by: Tribe Design

Brand marketing is rapidly evolving, especially in recent years. It can be intimidating for business owners and companies to keep up with this constant change. In our industry, we started out designing for print, and in the late 90’s, we began to hear more about ‘html’ and this new thing called ‘the Internet’. We’ve long since mastered web design, search engine optimization and web animation but now new communication technologies like smartphones and tablet PCs are expanding opportunities for marketing communications and branding. While it is challenging to stay ahead of the trends, it is more dangerous to fall behind. 

The mobile application space is on the rise. Users increasingly turn to smartphones and tablets to consume brands and share content. The iOS App Store and Android Market both have app collections well exceeding 100,000. Smart business apps draw the customer to the brand or create customer convenience. 

Currently, mobile devices outnumber desktop and laptop computers three-to-one worldwide, yet many businesses have not taken the plunge in developing strategies to tap into this market. Like web design, mobile application design is often trend-driven.  

Of course, wanting an app and designing an app are two very different things. In fact, even businesses that already have a strong online presence often struggle with dreaming up and optimizing their mobile applications. 

Here are three things you need to know before creating an app for your business:

• Understand how the mobile ecosystem works and how it differs from other mediums.

• Be aware of the flows, usability and screen-size for the end user to view your app. 

• Make sure to decide which audiences and devices you would like to target with your app. Smart devices require different mobile web standards.

The discipline of mobile design can differ in many fundamental ways from traditional or even web design.  If a designer isn’t aware of these differences, this can separate a productive mobile application from a mobile app that fails to deliver. 

Here are samples of app designs we’ve developed for our clients:

The Tribe Design team took our blurry image of a logo and crystalized it!

Their enthusiasm and creativity resulted in a colorful, interesting

logo that we are very proud to display. Our Logo is now being

incorpoarted as an integral part of our first iPhone mobile

application due to be released in November. It was a good experience.

- Dave Fashenpour, Instructional Math Tools, LLC

http://www.imathtools.com

If you are in need of custom app development (for iPhone, Android or iPad), please contact us for see how we can help Brand Building by Design™.

by: Tribe Design

This is truly the age of instant gratification through the virtual world. While most business is being conducted online, why should follow up be any different? Do you send thank you cards to clients or prospects now? If not, why? Is it because of inconvenience and time consumption? There is now an easy solution to the hassle, but much needed follow up with your clients or prospects. 

The green alternative to sending a card in the mail is an e-card. These electronic cards can be sent over the Internet through your email address. 

What are the benefits of using e-cards for your business or organization?

1. No Cost for Postage – When you send out cards electronically, you do not have to spend any money on postage. 
2. No Delay When Sending – When you don’t have time for the delay of the postal service, e-cards step in with the ability to send the card instantly. 
3. Maximize Design and Creativity – When working with a designer, you have endless opportunities to be innovative and memorable with the use of your brand and photography, imagery and text. 
4. Get a Notification – Do you ever worry that your card was not delivered to a client or prospect? With e-cards you get a notification as soon as the recipient has received your card. 

When you send a professionally branded and designed e-card, it can create a memorable experience that will bring clients or prospects back to you. 

With our client, the MD Anderson Public Education Office, we created a series of e-cards to promote their online Cancer Risk Tool. The audience is the general public and the overall message is to bring awareness to lifestyle, diet and family history to improve quality of life. The challenge was to develop a series of visual images that conveyed encouragement, prevention and awareness but not ‘doom and gloom’. The end result was a series of warm, heart-felt images that contained an upbeat feel. The ribbon element tied the imagery together and gave the visuals a dynamic energy.

Check out the finished project: https://www3.mdanderson.org/publicedu/ecards/  

“From the beginning, Francisco and the rest of the Tribe Design team understood exactly the type of design we needed, and they created beautiful e-cards that reflected our brand and the types of messages we wanted to share. They were extremely professional, patient, and a pleasure to work with. “

- Laura Communications Specialist at MD Anderson Public Education Office 

E-cards are a customizable high-end solution designed for any business or organization. Tribe carefully crafts and professionally designs e-cards that can contain photos, text and audio to convey your message. E-cards create an excellent opportunity for your business or organization to carry out a variety of online marketing initiatives. 

By: Tribe Design

When building a business or organization, you need funding. Who do you look for to help? Most businesses or organizations seek out investors, shareholders or donors. As your business or organization grows, how do you keep those investors, shareholders or donors engaged and enthusiastic about your mission? Sure you have board meetings and invite them to events, but you also present them an annual report. What type of impact does your annual report make?

