Creative or Crazy?

July 8, 2010 Advertising / Art / Marketing
5 comments

Sir Pennywise - Community Bank

I used to live in a small town in Southern New York. In June of 2007 someone decided that it would be a great idea to raise money for charity while advertising for local businesses. This was accomplished using four-foot tall fiberglass squirrels. You know, kind of like the moose you see sometimes around Toronto, but not really. In Olean, NY, a person, or business could purchase one of these squirrels and customize it however they pleased. These sculptures were then places all over town, in front of businesses, along the streets, in parks, you name it, there are squirrels everywhere. To date there are twenty-five squirrels and counting.

Many businesses decided to decorate these squirrels as part of their local advertising. It was a visible sign of their contribution to the community. Interesting idea, in my opinion, perhaps a good idea gone wrong. Part of what made it so funny was you

Ronald McSquirrel - McDonalds

could walk down the street and see five squirrels before you would meet another person. I used to live just down the street from Ronald McSquirrel, I have to admit it never really made me want to go to McDonnalds. Had it not been located right across from the police station I would have put a paper bag over its head. Honestly, check it out! It is a little creepy.

Okay, seriously though, despite my little rant about the squirrels, I love it when people come up with innovative ideas. I also love to see businesses getting involved in the local community.  I might not be a big fan of this particular project, but I can’t argue with the fact that everyone talks about it. We take pictures of them, and I personally can’t deny a few late night Olean squirrel-hunting adventures. I have to acknowledge that in many ways Olean’s “Woodland in the City” campaign seems to be a success, and they have raised a lot of money to build a museum for children downtown. So tell me what you think, creative or crazy?

Cutter - Cutco Knife Factory

Florence Squirrelingale, RN - Olean General Hospital

Lady Justice - Dwyer, Black & Lyle PPC

Nutty O’ St. Nick - Olean Chamber of Commerce

Social Media Platforms to Share your Work

July 5, 2010 Art / Social Media
3 comments

The following is a part of our One For the Creative Types Series. We are looking to help people transform their web presence from “starving artist” to “social media savvy entrepreneur.”


As you start to settle into the social media space, you are constantly inundated with news about “the next great social network.” You proceed to sign up to everything but let most of the accounts idle. Does this sound familiar?  I know it does for me.  It is amazing how many of the Twitter accounts out there are rarely used.

Continue reading →

Getting Started with Tea: Part I

June 30, 2010 Uncategorized
Comments Off on Getting Started with Tea: Part I

I’m sure most of us have coffee on a regular basis. I didn’t drink coffee before I got to college, although I really loved the smell of it. I had tried tea (orange pekoe) before and I hated the taste and smell of it for years. It wasn’t until half-way through college that I decided to open my mind (and palette) a little and try tea in a proper sense. This will be my handy introduction to tea, and hopefully some of you might make a similar journey to absolutely loving tea as much as I do.

What is tea, and here can I find it?

Tea is the leaf of the tea tree. Often herbal tisanes are mislabelled ‘tea’, but only the leaves of the tea tree are properly called ‘tea’. The different types of tea (green, white, black, yellow) come from the different processes for picking, drying, and curing the leaves. Because of this every type of tea has slightly different ideal temperatures and steeping times. The best place to find great tasting loose-leaf tea are actually international importers and asian or middle-eastern grocery stores. You can get large amounts of good quality tea from international stores because their customers need tea, but refuse to pay too much for it because they know the price of the tea at its origin. If you buy tea from a store that caters to North Americans they will charge what they can get away with because they assume you’re ignorant of its true price.

Which is better, bagged tea or loose-leaf tea?

If you’re a coffee drinker I would explain it like this: which is better, buying pre-ground coffee and having that in a bag until you use it – or grinding your own beans fresh before making each pot of coffee? Loose leaf tea tends to be cheaper than the ‘convenience’ of bags, it is almost always far more flavourful, and allows you to ration or blend your different leaves to custom tailor your cup of tea (where bags are a pre-determined size, and short of tearing multiple bags open and mixing them, you are stuck with the kind you purchased.)

