So how does color affect consumer behavior? Different colors are associated with different types of products and shoppers. When designing your product, packaging and logo, make sure to consider who your customers are and what colors will have the greatest influence on them.

Now that we know color is important, what about other factors that influence consumers purchases? Overall design also plays a significant role in consumer purchase decisions, particularly for online shoppers. This graphic shows that 42% of online shoppers base their opinion of a website on overall design alone and 52% said they would not return to a site if it had bad overall aesthetics.

Whether your designing a website, product, or logo, make sure you are using colors and aesthetics that speak to your target customers.

Have more questions about color? Ask us.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

For most of us, the image above is simply the pound symbol. It's what we dial on the phone after making an entry or shorthand when writing down weights. But in the world of Twitter it is better known as the hashtag symbol.

So how do you use it? When writing a post or tweet you can use the hashtag to mark relevant words which makes your tweet more easily found in searches. To use the hashtag simply type it and then immediately follow it with the keyword (NO spaces!!!). For example, if you wanted to tweet something about marketing, you could #marketing and someone who searches it can find your tweet instead of it getting lost in the millions of tweets. If you want to use a string of words they need to be all connected. For example #lovemyboss pulls up all sorts of tweets. Hashtags are also useful for building conversations about something. For instance, a lot of events and shows are making hashtags so that viewers can talk about the event/show as it's happening. The NFL team the New York Giants is utilizing fans' Twitter posts during actual games. Learn more about that here.

It’s important to not go overboard with the hashtags, though. Twitter recommends using no more than three per tweet.

There are many different hashtags used on Twitter. You can visit hashtags.org to see a list of all popular ones used.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

It can be hard to gain a following of supporters that are loyal and engaged on social networks. It’s can also be hard to be seen on a social network that hosts millions of people. So we’ve put together some tips to help you gain a better community on Facebook and Twitter. Here they are!

• Post content that gives your audience something; don’t try to sell something to them.
• Use the quality over quantity rule. Count your posts by worthiness not by how many there are.
• Reward followers with something. Holding a contest or raffle for a prize often gets people engaged.
• Post on people's walls and RT others. Make sure you engage outside of your own page.
• Stay true to your businesses goals and ethics. Don't compromise them on social networks. 

We hope this advice helps you build your community on Facebook and Twitter.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

New, unwrapped toys can be dropped off at the locations listed below. All donations will be picked up on December 14, 2011. See more info on the Eugene Generals Facebook page.





SELCO                                                                              YMCA
299 E. 11th Ave., Eugene                                                  2055 Patterson Street, Eugene
3169 West 11th Ave. Suite A1, Eugene                             
221 Division Road, Eugene                                               WAL-MART
925 Harlow Road, Springfield                                            2659 Olympic Street, Springfield
5531 Main Street, Springfield                                             4550 West 11th Ave., Eugene

MIKILAS BOOT CAMP                                                    6TH STREET GRILL
4540 Commerce St., Eugene                                            55 West 6th Ave., Eugene

JERRY'S                                                                           KADELS AUTO BODY
2525 Olympic Street, Springfield                                       1700 W. 2nd Ave., Eugene
2600 Highway 99 N, Eugene                                              4350 Main Street, Springfield

RITE AID                                                                            RIVERBEND HOSPITAL
57 West 29th Ave., Eugene                                                3333 Riverbend Drive, Springfield
1970 Echo Hollow Road, Eugnee
2130 Marcola Road, Springfield

Groupon has experienced tremendous growth and success in recent years. But with similar deal sites exiting the daily deal market, it is clear these sites can not sustain the amount of customers that they used to.

Recently, Facebook killed off Facebook Deals, its competitor to Groupon and other daily deal sites after just four months. Despite Facebook's 750 million users, they were unable to make their deals work. Perhaps more surprising is Yelp's withdrawal from the daily deal market. Yelp was more knowledgeable of local markets, a large asset in the daily deals market and yet still couldn't pull it off.

There are an increasing number of smaller entrants in the daily deal market posing a threat to the big players Groupon and LivingSocial. Groupon is currently working on a location based daily deal program to help them compete in what has become a very saturated market. But will it be enough to keep them afloat? Only time will tell.

What do you think? Will you keep using daily deal sites?

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/08/30/one-too-many-daily-deals/

WINNER:  Our first website brings us back to good old 1776. PBS has a section on their website devoted to the American Revolution called Liberty. The website is organized into four sections with a black background and “Liberty” written in a scrawly hand. Silhouettes of soldiers and a tattered flag are against a blue bar at the top. What’s really interesting about this website, though, is how the information is displayed.

In the first section, the website displays important events as if they were in an early newspaper. The paper is torn and yellowing, and the headlines look as if they were just freshly printed by Gutenberg himself. The article, however, is written in a modern typeface that is easy to read, set up very similarly to a modern newspaper. The key to being able to use interesting and unusual fonts is to not overuse them. Having the body copy in a simple font allows the headline to stand out, making it more than just information and actually a design element on the page. The article couldn’t be easily read if it were in a similar font to the other, and the impact of the headline would be diminished if it were mixed with something else with a lot of character. In this way, pick one thing you want to stand out on the page.

BLOOPER:  For our website blooper, we’ll visit The Victorian Web. Now here is a website with a LOT of text. With countless sections and articles and lists of dates, The Victorian Web offers a plethora of info. But it doesn’t offer a lot in the way of design. Does a website devoted to presenting knowledge need to look pretty? Well, perhaps not, but it does have to be organized and easy to read.

The visual organization and presentation of your text will reflect on how your reader thinks about and reads the text itself. The writing may be very good, but if it is presented poorly, the reader may question the website’s credentials. The wall of text that sometimes occurs on The Victorian Web could be intimidating and difficult to find information.

Be kind to your readers, and use a smaller box to present your information, instead of having it stretch across their browser regardless of resolution. Also, their opening page has little blue blocks set up in a diamond shape, with links to each different section. The text within the blue is sometimes too small or hyphenated, which makes it harder to read. This is a case when an unusual font hinders the overall message of the website, because it is squished into too small a space and against a garish color, so you can’t really derive the right mood from it.

When dealing with a lot of text it can be difficult to juggle design elements and the information you need to get out. Have fun with it, though. Just because you have a lot of text, doesn’t mean you can’t have a visually appealing website. Keeping in mind that less is more with fonts, you can showcase the perfect type to create the right feel for your website.

Until next time,
The Ruby Porter Team

Starbucks: If any business or brand can learn from someone else, they could definitely learn from Starbucks. Starbucks does an amazing job of communicating with its followers, engaging them and responding to feedback. Take a look at Starbuck's Facebook page here.

We hope these examples give you some help when you are trying to integrate new and traditional media.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team

Typography is everywhere, and, without realizing it, it dictates to us the mood and essence of whatever we’re looking at. Much studied and loved by many graphic designers, typography is more than just the words on the page, it can tell a story. Different fonts are like the different characters, making us read differently, with different tempos, different voices, and different moods.

In this campaign from Think! Road Safety from the UK, typography is used to create two different characters and thus a whole back story. The first font looks like one that would be used in a “See Jane Run” book, while the written font looks like the hand of a child drawing with paints. The juxtaposition of the two with the severity of the message creates a compelling argument to be aware of your actions to set a good example for your children. In this example especially, we are confronted with how different fonts have a voice all their own. As you read, switching from one font to the other is like reading a text book to hearing the sound of a child’s voice. When choosing the right font for your branding or advertising, be sure to think of the voice that you want to be heard and how you can play with that to create a strong brand essence.

Cheers,
The Ruby Porter Team