Every year, there is a sour pickle in my bowl of jolly cereal. I love football but that pickle is the name of my Washington DC’s team – the “***skins”. I find it messed up that our nation’s capital perpetuates an offensive name but there is a re-branding solution to every communication problem. By removing the offensive “red” from “skin” and replacing it with “potato” — modify the image as shown and everything gets resolved. No fan will even notice but those rightly angered by the name will.

While i’m burying the old team name lets go all the way and declare that the team is not even in Washington but in Maryland – Prince Georges County.

So now we can cheer for the P.G. County Potatoskins with peace of mind that they are both geographically and politically corrected. Have great season spuds!

Interested in sporting a Potatoskin tshirt?

We want to hear from you because we can’t decide if we should print some off! You can vote by hitting the “like” button below.

A sea of bold graphics

This Independence day, I ask that you not only enjoy the pageantry of men in grilling aprons, the whiff of a sizzling grill or a heartedly chorus of yankee doodle — I ask you to soak in all the graphics. Our flag in all of is glory, is a really nice strong brand. The colors alone evoke such heavy polarized emotions. Can you name any company, rockstar or athletic team brand that is more recognizable than the USA’s stars and stripes — red, white and blue?

I’m not trying to be a patriotic zealot, bent on displaying egocentric bombastically charged nationalism, I’m just talking about recognizable visual brands. I am partial though… I do heart the USA. I am also aware there are living people in the states that could tell me what the golden arches represent but might not be able to tell me what the stars and stripes represent. By no ignorance on their part mind you, there are just that many companies, federal agencies, clothing lines, auto dealers and so on that are riding the powerful USA brand’s coat tails. Since forever, our national graphical elements have been used to sell so much and convey so many messages — ponder how so many brands borrow from the USA — does it hurt the image of the USA? Or for a designer are these elements trite and to be avoided?

It’s no secret that designers (especially in the DC area) are constantly trying to freshen up the graphical symbols of America but in the end we succumb to the proven graphical elements – stars, stripes, eagles, blue fields… and that’s okay because as you will see this fourth of july, its a strong brand.

The herald Ceagle

Here at openbox we did a mash-up of our beloved majestic eagle and our secondary American love — the cow. We refer to is as the “ceagle.” Will this new image become the seal of a new federal agency… we hope so. Secretaries of agencies, we await your phone call… we await your call too dairy farmer associations.

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.

Wrapping up

National Wildlife Federation is about to launch its crazy sized blog – over 32 separate blog sites merged into WordPress MU and openbox9 is designing and developing it all.

9Marks will shortly launch its extreme web makeover that we designed and developed in Drupal

WeSupport is a great new start-up that is about to go public in late april that we helped with its full branding and online application design

eCards, ecards eCards – we just finished up the designs and are going into development for NWF’s eCard offering AND we designed eCards to help celebrate Earth Day for Bank of America, Entergy, Alcoa and Pew Center!

Basics Conference 2010 is almost here so we are in the final thrust to complete the print materials.

Wrapped up

Access Partners are the proud owners of a new website, brochure and exhibit booth design – to quote the client: “YAY! This makes me so happy! It looks so good.”

Bank of America’s Make an Impact design is off to the developers and should launch soon

Imagine Schools across the nation are getting fresh brochures in both english and spanish – oh si, we speak espanol… no we don’t but we love formatting spanish copy.

Just started wrapping

The GraceDC church plant website design… 9Marks eJournal cover designs… Convio donation form study with NWF… flash animations… Tilev Design portfolio site (should be hot)… preparing taxes… eating some pie… don’t worry, we have time to help you with your endeavors – contact us today!

Can addressing gender issues in the marketplace improve the programs that USAID is implementing overseas? Can these countries gain economic growth and lasting poverty reduction through understanding these gender inequalities as obstacles? I do not want to spoil the reading of thousands of hard worked research but… yes is the answer to both.

December saw the end to years of research for the folks working on the “Greater Access to Trade Expansion (GATE)” project under the Women in Development IQC funded by USAID’s Office of Women in Development. openbox9 was brought in the autumn of 08 to assist in the design of reports, interactive CDs, posters, folders, a major website and the crown jewel — a 150 page handbook filled with charts, examples and diagrams.

Throughout all the pieces, openbox9 maintained a consistent brand for the GATE project while also staying within the brand of USAID. Developing this “sub-brand” for GATE illustrated that within USAID there was wiggle room to express a unique subject. We at openbox9, personally appreciated the challenge of connecting all these pieces into one cohesive study.

Our hope is that these reports and websites have a meaningful impact — one that can shape the future of USAID’s programs and ensure that trade-related efforts encompass the poor and women of those nations.

We are by no means celebrating openbox9 but more giving thanks for all the incredible work we’ve been blessed to work on. Without our clients we are openbox-zero.

Here’s what the folks at openbox9 will be doing on this grand day of nines (in case you’re asking):

1. Wrapping up an annual report for a charter school organization making a difference in the lives of 37,000 students — Imagine Schools.
2. Continuing our efforts designing websites for the org that is helping preserve the wildlife for our children – National Wildlife Federation. To date we’ve designed over 30 unique screens and 6 subsites. Not to mention some branding work.
3. Hard to think about Christmas on September 9th, 2009 but we are designing the online catalog for Food for the Hungry where you can purchase needed gifts on someone’s behalf to help feed the poor.
4. John Calvin you’re 500 years old. We are fortunate enough to design the promotional materials for the “Calvin in the Capital” speaker series at Christ Reformed Church.
5. Our grand friends at Parkside Church will soon have a welcome booklet hot off the printing press.
6. We will also be brainstorming ideas for a buck-rogers themed Crossroads church gathering. Last year we did an elephant on a tightrope for the bigtop theme… submit ideas please!
7. A community cannot thrive unless both genders play a part in development. This is the study of USAID and we are in the midst of designing a plethora of materials including a 100 page field handbook.
8. We’ll be checking in on the BEFORE project google ad buys and making necessary adjustments.
9. Then nine small tinkle tweaks to Taggle’s social-networking site design; nine push-ups everytime someone says nine, nine, nine; and the putting the final touches on a interactive website filled with databases galore (you didn’t know we programmed? Oh yeah we program with vigor and panache).

Those are the nine things we’ll be slinging our computer mouse’s to as we sing to the band The Ting Tings. What nine things will you do?

Craving more updates from openbox9 – check out the refreshed portfolio.

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.

openbox9 is providing usability and fundraising strategy for their upcoming new website (to launch later this summer). While we are not designing the site we are proud to have a small role in helping Doorways communicate their passion to help the families in Virginia.

Our experience in this cause, started last summer with the redesign and development of Tahirih Justice Mission’s new website. While different organizations, the two organizations have made an impact on us with the stories of tragedy and victory. If we all start seeing each mother in harm’s way, as our own mother, I know we can end the cycle of violence.