Lives are getting busier and attention spans are getting shorter. This is also the case for your investors, shareholders and donors. How do you keep them interested in what you are doing and still willing to contribute? If your annual report is only pages and pages of statistics and numbers, they will lose interest fast.

For the past eight years, we have worked with the wonderful non-profit, Covenant House of Texas on designing their annual report. Although non-profits have limited amount of money to spend, it is important to have a professional presence with their branded materials.

Every year we strive to provide a new and unique design that highlights their accomplishments over the past fiscal year. The report also features personal success stories from the young people they have helped by providing guidance and a safe place to stay. These stories are amazing and, combined with our professional design, truly showcase to the donors, who they are helping and how their donations make a difference.

The report is prepared and designed to convey credibility and professionalism. This report shows donors and potential donors how serious and organized Covenant House of Texas is about their mission. Presentation is the key when asking for any type of participation or donation. Without a professional look and feel, your organization or business can fall to the wayside with opportunities from potential donors, investors or shareholders.

Another great way to market your business or organization is to attach your professionally designed annual report to your website, blog or social media sites. Make this presentation piece readily available for potential audiences to see.

The theme for this year’s annual report was “Unlocking Potential”. This theme refers to helping youth find potential in themselves and the opportunity for Covenant House of Texas to help more young people. The graphics have a rough textural quality to them, which is interesting and beautiful even though unpolished.

“The creative process and the ultimate design of our annual reports have been exceptional. Tribe brings a fresh look each year to the table. Every year we are presented with three designs to consider and it is always difficult to choose which one is the best. The Tribe Design team is great to work with and seeks to incorporate and encompass the very heart of the Covenant House of Texas message – the importance of providing services and a caring atmosphere for the homeless and runaway youth we serve.”

Cathy Henderson, Director of Development & Public Relations
Covenant House of Texas

by: Tribe Design

Most business owners in Houston spend a lot of time in their cars. You probably don’t spend the same amount of time learning and understanding how your website is designed. To understand website design a little better, we would like to share with you some parallels between your car and your website.

Re-designing websites is like fixing car problems. If you have a fender bender, you may only need to fix the body of your car. If your car isn’t running right, you may need to make some changes under the hood. The visual part of your website is like the body of your car. The backend code of your website is what’s under the hood. When you ask someone to “redesign your website” this may seem to be a visual design change only, but actually there are two different parts to the design and they have to work together to keep your website running. When working with a graphic design team, they should have experts to work on both the visual aspects and the source code work.

One of our recent challenges was with a new client, Martin Company. Martin Company is an electrical engineering firm that wanted a website redesign. They had already worked extremely hard under the hood of the website for their ranking in the search engines. They didn’t want that to change. This presented a challenge, but we were up for it.

As you know in your business, your search engine ranking is extremely important. One wrong move can shift your competition ahead of you in the rankings. Luckily our designers were familiar enough with the unique coding under the hood of their website to make the visual changes needed without affecting the search engine results. When your car is running great, but you need a new paint job, you don’t go to a mechanic; you go to a body shop. In this scenario, Tribe Design is the body shop.

With Martin Company’s website re-design, they wanted a unique and interactive element to engage potential customers when they viewed the site. Since the longtime industry standard for building these elements had been in Adobe Flash, the trend nowadays says it is no longer the case. Have you ever pulled up a website on your mobile device and you are unable to see some, or all, of its contents? Most likely that is because the website was created in Flash, which is not mobile compatible. Some visitors will experience the same mobile incompatibility issues and could possibly mean a missed business opportunity. Because we wanted all audiences to have the ability to view their website, we chose an alternative interactive design technique that is mobile friendly. Here’s some feedback from a Martin Company partner.

“The website is great!! As somebody not in the industry, my brain automatically thinks ‘electrical engineering’ instead of ‘electronics.’ I have clients with $50 million plus in revenues whose websites couldn’t touch yours. Lots of details for Underwriters, Prospects (or anyone trying to do business you.) Especially like the cool “Geo-tagging Camera.””

Marcus E. Battle - Alpha Omega Insurance Group, LP

If you have a great spot in the search rankings, but aren’t receiving raving reviews about how your site looks and operates, we can help. Have you tried to pull your website up on your mobile phone? Do you like the way it looks? If not, it’s time to make a change.