Drone Video for BOTE Destin

Check out this awesome video we completed for BOTE Destin’s Wednesday night paddle boarding demo! This project was recorded in one evening and edited over the course of a just one week!

Edited and finalized over the course of a week, BOTE Destin received a copy of this file to share across all its social media channels. Your golf course, sports complex, or resort could benefit from showing off its amenities and beauty with the help of an aerial video. Music or no music, this is a service any manager can’t pass up; your potential customers and current clients will gather a full understanding of just everything you offer.

Posted on August 14, 2017August 12, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

New website completed: Villa del Mar

We just wrapped up the design and launched Villa del Mar, an all-inclusive vacation villa in Costa Rica.

Villa del Mar, All-Inclusive Costa Rican Vacation Villa Home Page

Villa del Mar, All-Inclusive Costa Rican Vacation Villa – Interior Photos Page

Villa del Mar, All-Inclusive Costa Rican Vacation Villa – Testimonials Page

Working an international project was no small undertaking. Thankfully, we have a well-oiled team to handle up on this task and distance was not a problem. Together with Gab 4 You Marketing, we coordinated with professional on-site photographer Pura Vida Photo for photography and videography of the property.

The website has a few bells and whistles: a large slide show on the home page featuring the accommodations this villa offers, a live Instagram feed integration, a Google Map location, and a weather forecast for the Costa Rican province in which Villa del Mar is located. Check out the Video Tour which is located both on the home page and as part of the “Photos” menu item.

Villa del Mar will also receive social media management and blogging services to continue the momentum of their new promotional efforts. Follow Villa del Mar’s story on Facebook or Instagram!

Posted on August 8, 2017August 14, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

Destin Chamber Ribbon Cutting

Clients, friends, and business affiliates showed support for Graphic Strategist at my Ribbon Cutting ceremony.

Please join me and my clients, friends, and partners on Thursday, August 10 at 4:00 p.m. for my Ribbon Cutting Ceremony. I’m celebrating one year in business in Destin, and I’ll provide beer from Destin Brewery, wine from Vintage Distributors, and lots of elbow-rubbing at the reception to follow.

Click here to see the Facebook event hosted at the Destin Chamber of Commerce, 4484 Legendary Drive, Suite A.

Posted on August 6, 2017August 14, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

Why You Can’t Buy “Branding”

You can buy a logo. You can buy an identity package.

But you can’t buy branding. Why not?

Partially to blame for the misconception that one can buy branding, it seems, is because some people confuse their “brand” with their identity and/or their logo (“brand mark”). This is understandable; many people view these terms as interchangeable, but in reality, they are very different–yet very related–things. And I do use the term “branding” in place of “identity” sometimes because it’s what most clients understand.

Increasingly, we’re finding that it’s better to think of brand not as cause, but as effect.” — Robert Jones with Wolff Olins, March 2013

Actual “branding” happens over time. It is the impression your customers get from your company. It is how your customers experience, interact with, and interpret your company. Your brand is how you connect with people, places, and missions. It is what customers say about you when you’re not around. By this definition, you don’t even “own” your branding–your customers, colleagues, vendors, and suppliers do.

Create your brand by implementing your identity package

A post shared by Photo Buzz Studios (@photobuzzstudios) on May 25, 2017 at 10:51am PDT

You can, however, heavily influence your branding through graphic design and selective marketing. What you really want to focus on, then, is how your customers experience your company. Think about how your colleagues interact with customers, where your products or services are sold, which causes you support, and the creativity with which you implement your identity guide. Communicate the purpose of your company, and your brand will develop much more authentically than advertising your way into people’s hearts.

Sure, you may be thinking of the traditional way of doing things: A company forces “brand positioning” through buying a logo and a tagline, slapping them on everything, and telling customers what to think about the company. That’s not how contemporary brands thrive.

Take Budweiser, for example. During craft beer movement, Budweiser tried beating people over the head with their “cherished traditions” and “hand-made with care” craft-like messaging to regain some of their dwindling market share. But Budweiser finally figured it out: it doesn’t matter what they told people to think about their brand, people had already formed their own opinions about their products. How Budweiser connected with customers, where the company focused their investments and efforts, what causes they supported, and the behavior of the company was already firmly in people’s minds. It was decidedly not “craft.” Budweiser, finally embracing this reality that no one believes they are “craft” beer, launched their Superbowl ad in 2015, marking a turn in its strategy: “if you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em.”

The moral of the Budweiser story is: you can tell people over and over again who you are, but they will form their own opinions about your purpose. Patagonia, through the causes they support, how customers connect with the company, and the way people talk about Patagonia have allowed storytelling to create their brand. They didn’t say, “THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD THINK.” They said, “This is our purpose. You decide what to think about it.” Granted, they carefully planned and chose how to influence their audience, and they did so successfully.

Branding is simply how people experience your company’s purpose. And if you think about it, the word “brand” originally came from the Viking Norse word for burn (brandr). We branded cattle with a red-hot iron. Is that really how we want our customers to experience us?

