Author: Rocky Tilney

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Good or bad, AI is getting a lot of attention these days. It’s being billed as the workhorse assistant who never takes coffee breaks, or the kickstarter of creativity for those in the creative fields. While some of this is true, how AI is used is more important than what it is used for. 

At Studio 22 Design, we’re just scratching the surface of AI’s super powers. For us, it’s taking on the role of part-time assistant (who doesn’t make coffee). Who knows how this will change in the future, maybe we use it less or maybe it makes its way into more of our creative workflow. But for now, here is how we are leveraging AI in our work and what it means for our client work. 

Research

One of the most time-intensive tasks in a creative agency is the dreaded research phase. Sometimes we call this discovery, but no matter what it’s called, it takes a lot of human hours. 

Along with traditional research methods like Google Search and simply asking the client who their competitors are, we also asked our favorite chat AI for some help, like: “Who are Nestle’s top 5 competitors?”  While the results of this query were not shocking, there were some interesting discrepancies when you compare Google’s results to ChatGPT’s, most notably, Hersey’s didn’t make the cut in the AI results. No Kisses for you.

Creative

Other, more creative forms of research also help us move projects along. We can ask our chat AI what some of the popular colors in web design today are. And while we get generic results for this prompt, it does act as a navigational beacon that can point us in a particular direction. 

From here, we can ask our favorite generative AI tool to create a color palette or even an entire scene that we can sample colors from. Before AI, we would generally have to scour the internet to find visuals that we could sample from or use as inspiration. Today, we can describe what we want to see using natural language and get more precise results. In the example below, we prompted MidJourney to “/imagine a vaporwave scene of a sports car driving down the PCH at sunset using bright neon colors”. And while the image itself is pretty good, save for the oddly shaped palm fronds and water flooding the highway, we’re not interested in the actual image. What we really wanted from this example is a color palette. From here, we sampled the colors, made adjustments, and created a usable color system that can be used in development of virtually any creative asset. 

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Themes

We also have been pushing the limits on what generative AI can do in terms of design and composition. On a recent book cover design project, we prompted our favorite generative AI tool to create a book cover including some really specific details. Since our book takes place in the 1960s Soviet Union, we dropped in the following prompts: moscow, soviet union, soviet propaganda poster, cold war, brothers, spy, etc…

What the AI generated were some really rough concepts of what this might look like. And while we didn’t (and won’t) use the actual imagery generated (too many weird artifacts), we can use it as inspiration when we develop our original vector artwork. This includes thematic elements that were used like buildings, people, shadows, textures, and colors. It basically gave us a template to follow and allowed our human creativity to take over to refine and improve. 

Also, and maybe most important, we shared the AI generated concepts with the client who provided feedback on each image. This saved us a couple cycles of going back and forth with iterations which is a huge game changer. Not only does the client get more options to look at, it makes the final product better.

By allowing us to explore and experiment with concepts at minimal cost, AI allows our team to focus our time on developing creative assets with higher value.

How else are we utilizing AI?

As we learn more about how to use AI efficiently, we will begin to include more of these tools into our creative flow. We don’t see AI technology as a threat to the creative industry—if anything, AI underscores the need of the human-eye, human analytical understanding, and human empathy in design. AI is simply another tool in the designers workshop just like desktop publishing software was in the early 90s.

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For years the word outsourced was considered a “bad word”, one that you couldn’t even say in front of your grandmother. However, the move to more nimble, outsourced creative has been steadily growing with more and more organizations realizing the value.

At Studio 22, we’ve been positioned as “your external creative team” since the early 2000s. We knew, even way back then, that quality creative didn’t have to come from within an organization and that companies could rely on us, an outside team, to be fully integrated into their internal creative process. This has been a successful approach for us for a variety of reasons. 

First, one of the main benefits of using an outsourced design team is the cost savings that companies can realize. By outsourcing creative, companies can reduce their overhead costs and free up resources that can be used for other projects or initiatives. Additionally, we bring the latest design trends and best practices to organizations, allowing for more creative and effective marketing efforts.

It’s important to note that when we say “outsourced creative”, we are not referring to subscription-based design services where you purchase a block of hours. We have a partnership-like relationship with our clients and are considered “part of the team” by many. We find this to be a very important (and valuable) distinction. 

Finally, an external creative team has a variety of skill sets available from website design and development, to UX/UI, animation, along with copywriting and strategy. So rather than hiring 2-3 staff members to cover the needed skills internally, you can hire a single agency to provide a variety of services. Furthermore, an outsourced team can easily provide additional design and technical resources when needed, which helps improve the speed and efficiency of the internal marketing team.

Overall, an outsourced design team can be an invaluable asset to companies looking to save time and money while still achieving creative and effective marketing objectives. By leveraging the expertise of an experienced and talented design team, companies can not only reduce their overhead costs, but also increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

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Based out of Silicon Valley, our team of artists, programmers, designers, and marketing experts works hard to deliver quality branding, design, and marketing solutions to our clients.

