My love for Pinterest really isn’t a secret. I’m able to use it to build inspiration boards for clients (see Katie’s, Courteney’s and Sara’s boards), invite them to pin on the board and keep all of our ideas in one place for easy conversation. So what if I told you the Ladies of 915 Monmouth will take your best board and turn it into a photoshoot… and you get to be on-location with us to watch it come to life. Pretty nice, huh? Well, we’ll also let you use our studio to throw an awesome party to celebrate.

Head over to the 915 website to find out all the details (It’s easy- don’t worry). Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

You’re a hopeless romantic. The idea of getting married on the Mexican Riviera or in Parisian cathedral or an Italian villa was just too charming to pass up.
You only get married once right? We love the idea of a romantic wedding away from home too and we want to play a part.

We wanna make it a little easier to have the destination wedding of your dreams. Lots of contests promise a free something or other with a purchase of something more expensive. Not this one. How about lots of free stuff for nothing? Call your venue, buy your dress, book your plane tickets and fly home married.

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Here’s what you get if you win…

Photography – Nathan Peel Photography ($8500 value)
12 hours of coverage on your wedding day by 1 photographer
Day After Session for perfect couple/bridal portraits
10 spread leather album
Digital Negative DVD of wedding and portrait session
Up to $1500 paid travel budget for photographer

Stationary – Five Dot Design ($1000 value)
A credit will be applied to the final balance of your wedding stationery package.
This can be used towards Save the Dates, your invitation suite, reception pieces like programs, favors and thank you notes.

Planning – Blue Dahlia Events ($750 value)
3 sessions of expert planning advice to assist you with your destination wedding planning: budget, style + design, travel, timeline, etc.

Makeup - Brideface ($125 value)
Custom DIY makeup consult to help you create two looks.
*if couple isn’t local or plans to hire an artist on location then a gift basket with product of equal value will be sent.

$10,000 toward the destination wedding of your dreams…not too bad, huh?

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Here’s how to enter:

Round 1:

1. Send an email to contest@nathanpeelphoto.com. Round 1 entries will be accepted through email only. All Facebook, Twitter, blog comments, etc will be disregarded.
2. Include couple’s names, wedding date, wedding location and wedding venue. (A booked wedding venue and date will be valued highly.)
3. Include a 100-200 word blurb (keep it short!) about you guys as a couple. We’re looking for insight into your personality.
4. All Round 1 entries must be received by noon on February 17, 2012.

Round 2:

1. 10 finalists will be selected and contacted by February 18, 2012.
2. Finalists will be asked to submit a picture and a short description of their wedding.
3. Voting will be opened to the public via online poll.
4. Voting will close at noon March 1, 2012. The finalists with the most votes wins.

Fine Print:

1. All finalists will be selected by Nathan Peel Photography.
2. A wedding will be considered as a “destination” wedding at the sole discretion of the photographer.
3. If you have already contracted a photographer please consider your contractual obligations before entering.
4. Current NPP couples are not eligible.
5. Votes will be handled via secure online poll.
6. Photographer travel will include 1 coach plane ticket, 3 nights of lodging on site, transportation and food.
7. If $1500 budget is exceeded the winning couple will be responsible for extra expense.
8. Wedding date availability will be taken into consideration when selecting finalists.
9. To protect the integrity of the contest wedding vendors above reserve the right to disqualify any entry at any time for any reason.

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Let me elaborate a bit on Design*Sponge (because it’s just that damn good, in my book). I would equate waiting to see our names pop up on the blog to Selection Sunday in NCAA basketball. You wait and wait… and wait and when you finally see your name pop up, there’s an eruption of applause, yelling, hugs, high-fives and all-round giddy excitement that can’t be contained. Had we all been together, I’m sure we would have popped a bottle of champagne, sat and stared at the post for the rest of the day.

All five of us were sitting at a computer, with cellphones in hand, refreshing every few minutes to see if our post would be next.
9am: nope.
that’s cool- we have 4 more hours…

10:30am: nope
“so, we have to be next, right?”

