Merry Christmas… and a magic trick by Greg & Brody?

Posted on December 22nd, 2011 at 3:58 pm in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, culture, must read by admin

A MAGIC TRICK?

Watch carefully, and you’ll notice that this footage was shot all in one take. Which makes us wonder… how did Greg and Brody get around to each part of their office in the video?

FAMILY NEWS

You may also want to mosey on over to GregRittler.com/Christmasfor a special Christmas Card that will update you on the Rittler family.

And, if you haven’t heard by now, Brody and Lisa are expecting in June.

Merry Christmas from the 2011 Blue Ocean Ideas team,

Greg, Brody, Anna Grace, Chris, Maggie, Denny, Brandon, & Vali

The Weekly Idea: The Humility of Good Design

Posted on December 13th, 2011 at 11:00 am in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, The Weekly Idea, creativity/imagination, must read by brody

I take most things in life for granted. Turn the key, the car starts. Hit the “popcorn” button… done. Want a song? Download it. Need any – any – information? Fingertips. Things have gotten “easy,” in a sense, because of how they are designed.

We only notice the things that are broken.

There are a million things that go into good design that no one will ever see.

If something is designed well:

• it cannot advertise all the problems it solved.
• it cannot advertise the process needed to get to where it is.
• it cannot advertise all the design of other things needed to create the design of this thing.
• it cannot advertise waste, failure, and experimentation.

Good design can only be itself, a reflection of its creator, and a service to its user. Good design cannot say how good it is (this would kill its intended purpose). It must remain content at simply being good.

Good design fundamentally requires humility.

This is a pill many people are still not willing to swallow. Look at the billboards around you. Look at some popular websites. Look at the cable box remote. These are often not humble designs. Therefore, their effectiveness wanes. The business goal is missed. And there’s more clutter and less beauty in the world.

“Good design is as little design as possible,” says German designer Dieter Rams. Good design gets out of the way and just feels inevitable and leaves us wondering, “How can this be anything other than how it is?”

brody

P.S. The ideas in this post are inspired by the documentary Objectified, “a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them” (IMDB). Below is a clip of Apple’s Senior Vice President, Jonny Ive. It is formative and normative for the work we aspire to do at Blue Ocean Ideas. Check it out!

Weekly Idea: Meet Maggie, Our New Keeper of All Things Blue Ocean Ideas

Posted on December 7th, 2011 at 9:47 am in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, The Weekly Idea, must read, story by greg

When Brody and I started this business it was a lot of grandiose ideas and shared ideals. We were dreamers living the dream. We had all the things necessary for success:

• no cash
• no experience
• no clients
• no idea how difficult things would be

We worked hard. Very hard. Days, nights, weekends, holidays. We just worked.

And a magical thing happened:

With every project we grew and learned and got better at our craft. And we multi-tasked. While I was developing a strategy for a client, Brody was coming up with the big idea. While Brody was out meeting prospects I was developing a method to the madness. Brody wrote the Weekly Ideas while I kept the books (sort of). It was all hands on deck and between the two of us we wore what felt like 30 hats.

And we were having a ball. But we were getting really tired.

And then another magical thing happened:

We found people that loved what we were doing and wanted to join us on our mission. So we added staff and started to grow. And then the 30 hats felt like 20. What a relief.

And something else magical happened. We started getting good at what we do. And it wasn’t that Brody and I were getting good, it was that Blue Ocean Ideas was getting good at delivering for our clients. It was a team thing. We also found that we continued to struggle with some things. Details, mostly. And this could sometimes prevent each of us from doing what we’re best at.

And then another magical thing happened:

We found someone to join us and help fill the gaps that we had. Meet Maggie!

Maggie started Monday and is already making an impact. It’s fun to watch progress happen.

Maggie’s the quarterback, the coordinator, the keeper of Basecamp, the stickler for getting loose ends not loose any more, the “I’m on it like white on rice” person. She will help ensure that even while we continue to grow our clients are having the best experience possible.

You’ll love her.

We do already.

Keep moving forward,

Greg

p.s. Want to know more about Maggie? Here’s the scoop. If you want to send her a welcome email you can reach her at maggie@blueoceanideas.net.

