I am by nature long winded. What takes others four words to say, probably takes me 25, and I will repeat myself. As a writer though, redundancy and wordiness need to be left behind.

At DDA, writing copy, specifically for websites, oftentimes means writing search engine optimized content. As I know my fellow writers have already covered, SEO content requires a lot more than just punching in keywords here and there. We need to create upwards of 30 to 40 professional and knowledgeable pages — and on a few occasions a lot more — of content targeting specific keywords, written specifically to the intended audience, with accompanying paragraphs and additional optimized content.

As with anything else, you need to be as concise as possible. People have short attention spans and regardless if they’re reading a brochure, watching a video, or looking at a tradeshow banner, the message has to be clear and to the point.

This holds true for content development for highly optimized websites that we are designing and developing.  While we target literally hundreds of keywords, the writers go to great pains to guarantee that every single one of those keywords is integrated correctly and concisely just as we would for any other content we are writing.

By keeping it concise and to the point, we are engaging visitors and keeping them interested, while at the same time achieving optimal search engine rankings.

Have you seen the show Survivorman? Well, really it should be called Survivorcameraman. In case you haven’t seen the show, it’s about this guy who goes out into the wilderness around the globe with 3 cameras, the clothes on his back and seven days to fend for himself with no food or water. His shows, which usually run 30 minutes in length, are made of video entirely shot by himself during his expedition. By strategically placing the tripod and camera along with thorough post production, he achieves in creating a well composed and edited documentary which one might think took a whole crew to orchestrate. In one episode, Les Stroud (aka Survivorcameraman) talks about the hardest challenge during his 7 days in the snowy and harsh landscapes of Alaska. It wasn’t the cold or the lack of food. Not the sunlite nights. But it was having to deal with the cameras, setting them up, walking away from them while the camera records his trudging into the distance, and then turning back around and getting the camera only to set it up for another distant shot of his desolation. I wonder how many cameras he’s gone through? It must be hard to have all these lenses… these eyes looking at you, staring, recording, speaking to it and having nothing to add to conversation.

I was thinking how interesting it would be for DDA to have a documentary, solely shot by each individual in the company, Survivorman style, with trips to the water cooler allowed of course. If the various departments documented their script writing, or programming, web design, website optimization and flash animating, and all the wonderful things we do here at DDA. I can only imaging the mess of tripods around the office as we document our hikes from the distant and cavernous video department to the high-altitude levels of the writers department, all the challenges and obstacles that may stand in-between, ever wary of the jingling and panting of the greatly feared hyena-dog, Indie.

Visitors to our Portfolio don’t often see what has gone on behind the scenes for each finished designed piece. What is shown in our portfolio is the chosen design, most often by the client, that has been printed, uploaded or burned to a CD or DVD. What they have not had the opportunity to view are all the concepts that were provided to the client to choose from. I like to give my 3-year old two choices. You can either have this or that, do this now or do it later, say you’re sorry or sit on the step. And, usually, it works. There may be tears, but it works. Everyone likes to have choices and most often DDA provides our clients with at least 2-4 choices to review before making a decision. We encourage client involvement and will provide our professional opinions and suggestions on designs - whether it be for a printed piece such as a brochure, logo design or trade show graphic, or a design for online or CD/DVD use such as a website, intranet, or video for CD/DVD. The designs that were not selected are saved in the client’s file and archived with all the other important files for that project. Since we do not use templates for our designs and each design is custom for our clients these other choices are usually not to be seen again. Until now… We will soon be offering, starting with our Logo Design portfolio, the option to take a peek at our DDA Sketchbook which will showcase the designs that were not chosen. It’s time for the unchosen to have their turn in the spotlight!

Sometimes things appear so clear and simple- but underneath it all it is so very complicated. Right now, I am working to help make a beautiful website easier to use. The design is clean and elegant and fresh, but  some people can get a little lost. I know for a fact how much detail and effort is going on behind the scenes so that we can make everything perfect. Our designers, programmers, copywriters and web developers are always working together to make everything just right. Our Website Design Company will tweak every last detail until all of the advanced programming, web design, photography, and video work together to make this site exciting, fun, and easy to use. Just another normal day here at DDA.

Using the computer as a common medium for printed design, website design, and video has resulted in each specialty influencing each other. Whatever our specialty, each of us has become somewhat of a multimediast.

For example, printed design sometimes looks more like website design through the organization of its content. Article outlines are often designed like website buttons.

Websites use callouts like in printed media, except they become buttons. Flipbooks (virtual books that can be flipped through, complete with page turning mpeg sounds) have become popular on websites.

Video is frequently used on websites in the form of a spokesperson.

Illustration construction and deconstruction (like Harold and the Purple Crayon) has become popular in video.

What does this mean? I like to think of it like multiculturism. Different media worlds getting to know each other, curious, and finding appreciation for what is unique and getting excited about what is similar. Ultimately, it’s a bigger playground!

What does your tradeshow booth say about your company? At a tradeshow, your booth is your first impression to potential clientèle. You should be able to attract attendees and encourage them to purchase your products or services with ease.

So needless to say, a booth with a six-foot table and a table cover will most likely convert to a few select leads with a good sales person on site. On the other hand, a booth with custom designed banners, tablecovers, video, graphics and a great sales person will convert a greater number of leads simply because your booth will be making a solid first impression.

Along with the design and development of your booths presentation there are many components “behind the scenes” of exhibiting at a tradeshow. There are numerous rules and regulations that you must follow; these differ between locations.

Many shows require approvals and samples prior to allowing your booth be displayed. How are you going to get everything to the show and then back into your possession? DDA can help you with all of these items. We would be glad to organize your tradeshows for you.

