Oneupweb : So You Want to be A Graphic Designer?

Posted by admin in Design, Freebies, Opinions, Tools on January 24, 2012 - 4:42 pm

You want to be a Graphic Designer but no one will hire you because you don’t have any experience. Sound familiar? In general, for any fresh person trying to break into a career pathway, it can be incredibly difficult to get hired. No awesome employer wants to hire a person with no experience but you can’t get experience without someone taking a chance, right? WRONG!

What to do, what to do!?!?

Not to worry, friend, your life is not bleak and meaningless. Many employers won’t hire you without experience, so make your own! This is especially easy in the design world, seeing as how everyone and their mom seems to need something from you. That website you built for Timmy’s Aunt Nancy’s Kitten Mitten business? EXPERIENCE! That logo you drew for that awesome death metal band? GUESS WHAT?!?!?! It wasn’t only fun it was also experience!!!

To make it look and sound professional you need to specify whether is was contract or freelance. Did I hear someone whisper if there is a difference? Why yes, of course there is, silly goose! Contract is someone you do repeat business with on a non-regular basis. You have been contracted to do multiple items or have gone back for more. Freelance is that weirdo you picked up off of Craigslist that needed their hair created into vector art. You signed up for one project and probably won’t be doing more.

But, I don’t have any friends and I don’t want to venture on Craigslist as I am nervous about creepers, help me!

Not to worry there is another, completely viable option: Volunteer!

Not only does volunteering make you look super awesome on your resume, but it also gives you that ever coveted experience. You might also get a chance to make a difference in your community, even around the world! My favorite place to go for volunteering is Sparked. You don’t have to leave your couch and you get the opportunity to help the causes that you are passionate about. If you are a lucky duck you’ll even get the chance to work with some highly recognized causes and companies. Lastly, it’s super easy and walks you through every step of the way, plus you no longer have to feel like a bum for sitting on your couch not showering for weeks on end.

To recap: You need to create your own opportunities to get a kick-ass job. Volunteering is a great resource because it makes you feel good, you get some great experience, you are helping people and with Sparked, you don’t have to leave your cozy man cave.

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Tags: causes, contract, Craigslist, employment, experience, freelance, Oneupweb, Sparked, volunteer

Posted in: Design, Freebies, Opinions, Tools | One Response

Oneupweb : Twitter For The Rest of Us

Posted by Jess in Design, Opinions, Tools on January 5, 2012 - 9:46 pm

I must admit, even though Twitter has been a popular social media platform for quite a while now, I have never used it. At first, I just thought that it was silly to read people’s postings about what they had for breakfast. I never realized that it was more than that. Now I don’t use Twitter for a different reason: I’ve never understood how to. #whatintheworld does this mean?

However, I recently came across a really cool webpage by Jessica Hische, who calls herself an “avid internetter” and she is also an amazing letterer and illustrator. One of her side projects, Mom, This is How Twitter Works, explains the basics of how to use the social site in a really clear and uncomplicated way (plus, the fact that the text is entirely HTML, making it possible to view in any language, is pretty cool).

This makes me excited, because now that I know what I’m doing, there are lots of designers out there who maintain a pretty active Twitter account. Being able to keep up with Chermayeff and Geismar, Pentagram, AIGA, David Carson, and of course, Jessica Hische, all in one spot? Yes, please!

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Tags: AIGA, Chermayeff and Geismar, David Carson, Design, Graphic Design, Jessica Hische, Pentagram, social media, Twitter

Posted in: Design, Opinions, Tools | No Responses

Oneupweb : ROSI TRAX™ — Track Social ROI With Short URLs

Posted by Brian in Development, Tools on December 9, 2011 - 2:11 pm

Hot on the trails of my brilliant colleague Robert Hall’s article on ROSI trax™ and social buttons, I decided it would be a good idea to talk about the other side of ROSI.

A typical scenario

We will once again rely on the fictitious dairy treat company known as Mootropolis to illustrate how ROSI does business.

Mootropolis’ head of marketing Nancy is a good little social butterfly, and she keeps the buzz for Mootropolis alive and well on Twitter. Nancy wants to get the word about their new flavor “Triple Chocolate Gnarly Cake Nugget Surprise,” and so she does what comes natural. She heads to Twitter and tells people where they can go find out more about the product:

This is fine and dandy. Nancy managed to get a link on their Twitter stream, so all of their followers can easily click it and find out more about tasty gnarly cake nugget ice cream. Perfect. Right?

NOPE!

Mootropolis is marketing to these people right? Wouldn’t it be nice to see who actually bought some of Mootropolis’ delicious new flavor as a result of that tweet? It can be done!