Weekly Idea: An Optical Illusion and Brand Development

Posted on November 22nd, 2011 at 2:02 pm in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, The Weekly Idea, brand development, ideas, thought provoking by brody

Stare at the center of this image for several seconds. Relax. Keep staring.

Did you see it? The colors vanish.

This is called Troxler’s Fading (click for another visual example).

Here’s the principle: “Unvarying stimulus soon disappears from our awareness.” (Wikipedia) It’s just like how you can’t “feel” your shirt right now in the same way as when you put it on this morning.

The exact same thing is true for your brand. If you don’t move, if you don’t create edges, if you never surprise you will vanish.

Brands are built on consistency. If you’re not consistent, you’re not delivering on a promise. But no one ever said that consistency has to be predictable.

Predictable soon becomes invisible.

All of us are so busy that we are forced to ignore the predictable. What does this mean for your brand?

Take a risk,

brody

P.S. Yes, I can hear you now… “I want my latte to predictably taste the same at every Starbucks I go to.” You’re right. I’m not talking about the quality of your product or service. I’m talking about your advertising and messaging.

It’s really not about Twitter, Facebook, and Social Media

Posted on November 16th, 2011 at 11:15 am in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, The Weekly Idea, ideas, social media by greg

We have a lot of clients that are hot to trot about social media. And to be honest we are too.

At this moment in history Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms can be great ways to communicate.

We use them.

We have prospective clients who find us on social media. Many of them eventually buy from us.

And we LOVE that.

But I have to remind myself all the time:

Great communication is not about the tools.

It’s about the message. It’s about consistency. It’s about providing meaningful content. It’s about going where your audience is.

Right now that’s happening on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Websites, YouTube, and many other places, of course. But it will change over time.

The fundamental challenge is timeless:

Tell your story well.

Keep moving forward,

Greg

p.s. I took some time off of social media myself. Here’s why.

Weekly Idea: The Leadership of Erik DeVriendt

Posted on November 2nd, 2011 at 10:43 am in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, The Weekly Idea, brand development, ideas by brody

I was on hand for the dedication of the newest Chick-fil-A restaurant in the world. It opens today in Richmond, Virginia.

After a family-style meal at a local restaurant, my good friend and owner of the new Chick-fil-A store, Erik DeVriendt, delivered a simple, caring, and important keynote address to his 70 new employees.

It had everything to do with brand development. But, Erik didn’t use a single phrase like “brand development,” and he hardly talked about “business stuff” at all.

Instead, he talked about people.

He talked about the purpose of his restaurant.

He talked about the story his team would be writing.

He talked about why they are going to do what they do.

Congratulations! You were chosen to be here. I’m here to serve you. Whether you work here for several weeks or the next 40 years, my job is to make sure you feel like you were a part of something meaningful. You’re here to create remarkable experiences for our guests. Delight everyone that comes to our stores: our vendors, our team members, and our guests. Invest in the success of this store and our mission. This requires that you take a long-term view. Pioneer in the way you serve people. Take chances in going over the top to serve people. I’ll protect and correct you when you need it. Do whatever you can to make our restaurant feel like home to our guests. Be yourself, and use this opportunity to become the best version of yourself.

Erik’s entire speech was off the cuff and from the heart. You can’t do that unless you live and breath your vision.

Whoever tells the stories shapes the culture.

Erik told the story well, and he invited everyone there to be a part of it with him. Think they’ll do well?

What’s the culture like where you work? Brands start with how your people create those experiences for your clients. I hope you’re telling a good story to cultivate the results you want.

“Delight, invest, pioneer.”

brody

Take a Look at this Helicopter Company’s Logo Redesign

Posted on October 28th, 2011 at 1:42 pm in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, client work by anna grace

We recently started working with Pegasus, a helicopter company that has an evolutionary technology to offer.

The first step was redesigning their current logo. Pegasus was looking for a new logo that was revolutionary, modern, sleek and innovative.

In order to design a logo that represented Pegasus, it was important to research helicopters and look for inspiration in many different places. From the inspiration we created several logo concepts to show the client. The select few concepts shown below most reflected Pegasus’s vision and goals.

