The Fallacy of the SEO Saint

We all strive for it, but it’s hard. Being a search engine optimization (SEO) saint takes dedication, fortitude, and often a significant other to remind you that you’re not as cool as you think you are. Those of you who have ever attempted to sell a product online, dabbled in website design, or even just written a blog post may understand the internal yearning for attention that comes with it. “Why aren’t people all over this?” you ask your screen. “I just want to be famous,” you tell your pet. “Maybe everyone’s still sleeping,” you reason into the mirror. And who can blame you for wanting your pride and joy, after hours (upon hours) of work, to be recognized for its awesome-ness? Keeping these proven virtues close to your SEO-loving heart, and avoiding these juicy temptations, will help to keep your website or blog from falling into the deep, dark depths of Google hell (aka “everything past page 5”).

Meet Your Guardian Angels

These popular search engines are more than just miracle-workers. Beneath each of their hoods lay a unique search algorithm. These secret algorithms are the key to your happiness and each search engine’s success, fighting by your side to make sure that you get what you ask for, no matter how vague or specific, and that the low-quality content and SEO demons (read: cheaters) are kept out of sight. You cannot see them – they spoil you so much that you may have even forgotten about them, but rest assured that they are there, and that you definitely don’t want to be put on their naughty list.

Back when these guardians were still young, the goal of every search engine was simple: give the user what they ask for. To aid in this task, website designers came up with a multitude of ways to let the search engines know what their webpages represented. “The websites can provide keywords in their html!” someone no doubt exclaimed. “And alternative, readable text for their images too!” they probably cheered. Individual search engines were left to come up with their own crafty ways of using these resources, like analyzing word order or prioritizing sites with more inbound links (links from other websites). Some did it better than others (anyone remember Ask Jeeves or Dogpile?), but the land of the internet was a searchable utopia, nonetheless. That is, until…

The Rise and Fall of the SEO Demons

As websites fought in their own crusades for page rankings, slowly developing the in’s and out’s of ancestral search optimization, malevolent domain owners – SEO demons – began to rise. Disguised as simple cyber-folk, they assured the rapid spread of mental plague across the once peaceful, malware and pornography filled land. Mischievous individuals began to hide keywords in every html nook and cranny possible, self-proclaimed geniuses threw walls of keyword-stuffed text behind page elements and onto backgrounds of the same color, and immoral entrepreneurs founded “link farms” and accepted cash in exchange for adding links to their surplus of purchased domains. The worst part is that many of these methods worked.

While the façade of many search engines never changed (like Google), their algorithms evolved, growing more complex, wiser, smarter. One by one, internet demons and their methods were condemned. Gone were the days that searching “dog food” resulted in “food that is dog.” Rather, doing so gave you ample webpages about dog food and access to pictures of dog food. Accurate, rich content rose to the top, along with the popularity of search engines that made it happen best and the idea of SEO being a full-time profession.

The Lesson

Despite the inevitable evolution of their algorithms, search engines and – more importantly – the people who use them will never cease to value high-quality content. Thus, as a web designer or copywriter, content should be your highest priority, not page rank or keywords. The temptations of an SEO saint are more than just shortcuts; they are a sure-fire way to get knocked out of first page heaven (if not now, later).

Stay tuned for Part 2: The Virtues and Part 3: The Temptations.
 

Are you considering a web design or redesign?

The effort poses many questions: What will make my site better and more effective? What do I absolutely need to take into account for my end users? Are there serious SEO issues or new search engine rules that I should watch out for? The following free eBook answers the most crtical questions related to a successful web redesign project:

• Key elements and feature “must-haves” for your homepage.
• Critical steps to protect your SEO and content during a site redesign.
• Steps you can take to improve your site right now while the redesign project is underway.

Contrary to what you may think, picking a website development firm or website designer is not your first step. There is some groundwork you should do before you get to that point although a qualified web development agency can certainly assist you if you encounter any issues early on.

Brand

As is true when starting any marketing project, the first step is to make sure you know yourself. Examine the following elements in detail for a solid foundation for your website.

1.)  Brand: Who are you…really? How do your clients, prospects and competitors currently perceive you?  How would you like to be perceived? Is all of this currently represented in your logo, or should you examine a logo update prior to a website design?

