Boomerang Water approached Asterisk Creative for their second video project. This time they wanted a video that would demonstrate the machines process from start to finish and more importantly how the machine would work within a facility.
We shot live footage and edited it with graphics. We also added a voice over to help tell the story.
Asterisk Creative is honored for the third year to be involved with Charlotte’s Carolina Carousel Scholarship Awards Ceremony. We have worked with the organization this year and in the previous year to create the theme for the awards, as well as, design the program.
The program is a multi-page full color piece with ad space and the run of the program. Each of the scholarship winners is showcased in the program.
Program cover for 2011
To learn more about Asterisk Creative’s print design services please visit our site.
There many web design companies to choose from and a lot of free-lance developers to work with. Often many of them do not last in this industry. It is important to understand who you are working with, what their design process is, and what their industry track record is. As a buyer you need to be educated on what you are buying and how they work.
Initial Meetings
A reputable design firm will set up an initial discovery meeting to understand what your project entails and your goals. This is the time to define what the scope of work will look like.
During this meeting it is important to find out how they work, their process, and most importantly is the work done in-house.
Check their portfolio
If you are going to be spending money for a new website, it is important to like the work of the company you are working with. Look at their past and current projects to determine if their style is what you are looking for.
Ask the company how they build their sites. You do not want to end up with a template design that you see another company with when you thought you were getting original creative
Check their references
Reach out to the companies and businesses the design firm has work with to see how their experience was. A reputable design firm is always happy to provide references to potential clients.
Design Process
When meeting with a design firm, make sure they have a process in place to manage your project and a communication strategy to keep you up to date on your project.
Ask the company if they design and develop the project in house. Many firms do not communicate that they outsource the work to free lance designers. Make sure you understand this because this could make a major impact on the quality of communication and outcome of your project.
More importantly, understand what type of assistance will they provide after the project is launched based on your needs.
Contracts and Estimate
Always make sure you work with a firm that has a clearly defined scope of work in their estimate and a contract that covers all parties. If you meet with a company that wants to work on a hand shake, walk away.
Asterisk Creative has launched the new website for Animal Job Hunter. The site is a career site for the pet industry. The site create a portal for employers to advertise jobs available and to search the database of available candidates.
To add additional value, job seekers have the ability to upload their resumes or create one within their on-line resume builder. The user can then apply for job directly on-line through the Animal Job Hunter site.
The site promotes advertising for employers and for other companies within their industry.
The site is a custom application, database, and content management system. The site is designed and developed to meet the needs, as well as goals, of Animal Job Hunter.
Sweet Water Logistics came to Asterisk Creative looking for a dymanic, user friendly website design with a content management system. We worked with Sweetwater to design and develop a site that fit their goals for both today, as well as tomorrow.
The site is custom built and designed with search engine optimization as a key driving competent. The site offers multiple numerous way for the user to interact with Sweetwater.
Sweetwater Logistics – delivering innovative logistics solutions everyday. Whether you have a new e-commerce business, are seeking a new provider or are an international organization, we have the right solution for you.
About Asterisk Creative:
Asterisk Creative is a full service marketing and interactive design agency. Asterisk Creative combines premiere designs with results based strategy to create results for each of our clients. Please visit our site to learn more www.asteriskcreative.com
Do what you like, like what you do; such a simple quote, yet how many people are stuck in job that they hate going to?
Find your passion. Do what you like to do! What are your favorite things in life? Think about them and then try and think of a way to integrate them into your job. Passion is essential to life. Are you unsure what you want? Do you want to do something you love?
Surround yourself with passionate people. Positive thinking and passion in others will inspire and engender in you a passion like theirs. It’s true what they say positive thinking is contagious, so by surrounding yourself with good people and friends you open doors to a lot of new possibilities. You have to dream big to make it big.
Now I’m not saying quit the job you hate and become a cowboy, but I am saying think of things you like about your dream and passion and try and integrate them into your job. Say you want to be a cowboy, think of all their traits of loyalty and hard work and so much more and try and integrate them into your job. You have to be able to find something to make what you are doing now similar to what you would like to be doing.
Although, you do have to take into consideration, life is short and to be doing something you hate for a good portion of it, just isn’t right. Maybe you do need a wakeup call to do something that you love. Just make sure you have options before you make a rash decision.
Need time to rediscover or uncover your passion?
I suggest writing in a journal or blog, getting your feelings out in the open can become a portal into what you truly care about and passionate about.
I also suggest doing one thing each day that scares you and takes you out of your comfort zone. This might unlock other things that you will come to be passionate for. You have to break out of what is comfortable to become the best you can be.
Never stop learning! By continuously learning and gaining new information you will unlock new passions and live a happier life, so even if you hate your job, you will have things outside of it that make you happy and inspire passion.
Road trips are a summer tradition for many people, but the price of gas is going up at an alarming rate, so how do you balance your need to get in the car and drive with your wallet? Here are some road trip tips to help with gas, planning and road tripping.
Gas-Saving Tips
Drive 55 on the highway- It’s a good constant speed, and AAA estimates that driving slower can boost mileage by 5%.
Avoid stopping and starting- Accelerating from a standstill requires more fuel then gently letting up on the gas pedal and coasting for a few seconds before accelerating. It can also help to look ahead and let up on the gas pedal when you see a red light, coasting will help with constant breaking.
Use cruise control- it helps control your speed and keep you at a constant saving more gas.
Watch when you fill your tank- overfilling your tank is both dangerous to your car and to your wallet. When you overfill your tank you can mess up your car’s engine and gas can slosh around in the tank and escape, leaving you with less gas then you paid for. Click the gas cap 3 times to ensure that it is on tightly and gas won’t escape. Every year 147 million gallons of fuel vaporizes from tanks in the US.
