Once you’ve proofread you’ll need to clearly indicate the changes that need to be made, that much is obvious. Proofreading marks are devices that specify needed corrections on draft documents. We know what you’re likely to think, most of the work we do is now done digitally, so how is this relevant?

Well, if you’re like many of our clients, printing out documents in order to make notes is still a very common practice and for good reason. We shouldn’t rely completely on what we see on screen. Especially for materials that will be printed, seeing the draft documents printed out will give you a better idea of the visibility and clarity of the text so that you can make proper requests for edits.

For your free use, we’ve attached a proofreading mark cheat sheet. There’s no need to memorize dozens of marks used in proofreading. If you keep our sheet handy you’ll become quickly familiar with regularly used symbols.

Enjoy!

Click to Download the Proofreading Mark Cheat Sheet

Where do those keywords come from and who defines them anyways?

You do. So, lets take a step back in order to take a step forward.

The evolution of the Internet and the birth and popularity of the search engine has changed the game a bit, but keywords have actually been around a lot longer. When your nonprofit was just starting, it had to define its mission, objectives, audience, etc. This is when keywords were formally documented or like most, a barrage of meetings where words rained down. Either way keywords were a foundational part of your brand in the beginning and in all your communication efforts.

Some Tips on developing keywords for your new organization or a refreshment for your existing brand:

• Write a list of words you want your audience to associate with your nonprofit
  • Break down your audience types to have more specific results (IE: donors, volunteers, sponsors, partners, policyholders, etc)

• Describe what your nonprofit does in a few sentences, then take out all extraneous words (the, of, you, and by) and take out conjunctions
  • If words you’re left with in this exercise aren’t in line with how you want your audience to view your nonprofit then you have a problem!
• Repeat the last step with the mission statement of your competitor
  • Remove what’s not in line with your nonprofit’s goals
  • Put these results in your back pocket.
• Synonyms – off to the side list out like-minded words

Before the Internet, keywords were the ones that stuck after a commercial, advertisement, or discussion about a brand (non-profit or for-profit) and were often a part of a tagline. Once your keywords are developed they should appear often in all appropriate communications to build the strength of your brand. Your internal and external communications, casual and professional office communications should be in the habit of using various keywords to the point where it’s automatic and essential. It’s like a mantra for your organization, which has the power to encourage your nonprofit to always reach for its goals and in turn constantly remind your audience (and online users) what you’re about.

Stepping up to the Internet.

Once keywords are built into your whole brand, strengthening it, you’re part of the way to having accurate and high-ranking search results on the web.

Some Tips on using keywords to strengthen your nonprofit’s search engine stats:

• Include keywords in your main page headers
  • The main navigation can say “Volunteer,” but the landing page for the section will be much more informative and useful if it is reinforced with a keyword (IE: “Volunteer to Protect Wildlife”).
• Include keywords in your cross-promotional links
  • Your organization might describe an opportunity to donate to help a specific cause in an internal page with a call to action “donate now” which takes the user to a specific donation page. If you want someone that hasn’t found that page, and hasn’t found that link to find that specific donation page through search engine searches (who wouldn’t?!) then its helpful for that link to read something more like: “Donate to Earthquake Victims Now”
• Ad descriptive captions with keywords to charts, images, and graphics
• Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our California office” not “our office”) to help you get found in local searches.
• Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you must have the name of your organization in it, put it at the end.
• Content freshness can help improve your rankings and adds relevancy. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis.
• And much much more…

We at openbox9 enjoy helping think through these critical strategies, so if you’d like to talk to us about this more just give us a call, email us, or respond below to start a dialogue.

Easter is the season known for jellybeans, painted eggs, bunnies and chocolate. We’ve found that churches however have, and rightly so, a distinguished sensitivity to these secular images that are the holiday’s politically correct and mass-produced identity. Sure, the mass-public still possesses an idea of where the holiday originally came from but its become clear to some and a deep-seated fear for others that this might not be where the future takes Easter.

