As some of you know I am very interested in the direction the web is heading, especially the virtual meeting aspect.

There are studies that have shown you retain more information when you learn in a 3D immersive environment, and lets face it with the economy today flying everyone to one location isn’t always feasible. So no doubt there is a need and place for online meetings.

In the past I have worked with a few clients on designing meetings in Second Life (SL). While I think this is a great platform there are flaws. Mainly the learning curve. With SL you have to download a program to access the meeting space. This interface, while getting better over the past years, is still a little confusing to the non-computer user. Usually after about a half hour or so the user will learn enough to muddle though a conference successfully. Other issues have been lack of security and that there are many other activities going on in SL (some very non-business like). 

Recently I was in attendance at the Virtual Edge Summit and had a chance to speak with 2 team members from HyperFair. This is a fairly new product that I was lucky enough to get a walk though demonstration. I have to say I am very impressed, they took the basic Second Life format and improved it for business. It works on a browser based system and the user interface is more business functional with graphics that are very eye pleasing and clean. I do think they could use a little improvement on the quality of skins and animations for walking, but I guess I am spoiled from using SL for so many years. Other great pluses is you can collect materials and business cards and save them to your account. They also claim you can have 10,000 attendees without the system lagging (slowing down), currently SL has a capacity of about 50-70 in one region.

I have seen a few other companies come and go but this is one that I defiantly think is worth a good look if you are shopping for a virtual meeting space.

To see more on HyperFair check out this video: http://vimeo.com/27993602

Other interesting findings on Virtual Meetings/Learning:
Case Study: IBM Meetings using Second Life  
Best Practices in Virtual Worlds Teaching: See section 5 for Why to use 3D learning 
3D Learning and Virtual Worlds: ACS 

-Jen

We hope everyone has enjoyed their holiday season!

In December we mailed out our annual Holiday Card and have had some inquiries on how it was created. Below please find the production notes.

Envelope - 5.5 x 5.5 Clear Translucent

Card - Reich Shine in Bronze, 107# cover. Inside sheet laser printed on vellum. Ornament charm affixed with a glue dot on the front.

Tags -  Foil printed with a new technique that gives you many foil colors with only using 5 inks. Hand punched rounded corners and hole punched. Finished off with metallic ribbon. This was printed without a coating to make it easy to write on.

Sorry the foil on the tag didn’t photograph well. We do have extra tags so please just send us an email if you would like more.

As with any business (and yes your band is a business) you try and find out where you can save money. Well I am advising not to settle for a generic album identity and to budget for a custom cover. Your cover is really an album identity. To promote your album you should use that same design for a Facebook skin, t-shirt design, set design, possible new website design and more. Building a solid brand identity is crucial for success in this modern market, and your cover becomes the visual identity of your music.

A professional graphic artist should be hired, but doesn’t always mean you have to spend a ton. A design agency will have a team working for you but they will also likely be the most expensive choice. Freelance artists are usually less expensive and one with experience should be able to just as good of a job as an agency would. There are many freelance sites where you can post your project and freelancers bid on it (elance.com, freelanceswitch.com, etc). I would advise against the crowd sourcing sites.

Even look to your own band members, is there someone that is creative? They can give you a head start and then just consult with a professional designer so they can get the files ready for print and advise you of any problems that you might have. This is a small fee that can save you ALOT in the long run.

When you find an artist be sure to have a contract clearly detailing what you get for the settled price along with a timeline.

Feel free to post any of your other ideas in the comments below.

 Jennifer Paganessi has been a freelance graphic designer for the past 14 years and owns JL Album Art, a division of JL Design. Also a lover of music.

Hop on over to our Facebook page and be sure to enter our FREE designed and printed postcard contest!

3 easy steps:

• go to facebook.com/jldesignstudio
• click on the Giveaway tab
• click on the enter giveaway button (be sure to also ‘like’ the fan page if you haven’t already)

That’s it and then you are entered to win the design and printing of a 4 x 6 postcard!!

Contest ends on October 31st~!

Good Luck!

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This was a guest blog post that I did for the NDSS Buddy Walk. It is geared towards walk organizers but I thought I would post it here to since they are relevant tips for any business.

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The way we advertise has changed. Currently there are 750 million active users on Facebook so this is not a market you should ignore. This type of advertising is great for non-profits, it’s cheap. It mostly takes time and a little learning of the program. 

Below are just a few ideas on how to improve your page once you have it up and running.

#1 - Fan Page

If you have been using a facebook group for your walk you should change over to a fan page. Group activity doesn’t flow into the daily newsfeed and they are going to be phased out. Be sure to let everyone know you are moving and put in your about box that you have moved to a fan page with the link. 

#2 - Be social

The most important thing to remember is this is a social network. Interact with your walkers. Add personality… everyone likes to talk to people and not stiff corporate bots. Walks are all about family and friends getting together so it’s ok to be a little informal and have a personality.

