Utah Web Design Blog

Red Olive was invited to be part of the Art Institute of Salt Lake City Professional Advisory Committee (PAC). This committee meets twice a year and reviews the schools facilities, curriculum, and student work to determine how well they are meeting professional needs and trends within the Graphic Design community and/or what they can improve in.

Thinking about getting into the design biz and need to learn how? Take a look at Art Institute of Salt Lake City. Great resources at this school, a library any designer would kill for. A top notch computer lab and access to printers I only dreamed about in school. They are adding new resources everyday based on the needs of the students. The teachers really seem to care about the students, if you put in the extra work you will get extra opportunities to do some great work. Check them out and tell them your friends at Red Olive send you.

A lot has changed since I graduated from the Art Institute of Colorado, but so has this industry. Thanks guys for letting us be involved.

Josh put his dues in as a web design contractor in 2009 and passed with flying colors, as of  today Josh signed on as a fellow Olive.  Glad to have you on our team and looking forward to actually getting you some of our new business cards made up.

After receiving a Masters Degree in Art, Josh has used his creative abilities in the graphic design field for the past five years.  During that time Josh has worked in everything from T-shirts, to large tradeshow displays.   

Through his print design experiences, Josh has now found a passion in web design.  He is delighted for the opportunity to be working at Red Olive and creating meaningful XHTML markup and beautiful CSS design on a daily basis.

Though undeserving, Josh is fortunate to be partnered with his wife Angelee and two daughters Darby 10 and Klée 8.

Downtown Salt Lake at the Gateway lies a great little restaurant by the name of Biaggi’s.  Good food, great ambiance, and a staff that will put up with our crap.  I would like to openly apologize for complaining about the white elephant idea, it turned out to be a blast and I am glad we did it. Thanks again Vince for planning it all.   It was a good night, as the black eyed peas would say.

I am extremely proud of the team we have assembled over the last 10 years, simply a fantastic group. You’ll never meet a  more honest, hard working, talented, or funny group.  Thank you all for what you each bring to the table and making everyday something I look forward to, rather than dread.

Red Olive welcomes a new web developer to the team, Aric Beagley.  Been here two weeks and he is currently attempting to convince the office that Ubuntu makes for the best desktop OS, the Windows guys had to laugh, and the MAC OS guys said what the hell is Ubuntu? Needless to say he isn’t getting very far with his campaign. However one thing we could all agree on, he has finally brought unity to the development team that (edit)  jQuery seems to run more solidly across all the browsers for us in general than mootools. (/edit)

Aric was brought on to raise the bar with our web2.0 and ajax efforts. So far so good. His CSS, JavaScript, and XML skills are amazing and in his short time here he has already made an impact on our development processes. 

And on a personal note, even though he is a die hard Mitsubishi EVO fan he has learned to tolerate conversations about the arch enemy the Shelby GT500, what a trooper.

Thanks Noah for your hard work and keeping it free!

We basically hit upon the next new trend in refreshments for business meetings that we are pretty positive is going to blow minds this summer — Otter Pops. No boring refreshments like colas, water, coffee or peanuts. We hope to have everyone sporting a day glow pop like some kind of radioactive glow stick protruding out of their mouths while we go over proposals — okay maybe it’s just a phase, but they’re quite refreshing. And thanks to Vince’s childhood reminiscing, we are now addicted to these (I’m partial to Alexander the Grape).

I’ve always shied away from calling myself a “writer.” As a Montana resident, the mountain steppe lands of central Montana to be more precise, any talk of being a writer might get you corralled into a holding pen and forced to “squeal like a pig,” under duress of a molten branding iron. And luckily my fondness for farm animals never came to fruition as expected by my peers, so I never stuck around with farm labor as a career path, but the work ethic and thick skin kept.

Hi, I’m Aaron, your SEO specialist and now fellow member and adopted kin clansman of Red Olive Design. After my hazing and initiation at the Olive, I’ll be happy to optimize your web site to produce happy search engine results. I’ve got the writing chops to do copy and simply know what works and what doesn’t. I’ve honed my writing craft working as a journalist, and fused that while working in business and marketing for the last several years.

I feel worthy that I’ve gained the respect from the folks at Red Olive and am truly at home with fellow minds that aren’t about aligning themselves with industry standards and burning through work for the bottom line. Money seems to be the only bottom line factor for much of industry today, but at the Olive, being genuine, thoughtful and hard working seems to be more their mark – mine too .

Just wanted to take a moment and formally introduce our latest addition at Red Olive, Aaron Vaughn. World champion soccer player, accomplished writer, SEO genius, and all around good guy. Ok so he doesn’t even play soccer but I will vouch for the rest! Aaron was brave enough to accept the challenge of being our full-time SEO analyst / copywriter.

The term “content is king” has never been more true for search engine marketing, above all else, good content is where it’s at. Not only does Aaron have a journalism degree from the University of Utah, he has worked for top tech companies in Utah.  Aaron transitioned to the Olive from one of the largest SEO firms in the state, bringing with him a wealth of marketing knowledge and insight.

As the seventh olive on the branch, our tree is stronger than ever before with roots growing ever deeper into design, development, and marketing. Thanks for choosing us to spend days with Aaron, we look forward to being dazzled.

The musical talent around here just keeps getting better. Our “boo” Merrick wrote a few songs that he performed with David Archuleta which officially got picked up by iTunes this week. You can buy the album Fear vs. Faith on iTunes by clicking here, best $1.98 you ever spent or your money back.  (Do it,  he needs the money to go on all the dates that resulted from the release)

P.S. Anyone interested in creating a music video for this album call Merrick,  shouldn’t be hard to beat the Broken Rose video which is the current benchmark. Sorry Justin. Way to go Merrick, as usual you made us proud!

2007 has been an amazing year here at the olive. What a difference a year makes, besides having our best year on record we were lucky enough to pick up some some amazing new people that fit like a glove. We owe much to our clients and friends, and just want you to know we appreciate the opportunities and relationships afforded us. Can’t say it enough but, Thank you.