Initial Concept Drafts Shown to Client

Intial client reaction was exactly what we hope for: we’re heading in the right direction. It inspired conversation than honed what this logo needed to be about.

The client decided that number 2 was the concept that most reflected Pegasus. With the client’s feedback, we went to the drawing board.

The creation of this logo concept was geometrical and needed to be very accurately drawn. As you know, logos are complicated and difficult to make simple, so we knew we needed to start by sketching shapes on the whiteboards before creating the mark on the computer.

Whiteboard Sketches of Final Logo Concept

Our goal is always to use precision and perfection when designing a logo. Below you can see how we used lines, guides and shapes to create the logo.

Last Round of Logo Drafts

Number 4 is the final logo with the guidelines showing. The last part of the logo, shown above, was choosing the perfect typeface. It is just as important for the typeface to be perfect as it is the image itself. The two parts of the typeface and the image working together create the beautiful mark i.e. the logo.

There is a website that I always use and would recommend to other designers when trying to find the right typeface. Wordmark.it allows you to type in a word and it will load all of the fonts you have installed on your computer with your word in each typeface. It is very helpful to see your word or company name in hundreds of different fonts. I also recently wrote a post about typefaces every designer should have and know. You can read about it here.

I found the typeface Bangla MN and it was the perfect fit for Pegasus. Strong, innovative and sleek.

Wordmark.it Website

The concept behind this logo was two intersecting planes that are sharp and reflective. Pegasus is a revolutionary helicopter company and this logo reflects a helicopters movement through space.

We showed the client 4 versions of the mark with the tagline added with two different color options. Color produces emotion, and the carefully chosen orange red hue evokes power, excitement, and richness.

Last Round of Logo Shown to Client before Final

The client was thrilled with number 2.

With a few small changes to the text, Pegasus had a newly designed logo which you can see below.

Final Logo in Color and Black & White

Comparing their old logo to their new logo, you can see our redesign is much more fresh, clean, and reflective of Pegasus.

Old Pegasus Logo & New Pegasus Logo

The client could not be happier with our design. They were “head over heels” and so excited to have a new identity. The logo accurately reflects Pegasus’s vision to be innovative, sleek, and professional.

The last aspect of this process, was creating a logo guidelines document containing all of the information the client would need in regards to their logo, including color and typeface specifications.

Pegasus Logo Guidelines Delivered to Client

You know how important it is to have access to logo files at all times, so we make it easy for the client by creating a web page that contains all the logo files, logo guidelines, and typefaces. It is really important to us that our client is taken care of and has easy access to what we have designed.

Pegasus Logo, Guidelines and Fonts Download Page

Hopefully you are encouraged by this process and will stay tuned for the process of the website redesign.

Weekly Idea: Moneyball

Posted on October 27th, 2011 at 11:47 am in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, The Weekly Idea, culture, ideas, story by greg

On my 40th birthday I snuck out of the office a little early. Swung by Starbucks and grabbed my luxurious “Venti Americano, no room.” Went home and grabbed my kids and Elise.

Then we went and saw the movie Moneyball.

I’d been waiting for a week to see it.

It was terrific.

I don’t want to spoil it if you haven’t seen it. There were many lessons, but here’s my one big takeaway:

If you understand what drives your organization’s results, you can focus on that one thing and get drastically better performance.

Sounds painfully simple, right? And probably obvious? But the truth is very few organizations understand what drives their results.

The Oakland A’s realized that a baseball team of players with good on base percentages would cause them to win games. This was not the conventional wisdom at the time.

For Starbucks it is creating “third spaces” for people to connect with each other and themselves. Another simple, but innovative marketing concept at the time.

And for Blue Ocean Ideas?

Our driver is quality content. When we create quality content people connect with us, start relationships with us, and become clients.

This happens on the web when people search for content that we have produced, when we write articles and blog posts, when we tweet, when we share on Facebook, when we create films highlighting our work, and more.

If you build it (the right things for the right reasons) they will come (because they trust you).

What drives your organization’s results? What are you building?

