Apt Design » Blog

What Would You Ask Your Customers?

Apt Design — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:10:28 +0000

Next month Apt Design will be celebrating it’s 3rd birthday. As part of that celebration and in keeping with my core value of Communication I’m going to be sending a customer survey to all of my past and present clients. I’ve talked about getting feedback on this blog before, because I think it is extremely important for every business. With my survey I hope to gather plenty of thoughts about what Apt is doing right and what it could be doing better.

I’m actually pretty excited to get to hear anonymous thoughts from people I’ve worked with and use that feedback to help Apt Design respond to customer needs better and provide better services. I’ve already written out many of the things I want to ask, including questions like:

How was your overall experience with Apt Design? Rate 1-10.
What’s one thing that could have made your experience with Apt Design better?

(More great questions in this article – Top Ten Client Feedback Questions)

But I wanted to get your input on this process as well. If you had the chance to ask your customers/clients/patients how it was working with you or buying from you – what questions would you ask them?

Let me know in the comments or tweet me your ideas at @aptdesign

Or, read one of these:

Seeing Creatively

Apt Design — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:57:39 +0000

Recently I started looking for some ways to be more creative. I mean, I’m creative all day at my job, working on original web designs, creating logos and designing ads and posters. But it’s tough for me to want to keep doing that same kind of design after hours. So, in the past few years I’ve taken up cooking lots of new dishes, which is fun and satiates much of my desire to create new things.

But I was also looking for a way to see things creatively…

My wife and I have an awesome camera, a Canon Rebel XTi, that takes absolutely amazing photos. But it’s kinda big and tough to lug around everywhere.

Still looking…

So I decided maybe my iPhone was the way to go. Always on-hand, I could shoot the things that piqued my interest anytime. But the iPhone 3G isn’t known for it’s amazing camera and those photos so often came out pretty flat.

Still looking…

Enter my friend and fellow design Reid Piefer. His awesome new website showcases polaroids shot with his iPhone and edited with ShakeIt Photo or Hipstamatic. Great stuff and an awesome idea! Turns out there’s even a group on Flickr of these kinds of photos.

So, I downloaded ShakeIt Photo and started snapping some daily-ish shots of inspiring and interesting views from my eyes. Check out my photostream and pop in often to view the new stuff I’m enjoying seeing.

Or, read one of these:

How to Easily Create Your own Stunning Desktop

4 Ways to get More Traffic to Your Blog

Apt Design — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:14:14 +0000

There are now literally millions of businesses and individuals in the world blogging, all vying for the eyes of as many readers as they can get. Many times blogs are set up, a few posts are created and then the blogger or business just sits back and waits for traffic to come pouring in.

Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

Blogging takes time, commitment and hard work. But it can be a worthwhile investment and reap great rewards for yourself and your company – if done well. The question most bloggers (including some of my clients) end up having is have is, “How can I get more traffic to my blog?”

This is not an exhaustive look at how to get more readers, but here are 4 good ways to get started:

1. Write Great Content

It doesn’t matter how flashy your site looks or if you post 5 articles a day – people read blogs for the content. Make sure your content is high-quality information that the niche you are writing for cares about and people will come to read it.

Tip: Use Google Analytics to see what pages and posts people are reading the most as well as what keywords they were searching for when they came to your site. Write more content accordingly.

2. Post Consistently

How often you post is up to you. But don’t leave your readers guessing if you’ve given up on the blog. Make it obvious how often your blog is updated and make sure you stick as close as you can to your timeline.

Tip: Future-post! Prewrite a few great articles, then change the publish date on them to the future (super easy to do with WordPress). Viola! You’re already on target for posting consistently in the next few day or weeks.

3. Guest Post

Write somewhere other than on your own blog. This helps new, more and different readers see what you write about, and if they like your post enough they will click through to see your blog. Ideally you should guest post on a blog with more visitors than your site has, and with readers that would want to learn about the same general topics that you write about.

Tip: Make sure you read the blog that you are submitting an article to. Get a feel for the writing style, length, and content. If you don’t know where to start, try guest posting on blogs you like to read often anyways.

