What Makes Good Design? – (Infographic)
What makes good design? Evaluating design has never been easy. To help with this, we have created a small infographic that will guide through this process and highlight important aspects that should be taken into consideration when judging a design. Enjoy!
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A Love Letter From My City
If your city could talk, what do you think it would say? Here is what I imagine Sacramento would tell us. To my beloved Sacramentans, Do you know what gets me up in the morning? You. You are what makes every day brighter. Sure, we’ve had our rainy days and some somber moments, but you’ve …
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5 Things to Do When You are Crazy Busy
1. Smile When you are crazy busy it is the easiest time to snap at the people around you. STOP, think of what you sound like. Someone can ask if they can help when I am crazy busy and I feel like snapping at them – NO just leave me alone. But Don’t – Smile …
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Promote Your Business Using Social Media Ads
Social media has unlocked a new era of marketing for businesses big and small. It’s now more affordable than ever to reach new customers. With an advertising budget of a measly $100 per month, you can reach thousands of potential new customers. Before signing in to create your next social media ad campaign for your …
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Why are My Google Ads Not Showing?
Google AdWords gives you tons of great ways to market your business on the internet. All you have to do is create a campaign, add some keywords and create some punchy ads. Sounds simple right? Well, sometimes there are some hiccups along the way. Seeing your carefully crafted ads show up on Google is exciting, …
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Website User Experience Lessons from the Smashing Magazine Conference
Last week we got a chance to go to two workshops hosted by Smashing Magazine. I went to a workshop hosted by Dan Mall, a superfriendly creative director and advisor from Philadelphia, who talked about responsive design workflow and Mark was lucky enough to meet Vitaly Friedman, the editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine and chat about front-end patterns over …
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The “Force” of Inspiration
Inspiration: a force or influence that inspires someone. Personally, I have rarely been inspired by a “force”, but the “I” in inspire is relevant. One can be inspired by money, though this is rarely the true case, inspired by love, by family or even by their own will to be successful. People have often been …
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6 Tips to an Effective Promotional Video
A compelling promotional video can move your audience to take action. Here are six things to consider before beginning your production. 1. Target Audience Who is your target audience and what do you want them to do. This is always a great place to start when you begin brainstorming with your team. 2. What’s The Message? Clarity of message …
Read More »How to Make LinkedIn Work for You
Whether you’re using LinkedIn as a way to find a new job, connect with decision makers to make a sale, or build your business’ presence, LinkedIn is a powerful tool that, when used correctly, can produce some excellent results. Below are a few easy steps you can take to make your LinkedIn profile POP and …
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An Early Career Story for Women’s History Month
As a successful woman in business I wanted to share a little story about my early career here in Sacramento for Women’s History Month. In 1968 I was the first female postal carrier at Sacramento’s Metro Station. That Post Office is now closed, but in 1968 it was the main hub. I started with the Post …
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Design Thinking – Making Connections Where Previously There Were None
Last week I found myself inside in a 10’X20’ windowless room. The walls were covered in post-it notes — each containing a thought, quote, or idea more intriguing than the next. We were looking for themes. Design Thinking – Making connections where previously there were none. We had just completed over 120 hours of ethnographic …
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Exploring the Web and Website Design
The internet is like a jungle. It’s a fascinating, living ecosystem that never stops growing and creates new lifeforms everyday through website design. Until this point, my background was mostly print design which is a similar environment but it lives by its own different rules. That’s why I’m looking at many of these web lifeforms …
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2016 – Will it be Your Best Year?
We think 2016 will be the best year ever for Uptown Studios. Here are a few of the observations from the Uptown Crew on what 2016 will bring… Small business will need to pay more attention to mobile marketing. If your website is not responsive in design (which means it is easy to view on …
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Challenge Yourself – Read Something New
How often do you read a recently published business journal article? Or the summary document of some new research? How often do you buy a magazine that isn’t part of your normal reading selection? How many of you have an agreement with your friends or colleagues to share interesting factoids/articles/stories with you? And you with them? Reading …
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Get the Website Security Blanket
At Uptown Studios, we love building websites on WordPress, with all of it’s flexibility and ability to grow and scale to any size – WordPress can handle almost anything you throw at it. Websites powered by WordPress only become insecure if they are allowed to be so, which means it’s critical to make sure you …
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Gift Giving Guide for the Change Makers
I LOVE giving gifts. All year round, I’m picking up gifts that I think would be great for people and either gifting them right away or saving them up for a birthday or special holiday. So, as you can imagine, December is a pretty exciting time for me. I get caught up in the excitement …
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