Built from the ground up in a couple of days, this WordPress site is sleek and simple – but with plenty of functionality. Ecommerce, online ticketing (coming April 15, when they’re available,) and plenty of other features makes this site easy to use and easy to maintain. Beer guys are busy guys – and the last thing they need is a hard-to-use website.

The design scheme (the Beer City poster) is based on the work of Brent Baldwin at Image 420. Love them guys. We spun the colors off of their design – and built a quick website. Nice. We all win.

Check out the website at BeerCityFestival.com.

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She’s a big fan of pin-up art and the whole retro thing, so – that’s what we did. A little retro, a little modern and a whole lot of fun.

We designed a good looking, marketable logo that really fits the bill for her product and her audience. Then, we made her an Etsy banner to help get her art career off the mat. Get it?

Check her out in the green pants. Then, check her out on Etsy.

The post Logo Design for Glam Canvas appeared first on Asheville Web Design, Graphic Design, Marketing and Advertising by DesignAVL.

Check ‘em out. Truly a great cause and a bunch of great folks.

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Since you brew at a low temperature, the coffee comes out without the nasty oils that high temps can bring. It’s velvety and delicious.

It’s also nicely portable, so taking good coffee with me will be a simple thing. No more excuses in hotel rooms, friends houses or clients’ offices. Also, it means that if you come to our office and want a cup of coffee, you won’t walk away disappointed.

We’re Willy Wonka and you have the golden ticket. We’ll put you on our magic boat, man. We’ll sail you down our chocolatey river of caffeine.

Ready for some coffee? Holla…

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We have a great working relationship with Build Real Estate Results, and we’ve worked with them on countless websites. They’re great folks – and they’ve brought us a bunch of great clients. Nobel Davis at Santa Fe Exclusives is one such great client.  She needed a lot of features and a lot of customization. We were happy to help. Plus, Kathleen at BRER had the content and the page structure ready to roll – and the site came out (if we do say so ourselves) great…

Some features:

• WordPress for easy management.
• Lots of custom widget areas.
• Gorgeous design.
• Killer content.
• A nifty Flash-based map of their coverage.
• A whole lot more.

So – if you’re in Santa Fe and need a home – visit Nobel’s site. If you’re in need of a website and you’re anywhere in the world, contact us. We’re here. We’re ready. Let’s go.

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Their website, though – was not so great…

So, Truly and Sarah contacted us and asked us to redesign and relaunch their site. And, well, we did.

We totally tricked out a Woo Theme and WooCommerce to create a beautiful, functional and super-robust website.

Features include:

• WordPress: the good folks at Nest can keep their site updated, keep their blog rolling, and keep the whole thing changing all the time.
• WooCommerce: Ecommerce solution that allows for easy updates and additions to their store, as well as a nice end-user interface and easy integration, sharing and so much more.
• Gift Registry: Allows customers to create custom wishlists for baby showers, wedding showers and what-not. The function allows the customer to easily share their gift registry via email, Facebook, Twitter and all that jazz.
• Super-duper SEO: We tricked it out – and the results are starting to show already.
• Gorgeous graphics: Fully customized theme.
• More: There’s a lot to love.

So – get over there and check out Nest. Then, buy some stuff. Then, call us and let us build YOUR site!

The post Ecommerce Site Design for Nest Organics appeared first on Asheville Web Design, Graphic Design, Marketing and Advertising by DesignAVL.

Check ‘em out. Great folks, a great cause and a (if we do say so ourselves,) great site.

The post New Launch for New Life… appeared first on Asheville Web Design, Graphic Design, Marketing and Advertising by DesignAVL.

The way people interact with or react to color is reasonably predictable – it’s why pink walls in jail cells work as opposed to red – but the way that people mechanically see color can be a real crap shoot to design around. That’s what we’re talking about here – color in design, web sites, printed goods, on monitors and on paper – and it really is one of the biggest issues designers can face*. There are a few reasons:

First – everyone’s eyes are different. Blue eyes are more sensitive to bright lights, and stuff can seem washed out. It’ll also give you a wonderful headache that caffeine can’t cure.

Second – a “significant portion” of the public is color blind to one extent or another. Since there is so much subtlety and finesse involved with color, a small variance in the way one set of eyeballs mechanically sees color can make a huge difference in how the finished piece can look.

