2014 - m.e.designlab

Hickory Graphic Designer Wins National Award for Logo Design

December 19, 2014/0 Comments/in Branding, Press Releases/by Matt Everley

HICKORY, NC Matt Everley, of Hickory-based graphic design studio m.e.designlab, was recently selected as a winner for a 2014 American Graphic Design Award by a nationwide panel of judges. The award recognizes excellence in communication and graphic design.

The competition was presented by Graphic Design USA Magazine. A highly selective 15% of the 8,500+ entries were honored this year. Everley’s winning entry was the logo design and development for Viking Aerial, a Hickory, NC-based creative studio offering UAV drone photography and video services for real estate and property promotion. The selected piece and design credits will be featured in GDUSA’s December issue, “2014 Design Annual” and can be viewed online at www.gdusa.com.

Everley has won numerous awards for logos, web sites, direct mail and corporate identity systems including several previous American Graphic Design Awards over the last 12 years. Matt resides in Hickory with his wife and three daughters. His portfolio can be viewed at www.matte69.sg-host.com. For more information, call 828-441-0010.

Using WordPress for Your Small Business

December 1, 2014/3 Comments/in Tutorials, Web Design/by Matt Everley

This article is from a “how-to” seminar for small business owners and prospective business owners who have not used WordPress before. The goal of the seminar was to teach participants how to use and navigate WordPress—from understanding web hosting options, to choosing a theme, to inserting text and images, and even using WordPress as a blogging tool to communicate to an audience. So from this seminar comes the following comprehensive guide to getting started with WordPress for your small business.

Introduction to WordPress

First of all, what is WordPress?

WordPress is a free and open-source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) which many small businesses use to create their own web sites. WordPress offers templates and plugins allowing users to create a professional looking web site for a minimal cost. (taken from the Small Business Center’s Workshop Sheet)

Why use WordPress?

If you’re looking to be able to place and edit your own content, you need a CMS (content management system) and WordPress is just about one of the best CMS’s out there. WordPress is wildly poplular, which means it has a great following, loyal users and tons of developers creating plugins and other supporting elements. Blogging is inherent with WordPress. Afterall, WordPress started as a blogging platform and blogs are one of the things WordPress does best. WordPress is easy to manage for new users. And did I mention it’s free?

What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

In a nutshell, WordPress.com is the commercial version of WordPress and a way to have your website hosted on their servers. Worpress.org is an open-source blogging/CMS platform you can install on your own server. If you are looking to simply tryout WordPress or you don’t need your own custom domain, then WordPress.com might be for you. But for the interest of most users (and the purposes of this seminar) I would recommend WordPress.org because it has more options and is much more scalable.

Here’s a great article I found comparing the two: WordPress.org vs WordPress.com: A Definitive Guide

WordPress Hosting

What is web hosting and why do you need it?

When you purchase web hosting you are basically renting space on a high-powered server somewhere in the world. A domain name is the actual name of your website (i.e. www.yourdomain.com). The domain name will point to your web hosting account. I like to think of the hosting as your house, and your domain as your house’s address. Sometimes the domain name is a separate charge, and sometimes it is rolled into your web hosting package.

Recommended hosting options

SiteGround.com – This is my new favorite hosting platform. Easy to use, great support and highly recommended!
BlueHost.com – comes with free domain name, plus “1-click” WordPress installation
Hostgator.com – good, cheap hosting and also offers easy WordPress installation

Word to the wise—you get what you pay for. I myself use MediaTemple.com. It costs a bit more but has a very good reputation in my particular industry and it allows me to host multiple websites.

Another Warning: GoDaddy. While GoDaddy.com is an inexpensive option, and has a WordPress hosting option where it is pre-installed, they do not include e-mail with their WordPress hosting package. You have to purchase this as an add-on or separate service, and in my experience this is a royal pain in the butt!

How do you install WordPress?

This all depends on your hosting service, but for the most part it is a series of questions like any other software installation. You will need to come up with a username and password. Write this down or make it easy to remember!

Here’s a great video showing how to install WordPress on Blue Host.

Navigating WordPress

The WordPress Dashboard

Once installed, the dashboard shows you a few things at a glance. The main thing you’ll need to notice are the links down the left-hand side for Posts, Pages and Settings.

Where do you start?

I like to start with the Settings > General. First you want to modify the Site Title and Tagline. Next, you’ll want to make sure your admin email is correct and you have the time zone and date/week settings the way you want them. Then you’ll want to go through the Writing, Reading and Permalink settings menus. For permalinks, I like to use the “Post Name” option. This allows your site to generate pages based on their titles and it makes them easy to read. This is also helpful for search engine optimization.

Here’s a great article I found on Top 10 Most Important Things to Do After Installing WordPress

How to create pages and posts (and what’s the difference?)

Creating pages and posts is as simple as clicking those links in the left-hand menu of the admin and then clicking “Add New”. But what’s the difference you might ask? Posts are content entries listed on your blog or in another area of your site. If you are going to be blogging, you will be creating a “post” for each blog article. Posts are typically organized by date, category or other criteria. Pages on the other hand, are more one-off content that aren’t necessarily meant to be categorized. Examples of Pages might be About Us, Service and Contact Us.