Since founding Studio 22, we have worked diligently to adapt to the fast paced, ever changing web and digital design industry. We work with clients spanning from Fortune 500 companies to small, local non-profits and have built our work philosophy around strong client collaboration.

Why Client Collaboration?

Client collaboration allows us to develop close relationships with our clients. We are proud of the work we have produced so far and our clients have shared some of their positive experiences working with us on Clutch.

Clutch is an independent B2B ratings and reviews firm based in the heart of Washington, D.C. More than 100,000 buyers use Clutch every month to find digital marketing, web design, and development firms for their next big projects.

Analysts at Clutch compare service providers based on verified client reviews, market presence and ability to deliver. Given the growing importance of platforms like Yelp and TripAdvisor, it is evident that consumers in all industries are basing more of their buying decisions on online reviews and ratings.

Listed below are some highlights from our client reviews featured on Clutch:

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“They were extremely helpful on the project and the end result is very functional.”

– Digital Marketing Director, Computer Software Startup
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“Having a web designer who is surrounded by top technology in Silicon Valley is a real advantage.”

– Founder, Sheryl Steinberg Interior Design
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 “They were great and I can only say positive things about them.”

– San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
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In our goal of helping businesses reach their full potential, input from past and present clients is crucial for allowing us to understand both our strengths and areas of improvement.

We look forward to hearing more from our clients and continuing our partnership with Clutch. You can read our clients’ full reviews on our Clutch profile or find us listed on the Top Web Designers in San Jose directory.

Olga Guryanova

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The technological developments of the past couple decades, like Google, Facebook, and many others have brought people closer together than ever before, allowing them to maintain relationships and make connections they otherwise couldn’t.

This isn’t exactly a revolutionary statement, and its implications for businesses are known, but not as well understood. Quality design is one of the most important components for online success, regardless of industry or size, or anything else.

While what we have stated is somewhat common knowledge, we believe that it is something that deserves more emphasis and attention.

And as one of the top graphic designers in the San Francisco Bay Area, we feel as though it is something we are qualified to discuss, so here are a few tips and things to consider to maximize your audience engagement.

Awareness vs. Engagement

One of the primary mistakes that people make in web design, marketing, and many other disciplines, is not being able to differentiate between awareness and engagement.

This distinction is key, and it is something that you should consider from the very beginning. Designing to raise awareness is great, informing them about your services and products, and putting yourself on their radar. But achieving audience engagement requires forethought and intent.

You can achieve customer engagement any number of ways, but just make sure that you include a clear avenue of engagement for your clients.

A call to action, a link to another source, and even more commonly now, a social media interaction, are all satisfactory ways to spur engagement.

Just be sure that you are setting out to do more than pique your audience’s interest.

Include Interactive Elements

It is one thing to engage your audience through a third-party source, advertisement, or social media post, but what about when they are already on your site? As an industry leader, and a top web design company in Silicon Valley, we have valuable experience that has informed our opinions on what makes engaging web design.

One particularly useful practice that we can recommend is including interactive elements in your website.

One such feature that can spur engagement would be the inclusion of a chatbot or a live chat feature, giving your customers the chance to directly engage with your business should they be interested.

And as a side note, one of the most important things that you can do to ensure customer engagement is to make your website cross-platform accessible.

By not optimizing your website for mobile platforms, you are ruining any chance you have of getting mobile users to engage with your brand via your site.

Listen to Your Customers

When offering a service or a product, it is important to understand how that product or service is being received by your customers, it is one of the most important components of client engagements.

If your customers take the time to share things with you, listen to them! This sounds simple enough, but really think about it. So many companies use their social media to churn out generic and self-serving content that most people couldn’t care less about.

But the best brands have created online spaces where their customers can publicly air their grievances or share experiences, and expect to receive a genuine and thoughtful response.

We’re not saying it’s easy, but it’s worth it to try to cultivate spaces where your customers feel comfortable reaching out to you.

Understand the Value of Design

When it comes to design, development, or outreach, it is important to consider the difference between garnering awareness and driving engagement.

Engagement comes from interactive features and meaningful content, and it creates genuinely meaningful experiences for your clients.

It isn’t exactly the easy way out, but give it a try, you’ll be glad you did.

