It was a no-brainer that a minimalistic design would be the way to go. We also wanted the site to look beautiful on modern tablets and mobile phones… it looks especially great on an iPad. Our thanks to Simon Ley and his team for this great web design opportunity.

Click here to visit The Ley Group website »

Our Doors are Open for Business!

I’m excited to announce the launch of the website for our new creative social media agency located in the beautiful Cleveland Park neighborhood of NW Washington, DC. And, yes, the doors really are open so stop on by and say hello.

Who is the “our” I’m refering to? That would be my Shout Brigade partners. We’ve put together an amazingly creative team of accomplished designers, developers, writers and marketers who hail from the top ranks of DC area advertising and brand-building agencies and social media marketing, interactive and design firms.

About the Shout Brigade Branding and Logo Design

After we decided on the name of our new agency, our branding concept was almost a no-brainer. Social Media Marketing would be the primary focus of the new agency, and in broad terms most marketing is a form of propaganda. And, we all love old war-time Propaganda Poster Art, especially that of US WWII Propaganda Posters. So, we wanted a logo that would represent the military aspect of our name, propoganda art to represent our social media specialization, and we also wanted it to represent our hometown of Washington, DC. We went through many variations of our logo (some seen above) sticking with the same concept which can be seen in our final logo. We incorporated military officer stripes to represent the military aspect, the iconic feel used in a lot of propaganda art, the “S” for Shout Brigade, and as some DC residents will notice, we’ve even incorporated the Washington, DC flag.

About the Shout Brigade Web Design

The Design of the Shout Brigade website is all about our love of propaganda art as you will easily see. To our joy, we found that most propaganda poster art is now public domain, so we took advantage of that and have portions of that amazing imagery throughout every page of the site. There’s a fine line between a cool concept and going overboard with the punnery and I think we walked that line well by also maintaining a more modern and clean feel to the sight. I love working on our concept and look forward to adding many cool features to our website in the near future. Subscribe to the Shout Brigade Social Media Marketing Newsletter to keep up with the latest Shout Brigade news and also get great tips for growing your businesses using social media.

Enhanced for Social Media Marketing

The new site is designed to enhance the winery’s upcoming social media marketing campaigns, as well as cater to their already loyal following. New owners Randy and Meagan Morgan are ready to take the winery to the next level and their efforts can be seen very soon. For updates on this project you can subscribe to my RSS feed, or connect directly with the winery via twitter, facebook, or their newsletter. Or better yet, take a trip out to see the winery for yourself and treat yourself to a tasting. The winery is less than an hour outside Washington, DC in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

Client: True Creative Services
Project: Naked Mountain Winery Rebranding & Web Design
Services: Branding, Web Design and Development, Search Engine Optimization (SEO, SEM), Social Media Marketing (SMM), WordPress Integration

Self Portrait

I am blown away every time I see a new painting by Washington, DC area local, and friend, Seth Haverkamp. I had to throw the “friend” part in there so I can brag that I know him when he becomes rich and famous. I’m not kidding about that last part, there is already quite a buzz about Seth’s paintings. He’s won numerous awards including Portrait Society of America’s Best of Show in 2008, and Stephen Doherty, the editor of American Artist magazine, has said of Seth, “I haven’t seen this much promise in a young artist in a long time.” So, if you’re in the market for an art investment or would like to commission a painting, you better grab him now before it’s too late. You can reach Seth via email at seth.haverkamp@gmail.com, by phone at 865.809.1631, or you can even attend one of his painting classes.

Below is just a handful of my favorite of Seth’s paintings, including a few paintings of his beautiful daughters. Hope you enjoy, and if you do, please share this with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Rappahannock Cellars

Easily the best designed Virginia Winery website. Great imagery, easy to navigate, social media integrated, perfect use of “call-to-actions,” and great presentation of wines.

Afton Mountain Vineyards

This is one of my favorites. This site is extremely inviting. The only criticism I have is that the homepage’s slideshow requires Flash which greatly limits accessibility to those great photos.