Check out the spike in visitors the day one of my clients guest-posted on a bigger blog.

4. Participate

Blogging is all about sharing information, ideas and opinions. Make sure your sharing doesn’t stop when you hit Publish. Engage your audience continually to build a sense of community around your blog. Reply to comments on your own blog and go comment on other blogs. Use social media to interact more directly with readers.

Tip: Make sure it is easy to leave comments on your blog. If the form takes too long to fill out, or if it is obvious the blogger doesn’t respond to comments many people won’t waste their effort.

Some further resources for getting more traffic to your blog:

How to get traffic for your blog by Seth Godin

13.2 Easy Ways to Build a Thriving Blog Community from Men with Pens

9 Things to Do To Make Sure Your Next Blog Post is Read by More than Your Mom at ProBlogger

Or, read one of these:

Can You Write it Out?

Apt Design — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:00:21 +0000

I’m not a big proponent of meetings. In a few cases I think they can help brainstorm good ideas, make decisions quickly, and make big changes decisively. But, for the most part I think the time could be spent better (either doing more productive work or enjoying relationships with those we love).

One big reason I think people like to have meetings is so that they can process their ideas outloud. But, why take up someone else’s time while you process something? Instead I like to use email or comments on my project management system, Basecamp to get feedback. And I don’t think I’m being a jerk about it. My reasoning is that using these tools forces you to write out your thoughts. And I believe you don’t have a firm grasp on your thoughts until you are able to write them out.

Writing out your thoughts and opinions on something compels you to really assess what’s going on in your head. Until someone else can understand it, there’s a good chance you don’t understand it either. You see my point? I’ve had the idea for this blog post for months now, but it just stays a floating mess of thoughts until I capture it and put it down in words. Then I’ve constrained my thoughts into something concrete that can be understood and assessed by others.

Writing it out goes for more than just getting your opinions and thoughts out. It also works for showing you can synthesize information into knowledge. It’s why we all had to write book reports in school instead of just telling the teacher we read the book. It’s one reason why writing a blog can help show that you are an expert in your field. Putting your knowledge down for everyone else to read proves you’re not just a smooth talker. You’re going on record to show you know what you’re talking about, and it can be proven.

So, make sure you know what you’re thinking and prove it to others – write it out.

Or, read one of these:

By Request, Photos of Sunny

Apt Design — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:00:46 +0000

I try to keep this blog focused on things of interest to my clients. Lately though I’ve had a lot of requests from my clients to see photos of my baby daughter. So this week we’ll be taking a break from WordPress, design, author websites and the like. Instead, just cute baby pictures:

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Invoicing for Charity

Apt Design — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:30:24 +0000

The Rich List

If you have your eyes open at all it’s impossible not to see that in America we are living in a lap of luxury unprecedented in the history of the world. And if you visit GlobalRichList.com and enter your income you’ll see our luxury is outstanding even compared to the rest of the modern world.

+ Open Invoices

In recent months some of my Invoices to clients have been open longer than normal. I try and pay my Invoices within a day or two, and while not all businesses can do that, everyone likes to get paid sooner rather than later. But as I looked at my open Invoices this past month I thought, “You know who needs this money more than me? Most people.”

= Invoicing for Charity

So I’ve decided to help people help me help people. For clients who pay their June Invoices by the June 20th I’m going to be donating 10% of their payment to blood:water mission (see how they work). Will this solve the world’s problems? No, but hopefully it’s a start.

So c’mon clients, pay early and help me help.

Or, read one of these:

Advice from the Pros: How Writers Should Use Blogging and Social Media

Apt Design — Thu, 13 May 2010 05:42:29 +0000

Recently I gave a workshop at Write on the River, a writers’ conference for North Central Washington. My presentation was entitled Blogging and Social Media: What Every Writer Should Know. I spent a lot of time preparing and had lots of great information for the talk, but one of my favorite parts was getting to show the power of social media directly to attendees.

A few days before the conference I had tweeted some of the most helpful and influential people who tweet about blogging and social media for writers. My basic question to all of them was this, “I’m giving a workshop for writers about blogging and social media – could you give your 140 char. of advice about them?” I received replies from everyone I tweeted, and all within 24 hours.