11:something am: not us
“seriously?”
“did the email say FOR SURE we would be going up”
“where are we?!”

noon: nope.
A flurry of texts and emails back and forth
“Is that it for the day?”
“where are we?”
“WAIT- she posts 4 a day sometimes!”

refresh… refresh… refresh…

1pm: a frenzy of texts, emails, Facebook posts, tweets, phone calls- you name it. We all let out a sigh of relief and I’m not sure we stopped smiling the rest of the day.

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So what’s in store for 2012? I have a lot of ideas cooking- some in the prep stages and others are just about done. I do know that I’m really excited for what’s ahead of me. An extension of Five Dot will now be in Lexington with the awesome girls of Simply Love Studio, which was a goal I secretly set for myself. Two locations will be a challenge, but I’m prepared for it. I can’t help but believe if I continue to focus two steps ahead of right now, keep asking questions and pursuing opportunities that are either presented to me or I seek out, I have no option but to succeed.

I’m not gonna lie- I have no idea what happened at the beginning of this year. I honestly don’t (though I’m sure with Facebook’s new timeline, I could go back and look, but that thing kinda freaks me out). What I do know is I’ve ended the year much stronger than I began and with much more confidence in my ability to really make this whole adventure work.

My constantly-in-motion lifestyle has definitely tested my limits this year, but as they say, “find your limits, then push past them” so I don’t know that I necessarily have a choice but to embrace that mentality and do whatever it takes to get myself to the next level, personally and with my business. I know I have plenty of support behind me to push me thru when times will be rough (and I know they will… it’s inevitable with the way my life is structured). So with that, I know I will have to sacrifice some blog posts, miss a few events or work a few hours later, but taking one more step when I’m ready to quit will only help me get thismuchcloser to realizing a dream.

So, here’s to 2012… may it be the best yet.

Last week I put a call out for old, unwanted books for a project I’m beginning and, surprisingly, I wasn’t met with too much resistance to “repurposing” old books (i.e. “destroying” them.) BUT, for those of you that might have gotten a little squirrelly at the thought, I pulled two from the stack that I didn’t feel I COULD “repurpose.”

See? I have a heart.

One statistic that stuck out to me was that for every $1 spent on email marketing, there is an average return of $42. BUT- that’s due largely in part to extending the brand experience to your inbox.

This email was sent out before I redesigned my current website, but is an example of how I extended my brand across a different marketing platform. I like to keep a clean look of the overall design, allowing the images to be the focal point, to keep the look between my emails and my website consistent, allowing for greater brand recognition between marketing platforms. After listening to the information presented in this session, my email structure will most likely change to utilize a lot of the best practices listed below.

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So how do you do that? Well… multiple ways. Let’s start on the back-end prep for email campaigns, first.

To send emails, you need an audience. (duh). For some companies, when they sign up with particular advertisers, a list is provided to them (a lead list) or they are able to purchase lists of their target market from outside companies. Many businesses, especially small businesses will rely on their websites, blogs or word of mouth to build their lists, as this is the most cost effective way. If you go this route, make sure the sign up box is above the fold (more on this in a minute), static on the site (meaning it won’t disappear as someone navigates thru the website) and it’s available on you social media sites. Do you see mine over there? On the far right at the very top? Yup- static, above the fold and super simple. (PSSST… put your name and email address in there.)

So, now that you have someone to talk to in your emails, you want to be able to know if they’re reading what you have to say. Tracking is huge when it comes to email campaigns- what’s the click-thru rate? What’s my bounce rate? How did this email compare to this other email sent last week/month? This can be compared to Google Analytics for email. Lots of great information comes from tracking your emails. Great services like Emma and MadMimi (which I use due to my smaller list size and my emailing schedule) and plenty of others do the tracking for you, which is a huge advantage over building html emails and sending them thru Mac’s Mail, Entourage, etc.

These services also organize your lists in a manner that makes sense to you and how you want to interact with your clients. For instance, if I broke my lead list down to be very specific, I could have one bride in 2-3 different lists based on time of year, month, stage in planning, etc. This could mean they receive 4-6 emails from me a month, depending on my email scheduling.

So, your lists are in order and you’re ready to push your message out to the masses… but what are the best practices for this? This is best explained in a bullet point fashion, so here we go.