Hidden Brook Winery

A very pleasant and well laid out website design. I would just suggest that social media networks be added to the website and their marketing plan if not already in place, and I would highly recommend updating their wine label designs.

Well Hung Vineyards

A fun site with a great story, and you have to love the winery name’s double entendre.

Hume Vineyards

Great logo, nice images and great presentation of wines. Would suggest better typography design and a “call-to-action” on the homepage.

Ox-Eye Vineyards

Though site is not currently live, the under construction page looks very promising.

Annefield Vineyards

A very well thought out site architecture and design.

Rosemont of Virginia

Love that the homepage has been minimalized to the most important features: images to create an environment, last news listings, a Visit the Winery “call-to-action”, hours, and contact info.

I’ve been working on a website for my friend, Nick Galifianakis, a syndicated cartoonist. If your local paper carries the Carolyn Hax advice column, then you’ve most likely seen his work. Today I’ve rolled out a soft launch of his new website called Nick and Zuzu. Have a look and let me know what you think. We’re still in the testing phase so if you find any glitches let me know.

While you’re there you should pick up a copy of his new book, If You Loved Me, You’d Think This Was Cute: Uncomfortably True Cartoons About You, which is currently the top selling nonfiction paperback in the Washington, DC area. This is the same book in which Nick’s cousin Zach Galifianakis plugged his jacket “blurb” on Jimmy Fallon. It would make a great Christmas gift, or stocking stuffer.

This last year has been insane! The birth of my daughter, Stacie Maria, and the multitude of side-projects has caused me to completely neglect my own website and social media profiles. It’s been embarrassing to have to tell my web design and social media marketing clients, “Do as I say, not as I do.” That all changes today.

The New Website Design

I’ve decided to get back to the basics. This simple blog format will force me to post new content — no longer will my blog be hidden a few pages deep. There is also a new focus on selling myself as is implied by the extremely narcissistic version of my name/logo. Anyone coming to my site will definitely know my name. Actually the logo and design are just phase one of a pretty cool experimental idea that I have for the site. I should be able to launch phase two sometime in mid-December mid-February [updated]. With that said, this site is still in beta testing mode so if you notice any hiccups or issues, please let me know.

A New Focus on Social Media

I also wanted to start focusing on my Social Media Marketing services since it now accounts for the bulk of my new projects. You can find links to my profiles at the top of this page. and if you look at the very top of the site you will notice a link to subscribe to my Social Media Newsletter. I started this newsletter last year, but put it on hold while I was working on a new format. That new format has arrived with a new life and a new name, GorillaTweets. The newsletter will launch as a “fun and easy” approach to helping small business owners understand and use social media in order to grow their business. Too many of today’s social media marketing newsletters are too technical, and down-right boring. We think that the new formula we’ve come up with will be perfect for new and intermediate users of social media.

Lots of New Projects in the Works

I have quite a bit of new projects also launching soon. Projects will include a couple of free WordPress themes, of course GorillaTweets: A Social Media Survival Guide (mentioned above), the Give Heart Project, Coffeehouse Magazine, a reseller-based WordPress Design Project, and quite a few more in the works for next year. I know that’s kind of vague… you’ll just have to keep reading my blog to find out more. To keep up you can sign up for my newsletter, follow me via my RSS feed, start a project with me, or connect with me via my social media links at the top of the site.

The Coalition for Residential Education (C.O.R.E.) of Bethesda, MD is the national nonprofit organization promoting and strengthening residential education programs for economically and socially disadvantaged youth. The client approached us with the task of redesigning their website, updating the design using the latest technologies, and create greater online accessibility and visibility in order to increase donations.

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David’s Beautiful People is one of the top rated salons in the Washington, DC area. The client needed a full redesign of their website. The goal was to give their site a more polished, professional look and optimize the site for greater search engine visibility.

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Washington, DC’s Govinda Gallery represents and exhibits the largest collection of music related photography in the world. Being a huge fan of this famous Georgetown Gallery, I approached owner Chris Murray about bringing his website into the 21st century. Chris has already embraced the WordPress blogging system and is regularly posting some great photos representing the history of Govinda Gallery. This site is currently a work in progress.

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