Here is a sneak peak at the Letterpress business cards we designed. Studiofluid designed the logo, visual identity and collateral and now we’re working on the mobile app and desktop website design.

Our client is also here in the greater Los Angeles area making collaboration especially enjoyable. Part of our delivery: a location based iPhone app.

We’ve had the pleasure of working through many of the brand’s visual touchpoints from window stickers, and bar coasters to twitter & facebook avatars and social media backgrounds.

A detail of some of the finishing techniques we’re using in the print collateral.

Join the movement! Hope you enjoyed the preview.

It’s a little bit early to say too much, but here’s a sneak peek at what we’re up to. Our client is a ski boot and hiking boot manufacturer in Portland, Oregon. We’re helping them rethink their website and brand from the ground up. Launching in March!

Bringing together the brand identity, user-experience and the business goals of our clients is where we excel. This project has been an ideal one, especially since it’s in the outdoor lifestyle space that we know and live everyday!

Great merchandising is a crucial part of any e-commerce website design.

A detail of the user interface for the order widget.

We’ve had the privilege of working with Brian and Emily at EmberPhoto for the incredible lifestyle and action photography. Thanks, guys!

You’ll be seeing more as our client expands to multiple locations and plans to franchise. For the moment, a few sneak-peek images of their retail space will have to suffice:

Barn pulleys become lighting fixtures.


Junior high gym lockers become merchandising displays.

Forgotten light fixtures become a hovering chandelier.

On the air, or on the can?

Sammy the Bighorn Sheep.

That’s it for now. Can’t wait to share all the details soon!

Studiofluid’s branding and design work for Tango Mango is featured in the book, FIRE IT UP: Building Restaurant Brands that Blaze.

If you are a restaurant owner or promoter, this book is for you. It spells out the 10 indelible rules of restaurant branding, gives marketing advice, presents ideas for a social media strategy, and includes branding checklists and case studies of restaurants that are doing it right.

Our work for Tango Mango is featured as a case study for how to create a restaurant brand that catches fire. Here’s a clue: Your brand is not your logo. Want to know more? Here’s the link to order your copy.

The book is authored by Joseph Szala, the creative director of Vigor Branding, an agency in Atlanta, Georgia.

Some of the branding agencies with featured projects include:

Avroko, New York City, NY
Bernstein-Rein, Kansas City, MO
Brains on Fire, Greenville, SC
Helms Workshop, Austin, TX
Knoed, Chicago, IL
Mucca Design, New York City, NY
Pentagram, New York, NY
Seamless Creative, Astoria, NY
Stir, Kansas City, MO
Studiofluid, Los Angeles, CA
Tad Carpenter, Kansas City, MO
Push, Orlando, FL
Vigor, Atlanta, GA

Big thanks to everyone that contributed to the project and to Joseph Szala for publishing together such an informative and timely book. Now let’s get to work making the world a tastier place!

I made it back from Outdoor Retailer in one piece (barely, as you can see from the photo). Stuart, Bobby, Jeanie and Tom were holding down the fort while I was out like a kid in a candy store among the latest gear offerings.

Photos are prohibited at the show. This is mainly because product is nine months from hitting stores, and the policy deters would-be copycats from sending photos to Asia to create instant knockoffs. Of course, I couldn’t resist a few snaps that I figured were innocuous.

Just a few tents outside.

The scale of the show is a bit hard to grasp, actually. Salt Lake City grows by 14,000 people for a few days and the Salt Palace convention center is jam packed with more stuff than you can absorb in 3 days of walking the floor. I would know, since I tried.

Plaster sculpted like water.

As expected, product presentation ranged from straightforward and bland to inventive and exciting. Some of the booths that stood out to me were the textural panels from Columbia (pictured above), ice sculptures at Teva, huge black and white photography at Brunton, wind tunnel at Yakima and stretched fabric dividing panels at North Face. Of course this was only the tip of the iceberg for notable displays.

Other companies engaged with the audience in memorable, relational ways, rising above the clutter and waste of typical schwag. Gerber Blades had the clever photo-op with the bear climbing a tree (photo at the very top). Camelbak offered a bicycle-powered rickshaw service to surrounding areas. Royal Robbins had an espresso bar running non-stop. Vivobarefoot offered sessions of video analysis with an expert in running biomechanics. Osprey, Patagonia & Kleen Kanteen partnered to serve beer in reusable stainless steel pints (Yes, the beer starts flowing at 4:30p).

Slacking isn’t so easy.

Gibbon Slacklines had a competition area for people doing freestyle moves. (think balance beam tricks on a flat, springy rope). When I was there, a 10 year old kid with a rat tail was showing everyone up. He looked to be sponsored. They also had a more mellow demonstration area where anyone could hop on and give it their best. Let’s just say that my best (pic above) involved a lot of falling off.

Bookis, Ben and Barefoot Ted.