What’s a good tea to start out with if I’m a coffee drinker?

Typically tea will have less caffeine than coffee so if you’re replacing coffee with tea I would recommend you go for a black tea because they have the most caffeine. Typically with black teas it’s permissible to add dairy or sugar, but if you’re a coffee drinker (even if you add cream and sugar to your coffee) you should have no need for adding anything to your tea. Adding dairy or sugar to green teas or other asian-styled teas is considered in very bad taste and will make more experienced tea drinkers cringe. The beauty in tea is in the subtle nuances of the flavour which dairy and sugar will completely overpower and obscure. It would be like taking an intricately carved sclupture and layering it with multiple coats of thick paint and then pretending like you appreciated the artistry of the piece. Your goal with tea is to take it unaltered, and with time eventually be able to pick out the flavours. Some long-time tea drinkers can pinpoint not just a region where the tea was grown, but some also to which altitude the plants where grown at.

How can I decaffeinate tea?

While tea has 40-80mg of caffeine, and coffee has 80-120mg, tea is much more simple to decaffeinate. 80% of the caffeine is released in the first 30 seconds of brewing. Take a dish and place the leaves in the dish, then cover them with the hot water. Mix the leaves gently with the water, and after 30 seconds strain the leaves. Now most of the caffeine is gone. Brew your tea as normal and enjoy a cup of decaffeinated goodness!

How can I make supercaffeinated tea?

If 80% of the caffeine is released in the first 30 seconds of brewing, how can we make supercaffeinated tea? During the process to decaffeinate tea we are soaking leaves and discarding the runoff caffeine and keeping and using the leaves. This time repeat the procedure, and instead of discarding the 30-second wash, lets collect that in a mug. Suppose you repeat the process 6 times you should have enough liquid for a mug of tea, but inside you’ve got 80% of the caffeine from 6 bags, instead of 100% of the caffeine from one bag. Use this trick with caution and silent reverence when you need a good kick but don’t want a coffee or an energy drink.

Where can I learn more about the types of tea?

Next week I’ll explain a bit more about the main types of tea, and which tea we drink most often here at Engine – if you have any questions about tea ask below and I’ll answer your questions in Getting Started with Tea: Part II

Until next week, take care and try a type of tea you haven’t had before and let me know how it turns out!

—Tom

A personal touch

June 29, 2010 Design / Typography / Web
2 comments

With the advent of all things digital, have we lost some of the personal, handcrafted touches that were once common? Our communication in particular has become almost entirely email and/or Social Media based. I am not saying this is a bad thing, for it is extremely convenient, effective and efficient.  So how do we make our communication have more personality?

Well, if you are heavy into Facebook, there is always Pimp My Profizzle. It is a fun way to add some flare to your profile pic. But what about good-ol’-fashioned email. Is that boring signature just not enough? Pilot has found a way to take care of that.

I realize they are using this to sell pens, but what a cool idea.

As a designer I am always looking for ways to personalize things and communicate in a way (usually visually) that expresses something unique about someone or something. I wonder where that will take us next…

A Funny Billboard

June 28, 2010 Advertising / Design / Marketing
1 comment

I was driving home from work the other day and I laughed out loud when I saw a billboard for Gay Lea Spreadables. I had to pull over and take a picture of it! Take a look – who hasn’t had this happen to them? Too funny. I was curious and checked out their website gaylea.com. They have a sponsorship program on now which supports the Daily Bread Food Bank – a non-profit, charitable organization that is fighting to end hunger in our communities. You know, it’s not the first time I’ve been impressed by a billboard on my way home from work.

