The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) serves as our region’s most prestigious juried competition. This professional association for design holds an annual show gala and benefit to honor the best 100 designs in Utah over the past year. This year’s gala took place on May, 18^th in Salt Lake City and contained work from some of Utah’s top design agencies.

Red Olive took home three of the AIGA 100 awards this year for our work with Latter Day Sweets, Ezra Lee Custom Homes and Leef. We were excited and honored to be a part of this year’s show and look forward to next year.

This was a big (and slightly uncomfortable) month for the men of Red Olive as each of them did their best to grow out the most impressive stache in the office. After a long 30 days of no shaving, Mustache May has finally come to an end. The guys not only delivered by sporting some interesting facial hair, but also dressed the part as characters with some of the most famous mustaches in history including Luigi and Kip in Napoleon Dynamite. Although it seemed like a “guys only” event, the girls got in on the fun too with a little help from a pair of peel-and-stick costume mustaches. After an eventful morning of staff photos and mustache displays, the team at Red Olive got back to work as usual. Red Olive’s first Mustache May has turned out to be quite a success…so far.

Even though the mustaches have been removed, the legacy of Mustache May lives on through Red Olive’s Facebook page. Login to see our office mustache display and “like” your favorite. We’ll keep you posted as we tally the votes and select a Mustache May champion.

VOTING OPEN:

http://apps.facebook.com/my-polls/hynzl

 
South Jordan,UT--5/28/2013--When you produce award winning creative and impactful brand systems you get noticed- a little too noticed. Red Olive’s project queue grew to a three to six month waiting period and the search began to find the best talent Utah had to offer to add to their staff. This resulted in an employee increase of 50% for the firm this spring. The hiring process was long, as Red Olive makes a point of hiring only the most talented individuals in the industry, but paid off when they found the perfect candidates to fill positions within their design, SEO, development and internet marketing departments. Red Olive’s fresh talent will complement the work of their seasoned veterans by adding new perspectives and skills to key aspects of the firm’s work.

 
Why expand?

 
Simply put, to keep up with demand. Great creative work and effective digital strategy take time and involve many team members. In order to increase bandwidth, Red Olive set the goal of expanding their workforce at the beginning of the year. What started as a goal for the end of 2013 was quickly met and even exceeded by May 1st with the addition of new and diversely skilled employees. The employment goals that Red Olive has set and accomplished include:
• Hiring new designers to significantly increase their creative bandwidth, provide fresh perspectives and contribute unique skills to web design and marketing efforts.
• Creating a broader marketing department to help clients develop a cohesive message and increase reach through the expansion of their SEO department.
• Adding developers to provide a faster response time for client updates and allow for earlier launch dates.

 
What it means for Red Olive

 
To accommodate the larger work force, Red Olive has added a completely new office space to their building and plans to keep making small changes now that they have the ball rolling on design improvements. The design and structural additions they’re making to the office itself complement and reflect the exponential growth that the firm continues to experience.
Their addition of new team members is anticipated to significantly cut the workloads of each department, providing the firm with the ability to conduct more in depth design, strategy and implementation processes with a quicker turn around. Increasing the size of their firm will also position them to handle larger, more demanding projects.

 
Future growth

 
As the firm continues to grow, Red Olive will add new employees accordingly. Although they’re focused on getting the current new hires settled in at the moment, they expect their next round of hiring to fill positions within the vital software engineering and iOS development departments. However, because their main focus is on providing work from the most talented individuals in the industry, Red Olive always encourages skilled designers, developers and marketers to apply for positions at all levels ranging from interns to directors. Please visit http://www.redolive.com/hire for more on employment opportunities. If you would like further detail on the growth taking place at Red Olive, please get in touch with the media contact listed below.

 
About Red Olive

 
Established in 1999 and headquartered in South Jordan, UT, Red Olive is an award winning, full service digital agency. They offer their clients the whole package when it comes to building an online brand and have made a name in the industry over the past 14 years through hard work, dedication and the acquisition of Utah’s top talent. Their attention to detail and innovative work have made them one of Utah’s top digital agencies. Find more information on Red Olive at http://www.redolivedesign.com or by following them on Facebook.