2.)  Competition: Where do you stand in relation to your direct and indirect competitors? How will you differentiate yourself?

3.)  Target: Who is your target market? Look beyond the industry and try to define the person. Are they male or female, are they generally within a certain age range? Do they share any preferences or prejudices?

Goals

After examining your company or organization, it’s important to define your goals.

1.)  What is your objective in creating a new website?

2.)  What is the number one thing you’d like people to do before they leave your new website? This should not be “get more information.” It should be something actionable such as “call our 800 number”, or “request a quote.” 

3.)  How will success be tracked and measured?

Budget

Now you have to define a budget. No one wants to tell an agency how much he or she is willing to spend, most likely out of fear that the agency will then miraculously determine that the site will cost exactly the amount of the budget you specify. However, a general budget will help you to determine what size firm you will be able to work with, and which functionality items you will be able to have on your website.

Functionality

The next step is to start to define what you’d like your website to do, or what functionality your site should have. A conversation with a website development firm might be helpful here but the more you’ve thought out your user experience, the better. Some examples of common functionality are:

• Content Management System (CMS): a database driven site that allows you to edit and maintain website content easily from any Internet-connected system.
• Blog
• News Module
• Rotating Home Page Banner
• Rotating Testimonials
• Contact Forms
• Mobile Versioning
• E-Commerce

After defining all of the information above, it’s time to find your web design and development agency. Our previous blog may help you determine the size of agency you’re looking to partner with.

Content

As you go through the process of elimination with your design and development agencies you should be working on your content. Your content should be based on the information we discussed earlier. Your web designer will want to know what your ideas for main menu items will be and what elements or action items you feel will need to be on the home page. Also, as you create or organize your subpage content, also keep in mind which pages will need more design attention, and what calls to action would work on certain subpages, such as signing up for a newsletter or subscribing to a blog or news feed. While it’s not absolutely mandatory, it’s preferable to have all of your web site content complete before you launch your site so you may want to start on this well in advance to beginning the design process.

Technical Information

Last but not least, you will want to register your domain as soon as possible to start establishing credibility with the search engines. Keep your usernames and passwords for your domain registration, hosting, and email all in the same place and provide them to your web developer as soon as possible so that if there are questions they can be answered before it’s time to launch your site.

As I mentioned early on, your agency can assist you with each of these areas but you will know your business better than they do, so the more you have prepared before you engage in the design process, the more successful the entire project will be.

Are you considering a web design or redesign?

The effort poses many questions: What will make my site better and more effective? What do I absolutely need to take into account for my end users? Are there serious SEO issues or new search engine rules that I should watch out for? The following free eBook answers the most crtical questions related to a successful web redesign project:

• Key elements and features “must-haves” for your homepage.
• Critical steps to protect your SEO and content during a site redesign.
• Steps you can take to improve your site right now while the redesign project is underway.

Have you recently engaged in a website redesign project? What tips do you have for someone thinking of starting a new website project and what would you do differently?

 For brands and the designers they hire, effective design means appropriate and engaging communication. Food is a low-involvement purchase with often only small ingredients differentiating a product. You say tomato, I say to-mah-to, but when buying groceries, package design influences which of the same or similar products will end up in the customer’s basket. (Whether we’re ready to accept the tomato as a fruit is another story).

Candy Land: The Game of Capturing the Customer’s Attention

The modern supermarket is a fantasy land of unlimited choices and impulsive behavior (did you really need the six bags of frozen pierogi). Actually, though supermarkets abound with options, the modern consumer, on average, doesn’t spend much per trip. According to the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), US supermarkets held 38,718 items per store with an average checkout total of $27.18 per customer in 2010. To further complicate that, customers process the image of the products they pass by in just 1/10th of a second. Suddenly the critical considerations of food package design have come into focus.

Back in June 2011, the Envision team identified three ways package design has power over the customer’s purchase choices in the blog post “The Power of Packaging Design“. When buying food and other similar products, customers are influenced by 1-Desire, 2-Brand Recognition, Image, and Loyalty, and 3- Convenience and Price. Though price and convenience are essential elements for products and 70% of purchase decisions are made at the shelf, carefully directedemotions can outweigh the benefits of higher convenience and lower price.

