March 2014
 
 
meet Nessie
Each month, we give away to a handful of lucky readers an item selected by our creative staff for its clever design, aesthetic appeal, originality or silly fun. Scroll down to "You Want This" to see the March selection and request it.

On our website  
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It's Spring!
Are you sprucing up
or selling your home?
Call Hollister clients
for quality services


Residential painting

 

Nolan Painting is a residential painting company that has been serving the Main Line and surrounding communities for more than 30 years. Led by founder and owner Kevin Nolan, Nolan Painting has earned a reputation for exceptional quality, honesty and customer service. Kevin ensures that his team delivers the very best value in interior and exterior painting, color consulting, faux finishes, wall covering, plaster and stucco repair, and wood replacement services. Click to learn more or call 610.572.2893.

Hollister Creative designed the Nolan Painting website. We continue to provide graphic design and copywriting services for print and online advertisements.

 

 

Interior design   


Ginger Woods, owner of Ginger Woods Design, is a professional interior designer, space planner and project manager with more than 25 years of experience on residential and commercial projects, including the The Play Caf� in Bryn Mawr. Her firm's specialty is crafting personalized spaces that delight the homeowner. Whether you are moving into a new home, renovating or feeling that existing rooms need a fresh look, Ginger will create a beautiful environment that suits your style and your lifestyle. Click to email Ginger or call 484-383-4864.

Hollister Creative designed the Ginger Woods Design logo.  

 

   

Homes staging  
Hart & Associates Staging and Design prepares your home for a faster and more profitable sale. Buyers form their initial impression of your home within seconds of entering it. Staging showcases your home's best assets and attracts the most potential buyers, whether the home is occupied or vacant. Firm owner Kate Hart is a nationally recognized staging expert and she personally provides staging services to clients in Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties. Click to learn more or call 610.564.6760.

Hollister Creative designed the Hart & Associates logo, as well as a presentation folder and some sell sheets.


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Our Creativity Blog is on our  website. Read and comment on the blog.
Designer DOs and DON'TsDesignerDD


Bad, bad, bad, bad vibrations

Finding these images tough to focus on? Feeling a little woozy? 


When you place vivid colors of roughly the same brightness and intensity side by side, the edge between them can appear to "vibrate." 


There are all sorts of sciency reasons for why your eyes and brain find it difficult to figure out where one color stops and the other begins, but what you need to know is that any text and background in vibrating colors will drive away readers. They might not know exactly why they're annoyed and frustrated, but they are, and they will stop reading. 


The vibration is stronger when the colors are complementary - right across from each other on the color wheel.


Make it easy on your readers (and their eyes) by choosing colors that contrast in saturation and intensity, as well as hue.   

 

Design and share your own color palettes, or check out ones that others have made at kuler.adobe.com.   

 

Not all vibrations are bad. Pick up some good, good, good, good ones here

  

Need help with design for your business website, publication or marketing collateral? Email Kim Landry or call 484.829.0021. 

 

Strategist Quickiestrategy
 
Lost keys can lock you out of your website 
 
Losing the keys to your house is annoying, but your spouse or neighbor has a spare. Losing the keys to your website can mean your business is locked out permanently: You can't improve the site, replace it or move it to a new host.

This happens more often than you might think. New clients hire us for website work, and when we ask for the keys - the user names, passwords, host name and other access information we need - they are shocked to discover they don't have the keys. Whoever set up their site for them "took care of all that" and now that person or company has disappeared or can't remember the passwords.

Your company made a significant investment to develop a website. It's vital that the owner and/or top company executive has a copy of the keys. If you're not sure whether you have the keys or not, here are the steps to take to find out for sure.

First, make sure your company owns and controls your website.
  1. Make sure your URL is officially registered to your company and billed to your company, not to the contractor who may have purchased the URL and registered it for you. You can make a contractor the secondary contact so they get copied on notices about upcoming expirations dates, etc.
  2. Make sure your company, not a contractor, owns the account with the company that hosts your website and the host bills you directly. You need the host's URL, your username and password to access this account if you ever want to change hosts.
Now that everything's in your company's name, get all the access information you need from the employee or contractor who has it. This includes all relevant URLs, usernames and passwords. Then file this information and save it along with other important company documents. Here's what needs to be in the file:
  1. Access to your website's content management system (CMS) 
  2. FTP (file transfer protocol) access to make changes that can't be made through the CMS 
  3. Access to your account at the company where your URL (domain) is registered 
  4. Access to your account at the company that hosts your website
We've made a handy checklist for you to download, fill out and put somewhere safe. 

To comment on this article or share it on social media, view it on our Creativity Blog.

Need help coming up with ways for your business to stand out? Email Kim Landry or call 484.829.0021.
 
Editor FAQDesignerDD

  

The active voice keeps your story moving


Q.
My editor sent back my article about staff meetings. Her note said, "Rewrite in active voice." What is she talking about? People don't race around or have sword fights at our staff meetings. They sit, pretend to listen and text under the table.
Dany knows that passivity will not win the game of thrones. She steps up and takes charge of her own fate.