Drive when its cooler outside- this one might be hard as it is never very cool in the summer down in the south, but it does help if you leave early in the morning or once the sun sets at night. According to AAA, cooler, denser air can increase power and mileage.
Use AC instead of windows- at least in newer cars, air conditioners in newer cars are more efficient, since they cause less drag on the engine then driving with the windows down.
Pack light- the lighter your possessions the better your mileage will be. Keep your suitcases and gear in the car too, as objects on the roof create more drag and kill your mileage.
Planning
It’s best to have a plan of action before hitting the road. Chart where you want to go and look up directions online from multiple websites before getting in the car.
Don’t always trust your GPS- You want to think that it will always give you the correct route, but sometimes the maps and routes on your machine are out of date, which will cause you to get lost or add miles to your trip.
If you have kids think about activities for them- nothing is worse than getting in the car and having the kids saying “are we there yet?” every 3 minutes. Make sure you have something for them to read or play with. Highway games are fun like the Alphabet game. You can also find cheap road trip bingo cards at Wal-Mart and toy stores.
If you are bringing a pet make sure you have them taken care of- you will need to consider a doggie seat belt or training your dog to handle road trips. Many small outing will prepare them for being in a car for hours. Make sure you make time to stop and let your pet walk around outside.
Other tips
Have all of your documents with you- license and car registration are all good to have just in case you do get pulled over.
Pull off if you get tired- you don’t want to cause an accident, it’s better to pull off at a rest stop and rest for a few hours then falling asleep at the wheel and getting into an accident.
Join AAA- It’s worth the money to have peace of mind that if you do get stuck somewhere with a car issue that you won’t be stranded.
Learn to read a map- don’t always rely on gps. It’s better to know how to read a map. It’s not hard to learn.
Pay attention- It’s easy to let your mind wander when you have locked into cruise control, but be aware of your surroundings and the traffic around you. Also keep track of the change in speed limits, you don’t want to get a ticket.
Learn to change a tire- Even if you have AAA, it is good to know how to do it just in case.
Stock your car with essentials- Extra oil, jumper cables, flares, coolant, spare tire, water, ect.
Social media a necessary component in business now a day; it connects the company to the customer and makes word of mouth easier and more frequent. Most social media sites make it fairly easy for companies to join, but on Tuesday Facebook debuted a step-by-step online guide, Facebook.com/business, aimed at helping small businesses use the website.
The site gives directions on how to set up a profile/page, how to target your ads by age, location, and interests, how to interact with customer feedback online, and gives the tools and code to post the Facebook link and other plug-ins on your website.
The site basically just puts all of the information about business pages in one place so new comers can figure out how to best use the website.
Ever since Google+ came into the picture, Facebook has not been worried about losing people and shares. They might be on to something here though, since Google+ doesn’t allow companies to create profiles, and limits access to individual users only. “Facebook allows small businesses to create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships and amplify the most powerful type of marketing –- word of mouth,” a Facebook spokesperson wrote in an email on Tuesday afternoon. “We created Facebook.com/business to make it even easier for people to reach these objectives and grow.”
I think Google+ is making a big mistake by cutting out companies and profiles. They are losing a big group of sponsors and companies that will bring more users.
I’ve been trying really hard to like Google+, but Facebook just has its act together and is still number one in my eyes, both for personal profiles and business profiles.
Today is Apple’s day, they not only released their new operating system Lion, the new MacBook Air, the new Mac mini, and new 27 in display screen with thunderbolt port, but their stocks soared to a new high.
As of 6:00 p.m. ET Tuesday, shares were trading around $396 each after crossing the $400 mark for the first time earlier in the session, up more than 5% since the start of Tuesday’s trading.
The company announced on Tuesday that it sold 20.34 million iPhones and 9.25 million iPads in the second quarter of 2011, up by 142% and 183% respectively. That translated to a quarterly record revenue of $28.57 billion and a record net profit of $7.31 billion.
Apple is still in second place, as the most valuable company in the world coming in at about $364 billion, trailing Exxon’s $412 billion. Apple could definitely overthrow Exxon if they continue to have record-breaking earnings, but it will be a tough race since Exxon has the commodity that everyone needs in order to drive. But who knows over time we will find alternative fuels and Apple will overthrow Exxon.
The amount of growth this company has gone through is staggering! It started off in a garage in California, and now has grown into the second most valuable company. We can learn a few things about innovation and branding from Apple.
Are you going to go out and invest in some new Apple products?
It is a sad sad day for book lovers all across America, a beloved Borders just released the news that they didn’t beat bankruptcy and will be closing all of their 399 store locations. The 40 year old book store could start liquidating its stores as early as Friday. Soon all of their 11,000 employees will be without jobs.
Borders was an amazing store giving out free discounts and coupons to their Borders card holders, but they just couldn’t keep up with the trends in the book store business. Tragically most book stores are having a hard time competing in today’s e-reader market, and with more and more e-books and e-readers hitting the market everyday traditional brick and mortar stores are starting to hurt.
I think Borders big problem was that they didn’t brand their own e-reader like Barnes and Nobles did with their Nook. Borders partnered with Kobo to jump on the e-reader trend, but it was not enough. They should have made their own instead of going with a secondary company. Plus the Kobo book reader is awful when compared to the Kindle, iBook, and Nook applications, in my opinion. I had a hard time buying and downloading the book in my iPad.
Still this news makes me very sad, as reading a one of my favorite things to do in the world, and Borders had such a good atmosphere and vibe. This might be the last gap in time to spend your gift cards and rewards points before you lose them all in the liquidation hell. So get find your nearest Borders and say goodbye to an old friend.
creative, inc.