Churches who would like to appeal to their secular counterparts while maintaining the values and meaning of the holiday’s religious tradition (the word “tradition” doesn’t really cut it here), have found themselves at a crossroad. There exists a tension around this issue that can bring about fruitful conversation and understanding, but there also exists a tension that can subtract from the key message of hope.

So, is a painted egg a shared image between a secular and Christian community, or is it a watered down symbol of Easter to church members? Can a bunny or painted egg be images shared by both communities? Should Christians lay co-rights these images?

Finding Balance

Lets admit that many churches struggle to find the right balance between these tensions and some just throw in the towel. It takes more than bravery and moxie to try and tackle this problem.

As Christian marketers at openbox9, the goal of our Easter promotions is to appeal to the churchgoer and general community alike to attend an Easter celebration. What better way than to use common ground imagery with a direct Gospel message attached? It’s true, an egg or bunny can be a trite scene, but it’s up to us to refresh it and connect the two communities.

Our Unique Visual Bunny Trail

This year when we shared a new Easter egg design with the client and the pastor chose to share it on his Facebook page. The outcome was a barrage of responses (80+) some being positive but others displaying disapproval for its “church-lite” approach or “surrendering to a commercialized world.” Mature Christians love the deep symbolic messages and images but it’s a foreign language to non-Christians wanting to learn about Easter. We chose to suggest to this audience that church-lite is the more appropriate thing to display if the effort is to make Easter inviting to those who don’t yet understand church-heavy.

Last year we witnessed openness from a church that allowed us to use the fame bunny. That client took the humility and patience (them, not us) to discuss the implications of using neutral images within a faith-based group of members as the questions came. Whatever the chosen solution to the problem was—whichever design direction they chose—started a dialogue about the issue within their congregation, putting some punctuation on the subject-at-hand.

For ourselves, we choose to bring the bunny into the story of Easter by using it as a prop to speak of sacrifice, being fed and resurrection. Yes, having rabbit for an Easter meal is odd but no more odd than hoping a large man in red from the North Pole sneaks into you house while you sleep on Christmas Eve.

Challenge the Concerns

So, no matter your stance on the subject, the discussion can be fruitful. It’s sometimes a matter of how and when we present the conversation-starters. At openbox9, we thrive in the challenge of helping our clients meet these challenges—and sometimes—embrace the issues that arise. Ask us how we can help you in an out-of-the box, openbox9 way.

Lets not be crazy like a man wearing cheese underwear to a cracker convention, President Bush’s site was bad. However, I do not think that reflects on the man because the site had to hold and distribute 8 years of presidential activity. His site looked the role of a news disseminator while Obama’s site plays the part of image builder.

These distinctions bring me to a interesting point that most creative directors facing a web project — is our priority building a brand or distributing info. One would think that Obama’s new media director Macon Philips had to answer that and thought about the primary audience as a deciding factor. The press will go to whitehouse.gov for transcripts but I doubt they are the primary audience for Obama at this stage – its image building. Its introducing a new president to a country, so I feel its appropriate to reflect the visual cues to who Obama is. He is confident, cool and stylish.

The Washington Times finds that dubious and would prefer a well archived site with data one click away. I agree and if the site does not evolve into a disseminator of info I will join a chorus of form follows function, but for now I’m enjoying a president that is visually engaging his audience.

He can get boring and start walking around the house in nacho stained t-shirts after the honeymoon.

Tips on designing for audiences

When considering designing for an audience, it is important not to get hung up on characterizations and stereotypes. While they can be considered, they usually are more offensive than helpful. For National Wildlife Federation, I choose to group audience types by passions and what motivates them. From that grouping, you start to see what commercial brands attempt to tap into those passions and makes decisions on whether you agree with those attempts (do all moms like picnics on a flower filled hill?).