A. At our staff meetings, we go over our progress on projects, divvy up responsibilities and try to one-up each other with goofy three-toed sloth impressions. That last part's not true (usually), but this is:

In the active voice, the subject does something: Sansa builds a castle out of snow. Sansa's the subject and the mover and shaker of this sentence.

In the passive voice, something is done to the subject: A castle is built out of snow by Sansa. Now an inanimate object is the subject and the sentence just doesn't have the same energy. The passive voice is wordier and can be confusing because the word order makes it harder to conjure up a mental image of what is happening.

When reading the active voice sentence, "Dany considers her options," we first picture Dany. What's she doing? She's deciding what to do next. Perhaps her eyes are narrowing slightly and her brow is starting to furrow. She's just standing there, but we know that something interesting is about to happen. Watch out world.

Here's that same scene in the passive voice: "Options are being considered by Dany." For 85% of that sentence, we're not sure who's doing the what. And it's much harder to picture. What do options under consideration look like? Who is the better action hero - Dany or some options?

Need help with writing or editing content for social media or your website, blog, email newsletter or print collateral? Email Kim Landry or call 484.829.0021. 

Challenges and Solutions

Need volunteers? Put your website to work  


Police officers are paid, full-time or part-time employees of the municipality, but in many communities, the trained firefighters who risk their lives to battle blazes in homes and businesses are volunteers. If it were not for these volunteers, fires would not be fought.
 
BucksFire.org has a Twitter feed to ensure the latest news is always on the home page. 
Recruiting volunteers is a major focus of the Bucks County Fire Chiefs & Firefighters Association, which was founded in 1913 to provide training and education for members. The chiefs who lead the association work to ensure that firefighters across the county stay current with the latest techniques and technology for fighting fires. So it is no surprise that these leaders also want to employ the latest techniques and technology for recruiting volunteers.

Receipt of a federal grant to support recruiting efforts has given the association the wherewithal to take a major leap forward in 2014. The association hired The Communication Solutions Group to plan and execute a countywide recruitment campaign, and CSS partnered with Hollister Creative to design and develop a new recruitment website: BucksFire.org. The site also describes opportunities for adults and teens to volunteer for support activities that do not involve firefighting.

While the public area of the new website is entirely focused on attracting volunteers, the website serves a secondary purpose. Fire stations often have a booth or table to recruit volunteers at community fairs and events. For each occasion, they need to order supplies, such as brochures and imprinted giveaway items. They now can do so online because the website has a private login area where chiefs can browse the available marketing materials, indicate quantities needed, specify when and where the materials are to be delivered, and place an order.

If you need to create a website, or part of a website, for recruiting volunteers, here are a few tips to make it successful. 
  1. Connect emotionally. Use colors and visuals that evoke the challenges and satisfactions of this kind of volunteer work. Show website visitors real (not stock) people like themselves doing the work in a video or photos. In describing the work, include all of the ways a volunteer can benefit from it emotionally, such as pride from doing important work, gratification from helping others and a sense of belonging in a group of fellow volunteers. If there are off-duty opportunities for volunteers to relax and have fun together, certainly mention those and include one or more fun photos.
  2. Be specific. Few people will step forward if you are vague about the opportunity. State the jobs you need filled, the skills required (if any), the training provided and the time commitment expected. Try to answer the usual questions in an FAQ. Offer to answer any additional questions when the prospective volunteer contacts you via a web form, email or phone call.
  3. Make the ask. Place a prominent "Volunteer" button in the header, so that is appears in the same spot on every page. But don't stop there. In every section of text where you are describing an opportunity, link a call-to-action phrase in the text to the page where you want the website visitor to act (i.e. by filling out a web form, emailing you or calling you). In addition to "volunteer today," linked call-to-action phrases could be "inquire now," "get more information" or "join us."  

Challenges and Solutions are mini case studies that include tips you may find helpful if you are facing a similar challenge. View more Challenges and Solutions on the Hollister Creative website.  

 

You Want This book 

  

Each month, we give away an item selected by our creative staff for its clever design, aesthetic appeal, originality or silly fun. This month, the 4th, 8th, 15th, 16th, 23rd and 42nd readers to email us a request will win a package of 24 Nessie Pins (six complete Nessies per package!).    

Nessie Pins   

Is your office bulletin board crammed with contact lists, calendars, pictures, random receipts and that one earring that someone visiting your office left behind three years ago? Feeling the need to clean it up?  

 

Who better to assist you than a mythical lake monster with a brogue?  

 

When Nessie needs a break from teasing the Loch Ness paparazzi and foiling scientists with sonar, she transforms herself into adorable push pins and helps the world's disorganized straighten up their cork boards. True story.  

 

She's so cute, you'll be forced to get rid of all the extraneous stuff cluttering up your board to show her off.