Archive for July, 2009

Harvesting Creative Juices

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Where do Creative Juices come from, and how do we harvest the best ideas? These questions have been pondered by agencies since Ancient Egypt (“You know, I have a theory that hieroglyphics are just an ancient comic strip about a character named Sphinxy“), through the heyday of Madison Avenue and into the social-real-time-guerilla-marketing era of today.

Zoom Creates is always on the hunt for new ideas. We seek inspiration, big concepts and constant innovation, which means keeping our creative juices flowing and replenished. Our latest adventure in creative pump-priming is a new weekly lunch gathering called “Creative Juices Tuesday.” It’s an opportunity for Zoomers to gather and share things seen, noticed and admired, to discuss new ideas and wild hairs. It’s a chance to cross-pollinatate the thoughts of design, development and account services to develop hybrid ideas that take the world by storm. And hey, a lunch gathering sure beats being harvested, pressed and bottled! So here’s a toast to creative juices—may they be plentiful.


What Happens Behind the Curtain

Friday, July 17th, 2009

On A Deadline

Here at Zoom Creates, we like to think of marketing, web development, design and account services as a bit of an art. We are professionals, after all, who fine-tune our craft with the focus and detail of a team of surgeons.

There are times, though, when the rubber meets the road, a deadline is just around the corner and things get messy. Fun, but messy. We look around for the secret talents that lie within our Zoom family, because sometimes a project needs one final edit to make it perfect and it needs to be an inside job.

This is one of the joys of working at Zoom Creates: each of our members possess an arsenal of talent for the work they do 40 hours a week. But what about the other 128 hours out of the week? Well … take a look.

On any given day, you may find a Zoomer seeking out Complementary Colors for a daily photo blog, or perhaps applying makeup for an upcoming stage appearance with Pink Noise. You might run into one of our principals at a model train show, or see a Zoomer at a specialty shoe shop feeding her passion for footwear. Other Zoomers take pleasure in gallivanting across the globe, taking the Flat Design Team with them, or brewing their own Craft Beer (pun intended).

Regardless of how the other 128 hours are spent, as a firm we take great pride in the abilities we exhibit in and out of the office. And if you’re wondering what’s taking place behind the curtain in the photo above, just know that we will make the deadline for the project at hand and the result will be fabulous—even if the production itself was not glamorous. And we’ll have  had a great time producing the results-oriented work we are known for.


Web Host Shake Down

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

armFightWorking with the internet is fun. Dealing with bad hosting companies is not. Today we’re going to share what we’ve learned about web hosts over the years, so you can more easily find a headache-free hosting experience. I’ll compare 4 major hosting companies: GoDaddy.com, 1and1.com, NetworkSolutions.com and MediaTemple.com, and impart our personal experience with each one. So, without further delay, let’s get to it.

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Flocked Wallpaper

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

We’re so glad to see flocked wallpaper make a comeback—it’s just so lush, divine and velvety! We’re inspired to cover our walls, or at least a canvas or headboard, though it would be hard to choose from all of the beautiful designs out there.

The color of flocked wallpaper

7472_FlockedWallpaper

We chose PMS 7472—a lovely teal—because we love the idea of a velvety version of this color covering our walls.

The typeface of flocked wallpaper

FlockedWallpaper_ZagDropsThin

Oh, how we love Zag Drops Thin. Its fantastically frilly ascenders and decenders remind us of the wonderful designs on flocked wallpaper.


We miss you, Hoss and Pepper. And you, too, Greg.

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

While Greg is off gallivanting around Southern France this week, Hoss and Pepper are enjoying a vacation at their pet sitter’s house. Good for Greg and his wife, Birdie, right? And good for Hoss and Pepper, too. They love their pet sitter. It’s us I feel sorry for.

A whole week with no wagging tails, no sniffing noses, no licking tongues! Whatever shall we do? At Zoom we count on Hoss and Pepper to take care of the really important stuff: greeting the really tall UPS guy, barking at the poodle that works next door, and eating the food we drop when scarfing snacks at our desk. Their absence has affected us all—my desk, for example, is absolutely surrounded by bits and crumbs of dropped food. The UPS guy has days worth of unrequited high fives stored up, and the poodle next door is getting downright cocky. It’s just awful.

