Welcome to the Peak Blog (the "Plog" -- get it? "Peak" + "blog"?) where we post happening Peak news, our take on current events and an occasional industry tip or two. Have a suggestion for a topic to tackle? Send it in and we'll "plog" about it immediately.
July 15, 2008 - Google Tidbits
- Some tips on searching more efficiently with Google: PDF (via our friends at XploreNet)
- Adwords – More customers or more “work”?: Hits the Target, Misses the Bullseye
[Posted by Bill Burns]
July 3, 2007 - Check out ArtReach Denver
We are very pleased to have worked with our friend Karla Johnson-Grimes and her team at ArtReach Denver on a number of recent creative projects including designing and developing their new Web site (check it out at www.artreachdenver.org). Kristin, Anthony and Bill led the Peak engagement team on the site – and we’re really pleased with the results.
If you don’t know about ArtReach, their mission is to provide “life-changing arts and cultural experiences to people of all ages in need” across the Denver metro area. A really great organization that we’re glad to have helped. Check ‘em out and support them if you can.
[Posted by Bill Burns]
June 30, 2007 - Peak newbies
Welcome new Peaker’s to the team:
Sarah Smith is our new Seattle lead Project Manager and is working closely with T-Mobile and our other Washington clients on all sorts of events and creative projects.
Jennifer Collins joined our Denver office as a Senior Project Manager overseeing a broad range of print and event projects.
Ryan McKibben has brought his mad design skillz to the Denver office and will be working on both print and Web projects.
Hope you’ll get to work with these latest Peak SuperStars soon!
[Posted by Bill Burns]
June 18, 2007 - Webpagesthatsuck.com
Webpagesthatsuck.com. Great domain name. I always love urls that tell you exactly what you’re going to get or make a point – even if you never click over to it. (The satire sites on which I occasionally work have always taken this approach, thus: TomCruiseIsNuts.com, WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com, etc.).
WebPagesthatSuck.com is a great resource for anyone looking for examples of sites to avoid at all costs. Painful at times to review a few of the cringe-inducing designs and read a little of nails-on-the-blackboard copy that’s out there — but well worth a few minutes before you dive into your next web design project.
[Posted by Bill Burns]
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June 15, 2007 - The Four Second Cut-off
First it was the MTV-ization of television and video that forced all of us who work in those spaces to approach every project with more cuts, more motion, more music, more eye-candy — more everything… and faster — to keep viewers engaged in watching our stuff.
Now comes news from a recent Akamai study that the same is happening to the web. In fact, according to their study (read it here), if your site doesn’t fully load within the first four seconds the casual surfer will start clicking somewhere else.
This growing lack of patience is right in line with the way more and more savvy web users think of the web itself. The net isn’t the passive, one-way communications medium that defines television. Instead, the web is an always-on, two-way dialogue between users and the successful sites that understand how to serve up information and content with ease of use, ease of access.
So say goodbye to those elaborate flash intros and overly produced front pages that were seemingly so de rigueur for every site just a couple years ago.
Load fast, keep it clean, make everything easy to find. Those are more and more the rules of the road in successful web design.
[Posted by Bill Burns]