Print media isn’t just limited to the office. Out-of-Home products such as posters (or billboards), superboards, transit shelters, wall murals, bus, subway and streetcar advertising are all powerful ways of reaching today’s consumer. CBS Outdoor is who we send all of our outdoor billboard designs. For information on any of the products they have please visit cbsoutdoor.ca

I remember one billboard in particular that proves the effectiveness of strategic planning when it comes to choosing a location. A few months ago, McDonald’s was advertising FREE COFFEE when Tim Horton’s had their “Roll Up The Rim” contest on. The billboard for the free coffee was located right across the street from a Tim Horton’s. I thought that was genius! Needless to say, I went to McDonald’s for my coffee those two weeks (and maybe a couple of lunches). I even went onto their website and was reading about their nutrition information and community involvement, and I now have a better opinion of the restaurant chain. Tim Horton’s has similar information on their website, and the Gay Lea website has an environmental sustainability report available to view. It’s nice to see large business caring about their community.

Billboards speak to each consumer differently. What I find funny, or smart, might seem silly to someone else. That doesn’t matter, however. The fact remains that the billboard DID speak to me, and I’m still thinking about it! Have you seen any unique billboards lately? I’d like to hear about it.

If you’d like to see the billboards Engine has designed, you are welcome to view our portfolio online.

—Kathy

Square: bringing us closer to a cashless society.

June 25, 2010 ecommerce / Marketing / Uncategorized / Web
2 comments

Okay, so honestly how many people really carry cash on them anymore? I mean sure, we all keep maybe twenty bucks on us for coffee, parking or to pay back a friend for lunch, but do we really pay for most things with cash? Of course not! We have become so accustomed to the convenience of the swipe-and-go world we live in. We pay at the pump, auto-charge bills to our credit cards online, and I know everyone of us has swiped a credit card for something under 2 dollars at least once! In 2008 VISA alone reported $90.2 Trillion dollars of spending worldwide.
We are almost a cashless society, except when we are paying other people back for things. Usually we have to run to the ATM and get cash. Thanks to the development of Square last year, all of that is about to change.

Square was first announced in late 2009 but as of last month it is has been released to the public and is fully available to all consumers. (within the US)

It is official, now debit and credit transactions are easily accessible to everyone right from their android-powered phone, iphone, or ipad. Within seconds you can turn any of them into a cash register. Cash can be exchanged with any individual, right from your phone. This is an application that is targeted to individuals and small businesses more so than large corporations. All you need to do is download the Square application, plug a small device into your headphone jack that reads the magnetic strip on a debit or credit card, and you are ready to go. The phone acts as a credit terminal, sends an email copy of the receipt to the buyer, and logs the transactions for the seller on their phone. Along with all of this Square also maps out the location of the transaction. The possibilities of this type of technology are really endless.

After I get over imagining the endless possibilities, my first thought is, how do I know what other people are doing on their phones. It seems like this concept is amazing, but perhaps needs more development to really be a practical way to exchange money with strangers on a day-to-day basis. How hard would it be for someone to figure out how to copy my debit or credit information right onto their personal phone.

There is also a lot of concern that this application will be highly attractive to people who are unable to get standard business accounts because of a bad credit history or fraud.

I am not sure what to think about the security risks, but I do think square is a great development that we will see becoming more and more common in the near future. In the mean time I think there are a lot of security kinks to be worked out.

Check out the promo video for Square

— Sandra

What are Microformats and why should you have them?

June 23, 2010 Marketing / Social Media / Web
3 comments

Here’s my tiny explanation of Microformats, how to use them, and how they can help futureproof your website.

To understand how Microformats work I’ll use an illustration; a website is like a recipe containing instructions on how your web browser should build and display the website.  This is written in a language called HTML.  Microformats are a subset of HTML that tell the web browser what type of information is on the page instead of just displaying the information.

Think of it like a recipe inside of a recipe, like a pizza recipe that contains a complete recipe for pizza crust inside of it.  If it’s marked clearly enough, you could easily pull that pizza crust recipe out from the pizza recipe and use just that if you wanted.

What microformats are most popular?

The most popular Microformats are Address cards, Calendars, Product Reviews, Resumes, and Tags, and they’re all relatively easy for a professional to add to your site.

Why should you use them?

Microformats have existed for a few years now and so many large websites (Google, LinkedIN, Twitter, Youtube, Wikipedia) are already slowly adding support for them.

