addition to EMBARK’s new web site GUI, MUELLER developed a custom FLASH based timeline app to help students prepare for the many steps and deadlines that accompany the college application process. The app is dynamically populated by EMBARK staff to reflect the most current and urgent deadlines and tips using XML.

With the new web site design launched and garnering awards from the education community, EMBARK called on us to create marketing materials for the corporate side of their business. This brand extension required a slightly different approach with the target shifting from students to administrators. The complete system includes a folder, 7 solution sheets, 7 product sheets, a brochure, html email and two separate tradeshow booth designs.

Our approach for OmniVision’s graphic design language has undergone a slow but steady evolution over the 3 years we have worked with them. Lately our solutions that have been winning favor tend away from a focus on the lifestyle of the end users of their products, and tend towards more conceptual ideas. Our designs for these featured pieces, the 2008 Annual Report and Product Guide, present iconic images that are a part of our civilization’s collective conciousness. Made up of smaller images, the suggestion is that the images we capture individually are unique, but our experiences combined make up a larger cultural whole; a human experience.

Our relationship with HR Options began a couple years back when we were contracted to redevelop their brand from the ground up. Since then we have applied the resulting identity to their stationery system, a custom web application, and the corporate web site shown here. We are now developing a system of brochures to strategically position HR Options as a critical partner during this economic downturn. While their competition is less likely to be communicating during these times of budget cuts, this effort will no doubt result in increased market share for our client.

If you have ever entered a web environment and felt an overwhelming urge to escape, you are not alone. Lucky for web surfers, there is a "BACK" button to relieve us from web clutter. This, of course, is not so lucky for the company behind the offending web site.

This article was written by our Creative Director, Kyle Mueller, so be sure to email him any feedback you may have.
(published at the links below)

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