• We want to welcome our brand new employee Jeff to the team. Jeff is a web developer living in Virginia who will be working remotely for us. He’s a great guy who has traveled all over the world. We’re excited to have him on board.

• We just launched the newly redesigned johntarnold.com. We’re really happy to have the site online, and even more glad to continue working with such a great group of people. We wish JTA lots of success in the coming year with their brand new website. The new John T. Arnold site designed by Entermotion

• Support your local businesses! It’s not the best retail season we’ve ever seen this year, and our local businesses need your support. If you want to continue having convenient access to great products and cool stores, make sure you include some local shops in your Christmas shopping.

A few things that popped up today were too good not to comment on:

Motrin Moms
Motrin ran a commercial about how those fancy mom/baby slings can hurt your back (thus you should use Motrin.) They weren’t quite aware of the storm they were about to stir up. Many mom groups are outright mad about the ad, and it’s implications. We’re not a big fan of focus groups, - but maybe a bit more exploration would have been a good thing in this case. Motrin has pulled the ad, and temporarily their website, until they can clear up the PR mess. Check the Motrin ad out here.

Spam, and Lipstick
As often happens in times of economic downturn, and tension. Small luxury items, and cheap commodity items tend to get a nice boost. Lipstick has become a famous post-indicator of the economy… Can you break off a chunk of your product or service and sell it at a lower price to capitalize on this trend? Will Starbucks stock finally stop taking a beating?
More here

Be Careful With Photoshop
Karolina Kurkova, a Victoria’s Secret model had some bikini shot published recently. There was only one problem, -her belly button was photoshopped into a weird mushy dent. It’s amazing the kind of stuff that slips through the filters of magazines and agencies. Here’s a whole website full of other Photoshop slip-ups”

• These things should come with a manual - They do now
• Awesome website promo - Angels & Demons
• Lots of good work - Pretty pretty packaging
• Looking for yourself? - Register your identity
• Pictures of Pictures - Organize your screen shots
• Got a few hours? - Read everything you can
• Want. - Awesome Japanese organizer
• What are you good at? - Be specific!

How much? How much does the person you just hired to develop your new brochure love their job? How much does the client who just hired you to develop their website love their job?

It’s actually a really important question to ask. We try to find employees who love what they do, and clients who are passionate about their business. We find that it makes our life overall more enjoyable, and makes us more enjoyable to work with.

Here are a few of the things we’ve been concentrating on to keep the passion in our work.

Click to read more ...

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• 50 studios, 50 states - Someone you know is representing Kansas!