April 28, 2016
As a freelancer, I love my clients. Most of them have great ideas, value my input, provide thoughtful feedback, and pay their invoices on time.
There is, however, the other type of client. The ones who fail to communicate clearly, don’t give enough time for a project, provide confusing or irrelevant feedback, and worst of all, don’t sign the checks in a timely fashion.
Rather than rant about my worst client experiences, I’d like to share some tips I’ve learned about working with difficult clients.
Read MoreMarch 9, 2016
One of the components of a successful business is logo design. The more familiar a logo becomes, the more people associate it with their own perceptions, which are often shaped by various forms of marketing.
Without a familiar logo, a business can get lost in the shuffle of thousands of other entities. The following ideas for logo design reflect current market trends and industry standards.
Read MoreFebruary 19, 2016
Remember in college when you agonized over a major paper? You spent countless hours on it. Lost sleep. Wrote and rewrote and proofread and polished.
Remember what it felt like when it came back covered in red pen marks? Edits and revisions and annotations bleeding from its margins?
It was devastating. That paper was your baby. And all of those curt mark-ups felt like physical blows.
Now think about how you give feedback to your freelancers. If you’re not careful, you can easily deliver the same types of blows with your edits and suggestions—and doing so can hurt the client-freelancer relationship as well as the quality of future work.
Read MoreJanuary 5, 2016
Let’s face it, creatives aren’t salespeople. And there’s a good reason for that. But for budding freelancers, selling is part of the gig. Selling you—your skillset, your ideas, your work—that’s how you win new clients. So here are a few tips on bringing in clients without selling your soul.
Read MoreMay 20, 2015
Storytelling is the oldest form of marketing a product and email is a great marketing tool. Put them together and you have a powerful source that builds a lasting relationship with consumers. Email marketing is best at achieving a better response rate than any other online marketing tool. Its effectiveness has a lot more to do with showing the authenticity of a business story by outlining the core principles. The goal is to gain a positive reaction from a designated audience. It seems like an easy formula to learn, but it takes time to master the format.
Read MoreFebruary 19, 2015
A question that gets asked all too often by business owners is starting to be answered more and more consistently with a deafening, "yes." Web design in general used to occupy this question. In the past, it wasn't totally non-sensical to question whether a website itself was really necessary to a given business. Today, lacking a website is tantamount to not being prepared for business, just as showing up for a conference without current business cards could show a similar unpreparedness in the past. Now, the focus has turned to mobile or responsive web design. With a massive shift of web traffic going from desktop to mobile platforms over the past couple years, the time to consider an investment in mobile web design is upon business owners and brand managers. So, it appears that having a responsive mobile web design really is a necessity for aspiring brands, moving forward.
Read MoreDecember 19, 2014
For years your business has been pumping out traditional advertising and for years it has worked. Why bother changing up your marketing strategies now? Well, frankly, because it might not work as well anymore. After decades of coming face-to-face with traditional advertising, consumers are learning how to tune out commercials and ignore print ads. So what do you do now?
Read MoreNovember 13, 2014
In simplest terms, brand loyalty means to build a strong base of customers who will keep returning to a business because they feel confident in the company's products and services. They believe the business delivers on or even exceeds the claims featured in its advertising and promotional materials. These repeat customers are also likely to recommend the given company to their friends, family and acquaintances. Building brand loyalty involves a certain company becoming the first thought a customer has when he or she is trying to solve a specific problem. A business with a great deal of brand loyalty reflects the owner's and manager's sustained efforts to always meet customers' needs and wants.
Read MoreOctober 21, 2014
Whether it's an outdoor sign, a printed piece or your online presence, the graphic design associated with your company is often the first thing that customers see. For this reason, it is singularly important that you find a professional design company to help you develop this presence across all your marketing channels.
Read MoreSeptember 4, 2014
Business owners spend time, money and effort into building their brand. Their logo has attained a certain amount of recognition and their brand means something. For the small business owner, having a strong brand is important for a lot of reasons but the main reason a strong brand is important is how it works with other parts of an overall marketing plan.
Read MoreAugust 6, 2014
The Homegrown Johns Island Farmers Market launched a new and improved website (www.johnsislandfarmersmarket.com) on Monday thanks to a little help from a local creative design studio.
Read MoreApril 10, 2014
Our wonderful copywriter Genna Shelnutt has a blog that was featured on Freshly Pressed. Way to go!
Read MoreMarch 24, 2014
As a full-time editor for a technology company, a freelance copywriter, and free-time blogger, I spend about 28 hours a day staring at a computer screen. Despite all that time, I tend to steer clear of social media sites because quite frankly, they make me hate people.
Read MoreMarch 13, 2014
OH GHEEZ. Another marketing buzz phase I’ll have to learn and be able to regurgitate sometime again in the future? But hey, what is it exactly?
Maybe you heard all the buzz surrounding Pharrell William’s fashionable but tall brown park ranger hat he wore at the Grammys? Someone on twitter joked that it resembled the hat from the Arby’s logo. Next thing you know the official Arby’s account sent out a tweet during the awards show and asked for their hat back. BOOM. That mention was an instant hit, and at last check it had accumulated 83,000 retweets and almost 50,000 favorites. Not a bad response for a few minutes work.
Read MoreFebruary 25, 2014
It's late, about 1:30 in the morning. It's one of those nights when I can’t sleep because I can't stop thinking about a current project. I keep wondering how I could do things differently. I think about the design, my process, and how it's always changing. Sometimes I start with sketches; other times I go right into digital design.
Read MoreFebruary 19, 2014
Schmoll Creative Brings a Fresh Approach to Branding and Design in Charleston and Beyond. Newly launched creative studio offers affordable, high quality creative services.
Read MoreFebruary 13, 2014
You may have heard that America’s favorite snowboarding red head, Shaun White, did not win his third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the men’s halfpipe event. In fact, he didn’t get a medal at all...
Read MoreFebruary 10, 2014
Schmoll Creative combines the high-quality creative work and client services you’d expect from a leading advertising agency with the speed and value you’d find working with a startup shop...
Read MoreFebruary 9, 2014
I always look at package design and even more so when it comes to beer labels. As a designer and a huge beer nut, I have definitely enjoyed a few New Belgium beers. For the most part, I would...
Read MoreFebruary 8, 2014
Starting 2014 off with a bang! A new website launch and kicking Schmoll Creative into full gear. This year we have monster goals to achieve. This blog is here for branding, design & beer. You’re welcome.
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