Confessions of a Graphic Designer

What's more important? Building a brand, or serving your customers? Happy buyers are essential to making your business succeed. Without customer service, it doesn’t matter if you’ve created a great brand. Ignoring buyers or potential customers is counter-productive to the ultimate goal of attaining success. That being said, a strong brand identity is like a way-finding system for your customers, so it’s very important, too. It signals what you do, how you position yourself and lets your customers understand how you fit into the marketplace, and how it relates to them. Customers encounter your brand and should quickly understand a brand’s personality and position among competitors and decide whether there is a good fit. That’s how the Graham Cracker Cookie Crumbles Some of you know, my husband, David Horsfall , and I opened Alki Surf Shop  in Seattle seven months ago. It may be February, and so what if Boston is buried in 100 inches of snow ( @chillie31512 )?...

Rejection sounds negative, but it can play a positive role in choices we make. It can force us to pivot in a new direction and help us develop skills to adapt and succeed. By changing our focus to something we hadn’t planned, rejection can lead us to a better outcome than if we’d simply been handed the thing we wanted. In pursuit of happiness? Last fall I learned of a great job with one of my local design clients. They were looking for a communications director who could write, work well with others, and organize the department. Plus it was a bonus if they had design and social media skills. I’d had my business for a long time and, thinking I might be an ideal candidate, I vigorously pursued it. Five months of meetings and interviews led me to become one of two finalists. The search culminated when I had a 9-hour successive interview with about 40 people. After ruminating three weeks, they emailed to say neither of us were chosen, and they were going to start the search anew....

Why We Need to Digital Detox Our Irrepressible Need to Be Connected From the moment we adopted the smart phone—a tiny, life-altering portable computer—the need to stay connected intensified. Our devices provided us with instant connectivity. And with the introduction of social media, the time we spent connecting practically doubled as we kept up with daily news of not just real life, but also virtual friends. It’s extraordinary how technology enables us to have our family and friends as close as our pockets. But our devices can be like a spoiled pet—needy and demanding. Digital Day-cation In September I posted a tweet about Jake Knapp's year, free of digital distraction from the iPhone. A Twitter friend, Adrian Lee, saw it and tweeted me to say he was going to give it a try for 24 hours. I didn’t think about it too much until he wrote about it. He did it! I was so impressed! Social media relationships, as those in real life, thrive when you are present an...

How the heck did we make this dream happen? If you're walking along Alki Avenue SW near 59th and see this sign, come up and say hi! Alki is Seattle’s favorite beach, and although thousands of visitors flock here each year, branded items have been hard to find. We saw an opportunity to fill a need, and that's when we decided to move from online to brick and mortar. Today Alki Surf Shop has a ton of Alki-branded merchandise (clothing, souvenirs, consumables), with more Genuine Alki shirts and hoodies than anywhere else on Earth. Due in part, to a little bit of luck. In May of 2014, thanks, to our neighbor, Sandi Bender, we came upon a rare opportunity to rent a retail space right in the heart of Alki Beach. And so the birth of our store began. We change up this display to show different merchandise. It must work because customers buy things right off the mannequin. Neither David nor I have a lot of retail experience. I worked at several stores in high s...

Building the Legendary Alki Surf Shop When I first tell them, friends look at me with a confused expression. But for many, the more they learn, the more excited they are for this next daring step in my life. This month, my husband, David Horsfall, and I have been consumed with demolishing a former tattoo shop, seven steps up from Alki Beach, and rebuilding it into what we hope will be part of the vibrant Alki Beach and West Seattle communities. Alki Surf Shop began last fall as David’s dream. Years ago after seeing an episode of the Real Housewives of New York City, I noticed something interesting: All the women were very wealthy, and they all SOLD things. David ruminated about my observation, and several years later came up with the concept of Alki Surf Shop, and began work designing t-shirts, branding, and  the marketing communications needed to launch www.alkisurfshop.com . Ty and Katie near the Seattle Statue of Liberty We will be selling our Alki-bran...

This morning, in typical fashion, our silver tabby, enjoyed his favorite pastime, watching our goldfish, Gil. I recently received a Nokia Lumina Icon from Verizon Wireless , and took the opportunity to record a video of them together, then shared it on Facebook. Click to view a better-quality video on YouTube It turned out to be the last video taken of him while he was alive, because Gil died tonight. He was 17 years old. He came to our home in a bag filled with 25-cent feeder goldfish we purchased to feed our pet tiger salamander. It all began when our oldest son, Andrew, was in the seventh grade, and decided he wanted to create a "stream" as a biology project. We started with a single tank, rocks, sand, and a pump to create a waterfall and eventually had three fish tanks populated with frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, snails and more! Then unexpectedly, the salamander metamorphosed from aquatic to terrestrial, and would no longer feed under wat...