Oh, and we miss Greg, too… don’t get me wrong. We are excited for him to return with breathtaking tales of Provence, and the adventures he had in his new Speedo. But we simply can’t wait until Hoss and Pepper come back. I think I’ll go howl at the moon now.


Oh, the places we’ll go!

Monday, July 13th, 2009

postcardsIt’s summer, my friends. Time for warm evenings, BBQs, camping and yard work; lemonade, beer, ball games and swimming pools. And vacation. Let’s not forget about vacation!

First, let’s review the basics. To paraphrase Wikipedia: “In the United Kingdom, vacation once specifically referred to the long summer break introduced by William the Conqueror from Normandy to facilitate the grape harvest. Vacation=Wine! We can all get behind that, right?

Furthermore, “vacation, in English-speaking North America, describes recreational travel, such as a short pleasure trip, or a journey abroad. Most of the rest of the English-speaking world says holiday, rather than vacation.” So along with our dear inches and feet, we Americans are really sticking to our guns by saying “vacation.” Go us.

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We Are the World.

Friday, July 10th, 2009

jacksonglove

In the wake of his very public memorial service, this week wouldn’t be complete without a tribute to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. All personal opinions aside, I think we can all agree that through his music and his philanthropy, Michael changed the face of music forever. A plethora of today’s musicians attribute either a small or large token of their success to his influence, not just on music, but dance, music videos and even the work ethic he lived by that made his shows flawless. Just ask Justin Timberlake, Whitney Houston, Usher, Britney Spears and of course, Janet Jackson.

The tributes to Michael have taken place from Newport Beach to the New Jersey shore and have put this particular moment in history on standstill. From flower bouquets to the eternal moonwalk, most people have had something to say about Michael as an artist or an anomaly, but always, something to say.

In tribute to Michael Jackson, Zoom Creates offers up one of our favorites. Okay, two of our favorites.


Google OS Roundup

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

googleAndroidHave you heard the news?  Google is making an Operating System!

Announced Tuesday, Google shared with the world their plans on their latest product, Chrome.  Sharing the same name as their open source browser, Google’s operating system will be the perfect solution for those needing a simple computer with web access.  According to the Google System blog, this OS will be very slim.  Their motivation behind this project is that the web is replacing many of our day-to-day tasks that we use offline applications for.  With Gmail, Google Docs, Hulu, YouTube, Pandora and more, it seems like this is getting to be more and more true.
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Gangster Rap

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Ah, today was a good day. We all know Gangster Rap brings joy to everyone’s ears, and to show our appreciation today’s post honors three-wheel motiongrillz, billz, and mad skillz.

The Color of Gangster Rap

7540_GansterRap

Well, PMS 7540 of course—the color of gun metal gray.

The Typeface of Gangster Rap

Gangster_Rap_mix

Gangster Rap is just too pimpin to pick one font. Today we mixed SG Balmoral SH Regular (Script) and Plain Black Wide (Blackletter) to satisfy our needs.

- Peace


Dog Duty

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

hoss-party

Last Wednesday we had a birthday celebration at Zoom for Eva, Shannon and Kurtis. Everyone turned 25 this year. Of course, since it was “Hungry Hump Day”, the hounds were in attendance.

What is Hungry Hump Day, you ask? It’s the name we’ve given to bagel Wednesday. Every Wednesday, bagels magically appear in the studio–usually accompanied by multiple cream cheeses, lox, tomatoes, avocados, capers and more. Inevitably, some of this deliciousness falls onto the floor and that is where the dogs really come in handy. They don’t beg but they are never far off, mingling, watching, biding their time, waiting for just a crumb to hit the floor.  When it drops, they spring into action, lick the floor clean then sniff out a two foot perimeter to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

At the party, I am pretty sure they helped “clean up” swedish meatballs, fruit, crackers, bread, cheese and veggies, and may well have tasted their first champagne.