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[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]For years, good design was a bonus for companies, especially for large enterprise. They simply didn’t see the value and focused mostly on the sales process (the end point) rather than the brand. Years before I entered my career in design and marketing, I was in tech sales—inside and outside. I hated it. Perhaps it was the particular industry or the particular decade, but whatever the case, it was dull. My job was to sell PCs, servers, storage and memory from the likes of HP, Compaq, Dell, and others I have now forgotten. I can still remember reading through the sales materials and ‘slicks’ the companies would send out—glossy white paper stock, small type bullet lists of specs, and small, beige thumbnail image of the systems (nothing to look at here folks, just a box). Suffice to say, design wasn’t important in sales back then. Eventually, marketers realized that enterprise people are consumers too, why not market the same way Apple and Chevy do? So, what’s my point? Design should help sell. And it doesn’t matter what your industry: SaaS, Alt Energy, AI, Robotics, Healthcare, and consumer. To compete today, you need to compete at the most basic level starting with your visual brand—what do you look and feel like to your customer? Today, things have improved on the design front. Savvy companies are leading with a design thinking approach. This mentality now permeates organizations from the top to the bottom and is an essential strategy for startups and mature companies alike. Products are designed and engineered with the user in mind to provide better, more intuitive experiences. As products become more sophisticated, and marketing becomes more nuanced, the need to provide better user experiences becomes more important than ever. Good design throughout the entire sales experience; branding, email marketing, website design, shopping cart, unboxing, customer support and more are now all part of the selling process—and good design sells. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

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Mobile-first Design

In 2018, 58% of site visits were from mobile devices. It’s projected that this number will continue to increase year-over-year. So, what does this mean for marketers developing new web sites? It means they should be focusing their design efforts on an ever increasing mobile audience. 

Mobile-first design is simply referring to the priority in the design process. Rather than focusing efforts on the desktop experience, designers are beginning to design the mobile version of the site first. The result of this shift does not only affect the technical layout of the site, but also introduces minimalist design thinking into the process. The outcome tends to provide better user experiences as the designer was forced into solving technical design challenges rather than focusing on just aesthetics.

It’s important to note that not all website categories embrace mobile-first design thinking. It’s critical that your audience behavior is considered when taking on any design project. For example, desktop e-commerce conversion rates still outpace mobile by more than 2:1. 

Staging Environments

Staging environments (aka: sandboxes) are designed to give marketers and developers a place to test out new website content and features in a safe, private environment. They are typically a copy of your live or “production” site and content can usually be pushed to the live environment after it’s been vetted.

Beyond content, it’s critical that new functionality is tested on staging before it is pushed up to live. This is especially true if you are running a CMS like WordPress or Drupal where updates and plugins can disrupt and even take down a live site.

Most managed hosting providers like Flywheel or Pantheon include staging environments for this very reason. It’s a key step in maintaining quality content and ensuring your uptime isn’t disrupted.

Information Architecture

Information Architecture is way more than simply your page and content hierarchy. Your website should tell a story and answer three primary questions before you can begin developing a content outline: what is this website about, who is it for, and why does it matter to them? Once those three questions have been answered, you can then begin building the content structure of the website. We call this the Information Architecture and it is very much linked to your brand strategy. 

With those three questions answered, you can then begin to outline your messaging priorities. If you have a product site, then you might address the “what” question first to promote the product you are selling. 

If you are a well known luxury brand, you might not have to focus so much on the product, and would rather focus on the “who” and elaborate on the lifestyle to illustrate a certain aspiration or connection with the audience.

No matter how big or small your website is, spending time on your content and strategy before you jump into any creative work is always time well spent—and critical to establishing a well organized site architecture.

Plugins

Most marketers who have experience with WordPress are familiar with terms Plugins (or Modules for Drupal). These are the functional building blocks for websites that allow developers to quickly and easily add website functionality without writing a single line of code. Of course, this saves a ton of time and money on the backend and is why plugins are so widely used.

While there are a myriad of free plugins, there are also many “Premium” plugins. These are plugins that usually have license or a subscription fee. Premium plugins tend to be updated more often since the developer is being compensated for their work.

When working with a website developer, make sure you understand if there are any plugins that require an on-going license fee. This is important for two reasons: 1.) As the end user, you want to make sure the plugin license is in your name and not the developer 2.) In order to ensure your plugins are always up-to-date, you’ll have to keep you license current. Many developers drop support and updates if the license is expired. 

Themes vs Frameworks

There is a lot of confusion when it comes to themes and frameworks. Below is a quick cheat sheet to help you decide which is best for you project.

Themes are essentially pre-designed templates that are created for a specific industry or business. Some themes offer a lot of design flexibility while others are very rigid with very little customization. There are thousands of themes available for WordPress both free and paid and are typically designed for the DIY’er or designer who has very little budget to work with.

Frameworks can be thought of as a blank canvas. They typically have no preconceived design direction and can be designed to fit the needs of the project. Technically, they offer excellent flexibility in terms of customization. Quality frameworks like Divi and Genesis are mobile-responsive out of the box but tend to require a more experienced developer to fully customize. 

Unlike predesigned themes, many frameworks allow you to make a custom or child theme from their core components without modifying the original code. 

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