@DakotaVegas is on Twitter

It took several months for me to compherend the necessity of Twitter.com and its usefulness. A couple friends thought it was cool, some (including me) thought it was dumb and pointless. Since I also have a personal Facebook account that has the “what are you doing” or “what’s on your mind” space on the wall, why would I need to also use Twitter to type 140 characters or less into a mini-blog?

The reason is because since I first created my account, Twitter has become famous. Many celebrities, politicians, athletes, news and blog sites, and entrepreneurs are using Twitter to connect to clients, fans and friends (old and new). I’m finding myself posting many informative URLs (at least I think and hope my followers consider them useful and fun), as well as attempts at witty and pithy musings. I really abstain to tweeting what I ate, dreamt about and how I feel…simply because the etiquette says “no thanks” and I frankly think it’s a pragmatic approach not to do so.

My Twitter Avatar

Social networking continues to grow and dozens of websites exist for online communities to get in touch with colleagues, clients, friends and family. It’s a Twitterific way to stay on top of your favorite celebrities, politicians, news (global, national, local and parody) and techy geeky nerdy types and the latest buzz on all pertinent information.

Take a look at Twitter.com and see if it’s something that you too could find useful, informative and fun. By the way, I also enjoy using TweetDeck as my method of utilizing my Twitter friends, replies and direct messages…plus retweeting and shortening URLs is much faster using TweetDeck.

Check me out at twitter.com/DakotaVegas and don’t be afraid to retweet my tweets fellow tweeters! I do hope to make it to some local TweetUps in the coming months.

Sincerely your Twit, @DakotaVegas

Bisskay Lingerie — the Brookings Arrival

The exterior of Bisskay Lingerie

Anyone who lives in Brookings, South Dakota had to drive 48 miles to Sioux Falls, South Dakota in order to shop and purchase high quality lingerie and body lotions — until now.

Bisskay Lingerie arrived at the University Mall in Brookings this December. Owners Bryon and Valerie Eaton (dear friends of mine) began the research and hard work to make the store a reality well over a year ago. With all of the people who live and work in Brookings, and the surrounding communities — as well as the thousands of students that attend South Dakota State University, Brookings seemed like a terrific location for a lingerie store — and they were right.

Interior photo of Bisskay Lingerie

With the assistance of Denise Dieterrle (also a dear friend of mine) of Montgomery’s Furniture, with South Dakota locations in Madison and Sioux Falls, the interior of Bisskay Lingerie isn’t your typical retail store. When customers enter the store the typical response is that it’s gorgeous, classy and exudes a relaxed atmosphere. There are many pieces of furniture and decorations that you would find in a high class home that create the ambiance of shopping in someone’s living room rather than a retail store.

My participation in the graphic design of the business began with the conception of the business name’s spelling, to the logo/slogan verbiage and design. Bryon and Valerie are not only very good friends but also clients who I’ve worked with during the entire process whenever they needed my input and designs. With their hard work and discipline of not only doing business research, purchasing clothing and interior design services, as well as countless hours of doing the electrical and interior building construction, it shows their dedication in making Bisskay Lingerie succeed in Brookings.

Interior photo of Bisskay Lingerie

If you’d like to visit the store, here is the location of the store at the University Mall. Also, you may join the Bisskay Lingerie Facebook group online. There you can find coupons, pictures of the store as well as many other members who you can visit with about the Bisskay experience.

In the coming months the Bisskay Lingerie website will also evolve into a multi-page website that eventually will include an online store so that customers can order products anywhere in the world.

Although Christmas has just passed, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and many special occassions will be in the near future. Consider Bisskay’s vast selection the next time you want sexy, trendy and risqué clothing as well as lotions and many other sensual, yet classy, products at Bisskay Lingerie!

The Sweet Smell of Victory

Jim Runestad wins general election

Over a year ago the political campaign began for a man who ran for county commissioner. That man, is Jim Runestad of Oakland County, Michigan.

After countless hours of consulting, designing a logo around the slogan of “Run with Runestad”, creating many fliers, postcards, brochures, banners, yardsigns and a website…all of the hard work for the marketing side of his campaign has come to a close and thankfully, with a tremendous victory! Not only did he win, but it was a large margin of over 13 percent in a four-way race.

With my part in a tireless campaign that was helped out with a great campaign manager, Jim Thienel, a plethora of volunteers in Michigan, as well as the candidate himself…so much effort and money went into this campaign success that it is indeed a sweet smell of victory today.

Run with Runestad campaign logo

It’s an honor to work on such a dedicated, professional and smart campaign. Jim deserved to win after many years in the political landscape, and I know he’ll be a successful county commissioner.

http://www.runwithrunestad.com/

The Majestic Necessity of Virtual Tours

Recently one of my client’s websites had a virtual tour embedded into their site. Now, I’m aware how effective and responsive virtual tours can be for myriad businesses and their websites. This recent addition to the Bad River Bucks & Birds website only solidified my belief that when a virtual tour can be used, it should be used.

They are so effective because of the process of shooting the images with nine different exposures, thereby allowing both the internal and external natural lighting to appear. Plus, having the 360 degree functionality, it literally is as if you’re in the room yourself looking all around the environment.