New Products: Communicate Benefits

With so many new dieting fads and associated products, how might a designer help get food off the shelves and into baskets? New products must, first of all, capture all the benefits, attributes, and unique (differentiating) factors of the food item. One problem marketers face with new food products is communicating health benefits. The FDA recently begun regulating so-called Better for You and Functional Foods by mandating “qualified health claims.” Items making claims that do not meet SSA or “significant scientific agreement” on their benefits, such as “will lower risk of lung cancer” or “helps maintain healthy blood pressure.” Marketers, healthcare professionals, and food industry people expect qualified claims to be an increasing trend.

The Emotional Appeal of Food Packaging

Grocery shopping might not be as emotional as daytime soap opera (though the price of turnips has been known to induce a tear or two), but the choice of products based on package design is indeed guided by the emotions. The key asset of any food company’s offerings is its brand identity. This is the emotional appeal of the tangible product. The current brand identity and brand elements (logo, color, slogan, mascots, etc) must inform any choices for packaging visuals and color schemes. Though the choice of color might depend on the brand’s logo color, this is an aspect of design that should never be neglected. For ideas on color choice, consider the emotional perception of different colors, beautifully explained in this info-graphic from printmediacentr.com. The brand not only speaks to the company values, but also the values of their target consumer, though brand loyalty can easily sway with low-involvement decisions like choosing a can of beans. Improvements in design tools and software have made designing competition even more intense, but also better.

Who Spilled the Beans? Analysis: No Name Brand

Speaking of beans, I’d like to draw your attention to a peculiar case in both branding and food packaging design.

Founded in 1978 by Loblaws’ Companies (Canada’s largest food retailer), No Name Brand began a trend of supposedly un-branded products. Instead of offering an emotional appeal, No Name (or Sans Nom for all the Francophiles in the house) offered transparency in an industry known for exaggeration. More importantly, their emphasis was on low price. When p eople buy this can of beans, they know exactly what they are getting – a can of beans in tomato sauce. The color yellow is also often used to indicate low price. So is this an effective strategy to attract the highly-distracted consumer’s attention? Is this truly an unbranded product, or does the package design communicate something more than the product inside the can? Would love to hear our reader’s thoughts.

Next time, we put these food packaging thoughts into play as we discuss different approaches to wine label design.

My point is – It’s difficult to keep up with all of the technological trends of the world, much less trends of the web. Since it’s probably not your job to keep track of such things, we thought we would give you a little snapshot so that you can see where you’re missing out, and what you might want to work in to your next website redesign or update. Notice, there is no mention of flash in this post, nor should there be.

Video Background Design

Video has become an integral part of every organization’s communication strategy… or should be. We typically recommend setting up a YouTube channel and embedding strategic and planned videos throughout your site. This will help with your search engine ranking and will provide an additional source of interaction and engagement with your customers and prospects.

Embedding video on your site, however, is entirely not at all what I’m referring to as a latest trend. What I’m talking about is way cooler. A lot of companies have created beautiful and incredibly engaging home pages that use video as their foundation. In most cases, an immediate perception of value is created and the visitor is instantly pulled in to the brand. There are a couple of things to consider before implementing something like this on your site.

1. The video MUST be extremely high quality production
2. The video MUST be optimized for the web – to have a decent load time
3. The video MUST be strategically planned to embody your brand experience
4. You MUST have an alternate plan for mobile – this is easily done, it just needs to be part of the plan

Here are a few great examples of websites that have effectively implemented video.

  http://www.ycoyacht.com

http://eagleclean.co.uk

Blog Style Website Design

We’ve all been told how beneficial blogging can be for SEO and retention of prospects and clients. Some organizations have taken the concept a bit further and organized all their content in a blog format. This has been going on for quite some time, especially with individuals and companies utilizing WordPress themes but we have seen a surge in style as more and more organizations realize the power of engaging content and not just brochure style websites.

The New Yorker is a fantastic example of a news based site that organizes their content in a clean and efficient blog feed format.

http://www.newyorker.com/

The site below is an incredibly designed social community called Good. It’s a fantastic concept and a brilliant blog design.

http://www.good.is

Responsive (RWD) Web Design

Responsive design is the developers’ answer to the bajillian (it’s spelled right, look it up) different viewing devices out there and the need for websites to be seen optimally on each. For most organizations it is not financially feasible to create a custom mobile application or mobile version of their site… and even if your company did invest in a mobile site, it may only be optimized for a particular screen width, making it an expensive and limited option. Designers and developers are now working together to create responsive sites. These sites will detect the screen width of the device and serve up the optimal site variation. In an effort to provide an extremely simplified explanation of how this can work… here’s a photo.