Posted on July 19, 2017July 20, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

They Interviewed Me

Emerald Coast Brew Review, From Beer to Brains: Lacey Pyle Is The Graphic Strategist

Emerald Coast Brew Review is Destin’s craft beer news and events site. They cover beer releases, industry leaders, brewery news and events, and businesses in the industry. I have lots of experience designing for craft beer, and Emerald Coast Brew Review took notice.

Posted on July 6, 2017August 6, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

Why it’s important to purchase web maintenance even if you’re not changing your content

People often think of a website as a one-time purchase: you pay for the design, the designer launches it, everyone high-fives, and you move on. Like most things in business–daily accounting, fleet vehicle maintenance, dusting the shelves, or following up with customer inquiries–a website requires routine attention to serve you best. Further, the web isn’t just some static being that sits and waits for people to interact with it; the web changes continuously.

Web programming is always evolving, getting better, more secure, and more powerful. Some of the tools web designers use to make your site better, secure, and robust also change continuously. These include content management systems (CMSs), like WordPress; payment gateways, like PayPal; and IDX feed integrations, like MLS.

Even if you purchase the most basic maintenance offered, here are very good reasons to purchase a maintenance package:

Security Updates

Many web tools require manual security updates. A friend of mine had a property management company whose website was hacked. The hackers took his entire website down and replaced it with a photo of a masked man pointing a gun toward the viewer. This is well-documented and does happen. He ended up paying his web designer several hundred dollars to fix it.

Having your website taken down isn’t the only thing that could go wrong. Mean people do all sorts of things: change your site’s information, reroute traffic, steal your or your customers’ data, distribute malicious code (malware), and a host of other things.

Third-Party Vulnerabilities

Third-party vulnerabilities are related to security updates. For example, on WordPress-managed sites there are powerful tools called Widgets and Plugins. Widgets are small info blocks that perform a specific function. A PlugIn is a separate piece of software that performs a group of functions. These are often developed and maintained by someone other than WordPress. While they improve the functionality of your website, they can also create vulnerabilities. Since these both run some sort of code, they will need to be monitored for bugs and security updates.

If you’re telling yourself, “Well, I just don’t want any PlugIns or Widgets,” then you are also saying you don’t want payment gateways, a Facebook feed integration, a contact form, a professional-looking photo gallery, or your contact information on the sidebar of every page.

If you want a hand-coded page (no CMS like Joomla, Drupal, or WordPress), that’s fine, too, but they cost considerably more, take much longer to create, and are far more expensive to update. Hand-coded websites are neither cost- nor time-efficient.

Forced Updates

All reliable CMSs require updates. WordPress, for example, will eventually force its most critical updates to your site after it’s noticed you’re running very outdated versions of its software, but this is risky. The new version may not be compatible with some of your plugins or widgets, theme functionality, contact forms, photo galleries, or other tools that make your site sing. You risk losing all your data, or breaking your site entirely. Eventually, if your site has been neglected and only received these forced updates, it will break. It is like playing Russian Roulette with your website.

In fact, 27% of all hacking occurs on sites allowing WordPress to force updates.

Regular Backups of Site Content

Creating a copy of everything on your website is important in case you move your hosting, allow only forced updates to your site, get hacked, or someone messes something up while tinkering on the back-end. Without a recent copy of everything, you risk losing purchases, inventory catalogs, order histories, customer databases, messages, testimonials, and anything and everything else on your website.

Functionality Updates

Remember how I said the web is continually changing? This means web programming languages are enhancing mobile friendliness, usability, accessibility, speed–even the web languages themselves. Archaic or antiquated HTML won’t look clean or function as nicely in a modern browser, and some programming protocols have become completely obsolete and browsers flat-out ignore them. These may sound like fluff, but they are important; a poor user experience hurts your credibility–both to the actual users and to search engines.

Summary

You don’t realize the value of someone monitoring these tools until something goes wrong. Often, it is more expensive to fix problems after you’ve neglected maintenance because basic security must be updated before the problem can really be fixed. I encourage all my clients to purchase web maintenance. It will make your life easier, invoices less expensive, and relationships more productive.

Posted on May 17, 2017August 14, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

Visual Identity for Georgia Gwinnett College’s Corporate Affiliates Program

The Office of Advancement at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) has a newly expanded program, the Corporate Affiliates Program (CAP). This program develops strategic relationships between students, the college, and successful businesses in the Atlanta Metro area. They called me and asked if I could help them develop an identity and online strategy for this new program. The tricky part of this identity and strategy was that the CAP identity could not use any of GGC’s current or past logos or institutional marks. Further, any programs, departments, or organizations affiliated with GGC were not allowed to incorporate new fonts, create new color palettes or new logos. With all these restrictions, CAP still had to look like it was part of GGC.

There were more restrictions than there were liberties. But that’s fine by me. Having worked with University of North Georgia’s re-branding efforts, and guiding the use of that institution’s new marks, I was well-equipped to design around these restrictions. Aware of my branding experience, they hired me right away and said this strategy needed to be in place and operating before the summer’s end.