• 72dpi and RGB : emails should be handled like web pages, essentially (notice I said LIKE and not AS … big difference, but more on that in a minute). Use small files sizes for images for quick load time.
• 600-700 pixels on average wide. This will keep the majority of your readers from needing to scroll horizontally to read your words of wisdom
• file formats : png- cleaner image presentation, but larger file size … jpg- great for photos, details and gradients … gifs- great for vector art and simple color compositions

Okay- you have the basics of setting up your email. Let’s start designing.

There’s a phrase “above the fold” that comes from the newspaper industry that holds true throughout out all marketing and publishing sectors. Visualize a newspaper on the newsstand, folded in half. What information is most visible? The information at the top of the page where the biggest new story of the day is listed- the headline… where is it? Above the fold. Same goes for the magazine rack and the bookshelf. This is what will grab your audience and what will make your reader “unfold” or scroll thru the rest of your email. Give them a teaser of the information you want them to act upon so that the reader is enticed to keep going or clicking thru to your website, blog or special offer. (This could digress into copywriting best practices, which I’ll try to have one of my copywriting expert buddies cover in a few weeks).

Now, for some, this next step might seem long and drawn out, but it’s a really important step once you learn the value in it (And it will get easier to do on-the-fly after you have a few under your belt). Layout your email using blocks- be it in a design program or on the back of a napkin. Ensuring your information organization make sense to your reader and make sure it has a nice flow is really important to the success of your email campaign. Where do you click? Where do you want images to go? Where am I putting my content? Remember that many of your clients can get hundreds of emails a day, so grabbing them right away with clever copy will make them more likely to click thru and read your entire email, so filling the top portion of the email with images they have to download isn’t very effective.

Now, once you have the look of your designed, let’s get it created. I’m enlisting the ol’ bullet points again for this.

• Old school html and tables are your friend. Many email programs are not able to recognize CSS styles. This is where the LIKE vs AS a website comes into play. To be honest, email is dumb. It doesn’t handle fanciness very well, so apply the KISS method to make sure all platforms of email can read your message.
• Use words, content, whatever you want to call it. Designing with images will only guarantee that your message will not be seen by the majority of your audience. As you’ve probably noticed, many of the email softwares available now block images within emails and prompt you to download them manually. Don’t make your audience work for your message by burying it in an image. This doesn’t mean to eliminate images. It means use them effectively and smart.
•  Use alt text if you have an important message in an image. Sometimes it’s inevitable that you’ll want to make an offer or important information stand out from everything else on the page, so you’ll most likely design this piece of information. If that’s the case, be sure to repeat the message in the alt text so that your audience doesn’t miss this message if they opt to not view the images in your email.

All in all, with a little planning and some thought, building a successful email marketing campaign can be relatively easy and after awhile, fast and easy to create.

So, without further adieu… more info from the sessions

Don’t wait for inspiration–
Are you inspired or tired?  One great quote from Sam Harrison from his Revelations for Inspiration talk was, “Throw out your first 3 ideas–everyone else had those ideas.” Ultimately we’re responsible for what we put out into the design world, so if we’re constantly going back to what we know “works,” eventually it won’t work anymore. Stephen Doyle made a great suggestion in his talk Where Ideas Come From and Where to Go, “Ask yourself what everyone else will do and do the opposite.” Sure, it sounds easier than it really is, but at the same time, even the smallest change from the norm can lead a design into a completely different direction.

Fail early to succeed early–
We must be expandable or become expendable… meaning we need to stretch our minds to new ideas. A lot of those ideas are going to be really bad… and that’s okay. But bad ideas get you to good ideas faster. Start with exploring… Stop. Look. Listen. then Focus. Let an idea go on its own and then let it go one step further. You can always take a step back if it doesn’t work out. But if it does work, let it keep going until all paths have been explored.

Talk to people–
Conversation begins creativity, but the conversations mean nothing if you don’t act upon them. Use your network of creatives to bring your ideas to life and work together to realize each others ideas. Brainstorming often becomes my idea, your idea, my idea, his idea… working together to build upon each others ideas is what really pushes the creative envelope.

You bring in what you put out–
Make a connection with your clients and show them that you really enjoy what you do. Find ways to give clients an experience that’s new and different to make yourself memorable. Be innovative and be spontaneous. Stand out.