Notice that the image above shows three different versions of the same design, with content elements re-organized for the maximum viewing experience of those devices. Also, notice from the image below that as previously stated, there are a kajilliam (yep) different viewing devices out there and some of them change the viewing experience with the orientation of the device. It’s up to you whether you’d like to invest in trying to create an optimized version for every possibility, but as the world currently exists, two to four variations should suffice.

Parallax Scrolling Websites

If done right, parallax scrolling is an extremely cool element on a site for creating a greater sense of depth. Much like video, however, an alternate version must be created for mobile devices.

According to Wikipedia, Parallax scrolling is a special scrolling technique in computer graphics, wherein background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera technique used in traditional animation since the 1940s, and was popularized in the 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol.

See how new this is? Even Wikipedia hasn’t seen that this is a hot new trend that has jumped out of the video game industry and onto people’s websites… go check it out! This is a very well done example:

http://www.madwellnyc.com/

Click here to view a  recent post from Creative Bloq that highlights a few more sites using parallax scrolling.

Fixed Headers & Long Scrolling Websites

For many years, and even lately, business owners and marketing executives would request their site to be designed so that is “doesn’t scroll”. The idea was that you don’t want to have too much content on one page because you would lose the interest of your audience, or the audience would just simply not see the important information. Advances in JavaScript technology and new philosophies about website design have turned that concept on it’s head.

Fixed headers allow the main menu and any other relevant content or action elements to remain on the page while the user scrolls from page to page. See it in action.

Also, if designed correctly, a long page of content can be incredibly engaging. Nest.com site has taken the place of the Apple website as the most commonly used example of sites our clients like.

Websites with Large Background Images

This design choice has been working its way onto the scene for a while but is just now finding its place in the main stream of popularity. Much like having a video as the backdrop for your site, utilizing a single large image is a quick way to present a strong statement and pull in the attention of your users. It can be done in a very traditional way like this Resort website, or in an in-your-face modern fashion such as the Dojo site below. If utilizing a setup similar to the Dojo site, be cognizant of providing enough content for your new visitors to know what you do. Cool only gets you so far.

http://macallanridge.com

http://www.dojofuckingyeah.de

Engagement and Marketing Automation In Your Website

Wow, that is a lot to cover in one post, but it’s pretty awesome stuff and just the tip of the ever-changing iceberg. I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t add User Engagement and marketing automation to this list of website trends that are working well. Everything I mentioned above is an element of design and development that will help to establish and solidify your brand experience. Once you get their attention, however, you need to keep it. That is where multiple areas for engagement as well as strategic marketing automation can keep their attention and turn those browsers into clients. I’ll talk more about these elements in future posts.

Are you considering a web design or redesign?

The effort poses many questions: What will make my site better and more effective? What do I absolutely need to take into account for my end users? Are there serious SEO issues or new search engine rules that I should watch out for? The following free eBook answers the most crtical questions related to a successful web redesign project:

• Key elements and features “must-haves” for your homepage.
• Critical steps to protect your SEO and content during a site redesign.
• Steps you can take to improve your site right now while the redesign project is underway.

What trends do you see in marketing, and what are your thoughts about their effects on business? 

The answer isn’t the same for everyone, but generally it’s a yes. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when determining whether or not you need a brochure or marketing collateral and if so, what form it should take. 

The Questions:

Do you communicate with your prospects directly?

A lot of organizations still have face-to-face meetings, in which case, it’s great to have a piece to refer to as you walk through your pitch. This piece can also serve as a tutorial if the prospect needs to sell your product or service internally.

Are your prospects and customers aware of all of your services?

It’s easy for your clients to pigeon hole your company as great at X and completely miss the fact that you do Y and Z as well. When meeting with a prospect about one service, your brochure or collateral could serve as a reminder about other offerings.

Do you attend tradeshows?