Third – how many damned devices do we have to design for? And each one of those devices can be different within it’s own model – one Apple monitor doesn’t look like another – then you have to multiply that error rate by the number of different devices, sizes, ages, conditions, and other factors, and you wind up with a billion different problems. Then – is it going on paper? What kind of paper – and where was it manufactured? Tshirts? Billboards? Stickers? HOLY CRAP! If it’s getting printed, how? What kind of ink. How much pressure while it’s being printed? Offset or digital? On and on it goes.

Fourth – environmental issues affect how you see color. Natural light at 4 o’clock in the afternoon is not the same as natural light at 1:30 in the afternoon. There are a million different types of lights, light bulbs, light fixtures and wattages and dimmers and manufacturers. Add to this the shape of the room. Then, the color of the walls make a difference. That coffee mug on your desk? It’s throwing some reflective light onto your screen.

Fifth – color interacts with other color. If you put red and grey next to each other, the effect of those colors on each other is totally different than if it was red and bright baby blue. Get the wrong colors together, and it looks like they vibrate. It’s weird – but cool.

Let’s break it down to a mathematical equation, and we’ll start with the different colors of eyes as our base number. Let’s say there are only 3 – blue, brown and green. Then, we’ll just say that there are only 5 variants of color blindness. 15. Let’s say there are only 1000 different devices with 5 variants per device. 75000. Fourth – let’s just say that there are only 200 different environmental factors. Now we’re up to a cool 15 million. Fifth, let’s say that there are only 50 color combinations that will ever interact with each other and we wind up with 750,000,000 different ways to “see” a single color, and I’m vastly underestimating the numbers. You get the point.

All of this is to say that color is a moving target. There are ways to mitigate the mechanical differences in color – Pantone books, color calibrators, etc – but you can’t make everyone sees your color the same way you see it. Just can’t. Thankfully – like I mentioned – people’s reaction to color is pretty predictable, so understanding that predictable reaction is paramount in choosing color for designwork.

There are “selling colors” and “love colors” and “action colors” and “calming colors.” There are subtle nuances inside those categories – and you can mix and match and complement and contrast – but you have to use color properly for it to be effective. Just because you think your logo looks great in yellow, that doesn’t mean that it’s the best choice to present to your customer/demographic. Personal taste and choice is kind of out the window here.

So – what do you do? Throw up your hands and say “whatever?” Run screaming? Say “screw it” and just go with bad color? No – you lean on experience – and a couple of tools. Pantone books are great – they are the de facto king of color in the design realm. Color calibrators. Color proofs and other stuff. We’ve got you covered. You don’t have to worry about making sure your color looks right across the board. That’s our job.

We can help you pick the right color for your project, and we can help make sure it looks great everywhere.

See, we’ve “done color” enough to know what looks good and how to translate that to the finished piece. You want your business cards, your web site and your tshirts to all look great AND look like they belong together. You want consistency in your color, and we know how how to deliver.

We understand color. We can help YOU understand color. Let’s go.

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I have a cat*, and I spend an inordinate amount of time torturing him with a laser pointer. This made me laugh. I’m an idiot, and I know it. But – hey, that’s part of my charm. Happy weekend, cat lovers!

*I hate cats.

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With all those dumps serving sub-standard coffee on Haywood Road, it’s good to know that I can still get the Best Coffee in Asheville with a short drive.

Please rest assured – if you contact us and go for a cup of coffee with us, we won’t take you to Krispy Kreme. We know good coffee. We know good design. We know how to market your business – and we don’t resort to dirty tricks and shady advertising to do it.

And yes, this is a real screen shot from Google Maps. Goes to show you that online reputation management is important – but it’s also important to be real. At some point, people will find out that Krispy Kreme isn’t the best coffee in Asheville. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve chased numerous fried dough balls covered in sugar with their coffee, and it’s not bad – but I’m a bit of a coffee snob/freak – it’s just not good or great or the best. Claiming “best coffee in Asheville” is a bold move. Maybe Krispy Kreme is just “naming it and claiming it.” Perhaps I should be proud of them for putting out there. Or, I could just get good coffee somewhere else and smuggle it in to KK. Yeah – that sounds more like me.

Happy 2013, people. Let’s do coffee. And design. And doughnuts.

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