Seattle is nestled between two incredibly beautiful mountain ranges and bordered by Elliott Bay. Seattle is innovative. Amazon, Starbucks, Nordstrom, UPS, Microsoft, Costco, REI, Boeing and many other companies, began here. It's a big city, but it is still a place where people wait for the light to turn green before they cross the street. Waiting for the light to turn green on Denny St. in Seattle by Terri Nakamura I don’t think of Seattle as a trendy place, but I do have friends who have to jump on every new thing, When Rolfing was in, they were Rolfed. Eggs and butter were banished for years. When low-carb diets were de rigueur, they eschewed bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. When colonics came along, they had their innards flushed. Personal trainers, massages, French manicures, vegan or raw diets, yoga, Pilates, spinning, rock climbing...the list goes on. Maybe my standards are too low, but I’m basically happy with the way I am. Alone among my friends, I don’t dye...

The City of Seattle is in the process of deciding whether or not to eliminate ride-sharing services such as Uber , Lyft and Sidecar . Is that a good thing? If you've ever watched Portlandia , you have an idea of what it's like to live 200 miles north. Seattle is very open and progressive, but at the same time it feels the need to regulate almost everything. Our City Council can get bogged down on inane issues, such as spitting in public parks. However, when communication delivery shifted from print to the web, would it have made sense for the Seattle City Council to regulate online information sources in order to keep local  printers in business? Of course not. Which brings us back to getting around town. The taxi industry is in revolt over the unfairness of competing with ride-sharing enterprises. Taxis are subjected to layers of regulation, where ride-sharing entities are not. It makes sense to analyze the different requirements for ride sharing and t...

I'm a long-time consumer of new technology, which is unusual since I'm old enough to be the mom of a huge percentage of people on social media! Many of my peers are befuddled by technology and social media. Some have joined Facebook and Twitter and now blog, and some are now using tablets, smart phones and e-readers. I have been often asked for help and advice. This year I've had the opportunity to access new products, from portable drives to smart phones, back up batteries and gadgets. Some have been amazing and great; others have been okay, and yet others have been disappointing. I'm writing this recap of some products I've either purchased, funded, or have been given to test this year. I hope you find some of my opinions useful! Smart phones: I'm a long-time iPhone user (currently using the iPhone5), but recently was given the chance to use the Samsung Galaxy S4 . It was my first encounter with the Android operating system. Those alread...

Why I think Empire Avenue is a legitimate tool. More than two years ago I began playing Empire Avenue. Created in 2010, there was a great deal of excitement when Empire Avenue made its splash into the social media mainstream in the spring of 2011. Well-known people in social media jumped in, and many are still active players. Last year some of them stopped. One player told me he thought it took too much time. And certainly in the beginning, it could be time-consuming. Others could never really figure out how to play, and although they are still there, their accounts are dormant. As Empire Avenue has continued to evolve from strictly a social media stock market game to a social media tool, some perceived Empire Avenue in a negative way. This new perception came about with the advent of "missions," which offers rewards to players who complete tasks. Some people perceive missions as "buying influence." But some of these same people are also buying fo...

When it comes to navigating the social maze, it helps to know someone who is omniscient. After college, I had a roommate we affectionately called "Truck." Truck was petite and pretty, and had the most insanely beautiful eyes in the world. Being a New Yorker, and having been raised by a very proper Austrian mother, Truck knew everything about correct behavior. When she moved to Seattle, she was much more sophisticated than anyone in our group of laid-back Seattle friends. It was like she was adult and the rest of us were still figuring things out. And she knew obscure things for someone our age to know: She knew an oriental rug should have a pad; she knew burned food was carcinogenic; she knew how to COOK.  Her mom worked for a major publishing house in New York, so she was very well read. She had impeccable manners and a vast knowledge of etiquette. When we worked on a magazine together, some of the guys in our office called her Miss Manners. She took ...

I love Instagram , the smart phone app! It is one of the coolest social media platforms as it allows us to express who we are through the photos we take. Through Instagram’s built-in filters and additional applications, it’s possible for an average person to look like a professional photographer. It’s great to see your images come to life Also, Instagram is a terrific social channel for discovering people and communicating with them. You can participate by posting photos; by following the photo streams of other users; by liking and commenting; or simply participate as a spectator. In any case, you will be treated to new and interesting photos every moment of the day, and can converse with people, unhampered by a 140 character limit. Having spent a great deal of my life standing beside photographers as I direct photo shoots, it’s a lot of fun to actually be the shooter. I’ve not read any “how-tos” regarding Instagram, and came about the following suggestions through tri...