 
Media Contact:
Cosette Jarrett
Phone: 801-545-0410 x412
Email: cosette@redolive.com
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What does the Susan G. Komen foundation do?

As the global leader of the breast cancer movement, the Susan G. Komen organization has made incredible contributions to breast cancer awareness and research. Since its inception in 1982, the organization has invested more than $1 billion into the search for a cure and the empowerment of those effected by the disease. As stated on the organization’s website, the goal of the Susan G. Komen foundation is to put an end to breast cancer by “empowering people, ensuring quality care for all and energizing science to find the cures.” Our medical community has made major strides in the detection and eradication of breast cancer thanks in big part to the work of the Susan G. Komen foundation. Susan G. Komen has also touched the lives of many who have been effected by breast cancer by offering them a source for hope, companionship and support.

How and where do they do it?

The Komen Race for the Cure is a great example of one of the many ways the foundation supports the fight against breast cancer. Each year hundreds of races take place all over the country to raise breast cancer awareness and increase funding for research. Our own Utah race began in 1996 when several women who had been affected by breast cancer contacted the Komen headquarters to start an affiliate group. The first race attracted 1,700 participants and each race following has seen significant growth in attendance. Now the race has become the largest run/walk in the state, with about 16,000 participants each year. The success that the Komen race has had in Utah highlights the supportive and caring community we live in.

What are the races like?

This year’s race is shaping up to be a great success! The Utah affiliates have done an awesome job of creating fun activities outside of the main walk that the whole family can enjoy. Some of these include the Get Pinked Color Station, the Survivor Café, live music, a kids’ corner, photo booths and the survivor parade. The Utah Komen Race for the cure is a great opportunity for you and your family to get out and celebrate Mother’s Day weekend while supporting a great cause.

Red Olive is honored to have had the opportunity to contribute our design skills to the promotion of this event for the past three years. The Komen organization has been great to work with each year, and we look forward to working with them again next year. Please join us this Saturday at 8:15am at Library Square to participate in the walk against breast cancer. (Registration begins at 6:30am)

Info on the 2013 Utah Race for the Cure

For more information on registration and scheduling for the 2013 Komen Race for the Cure, please visit the Utah Affiliates’ website at http://www.komenutah.org.

In today’s technology driven world, most consumers either prefer to purchase products exclusively online, or look to a company’s website to see if their storefront is worth visiting. This means that no matter how beautiful your location is, you’ll still be overlooked by many consumers if you don’t have the website to match. This is why the designers at Red Olive have created a list of the top five elements of web design to help you convert your site’s viewers to clients of your business. Look to the list below to start steering your online traffic in the right direction!T-Rex has a problem. There are just so many things he would like to do but his arms are far too short. Picking up stuff without having to bend over and shredding it with his teeth, scratching his head without having to lay down and use his back legs, pushing elevator buttons without having to get awkwardly close to the wall, etc. A better idea than hunting a T-Rex would be to sell him arm extensions. Knowing and understanding the desires of your target audience and tailoring your site directly to them will help you be sure that you have created a display that is appealing to them. Leave your personal preferences out of the design process of your site, and envision the finished project from the perspective of your targeted demographic. Even small attributes can change the mood of your site’s viewers so significantly that they may choose not to do business with your company. In the end, it is really their opinion that counts.Keep the goal of your website in mind when designing your pages and make it clear to its visitors.  If customers aren’t sure of where to go or what to do on your site, they’ll go to one that tells them! By creating a call to action, you give customers clear directions that guide them throughout the process of accomplishing what they came to your site to do. If your online objective is to sell products, create a clean design that highlights your selection and make the purchase page easily accessible from any location on your site. If you would prefer that your customers contact you for more information, make sure that you have current and accessible means of contact listed on every page of your site in an easy to find location and legible format. No matter what the main objective of your online presence is, it needs to be clear and easy to follow on your website to achieve it.
Returning clients help a business thrive, but you’ll need a little more than quality products and great service to keep up with today’s consumer. An effective method of driving customers back to your business is keeping an updated site that gets them involved. Incorporating a blog and social media integration in the design of your site is a great way to achieve this because you will be able to maintain consistent contact with them after their initial purchase. It is important however, to note that simply having these forms of interaction on your site isn’t enough. You need to keep them updated and interesting in order to find an increase in returning visitors.
Consistent branding portrays the stability of your company and makes your business easy to access within the mind of a consumer. If you’re constantly changing your colors or design from page to page, viewers will get lost and lose interest. Keep a consistent and clean design throughout your site, and include your logo to create a visual association for your brand. By doing this, you will not only make your company more memorable and easy to find for consumers, but will also create a more polished and professional appearance.When you consider that 45% (and growing) of internet users are now connecting via mobile devices, you see the major importance of creating a site that will provide an easy to follow display on any browser or screen size.  Designing a responsive or mobile version of your site will give its viewers a simple and clean layout no matter what they browse from without the pain of swiping through a zoomed in version. The easier it is to view your site’s content, the more likely they are to read on and see what you have to offer. Encourage viewers to educate themselves about what you can do for them by creating a source of information that they can access easily.

