Intern Position
06/05/2009
01:56 PM
Author: Chris
Tags: News
About VX
Version-X Design is a small group of passionate & award-winning designers, dedicated to crafting brands and websites that connect with customers and deliver results. Our small size provides excellent opportunities for getting experience working directly on major creative projects.
Description of Duties:
Depending on your ability level work could include any of the following: Print design and production, brand identity continuity and development, packaging design, motion design, photography, website design, Flash and web development.
Requirements:
Most importantly you must demonstrate creative talent. We are looking for more of a multi-talented, jack-of-all-trades type of person as opposed to a specialist in one area. In a small environment the more diverse and agile you are talent-wise the better. You will be using Photoshop and Illustrator so at least a working knowledge of these is important. Any web design or programming skills are a huge plus.
You should be proactive, motivated, eager to learn and take initiative. You should also have a good, positive attitude, accept constructive criticism well and work well with others.
Duration and Compensation:
This is a paid internship at $8/hr. Looking for someone 10-20 hrs a week. 2-3 month duration.
Application Procedure:
If you’re interested in this opportunity, please email a brief cover letter, resume and portfolio url or samples of your work.
Web Developer Position
06/05/2009
01:50 PM
Author: Chris
Tags: News
We're a boutique web design shop located in Burbank, CA working on a variety of content managed websites and we need someone to help out with the growing workload.
We're looking for a freelance web developer who meets the following criteria:
- you can take a site design and turn it into clean & semantic, cross-browser friendly CSS and HTML
- experienced with javascript and javascript frameworks (jQuery)
- experience with CMS integration (ExpressionEngine experience is a huge plus)
- experience in PHP and MySQL a plus
- the ability to work ON SITE (or at the bare minimum, come in for weekly meetings)
If you fit the bill, we'd love to hear from you.
Graphic Designer Position
06/05/2009
01:38 PM
Author: Chris
Tags: News
What We’re Looking For
A talented freelance designer that can work on-site (Burbank area) on a per-project basis. A full time position could result but is not part of our agenda.
Who We Are
Version-X Design is a small group of passionate & award-winning designers, dedicated to crafting brands and websites that connect with customers and deliver results.
What We Want You to Do
For the projects we currently require help with we need someone skilled at print design and production, branding continuity and development and packaging design.
Who We Want You to Be
Most importantly you must demonstrate creative talent. Second you should have a drive and passion for design and a great work ethic. You should be proactive, motivated, eager to learn and take initiative. You should also have a good, positive attitude, accept constructive criticism well and work well with others.
What Software You Need to Know
You need to be able to work deftly with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.
How Much We’re Looking to Pay
$25 - $50/hr DOE
How Long is the Gig?
We need someone on-site, full time for at least a few weeks.
How to Apply
If you’re interested in this opportunity and are available to work ON-SITE, please email a brief cover letter, resume and portfolio url or samples of your work. We will review and get back to viable candidates to set up interviews.
Designing the Macadamia Logo
04/03/2009
08:38 AM
Author: Adam Stoddard
Tags: Design, Identity
We were approached by one of our long time clients to design the logo and packaging for their new line of hair care products. The products are heavily based around Macadamia oil, so the Macadamia nut became the source of inspiration for the logo. We felt that a literal representation of a Macadamia nut would be a bit too "on the nose" and not particularly interesting or memorable and started playing with more abstracted representations.
During the research process, a particular image of a split open Macadamia nut in it's bright green skin caught our attention, as it almost looked like a cross-section or dissection of the nut. We sketched up a bunch of different variations and came up with a few that we felt were heading in the right direction.
Both versions became fully realized, but the image on the right was ultimately chosen due to the fact that it was a stronger mark when rendered in one or two colors (important for the packaging) as well as the fact that it started taking on the form of a droplet of oil.
Finally, we chose a typeface that had some interest to it and a slightly exotic feel which we then modified for the final logo.
Metropolis Packaging
01/19/2009
03:31 PM
Author: Rose
Tags: Print
The Metropolis packaging we designed is now hitting the shelves! New packaging for their L-Ion Mini Wireless Iron, T-Ion Travel Dryer, Ti-Ion Mini Iron, T-Ion Iron, S-Nano Iron and T-Ion Digital Iron!