Thus one of the most powerful aspects of social media is displayed. When else in the history could I get on such easy, instant, direct contact with someone who gets the respect and following of tens of thousands of people?

So without further ado, here is advice from the pros: How Writers Should Use Blogging and Social Media:

Ronnie Smith

Ronnie runs writersrelief.com, a great website with lots of tips, hints, and hot leads for submitting and publishing your books, poems, and stories.
@WritersRelief >10,000 followers

Advice? Proofread. Be consistent. Smile. :-) Sounds like a great workshop.

Dana Lynn Smith

Book marketing coach and author of The Savvy Book Marketer Guides at www.SavvyBookMarketer.com.
@bookmarketer > 3,000 followers

Blogging: Combine author blog & website; plan on paper first; keyword optimize; blog 3x/week http://bit.ly/BloggingResources

Social Media: Choose right networks; build effective profile; budget time; write effective updates http://bit.ly/SocialResources

Joanna Penn

Is the author of thecreativepenn.com, offering TONS of advice on writing, blogging, social media and how to get published. Tweets lots of links to great content for writers across the web.
@thecreativepenn >12,000 followers

get a distinctive blog, add great content regularly, be useful, use multimedia, stay in niche, focus hard on 1 social network

Alexandra Levit

Business/workplace author and speaker with 5 pubbed books and 2 syndicated columns. Featured in New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio, ABC News, Fox News, CNBC, the Associated Press, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Fortune.
@alevit > 34,000 followers

Set aside an hour a day for blogging and social media. Otherwise they will eat up time surreptitiously.

Leo Babauta

Started ZenHabits.net, one of the best blogs ever (in my opinion) and WriteToDone.com, a blog to help writers improve their craft and their art. He’s a true poster-child for noname-to-stardom blogging. With his great content he got over 100,000 readers of his blog in less than 2 years. He’s also published multiple books from his blog.
@zen_habits > 42,000 followers

Writing advice: Say less, choose carefully, clear distractions. And it’s all distractions, if it’s not writing.

Have more advice for writers using blogging and social media? Give it below in the comments and be sure to leave your social media links.

Or, read one of these:

Cover Designs of the 10 Best-Selling Books of All Time

Apt Design — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:00:47 +0000

Book covers are a unique and wonderful art form. It’s no simple task to boil down hundreds of pages of well-considered words into a single image or design and still make it compelling enough for people to want to pick it up. Book design can sometimes make or break the success of a book. It requires wit, knowledge of design fundamentals, and an overwhelming amount of creativity. The task is even more daunting when you are given the assignment to design a best-selling book.

I wanted to see how designers have handled such a task so I looked through the cover designs of the 10 best-selling books of all time. I found hundreds of covers ranging from the mundane to the corny to the excellent. Here are some of the most interesting cover designs I found:

1. The Bible

Literally thousands of editions of this book have been printed, with designs spanning a huge variety of styles. Here are a few representative samples.

2. Quotations from Chairman Mao – Mao Zedong

Mao’s quotations are hugely read in China, and also hugely red in design. Simple, but effective.

3. The Qur’an – Muhammad

Here are a few beautifully ornamented Arabic covers, with some English-translations trying to keep the same flavor.

4. Xinhua Dictionary – Wei Jiangong

Not a lot of originality with this best-selling dictionary.

5. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

Dicken’s great novel is represented with very dramatic illustrations.

6. Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship – Robert Baden-Powell

Interestingly this book is designed using a consistent illustration style across many editions.

7. Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan

Pilgrim’s Progress has been around awhile and it’s cover has been designed in the period’s popular style many times.

8. The Book of Common Prayer – Thomas Cranmer

Lots more red for this simple book of prayer.

9. The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien

Great illustrations and ring/eye references. Some especially fun covers from the 60′s and 70′s.

10. And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie

This fairly-recently written novel has had fewer editions than most of the others, but still some great designs.

And there you have it: book covers from the 10 best-selling books of all time. What did you think (anyone notice an huge use of the color red)? Which ones were your favorites? Do you have any more examples you’d like to share?