WordPress Themes

What is a WordPress theme?

Google’s Definition: “A WordPress theme is a set of files that determine the look and feel of your WordPress-powered website. Themes include information about the general layout of the site, and other content such as graphics, headers, logos and footers.”

The beauty of a theme is that if you modify it or even swap it for another theme, the core functionality of WordPress is still intact as well as your pages, posts and other items stored in your database. However, be careful when switching themes! If you have customized a theme with plugins and widgets, these add-ons may not play nice with the new theme or your site may appear out of whack.

Now, you may be thinking a theme is like a template. However, WordPress does not use these as interchangeable terms. A “theme” is the overall look and feel. A “template” is the look and feel for a specific page. For example, a theme may contain different templates for a home page, interior pages, and specialty pages like a photo gallery or portfolio.

How do you install a new theme?

For the most part, you can install a theme by clicking the Appearance link on the left and then clicking Themes. Once on the Themes page in the admin, you would click Add New. From there you can upload a theme you or someone else has created, or you can install one directly from WordPress.org. You can also install themes via the cPanel of your hosting account or manually via FTP, but those options are for the advanced user.

Theme Resources (free vs. premium)

There are TONS of themes out there for WordPress. A lot of them are free. A lot of them are premium (not free). So which to choose? It really depends on what you are trying to do. Of course the premium themes cost money (usually around $50 for a good one) but in my experience the premiums are better because more development time is put into them and they typically come with support. They are also continually updated for the latest versions of WordPress, so they tend to be more stable. Free themes on the other hand are usually one-off experiments from a developer who is happy to share his development, but not so quick to jump on the support ticket.

Here are a few places to find themes (other than clicking the “Add New” button in the Appearance > Themes area of the admin.)

WordPress.org Themes Directory
ThemeForest.net
ElegantThemes.com
WooThemes.com

WARNING: It is more difficult than you might initially think to find a theme that works for you. In my opinion, it’s always best to go custom, and have a professional develop a theme specifically for your needs. (That’s because I’m a professional!) I always tell my clients and prospects to look for themes with plug-and-play capabilities—everything you want, nothing you don’t. Because if you end up not needing a feature, what are you going to use to fill that slot? And vice versa, what if you want to add a feature your chosen theme doesn’t offer?

**Helpful Tip: When choosing a theme, try to stay away from choosing one based on your industry. For example, if your company is technology-based, browse the financial or creative themes. You don’t want to look like anyone else in your industry!**

Placing Content

Inserting text, photos and graphics

Placing text and images in WordPress is as easy as doing so in Microsoft Word. (Probably easier actually!) The WordPress admin has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) atmosphere. Just move your cursor to the point in the content you wish to edit, and either start typing or click the “Add Media” button to select an image from your Media library. (If you don’t have any images in your Media library, there is an option to upload.)

I went over this in my seminar, but if you want to check out a tutorial, here’s a good article on inserting images from WordPress.org.

WordPress as your blogging tool

There are plenty of blogging platforms out there, but in my opinion none are as good as WordPress if you are looking to produce a total website. As stated before, WordPress started as a blogging platform and evolved into a great CMS. Blogging generates conversations, and WordPress’s commenting ability and organization is crazy good!

Menus, Widgets and other options

Menus and Widgets provide further functionality to WordPress. To create, edit and organize navigation menus, utilize the Menus link under Appearance in the admin. To place additional content and functionality in a sidebar, footer or other available content section, use a Widget.

Again, I went over this in my seminar, but the following are good how-to links:

Menus: http://codex.WordPress.org/Appearance_Menus_Screen

Widgets: http://codex.WordPress.org/WordPress_Widgets

There’s a Plugin for that!

What is a plugin and how do you view/search for new ones?

Google’s Definition: “WordPress plugins are bits of software that can be uploaded to extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress site. Note: One of the primary advantages of using the self-hosted version of WordPress from WordPress.org is the ability to upload and use plugins on your WordPress site.”

There are both free and premium plugins. Yes, the premiums cost money (sometimes flat fee, other times by subscription) but in my experience the premiums are better because more development time is put into them and they typically come with support.

How do you install a plugin?

I demonstrated this in my seminar, but here’s a good tutorial for installing WordPress plugins.

Remember, the more plugins you have installed, the more bogged-down your site can get. While there is no set number or limit, it’s better to have fewer than more. And if you are not using a plugin, be sure to deactivate it or delete it!

Recommended plugin options

Akismet – a comment spam filtering service

Contact Form 7 – an easy to use contact form that generates an email to your inbox

WordPress Backup to Dropbox – a great little backup plugin, free to use with Dropbox (also free, up to a certain amount of GB storage)

WordPress SEO by Yoast – helps you optimize your WordPress website for search engines

More WordPress Resources for Small Businesses

There are lots of great websites out there offering tips, how-to’s and further support. Here are a few I would recommend for starters…

FirstSiteGuide.com – Easy to follow step-by-step guides and tips to help you get online and be successful. Including video tutorials, niche guides and useful blog.