My research began. I scoured the internet for information about the program, its goals, what people were saying about it, what it was doing. I look for participants, affiliates, businesses–anything that would help me give GGC a sound, educated recommendation. GGC also sent over some information to help me understand CAP’s objectives.

After a consultation with the Office of Advancement’s CAP team, I worked closely with them to develop an online strategy, program identity, social media graphics, custom hashtag, and Microsoft Office templates. I identified which social media platforms would best reach their target market, and what to post on each. I talked about creating a “Voice” for the program to use online, and gave them descriptors for how the Voice should sound.

Once I developed everything they needed, I sent all my advice over in a Strategy Guide. They received a custom MS PowerPoint template, MS Publisher tri-fold brochure template, plus flyer and invitation templates. I customized social media logos to use in those templates. These mostly-blank templates were designed with “holes” in them where GGC can drop in photos, graphics, text or content updates. The structure and design of the templates remains the same, but I prepared them to easily incorporate updates as the program evolves.

They received everything they needed to get this program running and looking like the professional organization it is. In the end, they received an extensible, flexible visual strategy they could use for years to come, yet stay within the college’s visual media restrictions. See the deliverables in my portfolio.

Posted on May 12, 2017August 14, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

Photo Buzz Studios’ Split Identity

You might have seen on my Instagram that I posted some insanely beautiful business cards:

Impress your clients with badass business cards designed by yours truly. These hotties feature suede coating, 2-color metallic foil and edge painting on 244lb black paper. If this doesn’t blow them away, I dunno what will. Awesome print quality, @eloquentsigns! . #likebuttah #stayclassy #eloquentsigns #destinfl #fortwaltonbeach #santarosabeach #miramarbeach #30a #graphicdesign #businesscards #bossladies #classy #sxsw #austintx #atx

A post shared by laceypyle (@laceypyle) on Mar 6, 2017 at 9:23am PST

You see, Photo Buzz Studios works with a lot of exclusive clientele. They aren’t setting up photo booths with goofy hats and wonky glasses at weddings, these rock stars set their aspirations even higher. To align with their goals, I suggested truly eye-catching, memorable pieces which would feel like gifts. My idea would most certainly catch the eye of industry executives, but this was not going to be a cheap venture. For these “gifts,” I designed ultra-thick, metallic-edged, suede-coated black cards stamped with two foil colors. They were, indeed, as exquisite as they sound.

White, suede-coated business cards.

But you probably also noticed in my portfolio the white business cards. There was a strategy to designing two sets of cards, each with a very different price point and purpose.

I surmised that, in addition to the un-economical idea of doling out the black business cards willy-nilly, they also needed less expensive cards they could hand out indiscriminately. These cards still needed to feel “high-end.” Enter here the second set of business cards: suede-coated, white business cards. The white set has the same basic design as the black set, but the white cards are printed with two Pantone colors on 16pt stock. Each set shared a non-traditional size, butter-soft suede coating, and matching layouts to connect them conceptually.

Photo Buzz Studios is gonna blow their clients away with their attention to detail, and I know they have many years of success ahead of them. I was honored to be a part of their story and look forward to seeing their name in lights someday. Good luck, Photo Buzz Studios!

Have a gander at the gallery:

White, suede-coated business cards

Suede-coated black paper with 2-color foil stamping

Metallic edge painting

Cards side-by-side with minimal size differences

Front and backs of each

Thickness difference, stacks of 6 cards each.

Posted on March 13, 2017May 17, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

See the article in the paper about Destin Brewery’s label design

Can it! Destin Brewery cans beer

Posted on February 28, 2017August 14, 2017 by Lacey Pyle

Label Design for Cone Heads 8020 in Cape San Blas, FL

Coneheads 8020 hired me to design their exclusive beer, 30E Lager.

Fresh off the artboard is Cone Head 8020’s label design for 30E Lager, so-named for the state route running through eco-conscious Cape San Blas. This label features sights from St. Joseph Bay, including the its pristine beaches, underwater sea grass, and scallops.

“Scalloping is huge here,” says Dwayne Piergiovanni, owner of ConeHeads 8020. “I would like the label to be indicative of St. Joseph Bay, without being cluttered, including the seagrass, scallops, sand, urchins, crabs, etc…things under the water.”

The phrase at the top, though, is a bit of locals-only knowledge. “It is one of the few places on earth where the sun rises from the water and sets back into the water,” says Piergiovanni. The phrase could also serve another meaning: the beer is a “session beer;” not some monstrous 7% beer, so you can responsibly sip while fishing during the day.

Since 30E was brewed especially for Cone Heads 8020 by a local brewery, my strategy was to keep the look somewhat similar to their labels yet still include elements from Piergiovanni’s vision and the beer’s pre-existing tap handle.

If you’re looking for local beer in Cape San Blas, check out 30E at Cone Heads 8020. They also have ice cream for the little ones and burgers, pizzas, soups, salads, and appetizers for the hungry ones. Cheers!

Posted on February 21, 2017August 14, 2017 by Lacey Pyle