Rick Howard

As a smaller design company with big ambitions, the challenge of never making a spelling error can prove to be daunting. With tons of pages of web sites and loads of printed material going out of our office every week, it would be hard to never have an error, although it is what we strive for. We acknowledge the problem and have taken measures to avoid the problem.

As a smaller company (11 strong!), I am constantly annoyed by bigger companies when they make spelling errors.

Take for example an email I received from Good Charlotte:

I would not even have noticed the word payed was spelled wrong if I didn’t have such disdain for Subway (Thanks Jared), but an error is an error. Payed should be spelled paid. Payed is a term associated with ropes. This isn’t the first time I have seen this from a corporate office. Worktriangle.com spelled Durham as Duram during their commercial campaign advertising a job fair. I have seen ESPN misspell words in its descriptions of interviewees and in the ticker on various occasions. I have also seen spelling injustices in magazines, other commercials and on the summary on the back of movie cases.

So pay attention big boys, these things will bring you down and ARC Design is aiming for you.

We have been working diligently on the Clubine4council.com site today.

Tonight, at our cities monthly Fourth Friday event, he will be passing out stickers to promote his website. This is a great marketing move for him because downtown Fayetteville fills up with people on Fridays. With thousands of people roaming the area, he is sure to get his voice heard.

One thing that people don’t realize is you have to advertise your website to your customers. Don’t expect search engine optimization to do all the work. It is just as important to tell people you have a website in your print ads, business cards or general conversation.

If a website is a built on the internet and nobody goes to it, does it generate customers.

Ask the noiseless tree in the woods.

I’m a fan of JJ Abrams, I mean you can’t go wrong with the man who brought us Lost and Felicity. He also co-wrote Gone Fishin‘.

When the hoopla started about 1-18-2008.com after The Transformers trailer, I had a great idea.

In January 2008, I am expecting my first child. I decided to make a flash movie trailer to announce the arrival to family and friends. I then registered http://www.jan182008.com and pointed it to my domain where I was hosting the trailer.

One day I decided to see how it was going with my site and Googled it. I found my site on different forums with people discussing it being cryptic, possibly related to Cloverfield and perhaps a movie Muse is writing a soundtrack for. Unfortunately none of this is true. It is really only a personal web page.

Or is it………Stay Tuned.

ARC Design has experienced exponential client growth in the last year, leaving us with a list of clients pages long and to-do lists for each client. It is important to increase productivity in the workplace so we can continue to grow.

There are many ways for a company to increase production:

• Hire faster people
• Have less work to do
• Whips
• Offer bonuses
• Downsize threats
• Bullhorns
• Hold the Running of the Bulls in your office

A safer way to accomplish faster production is to use “Hotkeys“. Hotkeys are essentially shortcuts you can make using your keyboard instead of your mouse. This saves time and energy.

One of my favorite websites, Smashing Magazine, offers up a list of the 200 Hotkeys to Boost Production.

No this has nothing to do with the rapper Ludacris.

Today we are going to roll out Mac Signs new website. Yesterday we finished head-shots for Cape Fear Staffing so they should be all wrapped up soon. In addition we are planning on launching A1 Supply Company, DK Enterprise Microfax Secure Check’s new websites by weeks end.

While it seems like a lot, it is completely possible to do.

On a side note about someone else who rolls out, I hope the NFL suspends Michael Vick for the duration of his trial. Even though he may not have personally been involved (like Barry Bonds has never tried Steroids), I know he was aware of what was going on and that should be enough. Maybe if he was as intense about football as he is about dog-fighting, he might have been a good quarterback.

Some clients asked bad questions, it happens. Although the title of the post I am linking to is “10 Most Stupid Client Questions Ever“, I think it is helpful for clients to read this list of questions.

In addition to listing them, it offers reasons why these questions may or may not be applicable.

A good read for everyone over at Reflections, Paul Enderson’s blog.

I love the second part of the title of this blog posting.

“Why Writing it Down Doesn’t Actually Get It Done”

The post goes on to explain some simple steps you can do to eliminate the items on your list. These steps are useful not only in both a personal and a business environment.

So now that I have avoided my own todo list for a few minutes, I should probably get back to work.

for now……………

I saw Transformers Monday. I wouldn’t say it was the greatest movie of all time, but I would say it was great.

I understand why it gets some bad reviews, it is the same reason bands like Daughtry never get good cd reviews.

People can’t simplify their lives. They can’t accept entertainment value over complex content value. If a movies plot is simple or a band doesn’t explore the underused aisle of their local music store, then they must not be good.

What follows is my quasi review of transformers, read on and be mystified.

My review consists of quotes and my rebuttals from other reviews of Transformers:
Transformers does have its faults. During the robot fights it was nearly impossible to track who was fighting who. - I agree with this statement, it was a tad confusing, but the same can be said Jet Li’s final fight in “The One”. Not sure how that relates but its fun to namedrop other movies.

Flat, loud, flashy spectacle that’s been fine-tuned and sanded down to appeal to the widest global audience possible. All in all, pretty generic. - I am guessing this reviewer has watched “Transmorphers”, the other transforming robot movie thereby making this one generic.

“In this film’s reality, the nation’s top scientist looks like a stripper” - I suppose telling this reviewer that she wasn’t the top scientist, she was part of group of college students with computer knowledge who was brought in to help stop a hacker. Oh and she was fully clothed the whole time.

You don’t put comedy in a movie like that - I agree that the jokes during the fights didn’t make sense, but if you got Shia Lebeouf, you’ve got to have jokes

#7 No Orson Welles
#8 Bumblebee is now a Camaro
#10 Micheal Bay
#11 No Megatron transforming into a giant cannon
#7 He’s dead, #8 Volkswagen Beetle’s not so loved anymore, #10 you should know what to expect, #11 Why would he, he was a pistol sized gun in the original. I liked the fact they made him his own man.

Despite what the famous tag line says, there’s not much below the surface in director Michael Bay’s live-action adaptation of “Transformers.” - That could be because the tagline was created for the toys. Who expected an awesome plot in a movie where transforming robots fight?

This is the main issue I have with reviews. I did not go into this movie hoping for a lot of thinking, I went in hoping for a film I could stare at. A film that would take what I loved as a kid and have it grow up a little. I wasn’t looking for next years Sundance winner; I was looking for an escape from reality back to when time was simpler.

I think anyone who goes in with that attitude will not be disappointed.

Footnote: Still being a kid at heart also helps greatly in keeping entertainment to have simple value instead of looking for the next big thing.

Happy 4th of July!

This day was fought for and is still being fought for.

For today, throw politics out the window and remember we are all in this together.

Let Freedom Ring.

Who in any customer oriented business hasn’t had a confrontation with an angry customer?

You with the hand up in the back, you’re lying.

As simple as it is for people to tell you to just stay calm, it is easier said then done.

Make sure you check out the tips for these situations at Seeking Alpha.

The article may also be useful to customers. As a customer/client, you must realize that their are a few things you should know:

1. Businesses you deal with want you to be happy.
2. The phrase “The customer is always right” is not right.
3. If you hire someone to do a job for you, more than likely you don’t know how to do it. So do not tell someone how to do their job.

Although as a designer, I do appreciate preferences or suggestions, just not absolute direction.