WordPress.tv – Lots of video tutorials and how-to’s

wpbeginner.com – Great resource for all things WordPress

WordPress Supports – A seemingly infinite site for support and question

I hope this helps everyone looking to use WordPress for their small business website. If you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to list them in the comments below!

Craft Beer Branding & Logo Design

September 23, 2014/2 Comments/in Branding, Portfolio/by Matt Everley

Just a sneak peek at some of the branding designed for Granite Falls Brewing Company. They are a truly innovative craft brewer with great ideas and cool spins on classic beer offerings.

Beer Branding for Hickory, NC area Craft Brewer

Above are some recent designs for taphandle graphics. All the GFB taphandles carry the same molded shape—granite handle, topped with the traditional Granite Falls Brewing logo. However each handle has an area for individual beer branding.

Stay tuned for more craft beer branding and design! And in the meantime, check out my creative project for 2015 where I have tasked myself to create 52 logos—1 per week—for the entire year: Beer-Type Logos

GoPro Hero 3+ Black: Down and Dirty Photo Quality Review

August 25, 2014/0 Comments/in Opinion/by Matt Everley

Just a quick photo-only quality review on the GoPro Hero 3+ Black. Disclaimer: I’m not a commercial photographer by trade, but rather an art director who is well versed in photography at a semi-pro level. I’ll leave the video review for someone who knows that realm better.

A GoPro is great for what it is intended—an action sports video camera. I have a HERO 3+ Black and for the most part I use it for aerial drone photography and video with the images intended to be used on the web. The videos are crisp and high-quality (although a bit on the digital-looking side) and there are a ton of settings. However, the still photos leave something to be desired. It’s a 12MP camera, but there are no settings for stills other than wide angle vs. normal view and 12MP vs. 7MP. The files are jpegs that are very heavily compressed and there are no options for different levels of quality (and no RAW capabilities either). At 100%, photos look like they have a water-color effect on them. They work well for web, and I use them creatively in print materials. I just don’t think you’d want to create a 300 dpi poster from them, that’s all!

I did some research and there was a firmware update, but it bombed during update and I had a helluva time getting the camera back to where it would start up. (That was back in April, so maybe I’ll try it again!)

GoPro Hero 3+ Black Still Photo Image Examples

The image below is cropped for web use. Not bad, and after you consider you have to optimize it for faster loading (JPEG 60 Quality), I’d say the quality is pretty good.

The same image, but shown actual size (JPEG 80 Quality) so you can see the detail. Watercolor anyone?

The GoPro camera meters light automatically, which can help in most situations, but can deliver a bum image you might not be expecting. For instance, look at the image below… This was a dusk/sunset shot I was intending to be simply beautiful. However, what happened was the GoPro took a light reading from somewhere in the bottom part of the photo and blew out the sky. So no pretty sunset! And alternatively, not a great house shot either. There was no way to meter the house or the sky like I can on my DSLR, or even thru my iPhone. An alternative would be for me to take two pictures—one of the sunset sky, and another of the house—in order to fuse them together in Photoshop, but that was not an option. I might be stating the above metering terminology incorrectly, but I think you get the gist.

On the bright side, I am a Photoshop pro and managed to manipulate the shot in order to get a decent image as seen below. I hate to rely on digital imaging and would always rather have a better photo to work with from the start. But there is hope!

The Bottom Line

The GoPro Hero 3+ Black is a nice little camera. For how I use it, the GoPro is great and I hope these images aren’t poo pooing on the GoPro too much. It’s well worth the money, especially for the waterproof video camera and the fact it is SO small for that level of quality. And not to mention the creative factor like attaching it to a remote-controlled hexacopter drone or placing it at the bottom of a bucket of ice water! But if you’re only looking to take great still images, it may be better to invest in a bigger aerial rig that can carry a DSLR (pricey!) or for the water people out there—a waterproof case for your better image quality camera, than to rely on still image photos from the GoPro Hero 3+ Black.

Any thoughts or questions, feel free to leave a comment below!

Building Your Brand: Business Podcast

August 1, 2014/1 Comment/in Branding, Opinion/by Matt Everley

I was recently invited to be a guest co-host on “Entrepreneur Exchange”—an internet audio show (podcast) on themesh.tv. It was recorded last Friday and officially released today for download and your listening pleasure.

To listen to the show, go to:

Entrepreneur Exchange: Building Your Brand

It was a great discussion hosted by Jeff Neuville, Director of the Small Business Center at Catawba Valley Community College and Gary Muller, Business Programs Department Head of CVCC. I was asked to discuss some of the various facets of how to go about building your brand. From reasons to choose a professional to develop your logo and brand’s identity, to using a consistent “voice” when branding social media, and even the psychology of color and how your brand can own it in your market.

I was also fortunate to be able to give a plug to my new aerial drone photography studio, Viking Aerial. Viking uses unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) technology to provide aerial photography and videos for Advertising, Real Estate, Commercial Property, Resort Promotion, Action Sports and more. That’s right, I am once again an entrepreneur! And what better to promote my own startup brand than on brand-building podcast?

Instead of having you read all about it, go there and have a listen. And please let me know what you think about the show in the comments below!