All in all, a good portion of the conference was motivational speakers that just so happen to understand the design world and the challenges designers have come across- especially in the last 5+ years. I would imagine it was more than just me that needed those words, too.

Sounds kinda nerdy, huh? It is a bit. We kept saying it was amazing how one set of revolving doors and a lanyard could determine your cool status in a matter of seconds. Inside the doors, a lanyard with your HOW Design Live badge made you out to be pretty effing cool- you were an attendee at one of the top design conferences… and then the minute you went thru that revolving door and out into the world, you were just a loser wearing a lanyard. I have to admit I was a loser in a lanyard more times than I preferred.

After all the sessions were said and done, I found 3 main messages that seemed to be a constant amongst the speakers, whether spoken or implied.

1.  Keep conversations going. Design is an extension of a conversation that then leads to more conversations. Find a trusted circle of creative minds that can keep the conversation going and add new information to the mix.

2. In the words of Mig Reyes, “Make shit.” Spend 15 minutes a day just making something- anything. In letting our minds think creatively in whatever way we choose, we find solutions to past, present and future design problems. Passion projects are a chance for us to create something we WANT to create and we tend to show our true colors (and often our best work) in these projects.

3. Keep trying and when you finally think you have it, try one more thing. Push your mind to think past what you feel is the “right” solution to a design problem. Ask one more question when talking with a client- a question that reveals more about who the client is and not what the project is about.

So hopefully over the next handful of blog posts, not only will you have an idea why this conference was so important for me to attend, but I hope that you’ll learn something as well. The best way I can describe what I felt leaving Chicago this morning is that… I don’t feel like I’ve come back to take over the world, but instead I’ve come back equipped with the right information, the right resources and a plan being thoughtfully put in place to take over the world.

Next up… Email Marketing + Design

Want to see what Five Dot Design can create for you?
PORTFOLIO ::  CONTACT ::  FACEBOOK ::   WEBSITE

Click the image above to open it full size. Feel free to print this image off as a reference for your own wedding.

Introducing, Pinterest. (Don’t be intimidated by needing an invitation). Think of it as a mobile bookmarking app that keeps all of your ideas in one place, organized and allows you to follow other people to see what they’re pinning (as well as preserving the links to the photo’s original post). You can even snap a photo with your phone and pin it to one of your boards. No need to tote around all your magazines or try and organize print outs. Simply pull up your account when you meet with your vendors–and who knows? maybe your vendors are pinning as well. Invite them to follow you for constant inspiration for your wedding. In keeping all of your imagery in one spot, it can help you see the overall vision of your wedding, keeping everything consistent.

Won’t you pin with me?

Want to see what Five Dot Design can create for you?
PORTFOLIO ::  CONTACT ::  FACEBOOK ::   WEBSITE

And Brittany hearts Pete.

From what I understand, this Save the Date has become a fast Fan Favorite amongst Brittany and Pete’s friends. I have to admit, in knowing Brittany well, I created this as a joke but secretly hoping she might want to print one or two for keepsake. Instead, she sent the postcards out into the world for others to enjoy just as much as I do.

But, don’t worry. She also sent out these Save the Dates as well.

Save the Dates are the perfect opportunity to use your engagement photos, just make sure you have reprint rights from your photographer.

Here are a few more shots from their engagement shoot, thanks to 1326 Photography.

Looking forward to your wedding in August!

Want to see what Five Dot Design can create for you?
PORTFOLIO ::  CONTACT ::  FACEBOOK ::   WEBSITE

The Leapin’ Lizard Lounge is separated into 2 levels… you’ll come into the main level and find hand-selected wedding professionals not only milling about the place looking to chat with you, but showcasing their work in non-traditional ways (I’m setting up with Kelly of Cinci Makeup). Four mock tables will also on the first floor- I collaborated with Marti of Marti’s Floral Designs and Jen of Your Wedding by Jen on a fun kitschy table. After you’re able to grab a few drinks from the bar, you can head upstairs to watch the fashion show.

One lucky bride will win a free wedding from Nikita Gross and many of the other professionals will be raffling off some great prizes. I have offered up $500 towards their stationery in Nikita’s Wedding Giveaway.

I hope to see you out there- it promises not only to be a great show, but a great time with more than great wedding professionals!