Article Email Marketing Browser Consistency and Popularity published on August 19, 2009 “How do I know my website will display properly on EVERY computer? Will it work correctly for ALL of my clients?” These are tough questions to answer, since every computer and every web browser is different. Browser inconsistencies cause slight variations on every site from browser to browser, and they can affect everything from formatting to functionality... Read Now About
Article Guest Post by Eric Holter: The Sharp Axe of Positioning by Christopher Butler on August 18, 2009 Now that Eric, our former CEO, is off to new heights in his career, I've invited him to contribute a few guest blog posts. This is the fourth of several posts that we'll feature from Eric in the coming months... When I critique advertising agency websites the first aspect I evaluate is positioning. Positioning is a foundational element for an effective web strategy. Positioning is defined as “what you do,” “who you do it for,” and “what the benefit is to them.” For example the positioning for Newfangled would be broken down like this... Read Now About
Article Great Referral Traffic by Christopher Butler on August 14, 2009 On Wednesday, I noticed that Smashing Magazine had just updated their blog with a new post called "Useful Web Design E-Mail Newsletters." After reading it, I decided to post a message to them on Twitter, saying, "Great list of web newsletters, though you forgot ours ;-)" and included a link to our newsletter page. Shortly after, they messaged back to let me know that they'd added the Newfangled newsletter to their list. I was surprised! But the traffic we received from their link surprised me more... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Guest Post by Eric Holter: A Critique of Remedy’s Website by Christopher Butler on August 10, 2009 Now that Eric, our former CEO, is off to new heights in his career, I've invited him to contribute a few guest blog posts. This is the third of several that he'll contribute in the coming months... In the recent HOW magazine article, "Rock Your Website," Chicago-based Remedy was one of the featured website examples. Remedy is a good example of an agency website, but I’m not quite ready to push it into the "great" column. It’s on the edge though, and with a few adjustments I think it could become one of the great examples of an agency website... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Meet the new Village Fertility Pharmacy! published on August 7, 2009 I am pleased to announce one of the newest additions to the Newfangled family, the redesigned Village Fertility Pharmacy!This site, which went live on July 31, was a complete rebuild/redesign. The means that we went back to the drawing board prototyping and reimagined the entire site from the ground up. Justin designed it, Dave built , and the entire VFP team worked tirelessly to populate their new site with expanded and updated content. Read Now About
Article Understanding Twitter by Mark O’Brien on August 4, 2009 I have to admit, I've been quite skeptical of Twitter for a long time. When Bryn Mooth joked about Twitter being insignificant during her opening greeting at the HOW Design Conference a few weeks ago, I found myself agreeing - not with her intentionally tongue in cheek delivery, but with the face value of what she was saying. I had been using Twitter via my iGoogle page for quite some time. This interface only lets me see the last few posts from those that I'm following, and I wasn't really getting much from it. This all changed during my time at the conference though. Read Now About
Article The Most Important Person on the Team published on July 31, 2009 While not being the most glamorous or high-profile position, the Quality Assurance (QA) role is the most important person on any web development team, and it doubly so here at Newfangled. Without them, our websites would be riddled with bugs, projects would never get finished on time, and everyone would generally be in a sour mood. Here, I hope to detail out what exactly these QA people do, and why I consider them the most important people in the room... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Paper Prototyping published on July 30, 2009 Despite all the tremendous benefits using an HTML based, interactive prototype (which we will sing praises for til the end of time), I often find that if we begin with HTML alone, we're more likely to cling to a certain layout simply due to the time (and pride) put into crafting a complex HTML structure. This is why I begin nearly all template layouts with a number of hand drawn sketches or whiteboard layouts before we even begin with HTML. In this post, I'll share an example of how paper prototyping played a critical role in how we approached a redesign for winwithoutpitching.com. Read Now About
Article The Future of the Web, Part 2 by Christopher Butler on July 29, 2009 Imagine touring Paris, guided in real time on your phone by a custom walking tour you created using data from the web. Holding your phone up to the bistro on the corner, a menu as well as reviews from other travelers pops up on the screen, which you briefly scan before deciding to stop for a bite. Before walking in, you pause and reach into your pocket for your debit card, which recognizes your biometrics and holographically displays your current balance. It's a bit less than you remembered. Well, the bistro is a bit pricey, but you had a cheap breakfast... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Guest Post by Eric Holter: A Critique of the Currency Marketing’s Website by Christopher Butler on July 28, 2009 Now that Eric, our former CEO, is off to new heights in his career, I've invited him to contribute a few guest blog posts. This is the second of a series that will be published in the coming months... Tim McAlpine founded his agency in 1990. But it wasn’t until 2003 that he took the bold step to re-position The McAlpine Group (their former name) as Currency Marketing, a specialized Credit Union marketing firm. It’s rare that creative firms overcome their initial terror at the idea of such focused positioning. Fears of opportunities lost or being passed over for other kinds of work (not to mention the fear of boredom from doing “just one thing”) often give agencies pause. It’s sometimes easier for agencies to warm up to the idea of positioning the way Tim did at the time, by maintaining two “brands.” In 2004 Tim created Currency Marketing for credit unions and Passport Marketing presumably for everything else. But three years later the fruits of Currency Marketing’s positioning were so profound he dropped Passport and now enjoys a laser focused specialization, which gives him valuable expertise and a leading position in credit union marketing... Read Now About
