Valverde’s newly revamped website has officially landed. A fully featured, dynamic 40+ page CMS website with every bell-and-whistle imaginable is included in what is Punctu8′s biggest digital campaign to date.
Boasting 9 Wedding Galleries, Newsletter subscription form, 4 Contact/Equiry Forms and a secure booking feature which accepts credit card details is all included under 1 roof.
Phew!
Blogging is another arm of social networking. It chronologically dates posts/articles much like an update on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn would. It encourages commenting and offers the ability to share articles with other social networking sites and individuals.
So why bother blogging when popular social networking sites have it covered? Well for one thing a blog should keep relevant to a topic so as to muster a community of like-minded individuals whose commentary is relevant and informative. But probably the greatest advantage to having a blog is to write proper articles where as most social networking sites are geared more for quick snippets.
Its advisable as a marketing strategy to use the full armoury of social networking sites in cohesion togther, thereby getting the message across to the broadest audience. This does however mean sites share the same links to articles and an overlap occurs. On the one hand this is annoying as material is being duplicated, but at the same time its an opportunity to increase viewership for the article publisher. Its obvious that there is no point writing an article that isn’t going to read, so by using social networking monoliths like Facebook Pages and Twitter as marketing tools is the logical thing to do as it amounts to free advertising.
It pleases me to announce the latest addition to Punctu8. Agnes Jooste starts this month as the “New Business Representative”.
For the ‘Punctu8 Profile’, here are her answers:
Favourite website?
pitchfork.com – I love reading about new bands and listening to new music.
Android or iPhone?
iPhone I suppose.
How would you design a spice rack for a blind person?
With a scratch and smell strip on the lid of every spice.
If you won the lottery, what would be the first thing you would buy?
A round-the-world plane ticket.
If ninjas fought heavyweight wrestlers, who would win?
Definitely ninjas!
Special talent?
Mmm… it’s a secret!
The Writing on the Wall website has landed today.
What makes it different? Well its a creatively designed, feature rich, full CMS website but what really sets it apart is the easy gallery functionality that can be controlled within the administration area by the client. Being a print and signage company, Writing on the Wall needed to easily update their portfolio of work without the effort of notifying a website administrator each time they wanted to update an image.
Fortunately there is a fantastic WordPress plugin called NextGEN Gallery which is similar in functionality to uploading images in Facebook. It scales the image to the correct size and also automatically creates thumbnails of each image.
To best illustrate this functionality a video screencast was created so as to act as a reminder for the client on how to upload images and manage the galleries. Its really quite an easy exercise.
This month we’ve certainly seen our fair share of rain here in Jo’burg. I’m getting the feeling I’m back in London 
. Anyway back on the work front April has been a busier month with Flash banners, an Easter E-mail invitational and a CMS website for a labour relations company.
The interesting one I’d like to highlight is the labour relations company – The Fair Labour Practice which involved a completely new corporate ID, website design and development.
The design of the logo needed to incorporate an African, ethnic, loose yet bold style with the message of “being trapped” or “getting stuck” in its iconography. A suggestion of a maze was made during the meeting as this incorporates the message of being “trapped/stuck”. The colour red was also suggested as this had been used in the previous logo, signifying boldness/strength and was what the managing director envisaged for the connotation of the company.
Punctu8 has just released its latest showcase offering, eWinery. This website is more for demonstration purposes but incorporates full CMS (Content Management System) functionality with a complete e-Commerce package. What this means is that anyone with the correct, given username and password can edit the site’s content themselves without having to rely on a website administrator to do it for them each time. And its secure!
This month Punctu8 settled nicely into its new office space in Norwood, Johannesburg.
My childhood memories of the inner-city of Johannesburg are still kept live and well as little development across its landscape has taken place there for a few decades now. One can still see the old vestiges still standing in memory of an era gone by. Some of the buildings boarded-up occupied presumably by the homeless, others only older and maybe duller but holding a charm, reminiscent of a distant memory.
It was last Saturday that a trip to “Arts on Main” was organised as news of a trendy art sanctuary has been buzzing around town for awhile now. An art precinct has reared its head and true to the unorthodox style art brandishes to the world, this little oasis is really in the groin of downtown Jo’burg, as its surrounded by grey warehouses with broken windows and vagrants shuffling here and there. Upon entering the large warehouse entrance lies a huge transformation from the outside. It’s as though
you’re transported to a trendy 
space that globally would be recognised as leaning towards “yuppiedom”. The grit of the outside is left in the hands of the car guard who presumably is standing to attention, protecting your vehicle under the shade of the Siverwright Bridge. While inside this sanctuary hipsters drink cappuccinos while languishing in the warm, sunny weather surrounded by trees with neatly manicured walkways directing traffic this way and that. There’s galleries displaying varied artworks ready for purchase as well as some old, but amusing Steven Cohen video installations in the Goethe Institute Gallery that added to the nostalgia I was experiencing.
The highlight of this inner-city meander was definitely a visit to the 12 Decades Art Hotel where on the top floor there are artistically decorated hotel rooms with excellent viewings of the city. Each room is uniquely designed by various artists all capturing elements of South African history. To top it all off, a visit to the rooftop of this 7-storey apartments/hotel was perfect to take some snaps of the cityscape.
I highly recommend this trip downtown.
“Print is Dead!” has been echoed for years in digital circles for as long as I can remember. Right at the internet’s infancy, passionate web enthusiasts predicted the end or at least a huge fallback on the demand on print based material such as newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, brochures etc.
Its generally understood that the advantages in embracing digital as opposed to traditional print mediums was and still is the cost of print being more expensive and the “green factor” weighing on your conscience. It may have even crossed your mind to fit the Christmas stocking with a Kindle or iPad this year and try reading books on a handheld device. Personally the idea doesn’t grab me, however Mother Nature should be pleased. By the way the best selling gift at amazon.com this Christmas is the Kindle.
In truth print is not dead, the demand for paper is higher than ever according to FAOSTAT and the UN Population Division although this is largely supported by home and office printing of documents. Newspapers and magazines have seen a drop in sales but many blame the state of the economy that is shifting its audience to embrace news on the web. Time magazine, the world’s largest weekly news magazine currently has a worldwide audience of 55 million, although readership over the past decade has dropped by a third.
Varying forms of invented communication evolve and fragment but not one except smoke signalling and morse code come to mind as having actually come to an end. Print will soldier on even under the current economic strains and survive. And with that here is Punctu8′s print design ‘catalogue’. Although Punctu8 is primarily a digital studio, occassionaly there is still the request for printed material which isn’t a problem in the slightest.