When we revisited our recipe pages on FoodNetwork.com a few months ago, it was one of our priorities in Front End Engineering to embed hRecipe. We knew that it would be only a matter of time for tool support to come along to utilize our recipe data. As Front End Engineers, we have real control over what are pages output, and we have a real opportunity maximize the amount of data that a tool like Google can glean from our markup. It would be a poor practice to not take advantage of microformats when something as powerful as Google recognizes their importance.

Says Mark Wunsch, a developer for Foodnetwork.com, read the rest of that article

At the same time people are slowly extending web browsers or adding support for Microformats to web services.  If you’re a business then your location will be far easier for web-based services to find you if you contain your business information in an Address card (hCard).  Some web browsers and web browser plugins can already detect any Microformats on a website and allow you to pull them out of the site and save the information on your computer or add it to your Address Book.

Sooner or later everybody will be using Microformats and you too will have them on your site – but if you’re the first of your competitors to embrace this technology then for a while you’re far easier for people to find – isn’t that reason enough?

Who can make Microformats?

You can, if you have an understanding of basic HTML. Otherwise any web designer worth his salt can make one for you; it’s not difficult and doesn’t take too long to do it properly, but the advantages (especially right now if you’re an early adopter) are well worth the investement.  It’s always easiest to hand-craft your microformats, but go ahead and check out the free tools available at microformats.org/code-tools

Where can I find out more about Microformats?

The home for all discussion of Microformats happens over at microformats.org

—Tom

It’s All About Colour

June 21, 2010 Design
5 comments

I’ve been wanting to change the colour of my fireplace for a while now. As I was flipping through the newest issue of Style at Home magazine, I saw an interesting advertisement for Sico paints called “My Project”. It actually engages the reader – there is a scrapbook folder inserted into the magazine which you can pull out and keep to help organize all your ideas for your next design project. Visit  www.styleathome/sico to view the folder. It got me thinking.

As a designer, the first place I turn to for colour is the Pantone swatch book. A couple of years ago I chose a spot colour pms #4515, which is equivalent to Benjamin Moore’s “Sombrero”. This time I’m thinking of going a little more dramatic and picking pms #404, or Benjamin Moore’s “Mortar” or “Nordic Grey”. Check out the 2010 – 2011 paint colour trends at www.benjaminmoore.com and www.sico.com.

Colour trends shift constantly, just like anything else, so it is important to keep up to speed on what’s new in colour. Sometimes I like to source www.colourlovers.com for fresh new colour combinations for print media. A good site for picking complimentary colours is  http://colorschemedesigner.com. The Pantone website www.pantone.com also has colour library updates at your disposal. All you have to do is become a member.

Designing for your home is kind of like print design – creating a harmonious and effective colour palette is important.

—Kathy

Starting the Day Off Right…

June 18, 2010 Uncategorized
6 comments

Back when I was trying to pay my way through University I had the opening shift at the campus coffee shop. It was a great job. The Free coffee was the best part! The love of coffee started slowly. Frappuccinos were first, full of sugar, ice and so many things not good for you, but oh so tasty. Then a bad day comes around and you just add another shot of espresso. Before you know it you’re a full out coffee snob. After being so spoiled one will never be content with simple brewed coffee again. It is forever ruined.

That is where the Birthday, Christmas, Valentines Day, Thanksgiving, Easter, Hanukah, everything day gift came in. I was given The Breville semi-automatic, programmable, espresso machine. Sounds intense eh?

I had often wondered how the quality of home espresso machines would compare to the quality of the commercial ones I was used to. I was pretty skeptical, but after much research I found a winner. This machine is great! It allows you to pack shots better than any other home machine I have used. Check out the crèma on top of the shot.

The steamer is the weakest link on this particular model, but once you get used to it, it becomes easy to create nice thick foam. Overall it is very easy to use  and quite simple to make a quality latte from the comfort of your own home. In general, with home espresso machines, you really do get what you pay for. The majority of people miss out on a great way to entertain and enjoy delicious at home simply because they don’t know enough about espresso machines to go about selecting the right one.