Although there are many aspects of creating a great site that gets the results you want, these top five elements provide you with a great start for your design.  Building a site that portrays the right image of your company and provides a simple source for important information is crucial to your success.  The team here at Red Olive realizes this, and keeps up on all of the new trends in design to make sure that our clients have the most impressive sites possible. Call us today at 866-RED-OLIVE (866-733-6548) or Contact Us to start building the site your company needs to succeed.

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• What was cool then isn’t cool now:

Remember when these cell phones were cool? Your site should be updated a minimum of every two to three years in order to keep up with the latest trends and new technologies. You can relate this closely to the drastic change of trends in fashion or the technological advances in cell phones over the past three or more years. Would you wear the same things or use the same phone that you did three years ago? We can understand the clothes part if you work out of your basement, but not the phone. In this timeframe there has been a lot of evolution in our world that makes others think much differently. It is important that your site’s viewers find it appealing and know that it has been well maintained to gain trust. To do this you need to create a forward thinking website that will constantly impress your viewers by keeping up on the latest trends in web design and avoiding expired fads like a full flash site and other techniques not readily viewable on all devices. You wouldn’t go out in a rhinestone Koi fish shirt since the expiration of the Ed Hardy fad some years ago, so don’t make your website go out and embarrass itself!  Get a site that interacts with its viewers in the most up to date fashion, and hold their interest in your company and what it has to offer.

• Your old site doesn’t adapt:

Outdated websites weren’t created to adapt to our array of mobile devices and browser sizes. Advancements in the creation of mobile and responsive sites allow your viewers to see your website at its best no matter what they’re browsing from. With a reported 45% of internet users connecting via cell phone, providing a version of your site that is appealing to smaller screens is kind of a big deal. Keeping screen size in mind, you must also consider that desktop monitors are growing, and with this growth comes a lot of blank space and unclear content on your outdated website. Most websites that were designed two or three years back were set for an 800 pixel width, this width is not adaptable to the much larger screens we use today and will leave your site’s images and copy pixilated and difficult to view.  In sum, having a site that is completely adaptable to any browser size is not only possible but necessary.

• Your old site isn’t built for sales:

Converting your site’s visitors to clients or customers of your business is the whole idea of having a company website in the first place. This being said, it is surprising to see how many businesses don’t capitalize on modern tricks to increase conversion on their sites. It’s important to have an understanding of how conversion works on the internet, and also know how to design your site to support conversion.  Even small changes in your site’s structure and use of space or coloring, can cause considerable changes in your conversion rate. Increasing your conversion by even a small percentage will mean big rewards in your company’s profits. With this in mind, consider something as small as the font you’re currently using on your website being a deciding factor in how much your company brings in this year. Modern programming allows for a much larger selection of fonts that are easily applied to your website without problems, and are now offered at no cost by sources like Google Fonts. It may sound silly, but keeping up on the fonts and other seemingly small site features that appeal most to today’s viewer could make the difference in your financial situation this year.