Part of the research also requires looking at competitor sites and define what audience type they are trying to speak to. For NWF, we felt the audience we wanted to reach out to was not being considered by the competitors — outdoor types that enjoy their old Jeeps and ratty chinos. The audience that wants to feel nature on their face while they tend to their heirloom tomatoes in pouring rain. People that know the granduer of the outdoors cannot be contained in a web browser but appreciate a design that tries with big bold photos.

The website designs and the multiple subsite designs are completed but you’ll have to wait until October to explore the live experience. In the meantime, NWF needs our support to protect the threatened and disappearing wildlife – visit www.nwf.org for info.

Plumb Peter Cotton’s tail hops, maybe even saunters, down the bunny trail to tell the good news of the risen Christ and celebrates by delivering peeps and chocolate statues of himself.

This is the story we’ve heard for generations but through some poor German translation (not really) the symbolic event of what happens next got lost. You see we missed the part about Peter sacrificing himself for our dinner and rising again for the next year’s Easter event. All you need to do is tell him oven or frying pan.

Now isn’t that a nicer, complete and symbolic reminder of what Easter is about? Convinced to start your new Easter tradition? Here are some recipes to get your taste buds roaring:

• Ricks Fried Rabbit – can’t go wrong with simple and oily
• Hasenpfeffer! German cuisine with bacon!

Have a rabbit recipe? Ideas to add to the new and complete story of Easter and a rabbit? Please share!

By Michael Schafer, Creative Director

Smell that? It’s a steamy savory saucy meatball sub heading your way on a plate of goodness and you’re running to it. Meatball subs—they symbolize the joy of eating. A disappointing sub however, one that taste like tennis balls and tarter sauce, will destroy one’s desire to have another. That’s my story, one meatball sub let me down in 1986 and I’ve haven’t had one since.

Thus is the life of a website produced by the many non-profits and good will organizations. These sites are meant to be good and tasty but far too often they are made with cheap ingredients and nuked in a microwave. We all remember the days where people spent loving time in the kitchen creating meatball masterpieces—seasoning the ground beef, brewing the sauce for hours, hand rolling the bread and letting the yeast rise. Rise yeast rise.

That’s the meatball sandwich people want and that’s the sandwich people will come back for again and again. Make a pledge with me today people; “I (state your name) will never make a meatball sub using bologna and ketchup again. My website will be an unforgettable experience.”

Web users are used to good eats.

The days of quick and amateur website designs are over. People are no longer patient with malfunctioning sites, confusing layouts, and distasteful designs. Today’s internet users are savvy and use to dining on multi-million dollar websites like bestbuy.com, cnn.com, or amazom.com. If you have a bologna website, unless a web users= has a strong stomach, they might loose their appetite when visiting.

We all should be good stewards of our resources and I know is is difficult to think about spending money on quality design. The numbers can be surprising. To design, develop and maintain a state-of-the-art website is a five figure deal and far too often organizations sacrifice the design due to a lack in funds. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here today preaching about preparing a five course meal full of the fixings. I’m just simply talking about a meatball sub. A website that is prepared with thoughtfulness and a dash of creativity.

Let’s talk about where to begin. You’ll need a recipe (site map), with all the ingredients working towards the same goal. Think about why you’re online and what are you trying to achieve — everything from the navigational scheme to your messages should support this goal. Don’t try and do everything because it dilutes your purpose and confuses your audience.

Starting Recipe

Now the spicy ingredient. Your design is where you show the love you have for your audience. I’m talking L O V E. Be kind to them, show them that their eye sight is important to you. A quality website is essential for repeat visitors. Not sure you have a chef inside you? No worries here is a simple recipe to follow:

• Unify all your elements (photos, graphics, colors, and text)
• Create Neutral Space which will attract the eye and give some visual rest
• Hierarchy— bring order to your messages
• Balance, balance, balance, otherwise known as “equalized tension.”

In short my friends, your audience will know quickly whether your site was thrown together or carefully and lovingly assembled for them. Remember a website is for viewers to enjoy. Let them leave full and satisfied.