#3 - Number of posts

You need to be active to keep your feed popular and to keep your walk fresh in the mind of your participants. Ideally you should at least be doing 1-2 posts a week, and then at least 3-5 a week when it gets closer to the walk. It’s import to not post to much or you risk fans either un-liking you or hiding your feed.

#4 - Use Pictures

Add a picture to your status update. It will attract more attention in the feed and will also give that personal connection. Be sure to crop and center the picture before you post it. You will get more attention if the reader can tell what the picture is.

#5 - Contests

Contests are a great way to get your walkers involved. Currently the Chicagoland Buddy Walk is hosting a video contest. We have asked our walkers to create a video about why they walk and why it’s import to them. We asked them to tag or post their video to our page. You can do a contest for the most ‘likes’ or what we are doing is putting everyone who submits something into a raffle for a goodie basket.

#6 - Use Facebook ads/sponsored stories

Facebook ads are great way to find new walkers. You can have the ads show only to local residents and target certain keywords. So it’s marketing dollars spent targeting your audience!

#7 - Use all of your profile picture.

With the new Facebook format you can use a longer profile picture (180p x 540p). Be sure to use that extra space for advertising. Be creative but also remember to keep your logo in a square so that you can crop it nicely for your thumbnail. Here is an example of the current Chicagoland Walk with advertising for our  video contest.

#8 - Keep your wall open

It’s good to let people interact with you and with other walkers so leave comenting and posting turned on. Encourage interaction. Use Facebook’s poll feature to answer polls about what they want at the walk.

#9 - Link your page

Make sure to link your page to your main web site and your web site to your Facebook page. Also be sure to add the link to every email you send and all other communications. Getting users to connect via Facebook is ideal, you can communicate on a daily basis with them. You can also add an email sign up tab on your Facebook Page.

#10 - Thank Sponsors

Be sure to use your page to thank sponsors. Post it on your status update and tag the company’s Facebook page. You can do that by liking their page and then using the ‘@’ symbol in your post. Their name should pop up when you type the “@”.

#11 - unique URL

Ok this one is a bonus tip :) Once you have 25 ‘likes’ you can create a custom url for your page to make it easier for others to find you. For example we use facebook.com/chicagolandbuddywalk. This can be set under the basic Information tab in the edit page section.

This is obviously a start and there is so much you can do with your Facebook page. I would recommend Liking the Social Media Examiner for even more great tips on how to use your Facebook page. Overall have fun with it and you will see it catch on. If you have questions just let me know.

Good Luck and keep posting about your walk!

Jen

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Jennifer Paganessi is the Principal Graphic Designer of JL Design and the chair for the Chicagoland Buddy Walk. She is also the proud mom of Ella (6) and Brandon (9) who has Down Syndrome. She can be reached at info@jl-design.com

The decision to start a blog is the easy part, trying to decide which platform to go with is the hard part. With so many choices it’s hard to figure out what the best one for you is.

When I first started this blog I was using Blogger, mostly because I have been using it for another blog I was writing. Then someone told me I should be using Tumblr.

Since I am always curious I thought I would give it a try. At first it was hard to get going, it seemed every variation of JL Design was taken, I finally got one to go through as jl-designstudio. After creating an account I got to the chapta page, entered in the goofy symbol, and then nothing. Every time I logged in I received a page not found. Hmmm so far this was not going well. Thought maybe it was my browser so I tried the site on Firefox (was on Safari), same thing, blank page.

….

Well after days of trying to troubleshoot I decided to contact support. At first all I got was an automated replay that had nothing to do with my issue, BUT then after I replied to that I recieved quick support and they had to reset my account.

YAY! I made it in. At first glance tumblr is a little more confusing to set up, but after accidentally creating 3 blogs I think I have a handle on it. Blogger seems very outdated compared to Tumblr’s interface. It also seems much easier to follow others (one downfall I think Blogger has).

I was able to find a ‘Blogger to Tumblr’ importer so that made it easy to move everything over. Here is the one I found that worked well. You have to enter in your password so I suggest making a temporary one to use.

I’m curious to see if it gets indexed as well as Blogger sites do.

Now on to make a custom theme :) I’ll post more as I use it more.

Which blogging system do you use?

From time to time we get asked to donate services to small non-profits. This one came to us from a long time client and after hearing the story of how the Equality Project came to be we just couldn’t say no.

Their mission states “…to give those victims who are quiet the confidence to be loud, and to inspire others to inspire others.” It’s a group Joey Kemm (who was only 16!) started after he was bullied at school after becoming openly gay.
We were impressed that a 16 year old had the strength to create this group and to not only inspire so many but to give so many an outlet that they so badly needed. To just know they weren’t alone.
We wish you many endeavors Joey and crew!!

Read more about this project here