With all of the competition for attention on the tradeshow floor, you have to give tradeshow attendees something to walk away with and a koozie and some candy is not enough. At the very least you need a line card highlighting your basic service offering and value proposition along with your phone number and website so that they know how to contact you and remember your name.

Are you relying on individuals to communicate your brand position?

Sales people are awesome and you can train them on your product but can you be certain that they are communicating all of the messaging points and brand positioning accurately at all times? Your marketing collateral should serve as a reminder to the sales teams and help keep your brand consistent.

If the answer to any of these questions is yes then you do need printed collateral and I’ll provide some examples in a bit. If you answered no to all of them then you’re still in the grey zone but it may be that digital communication is the best option for you…that doesn’t mean that you don’t need collateral, just maybe not the paper stuff.

The Options:

No matter what form your collateral takes, be sure to give a lot of thought to the goal of each piece, the specific target, and the perception of value each should provide. A tri-fold brochure is a quick and easy solution but is not the best fit if you are looking to make an impression. Sizes, shapes, and number of pages should all be determined by the goal of each individual piece. 

Traditional Brochure
Collateral Sheet
Collateral Shell
Sales Kit Folder System
Line Cards and Post Cards
Posters or multi-fold pieces
Creative Packaging

Within these options there are a lot of details to consider. I would highly suggest talking with your designer or agency to determine some of the following and how it will affect the perceived value or your product or service.

Offset v. Digital Printing
Paper Weight
Paper Type – options may include textured paper, recycled paper, metal, plastic, and a mountain of other options
Die Cuts
Special Coatings
LetterPress
Emboss / Deboss
Binding Solutions: Saddle Stitched, Singer Sewn, Perfect Binding, Case Binding, Wire-O, Post Binding,

Keep in mind, that almost every printed piece can have a digital version. Talk with your design firm about creative email or downloadable versions of your brochure, collateral sheets and other collateral. If it makes sense, you could also create an interactive brochure or catalogue.

In essence, the answer to the question of what you need always comes down to a true understanding of who you are trying to target, what information they would like to learn from you, and in what format works best for them. If all else fails, ask!

What are your thoughts about printed marketing collateral?

In a previous post What’s the Difference Between a Logo and a Brand?, President, David Smith stated…

“A brand is the combination of several tools for the purpose of creating “brand equity” or the essence of what people would say about you when asked about your company. It can include (but not be limited to) the logo mark, the color palette, the beliefs, the mission, the product/service, the quality, the value, the positioning, the web site, the brochure, the photography, the trade show booth, the presentation materials, the copywriting, the customer service, the office décor, the employee uniforms, etc. So in essence, the brand is everything you do to tell your customer what makes you awesome.”

What he is referring to but didn’t state specifically, is that your brand extends through absolutely every point of contact you have with your customers, prospects, vendors, postal workers…everyone.

If you carefully construct your brand, communicate it clearly through your organization, enforce it heavily, and strongly control it through every outlet then you will reap the benefits. This doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, but if that’s what you want, it needs to be a part of your carefully constructed brand. If you think that there are businesses out there that are very successful but don’t do this, you’re wrong. Those businesses are most likely missing the first step of carefully constructing but are run by such strong characters with strong visions that the rest of the message and culture flows through them naturally and seeps into the rest of the organization organically.

How Do I Maintain A Brand Promise?

It’s important to note that though creating a successful brand is not easy, maintaining that brand and fulfilling on your brand promise is the truly difficult part. As a business grows, hires new employees, offers new products or services, and cultures around it shift, it’s imperative that it have a brand manager dedicated to making sure that the intended brand promise remains intact.

This is why it’s important to examine your brand vision on a regular basis to ensure you are fulfilling it’s promise. Look at your intended promise and examine the internal and external touch-points to determine where you are rocking the brand experience and where it needs improvement. If you do it right, you should have awesome clients just like ours.

Here’s an outline that will help you get started putting your brand on paper.

• Overarching Vision
• Annual Goals
• Purpose of your Brand
• Brand Picture
• Ideal Customer
• Remarkable difference
• Communication plan
• Digital/Social
• Advertising
• Internal
• Video
• Current Customer
• Wow Factor
• Marketing Calendar
• Succinct Brand Promise
• Essential Steps to Get Started

It can be a bit daunting if you’ve never attempted it before but I assure you it will be worth it. If you need some help there are plenty of marketing firms that can assist (I happen to be very fond of one in particular). Keep in mind, however, that even if you decide to go full throttle and engage in market research and focus groups, the answers ultimately have to come from you and your team and it will be up to you and your agency to make sure you continue to adhere to the stated brand promise.