Anyone familiar with the book Born To Run will recognize the name Barefoot Ted. Reading the book is highly recommended, and so is meeting Ted. Now I’ve done both.

Grass typography made me smile.

Thanks to the generous folks at Garmont for the opportunity to attend the show. The outdoor industry is one that we know quite well here at Studiofluid, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity to work more closely with some of the people we met.

See you at the winter show in 2012!

PageExpress: One Page. One Week. One Price.

Does this sound familiar? You know your site needs improvement, but you just haven’t been able to push forward because your team lacks the expertise, time and money, or all three. Well, you’re not alone. We see this challenge again and again, and are proud to offer something to help right where you are.

Studiofluid offers a new service called PageExpress to help get you started on the journey to an improved website. We focus on one page of your choice, giving careful attention to the details that will give your site the biggest lift, without the need to replatform. PageExpress is $1,400 bucks, and you’ll have it back in a week.

This service is perfect for companies who some immediate change, even though a total overhaul isn’t realistic at the current time, or those who are curious to see how minor tweaks can make a site more functional or understandable. Either way, it’s a no-risk way to make steps in the right direction.

Small Changes Create Significant Results

When we began, this product detail page lacked focus, due to elements spread across the page and hidden behind tabs, with poor distinction of hierarchy. Key pieces of functionality didn’t show up where you’d expect them to be. By simplifying the interface and rearranging the content, we helped this product page take a big step forward. The new design is like a well-loaded backpack: organized so everything is accessible where and when you need it.

In updating the page, we solved a lot of type and focus issues that can be applied to the rest of the site, getting maximum value for your design investment. What’s more, our design team uses only existing logic and functionality, so no big back-end overhaul is needed to implement, and most improvements can be accomplished with an updated CSS. The finished update includes:

• Title, price and short description are given prominence.
• Technical information is accessible in one glance, but out of the way.
• Product display widget presents key information in one neatly organized block.
• Key calls to action and “Buy Now” button widgets are consolidated and placed in an intuitive fashion.
• Upsells have been reconfigured to make them more intelligible.

Check out PageExpress in Detail

You can download the PDF (1.4MB) to see this PageExpress case study in detail. You’ll see how we assessed the shortcomings of the existing page and what changes we made to improve functionality.

If you’d like to know more about how PageExpress service can help you, contact us to get started or with any questions.

One of our designers just turned us all on to Eat Street.

It’s an elegantly designed iPhone app with an intuitive interface to help you track down food trucks. Here in Los Angeles, where mobile food is still all the rage, this app really fills a need. It’s perfect discovering new trucks in your neighborhood in real time. You can sort by type (e.g. desserts) and filter by your location, as well as view the latest tweets from a selected truck. Go check it out.

We’re excited on another level, since this app ties in perfectly with the Tango Mango Italian Ice Truck website and mobile site that launches later this month.

Happy eating!

Studiofluid recently launched the website for Black Ribbon—the first and only printer to specialize in exceptional short-run music printing. With hard work and a quality product, they’re achieving success in an ultra-specific niche. (No… they won’t print your cousin’s wedding invitations).

Black Ribbon’s new site highlights their unique printing capabilities, making marketing to new clients more efficient and cost effective. They now attract clients in Los Angeles and New York and everywhere in between.

Over the years we’ve handled all aspects of their branding; from naming and logo design to copywriting photography, print design and now website design & development. We’ve helped craft their story so their target audience quickly understands the value and quality they can expect. Black Ribbon now prints for clients such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Dancing with the Stars and numerous other A-list composers and musicians.

Congratulations, Black Ribbon! We’re wishing you continued success.

A little bird just told us that Starbucks unveiled a new logo. Actually, Howard Schultz wrote a personal email to my wife (below) to announce the news.

The new Starbucks logo is more of an evolution than a redesign. The removal of logotype and circular container gives it a bit of a sleeker feeling while retaining the spirit of the original. Since Starbucks is so pervasive in most cities, losing the text actually feels like a natural progression. I guess you’ve achieved total market saturation when you’re able to drop the words from your logo and strictly rely on the icon. Nike and AT&T come to mind in that regard.

Whether you’re a fan of their coffee or not, the center mark is definitely worth admiring, especially when you find hidden circle that is defined by the negative space of the siren’s crown and tails. It’s nice to see they haven’t messed with that.

What do you think?

How much could a website redesign could help your brand? Increase conversions? Improve customer loyalty?

Well, here’s a chance to go behind the scenes and see how other companies have improved their websites through design. Photos.com is presenting a showcase of “Before and After” design solutions for websites as a resource for small businesses to learn from. Studiofluid was selected as one of a handful of design firms included in the gallery, representing Los Angeles and Southern California with the branding and eCommerce project we completed for AutoAnything. (link to our project).

You can get a sense of the strategy involved and see some of the impressive results from design around the crountry. They’re also offering a contest with the prize being a FREE makeover of your own site, so be sure to check it out. Good luck!