Keep moving forward,

Greg

p.s. Our friend Chris Hourihan from Morgan Stanley in New York sent us a great article from Harvard Business Review titled “Selling is Not About Relationships.” Check it out. If you’re responsible for sales or business development in your organization it’s worth wrestling with.

Weekly Idea: The Single Most Strategic Thing You Can Do

Posted on October 19th, 2011 at 2:51 pm in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, The Weekly Idea, ideas, thought provoking by brody

The single most strategic thing you can do is ask “Why?”.

In every circumstance, for every decision, ask “Why?”.

And when you have an answer to that question, take your answer and ask “Why?”.

Keep on asking why to every answer you get. Turn it into a habit. This will help make sure that what you’re doing is an intentional and meaningful decision.

This isn’t an exercise in skepticism. It’s an exercise in purpose.

This “keep asking why” technique is exactly the process we engage in with client work. Why does that message matter to your client? Why is that a good strategy? Why does this button go here? Why does this link say it that way? Why should we film at this angle? Why choose this music? Why do we think this certain thing is important?

Why do we do this?

Because we have to start with the assumption that know one cares. If that’s your starting point, you have to be intentional.

And earning the right to be heard (while having something meaningful to say) is the best marketing strategy we know.

What are you going to ask “Why?” about this week? I’d love to hear about it.

brody

P.S. This is a corollary idea, but it’s still good advice from our friend Pat: “You can’t just want what you want. You have to want what your wants lead you to.”

Behind the Scenes: The Financial Consulate Website

Posted on October 10th, 2011 at 12:44 pm in Blog, Blue Ocean Ideas, brand development, client work, ideas, story by anna grace

In this post I will go into more detail about the process and behind-the-scenes work of the new Financial Consulate website.

The Financial Consulate is a financial firm in Maryland that is “redefining wealth” for those families and individuals who want to have a different perspective of the role of money in their lives. When we first met with Financial Consulate we learned about their vision to use their website to quickly express to their clients a new approach to money: that money has no real power other than that we give it. This was one of a few key themes that we learned from hearing Financial Consulate’s story and we wanted to make it a prominent part of their new site. Financial Consulate felt that their current website did not accurately reflect who they were as a company and the positive values they stood for. Below is a snapshot of Financial Consulate’s old website.

Our goal is always to help our clients tell their story well. We wanted to created a website for Financial Consulate that accurately told their story of helping their clients be relieved from the burden money can bring and give them time to spend with those they love. We took many notes during this initial meeting and used these notes to kickstart our strategic design process. Here are some of the notes from the initial meeting.

We led Financial Consulate through a process we use for our business and our clients to help more clearly define the “why” behind what they do. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And this is especially true for Financial Consulate. Their “why” is to redefine the role and purpose of a financial advisory by protecting clients and their finances (i.e. acting as a veritable consulate).

The next step was sketching out the website on our glassboards based on the notes from the initial meeting with Financial Consulate. This helps us get our heads around where we’re going with design and development needs.

From this sketch we created a wireframe (more formal document) to present to Financial Consulate that showed our vision for the homepage and other custom page templates. We also created an information architecture (IA) document that presented all of the content, functionality, and requirements for the site in an organized way.

Financial Consulate was very pleased with our organization of information in the IA document and the wireframe. After they signed off on the concept, we started designing in Photoshop. Here is the process of the homepage design from first draft to final design.

We designed the main focus of the homepage to be the header images that had short, powerful statements that represented Financial Consulate’s purpose and approach. Another main focus was having Financial Consulate’s vision next to the photo slider. We also designed a tabbed page element that describes Financial Consulate’s services and process.

For the interior pages we wanted the sidebar to have Financial Consulate’s vision to be at the top of the sidebar and their list of services as the rest of the sidebar to give easy access to this primary content. We added social media sharing capability on the top of every page as well as a large header image to help describe the content of the page.

The final piece in the puzzle was to design a specific template for the team page and each individual staff person’s page. We wanted to highlight each staff member so their clients would be able to learn about each person, read about their specialties, and have the ability to connect with them.

We are very proud of this website and Financial Consulate couldn’t be happier. You can check out Financial Consulate’s re-designed website for yourself and explore the new design! Feel free to leave a comment below about your thoughts on the new website or our process.

Anna Grace