Feel free to see this virtual tour on the Bad River Bucks & Birds website and let me know your thoughts.

Michigan Family Defender Newsletter and E-blast

Michigan Family Defender Newsletter

Communication…that is the key job of a graphic/web designer. Success is judged by how well your message is presented, received and remembered.

The Family Rights Coalition (FRC), in Michigan, recently have been coalescing politicians, authors and advocates to write articles for a very powerful newsletter that trumpets their cause. The first issue (eight pages) was well received and has increased the esteem of FRC according to their president. The second issue has doubled in size to 16 pages and is perhaps even more powerful and provocative in its latest issue. Feel free to click here and download the PDF file to not only see the layout I designed for FRC but to also read the powerful prose these people have written.

Another way to communicate with people is by email. Plain email text is a simple and common approach to provide members, officials, clients and supporters with upcoming events or the latest news and publications.

However, you can also design a webpage that is emailed to those same people so that they receive a much more dynamic email. This “e-blast,” which goes out to dozens/hundreds/thousands of people at once can be much more effective because it will be a salient email amongst their other plain text messages.

One potential negative for the e-blast approach is the inconsistent appearance of the email itself in people’s email software, web browser and computer platform. However, myriad companies use this approach because of the reasons I mentioned above and they rely on the “if this page doesn’t appear correctly click here to visit the page online” phrase. It’s not perfect, but until technological companies accommodate these online differences, it’s still an effective option to communicate online.

Click here for the Michigan Family Defender’s webpage that is the source for the designed e-blast.

Incidentally, there are preparations in the works for Rocky Hayes Design to possibly redesign the FRC website in the coming weeks!

Frazee Presentation Display

Large presentation displays lend themselves to terrific ways to communicate with people. Essentially extra large posters that must stand out in a crowd amongst other booths and displays, that’s the job of a presentation piece.

This is another in many I’ve had the privilege of designing for Health Dimensions Group in Minnesota.

This particular display is about 40″ wide x by 86″ tall.

Grab Your Ammunition, Lock ‘n’ Load

After months of work from conceptualization, design, much coding and photo manipulation — Bad River Bucks & Birds redesigned website has just gone live.

Now, as many web designers/developers can attest, it’s not finalized. But, this is normal and the intent is to have the latest incarnation on the web as soon as possible.

Peruse the site and provide feedback. www.BadRiverHunts.com

Cheers!

Facebook Phenomenon

I think I’m getting addicted to Facebook.

Now, I’m not suggesting that I’m on the website 24/7 and attempting to be “Mr. Popular” by requesting friend invitations to hundreds of people I don’t know. Actually, in just over two weeks I’ve made nearly 70 friends via this site…and about 98 percent of them are family, good friends or people from my past, many of which I’ve not been in touch with for well over a decade.

It’s fascinating to get back in touch with these people, many of which I wonder how we lost track of one another. Yes, things change, people change. They move, get married, have kids or your once friendship just sort of drifts as each of you hang out with others or simply become too busy.

The point in mentioning this is not only to advocate others consider looking into Facebook. If you’ve dabbled in other similar sites like Friendster or MySpace, you’ll find that Facebook is a bit more clean, conservative and easier to navigate. Plus, I’m finding potential clients and collegues interested in doing business together. The notion that I could actually get work from this site as well as connect to old buddies is a fascinating proposition.

Granted, if you’re looking for a site like this that is strictly intended for professional networking and job opportunities…you want to be a member of LinkedIn. But, Facebook is more casual and has a plethora of applications you can add to your website.

MySpace seems to be for younger kids who want to have websites annoyingly designed with hideous colors/backgrounds and loud atrocious music. That’s the problem with giving people carte blanche to website design.

So, if you haven’t already done so or if you have set up an account but haven’t spent any time on them, check out both Facebook and LinkedIn. If you do, let me know what you think.

Health Dimensions Group Poster

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to design a 2′ x 3′ poster that is to let employees know about a new quality hotline phone number. It’s a simple design that utilizes their Caring Above and Beyond logo as the focal point of the piece while using negative space to direct your eye throughout the poster.

Posters give graphic designers the opportunity to make a piece more a work of art than a typical newsletter or business card. Not that the smallest vehicle cannot achieve aesthetic bliss, but the printed poster is larger in dimension and so it can grab someone’s eye from across a room.

Posters are also a rare project in that they can have more lasting power in someone’s office or room because, if they’re interesting, people tend to keep a large poster for framing and then having that work add to the room’s decor.

Thanks Betty for yet another opportunity to work for HDG!

Bucks & Birds

Bad River Bucks & Birds Website

One of many projects I’m working on that are nearing completion is for a South Dakota hunting lodge.

Bad River Bucks & Birds is a website redesign that will have an expansive site allowing hunters to obtain a great deal of information prior to booking their hunt.

From an about us section, information about their cattle barn converted into a stellar hunting lodge, testimonials, large photo gallery and content management systems for upcoming events — this site has an abundance of literature to convince a potential hunter that there’s no other choice for their sportsman excursion.

When the site goes live, you’ll read it here first.