This is a topic I can go on and on about so check back if you are interested in learning more about the concept of brand and what that really means for your business.

I was recently attending a conference, enjoying a nice cup of hot tea with my worsening cold when I pulled out a cough drop and was pleased to find some words of encouragement and a fantastic example of brand experience.

Halls Brand Cough Drops

Halls knows that they have an opportunity to remind you of their name and logo on the wrapper of their tasty drop, but they have taken it a step further and created a small experience for you. Whether you’re in bed, on your couch, or in a conference, you likely have a pile of wrappers and a need for some love and support. They have taken that opportunity to extend their brand experience and bring you a little closer to their brand.

Brand Opportunities Everywhere

You have opportunities like this all of the time. Think about the essence of your business, what you are providing at your core, and why you provide it and find ways to communicate that message every chance you can get…not only in your “marketing”, but also in your brand experience.

 For instance, if your business is a restaurant, what do your bathrooms look like? Do they extend on your brand experience, or is it just a place to get “business” done (of course I’m referring to Fonzy business ☺). Do your hostess, your wait staff, and your busing staff all buy in to the brand experience?

Buca di Beppo Restaurant

 Buca di Beppo is a great example of a restaurant that understands its brand position as a reasonably priced, family restaurant that takes its brand experience all the way. They have Italian family photos and memorabilia from floor to ceiling in every room and have a place in every kitchen for a large family table so that customers can watch the restaurant do its thing while they dine, enjoying the smell of fresh garlic all evening long. In addition, if you’re enjoying the kitchen table, the chef and waiters will show you the dishes before they make their way to the dining room, and will bring you a taste of some extras…just like momma would if she were in the kitchen. It doesn’t pretend to be a high-end restaurant, instead Buca Di Beppo embraces it’s place in life and takes the brand experience all the way.

Make your Brand an Experience!

If truly aligned with your purpose, every effort put in to your brand experience should help create loyal customers.

• It’s an amazingly delicious and easy recipe!
• Envision is in love with food of all kinds and designs packaging for all sorts of products.
• This recipe just happens to include two of the products we have recently designed – not a shameless plug, just a happy coincidence.

That being said, I may make this a habit so if you like this recipe and want to see more, let me know!

Easiest Chicken Tacos Ever

Featuring Julio’s Salsa & Margarita’s Tortillas

Ingredients.

1 can of beans (I choose black)

1 can of corn. drained

1 jar of Julio’s Salsa (choose your preferred level of spice)

2-3 large chicken breasts

1 lime

Margarita’s Flour Tortillas

Avocado

Preparation:

Pour the first 3 ingredients into a crock pot, add chicken and cover with the tasty mix. Turn on crock pot and wait for your delicious dinner to prepare it’s self.

Cook time:

I’m a new mom and have very little time to prepare so I start with frozen chicken in the crock pot and let it simmer on low all day (approximately 8-9 hours). If you don’t need that much time, start with thawed chicken and you only need about 4 hours. Either way, the chicken will fall apart.

Serve:

When you’re ready to serve, toast some of those amazing Margaritas tortillas until each of them is just crisp on one side. It’s important to toast them because it adds a nutty flavor and a great texture to the taco.

Stir the chicken mix and break up the chicken, squeeze the juice of 1/2 of a lime and mix in.

Spoon the awesome chicken mixture and a dab of avocado on your tortilla and enjoy!

If the mixture is not hot enough for you then try one of Julio’s new pepper sauces on top…they are pretty awesome as well!

Let me know what you think and if you’d like some more recipes. We all cook here and we’d love to share with you.

Guest Post by Viviana Baluja

If you’ve been down Lamar, chances are you’ve passed by the two-story bright blue and pink colored building that sells some of the most authentic tasting Mexican food in Austin. With more than 35% Latinos living here, we have access to so many Mexican food places but none compare to the quality of the food at Fresa’s, the atmosphere of the restaurant and most importantly—the branding.