Enter the ROSI trax URL Shortener

Instead of posting that “http://www.mootropolis.com” link, why not shorten that bad boy down in the ROSI trax URL shortener and gain these spicy benefits:

Track total visits
Track unique visits
Track conversions and their value

Nancy puts her mootropolis URL into ROSI trax, and out comes a newer, shinier short URL; packed with all of ROSI’s tracking goodness.

Nancy can now see how her tweets translate to dollars and cents:

Nancy can now see all the visits, unique visits, and conversions that result from people who click on the links she tweets.

Think of the possibilities!

Now that Nancy has seen the light, and she is tracking conversions from Twitter, she starts to think of all the other places she can put a ROSI trax short URL:

Mootropolis’ Facebook Wall
Email campaigns
Tumblr
YouTube
Blogs
Just about anywhere you can share a link!

Cash in like Nancy

Start tracking your social investment like Nancy. ROSI trax™ is easy to use and available to Oneupweb clients. Contact a member of our sales team to discuss the possibilities today! Request a Proposal

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Tags: Mootropolis, Nancy, Oneupweb, ROI, ROSI trax, Social Media ROI Tracker, Twitter

Posted in: Development, Tools | No Responses

Oneupweb : ROSI trax™—The Value of a Like

Posted by Robert in Fresh Meat, Tools on December 1, 2011 - 9:01 pm

ROSI trax™ is a new service that Oneupweb offers to its clients to measure the ROI generated from social networking. There are two major components; one is a URL shortening service, and the other deals with social buttons. This article will describe the button aspect of the service.

Setting the stage for ROSI trax:

For this demonstration we will refer to an imaginary company named Mootropolis; a business which sells frozen dairy treats on their eCommerce site.

They serve a plethora of unique flavors and have incorporated Facebook as a means to spread the word. Each product has its own Facebook “Like” button, enabling their customers to easily tell friends and family what their favorite flavors are.

Our customer today is Sally, who happens to be an ice cream enthusiast with a Facebook account. She has just received her first order from Mootropolis and is discovering many new flavors that she just couldn’t be more excited about; her favorite being The Great Moodini.

Naturally, she returns to the Mootropolis website with a goal to further satisfy her taste buds.

How social buttons work without ROSI trax:

Sally enjoyed the Moodini so much, that she decided to tell her friends about it. During her next order she clicks the Like button from the product page and writes a short blurb.

The blurb, along with a description of the page and an icon, appear on Sally’s wall for her friends and family to see.

Some of her friends click the link, and a few even place an order.

Word-of-mouth brought business to the website, and it was made easy through the click of a Like button on the Mootropolis website.

That sounds great! So what’s the problem?

While Facebook provides basic statistics for button clicks, it does nothing with the traffic generated as a result. Furthermore, there is no concept of a conversion or sale.

So while the number next to the Like button may have increased, the value of that number is lost.

How social buttons work with ROSI trax:

With a little bit of wizardry, the value of a Like can be measured accurately in real-time with ROSI trax™.

When one of Sally’s friends finds their way to Mootropolis through her post, ROSI trax™ will record the visit.

When a purchase is made by one of her friends, it records the sale and associates it with the Facebook Like button that Sally originally clicked.

Sounds simple! But what does ROSI trax provide?

ROSI trax™ has comprehensive reporting that includes the total and unique visits, number of conversions, and total and average sales over a given time period. The stats can be organized in a variety of ways to get results meaningful to your goals, allowing you to effectively measure the value of a Like.

But it doesn’t stop with Facebook! The whole process can be implemented on any social network, including Twitter and Google+.

Great! Sign me up!

ROSI trax™ is simple to implement and is only available to Oneupweb clients. Contact a member of the Oneupweb sales team to discuss the possibilities today! Request a Proposal »

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Tags: Conversions, Oneupweb, ROSI trax, Social Media ROI Tracker

Posted in: Fresh Meat, Tools | One Response

Oneupweb : Fonts, Fonts & More Fonts

Posted by admin in Design, Freebies, Tools on August 18, 2011 - 8:41 pm

Fonts can make or break a design. You either have the perfect font that brings your design together and makes it look fantastic, or you have a font that makes your design look incomplete. Here are some resources that can help make your design (whether it’s for print or web) look perfect.

Dafont.com and UrbanFonts.com are awesome resources to locate thousands of free fonts. While some may be used for personal use only, there are still a ton that can be used commercially.

Google web fonts is made up of hundreds of free, open-source fonts optimized for the web.

MyFonts allows you to input any flat image, then it will inform you of what font was used in the image. If their generator can’t figure out what font it is, they will upload it to a forum where thousands of font gurus dwell, just waiting to solve all your problems.

Llama font is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve seen in a long time. It allows you to type whatever you’d like then spells it out in a font made entirely out of llamas in different positions. While it may not be practical it is definitely adorable.