How I made my kitchen the local hangout:

  • Die-Cast Programmable Espresso Machine -BES830XL
  • Torani Flavour syrups
  • Freshly ground espresso (usually Starbucks espresso, or Presidents Choice West Coast Bold Roast)
  • Milk
  • A really cool mug

While this is no replacement for a chill afternoon in a coffee shop, it is a little bit of happiness-in-a-cup in between.

Let us know how you got hooked on coffee!

—Sandra

What is Geolocation Anyway?

June 17, 2010 Design / Marketing / Social Media / Web
Comments Off on What is Geolocation Anyway?

Hello! Today I’m going to tackle a trend I see emerging with new technology: location-aware web browsing (geolocation).

As more people are browsing the internet on phones and mobile devices (many of which have GPS also) there has begun this challenge of finding ways to insert your geographical location into the online world (where location until now has been irrelevant) in a valuable way.

Most modern web browsers (i.e. everybody but Internet Explorer, unless you’re using Google’s ‘Gears’ plugin to add functionality) have support for geolocation already, so how will we leverage this technology in the future to shape web design? A better question is; how would knowing the geographic location of a web user allow you to serve them better?

Here are five simple ways I can see that could immediately be incredibly useful and provide tremendous value to the user

Location-Aware Websites

Suppose you were planning a trip to Bermuda and using a location-aware web browser.  With this technology I could provide information about my resort and how to contact us, for those visiting my site from outside bermuda, but if I knew that the user was in Bermuda I might offer a schedule of the activities at my resort and information that a person not on the island wouldn’t have use for.

Perhaps a shopping mall website could feature a list of the stores and services they represent on their home page when you’re away from the mall, but the moment you step inside the mall their homepage could simply become a map of the mall itself, and then provide links into the rest of the site as a secondary navigation feature.

Location-Sharing Services

This one already exists in its nascent state with services like Foursquare and Gowalla.  Right now we’re checking in at places of business (but not yet temporary events like concerts or conferences) and tracking the movement of our friends, as well as leaving geo-aware tips for the public.

At my most frequented sushi place, I left a note for the public to try certain menu items – even if they’re not my friend or if I’m not there.  Yes I might not know the person who sees this, but I could just as easily have bumped into them in person at the restaurant.

By adding geolocation to websites and sharing your location with the public allows you to ‘bump into’ strangers in your town at the places you visit and can help foster new friendships – now that is truly social media.

Directions to Places of Business

This one is simple, but incredibly useful. We’ve all seen websites that have maps that provide the location of a business, but if the browser knew your current location at all times it could provide the quickest route to that place of business, and would continue to update for you on their website as you view it and change your location.

Never see a ‘Find a Store Location’ page again; supposing the website you’re going to is a franchise it could detect the location nearest you and display that by default.

Default Language Selection

Here in Canada we live in a country with two official languages, so many sites will provide their content in the language they feel best fits their audience and provide a link to the other language.  With location-aware browsing you would be able to target the default language displayed based on the user’s location (still providing them the chance to switch languages at any time later of course).

Lets assume you’re a large corporation serving many countries; you could target your site to German language people if they are browsing from Germany, but display the default language as Chinese if they visit your site from China.

Locally Tailored Content

There is an unhealthy excess of news sites online, and many news sites fall under the same media conglomerate and simply provide an outlet for local news for one region.  Imagine if instead of your local news website, you went to the main media company website and it promoted local stories near your location, as well as national and international news.  That way everybody would be visiting and writing for the same main news website, and more money could be spent raising awareness of that one website across the country – yet the delivery of the content would be the same as your local news site.

Oh, and one added benefit – you *could* search and find local stories from anywhere because they’d all be in one location, where now they’re split up on hundreds of different local news sites even though they are from the same media company.

So there are five simple examples of how knowledge of the users geographic location can help shape the web, and allow you to serve your users better and more intuitively – and at the same time empower them in their own environment and foster development and growth of offline relationships.  This is an exciting time to be a web designer, but an even more exciting time to be alive as all this technology can be put to use right away to improve our lives.

—Tom

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →