Thursday, December 12, 2013

Different Marketing Avenues - Use All You Can

One thing to remember with marketing an event, special exhibit, new product or your services is to market in all avenues you can for getting your information out to the public - direct mailers, websites, emailers, brochures, flyers, social media, etc.  One thing to note as you do this is to continue the consistent branding through all your marketing materials through the use of same fonts, imagery and colors.  The public will begin to recognize, associate, and remember your event.

Below are examples of the different marketing avenues I use for my client Art Works Downtown to advertise their newest art exhibit - Small Works Show currently on exhibit in their 1337 Gallery.


Postcards are designed and mailed out to their mailing lists, given to artists to pass out to their contacts, and are distributed around the community to get their next exhibit advertised to the public.

An Ecard icon is designed to be emailed out to various different contacts.

A slideshow image is created to be highlighted on the home page of their website with a direct link to their exhibit webpage.

A webpage is updated on their website with all the pertinent information about the art exhibit.

An RTA sign is created for the gallery window. 

Finally an emailer through iContact is created to send out to their contact list.


Second Friday Art Walk Map - Exhibit highlighted on front cover and inside information.

If your company or another company you know of needs assistance with graphic or website design work to help market an upcoming event, exhibit, products, or services Susan Searway Art & Design would be happy to assist you in any way I can.   Happy Holidays! 

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Marketing Materials - Art Exhibit Postcards

As you know I am an artist and love working for clients that promote the arts.  I am honored and am having so much fun working for my client, Art Works Downtown.  I get to work on updates to their website, work on their e-mailer campaigns, and get to design their art exhibit postcards.  Below are a few samples of their current 1337 Gallery Exhibit Postcard design and past postcard designs.

If you or your company have monthly events or yearly events that need marketing materials either printed or online, Susan Searway Art & Design would love to assist you.








Thursday, October 10, 2013

Website Highlight: Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com

One of the best things you can do when meeting with a graphic designer or website design is bring in samples.  Look at other businesses marketing products and websites that you like and also designs that you don't like.  Look for:

  • Design
  • Layout 
  • Content
  • Colors
  • Pictures
This gets you thinking about what you specifically want and it gives your designer a visual idea of where their client eventually wants to end up.  




Ed from Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com did just that when he came to me.  He brought me a copy of an HGTV magazine and said he wanted his new website to be like that - focus on the kitchen design, big beautiful pictures, small before photos, something fun, colorful, bright, interesting, and informative about kitchen re-facing.  That is what we designed him.   A colorful website that focuses on the kitchens.  Check out his website online - www.YourNeighborsNewKitchen.com 

Below are samples from his website we designed last month.  Enjoy.

Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com website designed by Susan Searway Art & Design


Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com website designed by Susan Searway Art & Design

Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com website designed by Susan Searway Art & Design

Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com website designed by Susan Searway Art & Design

Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com website designed by Susan Searway Art & Design

I love working with my clients on a variety of projects from logo design, advertisements, brochures, educational materials, exhibits, flyers, posters, identity packages, business cards, mailers, or websites.  Mainly if you need it printed or put online Susan Searway Art & Design can help you get it there.  

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Recent Logo Designs by Susan Searway Art & Design

Logo Design - Branding for a company is a vital and important process in developing your company.  You have to visually articulate what you want your company to represent to your future clients.  You want to be professional, unique, and stand out from others in your field.  Your logo can be as simple as a font that represents your company or it can be more complex with an icon that is designed as vector art or it can be an image that goes along with the name of your company.  Whatever direction you decide to take your company brand in make sire you like it and that it represents you and your company well.  A strong brand will last for years.  A weak brand you will have to update in a few years.  Below are some recent logo designs I have created for my clients this year.  Enjoy.








I love working with my clients on a variety of projects from logo design, advertisements, brochures, educational materials, exhibits, flyers, posters, identity packages, business cards, mailers, or websites.  Mainly if you need it printed or put online Susan Searway Art & Design can help you get it there.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

New Clients - Website Highlights

Having a web presence is one of the most important marketing tools for any company these days.  So designing and creating a website is a big part of what Susan Searway Art & Design does.  By knowing both the print and website world Susan creates effective marketing and branding for your company that works best for you.  Whether you need a website built from scratch, support for a current site, or a complete website redesign Susan Searway Art & Design can produce a modern, user-friendly site that will give you a professional online presence to be proud of.  She is an expert in creating custom websites or she can work with template website programs (WordPress, Joomla, WebSite tonight, etc) depending on what the client desires are for maintenance and additions for the future.

Below are some of my newest website designs for my clients.

Engel Geist is a new company created by Daniel Geist offering Psychic Readings Energetic Healing.  I had a wonderful time working for him to create and develop his company brand, logo design, business cards and website.

For his brand I created by hand these beautiful bitmap angel wings that when together form the shape of a heart in the negative space.  Developing the correct shape of these angel wings took time but came with a strong impact.  We decided to then take one of my photographs, from my travels around the country, to incorporate it into his brand which allowed us to convert the angel wings into white to appear more mystical.

Once his brand and logo were established we created business cards and developed his website in WordPress template to allow Daniel the ability to blog in the future.  More of my photographs were used throughout the site. Daniel hired a copywriter to provide the content and we integrated some basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) throughout the site.  Daniel and Engel Geist is ready to launch into the world.  To view Engel Geist website: http://engelgeist.com


Cindy Mack 
Personal Trainer
I had the wonderful pleasure of working with another start up company - Cindy Mack Personal Trainer over the past couple of months.  Cindy Mackenzie is one of the most outgoing individuals I have met with. She has a passion to help people get into better health and fitness programs.  She is an ACE Personal Trainer who specialized with customized senior services.

For her brand we developed a logo that was a fun, loose, and colorful. I created a custom watercolor that acts as the main background and banner for her business cards, marketing materials, and her website.  Her website is another WordPress site that allows for her to update photos of her clients as her company grows.  To view Cindy Mack Personal Trainer website: http://cindymackpersonaltrainer.com



PRO Knee Institute  For this company I actually developed two different websites.  The first seen on the left is http://prokneeinstitute.com  It is a custom based website created in Dreamweaver and is intended for partnering with hospitals.

The second website that I developed for them is http://myproknee.com  It is another WordPress website and is intended for providing potential patients with important information about this new medical procedure - Partial Knee Resurfacing.

Both websites have the same look and feels for the branding but function entirely differently from a coding point of view.



Silver Sexy & Strong owned by Jill Williams is an example of being hired not to do the actual website work but I was hired as a Marketing and Website Consultant.  Jill already had a website created and felt comfortable for making adjustments herself.  So we met and then I went through her website with a fine tooth comb to see how visually we could make the content flow better.  We ended up doing a rebrand of her company logo and created a couple of fun little icons for each of her services she offers.  To learn more about Silver Sexy & Strong visit her website:

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Graphic & Website Design Highlight

Young At Hearts Communications, LLC



For the past two months I have had the honor of working Diane Castro from Young at Hearts Communications, LLC.  We did a rebrand of her company look and feel including redesigning her business cards, creating a Facebook Cover Image for her business page, and completely redesigning her website in WordPress so that she can continue her blogging with the public.  

Please take time to check out her amazing company:

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Updated SusanSearway.com


At the beginning of the 2013 I decided to stop procrastinating and began the task of working on updating my own business website with updated client design work and also new artwork.  I knew it would be a big undertaking since it had been so long since my last major update.  So I started out with fresh new blank files and began the process of creating my updated look.  Though many will look at it and say it is the same I have updated a lot:
  • I created new templates to make updates in the future go more smoothly
  •  I have converted almost all text into HTML format to help with SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
  • I added a custom font onto my website - Zapfino
  • I began to add Alt Tags to images along with Keywords and Titles to my pages
  • I added in descriptions of projects & information about my clients.
  • I updated my resumes
  • I added in NEW Design Projects -  • Brochures • Logo Design • Identity Package • Business Cards • Advertisements • Fliers • Posters • Direct Mailers • Educational Materials • Exhibits • E-mailer Campaigns - ConstantContact, MailChimp • Website Design - Custom & Template Designs, WordPress, HTML  
  • I added NEW Artwork - • Digital Art • Drawing • Painting • Photography • Watercolors
Please visit www.susansearway.com and see what all it new.  Below are some highlighted projects:

 Logo Design for True Colors Painting & Decorating, Inc.

Redesign Simply Inspired Business Cards - the main focus was to now to correspond to her website look and fee to give her company a more constant brand.

Continued maintenance of Continental Jewelers Website

Creation of landing webpage for Edie Chaska Designs with a rotating image gallery.

Marymount Greenhills Retirement Center Trifold Brochure



Redesign MPWN - Marin Professional Women's Network - Logo, Letterhead, Membership Nametags

Layout, design and creation of a new website banner design.


NEW ARTWORK

Watercolor - Figure Study

Oil Painting on Canvas

Watercolor

Photography - Destin, FL

Photography - New Orleans, LA

Fiery Soul - Digital Art

Figure Study - Colored Pencil on Paper