L-Ion Mini Wireless Iron: we went with a hard plastic box with artwork leaving a large window to best showcase the products impressively small size and sleek appearance.
T-Ion Travel Dryer: we gave it a simple flush closing box with artwork in line with the rest of Metropolis' products and spot UV.
Ti-Ion Mini Iron: we used foil stamp on the sides to emphasis the shiny, titanium qualities along with the rest of the artwork.
T-Ion Iron, S-Nano Iron and T-Ion Digital Iron: we designed all the full sized iron boxes in a unique shape that opens much like a book to reveal the actual product, with a cover that clasps with invisible magnets.
An Introduction to SEO
10/24/2008
11:20 AM
Author: Chris
Tags: Web
A great many people and businesses are familiar with the concept of being able to increase traffic to their website and improving their status and rank in regards to search engine results. Most people, however, are unaware of how this is achieved and what it entails. The purpose of this brief article is to provide a more clear understanding of what this very important but oftentimes overlooked aspect of marketing your business is all about.
A SUCCESSFUL WEBSITE
There are two key aspects to a successful web presence. The first part is the design and development of a compelling and easy to use website that achieves your business objectives. But just putting a great website out there on the internet is not enough. You need people, the right people, actually visiting your website for it to be a success. The web is no Field of Dreams, just because you build it does not mean they will come. Getting visitors to show up is what the second aspect, SEO, is all about.
WHAT IS AN SEO CAMPAIGN?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and an SEO Campaign is an orchestrated effort to improve your website’s standings in a person’s search for terms relevant to your business. Essentially the goal in layman’s terms is to come up as close to the top of the list as possible in the results of a search performed by someone (on Goggle, Yahoo! etc.) who is looking for something that has to do with your company and its products or services. There are a variety of ways to do this, some legitimate, others less so. We will focus on the legitimate ones since they will provide the most relevant visitors and long term benefits and results.
SEO PART ONE: OPTIMIZE YOUR SITE
An SEO Campaign has two parts to it. Part One has to do with what you can do within the confines of your own website to improve your ranking for important keywords. One major aspect of this is the actual development of your website from a programming standpoint to ensure that the site has been built in a way that is maximizing its ability to be “crawled” by the major search engines. Google et al. have programs called bots that scour the internet documenting the content of any website it can find. The keywords that the search engine associates with your site and how relevant they are is heavily based on the information these bots find when they crawl through your web pages. In order to not only be seen by these bots but to also be associated with the keywords that are most important to your company your website needs to be constructed in a particular way and avoid certain pitfalls that will diminish your ranking or possibly even make you essentially invisible to our little bot friends. Other things that can be done within your own site to improve your ranking involve injecting the keywords you want to be associated with into your content and adding additional compelling content of this nature that will get attention from others.
SEO PART TWO: WEB MARKETING
So Part One has to do with your website and optimizing it for crawlability. Part Two is basically all of the things you can do out there on the net that are beyond the confines of your site. This is commonly referred to as web marketing since it is geared towards getting the word out there about your company to other sites in a way that associates your company name and website address with your important keywords. Things such as getting press releases posted on various sites and getting interest from other websites who then link to your site from theirs are both ways of essentially expanding your company’s presence on the web as a whole. The more places you’re mentioned in conjunction with your targeted keywords the more the search engines consider you important and relevant to those keywords.
SUMMING IT UP
This particular article’s purpose was to give a broad, SEO for Dummies kind of description of what search engine optimization is all about. Obviously there are many different steps and procedures that need to be done to achieve a successful SEO campaign, most of them requiring a strong understanding of best practices, what the search engines are looking for/punish you for, and a knack for analyzing a company, the keyword research data and making an educated selection of the appropriate, optimal keywords. You should now be ready to move onto and digest the more specific details at this point. A more robust breakdown of what’s involved and all of the requisite confusing techno-jargon that comes along with it is available on our SEO Services page.
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