Here is a site (and brand) we created at Spoke for a new company focusing on retirement planning.
Sentry Retirement focuses only on people at or near retirement and provides (from their site):
We use a variety of strategies, tailored to each client’s objectives and tolerance for risk. The goal for each is to advance the value of their investments, while helping to cushion them from downturns and natural fluctuations in the markets and global economy. In other words, “advance and protect” versus “ buy, hold and hope”.
This site is using fonts from Typekit and built on a custom wordpress theme. Updates will come soon for adding a custom event management module.
Achieve Ability is Coach Kerry Lyman‘s website. Kerry is a wonderful woman who was a former PR professional who moved into coaching as a way to help young adults navigate career planning and personal goal setting.
If you know a young professional who needs guidance or could use help planning their career, I suggest they contact Kerry.
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I built this site as a freelance project using WordPress and customizing an off the shelf theme, which consisted of changing the color scheme, choosing photos, selecting the font, adding the content and training Kerry on how to use WordPress.
The recent bing launch has been fun to watch. Not only is Microsoft getting slammed by fans of good design for the bing logo design (also see here), but as they apparently ripped a design for their microsite from another company (quote from Daryl from postmodem’s blog post which can be found here):
The rebranding car wreck doesn’t end there though. Not happy with just creating a shockingly bad logo for bing the designers of this launch micro-site (which I assume is being used to herald the new dawn of Bing to the world) have blatantly ripped an idea from this site: dragoninteractive.com. Of course, it goes without saying that the Dragon Interactive site is far superior in many ways – but why have Microsoft so obviously not invested time in the design of these sites let alone the bing logo?
Also Microsoft apparently ripped off Kayak.com for their travel search features. You would think a company with the resources of Microsoft would be able to create unique and better designs. Also, they have this creative company that does some ads for them just in case they need some help, they are pretty well known. Maybe you’ve heard of them? (Hint: their name rhymes with Crispin Porter + Bogusky)
The bing search engine itself actually isn’t that bad, but that matters little when their competition is google. Microsoft would likely win more converts if they didn’t piss everyone off by using bad or stolen creative.
Tangent thought…but every time I think of “Microsoft design” I can’t help but think of the great: “If Microsoft designed the ipod packaging” video which is embedded below. Enjoy
Please stop using Internet Explorer 6. It came out in 2001, is riddled with bugs and forces developers that want to use cool tools like MooTools write CSS and HTML hacks that make me cringe.
I understand you are fearful of change. I get it. Don’t upgrade to Office 2007. Doesn’t bother me at all. Don’t upgrade to Vista. Heck that OS compelled me to switch to a Mac. I also understand that your IT support staff is not prepared for the onslaught of calls due to the ribbon replacing menus in Office 07.
But the whole goal of Internet Explorer 7 was to be more secure (i.e. less for you to worry about). Especially now that it’s been out for 2 years. Also, it’s a browser, so it won’t crash your network or cause a flood of calls to your IT support center.
In conclusion, this is my plea to you corporate America, to do what’s best for web developers everywhere and upgrade to IE7 already. The world of tab pages and standards based CSS support awaits you.
Check out 2LittleStars. The owners are friends of mine who run an online baby boutique offering stylish and personalized blankets, burp cloths, tag blankets and other personalized accessories.
Some of my partners were nice enough to get some personalized items from 2 Little Stars for Gabe (my son) and my wife and I couldn’t be happier with the gifts. We’ve since bought a tag blanket as a gift for someone else.
We launched a new campaign last week for The Omni Clubs, a series of health clubs in Georgia and Florida. The site we launched is www.theomnidifference.com. The Omni Difference campaign focuses on the difference that the Personal Trainers at The Omni Club make in ensuring you meet your fitness goals. These personal trainers and the difference they make are the focal point of the campaign.