Top Ten list compiled from Destican, MentalFloss, Wikipedia and then edited by me.

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Finding Your Place of Refuge

Apt Design — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:00:04 +0000

Note: This is a guest post from Tyler Fitzgerald, a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army, currently training at England’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

I love my job. I haven’t met many people who enjoy their job as much as I do on a day-to-day basis (except for my brother Brad, of course). Nonetheless, there are still times during the day that I need to get away. I’m sure you do too. Whether it’s too much on your plate at a time, tough deadlines, terrible coworkers, or some specific frustration with your profession, there is bound to be sometime you need to release some steam. Instead of ranting at your coworkers, try going to your place of refuge.

Whatever you want to call it – quiet place, place of solace, get away – make sure you have one. Maybe it’s a certain song with the headphones on and your eyes closed. Maybe it’s hiding in a broom cupboard and taking three deep breaths. Maybe it’s reading your favorite selection of the Good Book. Just make sure your refuge can be accessible almost anytime during the day, and easily reached when you need it. Consistency is key to making your refuge work, so get into a routine of going there. Your place may or may not be a physical location, but you should be somewhat isolated.

I’ll even let you in on my secret place of refuge when I’m on field exercises: in my sleeping bag zipped up all the way with my balaclava rolled up around my ears. The crux of my refuge is that balaclava. I pretend that when I have it on nobody can wake me up mid-slumber to give me a menial task to perform. I immediately relax when I put on that balaclava and forget the current stresses. And getting away from current stresses, even for a moment, is the point of your place of refuge.

The potential importance this has on your daily work routine is enormous. The main way to take advantage of your refuge is to use it as a form of escapism. Don’t waste your refuge time worrying about your current dramas or even trying to brainstorm solutions to a problem, just go there and relax. Even simply knowing that your place of refuge exists can relieve lots of stress.

Most importantly, as with everything else, make it fun!

Photo source

Or, read one of these:

1 Simple Way to Love Your Job More

The Power of a Personal Voice

Apt Design — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:30:40 +0000

For the past few months the Gold’s Gyms of the Wenatchee Valley have been doing a great job of connecting to their members in a variety of ways, and not only while they are at the gym working out.

The Gold’s Gyms have been updating their blog often with great fitness and nutrition tips, as well as lots of overall wellness advice. But as the year began Melissa Schwab, a Gold’s Gym member, began blogging on the site about her experience trying to lose weight and get in shape as she participated in the Gold’s Gym Challenge. Hits to the site and comments on the posts are way up as people are excited to hear about someone’s experience from the trenches. They get to hear about the highs and the lows, the good times and the bad – told with the power of a personal voice.

At the same time Gold’s Gym staff ramped up work on the local Gold’s Gym Facebook fan page. And fan numbers and interaction there jumped significantly too. Staff created contests like “Post a picture that best says Strength to you,” kept Challengers and members updated on important times and events, as well as just providing a space for members to interact and support each other online.

To top it off the Wenatchee Valley Gold’s Gyms cross-promoted the blog, Facebook page and corporate site – all linked to each other and displayed in-gym. Members now have a great network online to get information about they gym, receive free fitness advice, hear about other’s experiences and get to know one another.

Your Person-ness

That’s one reason why writing a blog can help your online presence so much. People get that personal voice. They want to know that your company is more than just a big factory churning out goods. With a blog your personality comes through, and so does your person-ness. That’s not the only reason for a blog, and they certainly take time and energy to do right, but showing customers who you are is important.

But maybe even better – what are you clients and members and customers saying? That’s what people really want to hear about. How often do you buy something online without reading at least a few reviews first (witness the power of sites like Yelp)? Being involved in social media – having a Facebook fan page or Twitter account, allows for a centralized hub for discussion about your company. Just like Melissa’s blog, that involves people hearing the good and the bad. But it involves people, and it involves hearing – both of which are good for your company.

Take a minute to think about it. How could a blog or social media help you say something? Or, how can you use those tools to let others talk about you? How could you harness the power of a personal voice?