• It’s not social

Making the right connections and keeping your customers interested in what you have to offer is a major key to the success of your business. This introduces yet another problem with your old site because it isn’t utilizing social media integration techniques to keep your customers coming back. Your competitors are already using them to reach customers on a more personal level, so it’s imperative that you do as well to keep up. This is easy with an updated site, because modern sites can be programmed to automatically post about products or company news on Facebook and Twitter to make sure that you’re staying connected with your important client base. Connecting your site with social media profiles will also allow you to take advantage of free advertising to new clients when your existing customers share your posts or “like” your page. Keeping your business socially involved with its customers through social media will give you an important competitive edge that’s needed to succeed in your industry.

• Your old site kills your credibility:

Establishing your brand is an important aspect of creating a successful business. When you’re presenting outdated material and design elements to your viewers, you’re not necessarily putting your best foot forward in making a name for your business. On the other hand, if your site applies modern techniques that lay out your company info in a way that is easy to follow and appealing, you’re successfully creating the company image you need to succeed.  Appealing and modern websites are especially important when your business is run solely online because this is the only representation you have to establish your company’s credibility. Outdated sites give viewers a bad feeling about your business in general. If information on your site is difficult to find or takes a long time to load, potential customers will quickly lose trust and wonder whether yours is a legitimate company or not.

• It’s hard to find:

Old sites aren’t built for today’s SEO. When internet users are looking for the product you sell or service you render, having a great search engine ranking will literally put your business above the rest. Not only can your site look and feel old by its design, it can also be perceived as dated by the use of primitive SEO tactics that are easily distinguishable as spam. Search engine algorithms change frequently and so must your SEO strategy to keep your site from potentially being penalized. It’s not 2005 anymore so don’t get caught with your keywords listed on your homepage, squeezing everything above the fold or implanting 30 anchor text links in one paragraph at the bottom of the page. SEO starts with a properly constructed site at its base, and can do wonders in cutting out the competition from there. There are many on-site factors that should be planned and executed at the stage of design and development which really should be left to the professionals. Your new site, combining stellar design with an SEO boost, will surely get noticed!

• It’s just plain ugly:

It’s sad but true that looks are of utmost importance to our society today. If your site doesn’t appeal to its viewers, they won’t be motivated to see the inner beauty your site has to offer, and by that I mean your company’s true value. People subconsciously judge your business by that first impression mentioned earlier. If your website gave them a bad vibe in that initial 1/20^th of a second, they’re not likely to be impressed by your company later no matter how great your products or services may be. A well crafted, easy to follow, and aesthetically pleasing site will start your relationship with the viewer off on the right foot and increase the likelihood that they will become a client.

Now that you’ve gotten expert input from our team of designers, programmers, and SEO specialists at Red Olive, you know why it is crucial that you get rid of your ugly old site for the sake of your business. That’s right, out with the old and in with the new! Start fresh with a beautifully crafted and modern version of your site that is built for SEO and conversion. Here at Red Olive we are up to date on the latest and greatest in web design and SEO. This means that we know exactly what to do to build a stellar site that gets results by appealing to viewers and search engines alike. Give us a call today @ 801-545-0410 or click here for a quote to get started.

We look forward to next year!

She joins our already talented UI/UX development department to help meet the demand for CSS3 / HTML5 and responsive web design that we have. Her background in communication allows her to develop effective user interface design that can be understood from a glance and help our client convert visitors.

He is an ROI extraordinaire, loves A/B testing, and has an eye for fine content.  Qualifications include being a Google AdWords Certified Professional, Bing Ads Accredited Professional, and an Education from BYU.