Like smells, colors may mean different things to different people and stir up memories that would otherwise be forgotten. For example, every time I smell Garnier Fructis shampoo it reminds me of when I had morning sickness. This is a smell I don’t ever wish to smell again. Color and certain color combinations also carry around different meanings and create a mood, welcomed or not.

In the corporate world, companies adopt their corporate colors - brown for UPS, yellow for DHL and purple/orange for Fedex - and use these colors as the main focus of their branding. UPS has certainly taken their corporate color and created an entire marketing theme: “What can brown do for you?” Color choice, along with all the other ingredients to a successful design (typography, composition, photography, imagery, illustration), needs careful consideration before beginning a project.

Just now I got a phone call from a client requesting that their video animation be placed on a dark blue background to create a slick, classy look. While I am sure we can create a slick, classy video animation on any color background, for this particular client dark blue was chosen. Luckily there are some general rules when choosing the proper color and as with all rules there are exceptions. Except the rule about running with scissors. That should never ever be broken. 

Here are a few: Stay away from reds when designing for the healthcare industry. Yellows, reds, and oranges are great color choices for restaurants and the food industry as they have been proven to increase one’s appetite while blues have been proven to suppress ones appetite as people commonly associate them with mold or rot. However, blue is a great choice for very corporate companies that want to emote dedication, trust, and loyalty.   

As a professional advertising copywriter at DDA, I am responsible for developing creative and effective copy for website designs, brochure designs, and direct mail pieces, scripts for video and animation production, and much more. I must be flexible enough to switch topic, industry, and media format from one minute to the next. In my experience, I’ve found that clients either “get” your work or they don’t quite understand why something was worded a certain way.

Typically, I submit my content to clients for their review with little to no commentary because I truly want to gauge if it worked to convey the right message. Most of the time, clients follow the intention, but sometimes clients are at a loss, which happens most often when working with international clients who rely on us to develop copy on their behalf that sells in the U.S. or when working with clients on a search engine optimized website where there are a million and one intricacies involved in developing first-page ranking copy.

Because it happens so infrequently that I need to explain why I wrote what I wrote in the fashion that I did, I almost welcome the opportunity to clarify things so clients know that there is a method to the madness that is advertising copywriting. Whether it’s for word structure, word play, high search engine rankings or any other strategy, my copy does have purpose. Once clients see all the thought that is involved in the development of their copy, they have a renewed sense of appreciation for the written word and a respect for the copywriting services of DDA.

Quite often DDA graphic designers are called upon to meet with clients during a project’s kick-off meeting. The project might be a brochure design, logo design, or new website design or as was the case this past Thursday, a new package design. DDA (Dynamic Digital Advertising) was called upon to create graphics for a package design very similar to a sample package provided by the client.

While the package design served its purpose and the product sold, we felt it important to improve on the design of the package as well as the graphics. At one point, we suggested to abandon the package altogether and allow the product to stand alone. We are always looking for the best possible solution to any client project request. If that solution benefits DDA, great.

Our client’s are important to us and it is our job to deliver the best possible design whether it comes in the form of an animation, video, logo, package or website. Their satisfaction to a solution that is beneficial and produces results is our ultimate goal.  I believe our client left our meeting knowing that DDA is on their side and confident in the fact that a successful package design will be delivered!

DDA subscribes to several business practices and principles that directs everything we do. They are transparency, ethical conduct, and doing the right thing. The practice of these are both just good, sane, logical and practical approaches to client and vendor relations and emotional, cerebral and feel-good-about-yourself practices and beliefs that allows one to look himself or herself in the mirror each morning and sleep well at night.

Some definitions through the eyes of DDA:

Transparency. I like to think I am a good communicator. I know I am a lousy listener. My other career path might well have been as a history teacher and I sometimes wonder if the excitement of the advertising and business world overwhelmed my common sense.

Despite my best efforts, I recognize that four people in a meeting or discussion will leave with four slightly or largely different understandings of what just happened, what information was shared, what conclusions were drawn, and what the next steps are. Since we believe strongly that good process is at the core of all efficiency, somehow each successful advertising, branding, or marketing meeting must result in common understanding, shared goals, and a focused unified vision of the end game.

Transparency tools are woven into and heaped upon every advertising, branding, or marketing project we undertake. DDA TRAC (Time Resource and Accounting) is an in-house developed, Internet-based time tracking database tool. The result is that every hourly billed project including programming, logo design, graphic design, copywriting, photography, video, 2D and 3D animation, illustration, trade show displays, large format graphics, print design and print production for sell sheets, catalogs, brochures, flyers, direct mail, business cards, training portals and tools, CME design and development and even search engine optimization (SEO) is invoiced accurately. No time, not one minute is rounded up or added on, and every invoice is accompanied by a detailed minute-by-minute description of how the time was spent. On time, On budget, On TRAC every time.

Additional tracking and reporting tools abound. DDA’s search engine optimization (SEO) work has a series of metrics that perpetually report website visitation, usage, pathways, experience-based mapping, rankings, and much more. Website analysis means corporate websites can be better understood, improved, and managed.

Online proofing development websites are assigned to each client and each project. Our clients see every project unfold, improve, and take shape and their input is welcomed, requested, and insisted upon every step of the way.

Transparency is as much an attitude as it is a report or tool. At DDA, we believe that direct communication is the hallmark of a truly professional service-oriented vendor. We answer the phone, have project coordinators for each client, welcome questions and love client interaction. Every project is a blend of skills, expertise, information, and point-of-view provided by both the client and DDA.

Call us anytime. At DDA, the Transparency is clearly better.

Ethical Conduct to follow Monday.

Doing the Right Thing to follow Tuesday.