As a foodie and new Austinite hailing from Dallas, I’ve dined at my fair share of restaurants from all types of genres. Some were impressive (most weren’t) but never has a restaurant stood out to me as much as Fresa’s Chicken Al Carbon.

Just to mention, if you’re looking for a sit-down meal, don’t come here. It’s for pick-up or drive-thru only. They have complete chicken meals for 2-4 people, tortas (sandwiches), salads, traditional bebidas (drinks) and some of the tastiest sides. But if you’re like me, you’ll park somewhere down the street and dig in animal style.

CREATIVE BRANDING

I originally stumbled upon them online after looking at their sister company, Elizabeth Street Café. Once you look at their site, you’ll notice they have a similar feel and that’s because the web design is done by this guy, Paul Fucik, Owner & Designer at Arts and Recreation. Design wise, it’s trendy, clean, colorful and simple which is perfect because you can use those same words to describe Austin.

When you go to Fresa’s website you’ll see what I mentioned to you in the beginning—their building. Once you look at the shot (screen shot above) you’ll notice three vintage cars parked in front and one in the drive-thru. The three simple tabs at the top of the page center around their mascot, the chicken, and there’s an arrow on each side that give you a look into the Fresa’s brand. It’s so simple to navigate and the bright colors are so inviting. After having looked at their site, I made plans to go that same day and have brought people there twice since.

PRODUCT PACKAGING

And now onto the really fun part: product packaging. If you think about most take-out places, they just stick your food in a plastic bag and tie a knot at the top. So I guess you called it—Fresa’s is different. As you can see in the picture, your food comes in a paper bag stamped with bright spanish words “Que Rico” (how delicious). The food comes with a sticker on it that labels your food from your friends and then there’s the famous chicken logo. It’s on the front of your bag and just in case you want it after you throw away your food, they throw a chicken sticker into the bag too! It’s so cute you’ll want to save it. Even the silverware comes with a sticker on the front that says “sabor” (flavor).

From the moment I looked at their site to the moment I drove up, drove off and tasted their food I’ve been hooked. I am completely sold on them as a whole and you will be too. The food is excellent and real Mexican food, the branding is on point and the packaging makes you want to handle it nicely and save it for later.

Due to the commercialization and mass production of art, design has lost a lot of impact and respect in the eyes of the consumer. What was originally a highly valued means of differentiating one company or product from another can now be crowd-sourced online or created in over simplified design programs. All of which makes a strategically sound, well-executed visual identity much more important as it will define and distinguish your business from the competition.

Think first

Typically, jumping straight to a design solution creates an identity that satisfies the impulses of the designer but often overlooks the goals of the company. Relevant, impactful identities are built on the underlying principles of the brand.

Ask questions before creating the brand

Every identity needs to be designed with a framework of relationships in mind – considerations that involve space, color, potential applications, media and materials. Grounded in an understanding of the intent behind the identity, the nature and scope of the program can take shape. At this point several clarifying questions about the visual identity should be asked.

• Who is the brand audience (not the commissioning party)
• Where and in what forms will it appear – correspondence, presentations, retail, signage, broadcast, print advertising, packaging, promotional products?
• Does it need to translate across cultures and languages?
• Are there legal or regulatory considerations that need to be reflected in the design?
• Is there a legacy identity that needs to be incorporated or ruled out?

Speaking in type – choosing a font

Type not only constructs words, it conveys it’s own meaning. The choice of typeface speaks volumes about the impression you’re trying to create, so it should never be an arbitrary selection. The history, shape, legibility and relationships of letters combine to create the look, feel and personality of an organization or identity.

Color with purpose

Color is the simplest way for audiences to distinguish one identity from another. Even at a glance, color can evoke an immediate emotional response and is usually the first cue for a customer to determine a connection with the brand or reject it. A system of color is an important asset in communicating identity.

Your identity is more than just a letterhead or a logo. It’s the visual expression of your brand, the most valuable and enduring competitive asset that a company can posses. The quality of your communications will either add to your brand value or detract from it.

Share some of your thoughts about what defines or creates a successful brand.

If you’re interested in learning more about branding, here are a few relevant posts we’ve written.

What is the difference between a Logo and a Brand?

Does Your Logo Create or Enforce Your Brand?