Jeff Wagner Interactive

Archive for the ‘Print Design’ Category

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Market your company with great looking apparel

April 27th, 2010 - by Jeff Wagner

So how are you marketing your company these days for all the world (or your target market area) to see? Recently, I had a bunch of Jeff Wagner Interactive hats made up for my softball team. I did this because we were having a very hard time finding a local business to sponsor our team.

I started thinking why wouldn’t a company want to advertise themselves on our jerseys and/or hats? It’s such a cheap form of advertising and you’re getting your name out in the public 16-20 weeks throughout the summer. Also like most teams, we usually go out after our games and grab a beverage and dinner…just more time that you’re company is on display.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went to J & J Atheletics in Buffalo, MN for my apparel, they were great to work with and they completed my order in less than a week. I went with flexfit hats that have mesh backs to help keep cool in the summer months. I think that the hats turned out great, as you can see below.





The hats were very inexpensive to have made, I believe they came out to be about $14 a hat. I think the average Twins hat at Target Field is about $25-30. Not only did the JWI hats look great on the field they’ve already caught a few eyes. I’ve already received many comments about the hats, which have led to conversations about what my company does, which has led to handing out business cards. I have a good feeling that the hats will be paying for themselves and then some in the very near future.

So, the next time a sports team asks you to sponsor their squad you might want to really think about the impact this cheap form of advertising might have on your company. If you do the numbers, one referral from the advertising will probably pay for your sponsorship and then some.

I’ve included a few more action pictures of my squad wearing our new hats.









 

Tags: branding, company branding, Print Design, sports apparel
Posted in Community, Marketing, Print Design | 5 Comments »

Emerging Print and Web Designers

March 12th, 2010 - by Jeff Wagner

Recently I attended an AIGA meeting (The Professional Association for Design) that was focused on tools for “Emerging Designers” to help them with their portfolios and web presence. The meeting was held at Mono, a very well known and renown agency in Minneapolis, MN.

The AIGA provided three very creative and very informative speakers
Carl Schultze, Evan Stremke, and Aaron Shekey. Each speaker talked about a few tools that they use on a regular basis that helps promote some of their work.





Carl Schultze, an extremely talented print and web designer, shared with everyone a tool he uses for his own personal online portfolio called Cargo Collective. Cargo Collective is a very simple web publishing (CMS) platform that allows designers to upload their work to the web and use a variety of different templates to display their creativity. Cargo allows for some customization as well if you’re handy in HTML and CSS. I thought it was a great tool for those you aren’t too comfortable creating their own personal portfolio and to upload a new project takes literally seconds (I timed Carl and he did it in 52.8 seconds).





Evan Stremke, our second speaker, is a huge fan of Cargo as well and uses it regularly. He also talked about a very slick print publishing tool called Issuu. Issuu will take your print designs (pdf’s) and publish them in a very nice interactive flip magazine online. You can then embed the code for your publications on to your website or your Cargo Collective account. Evan also mentioned that he was a fan of Tumblr, a very easy to use service for blogging.





Aaron Shekey, the final speaker, a young and very creative web designer talked about his love with WordPress. Yet another CMS (Content Management System) that is very popular as a blogging tool but is very exandable and can be used as a complete website management tool. WordPress has such a following of developers that create so many different templates and plugins that you can use. It’s really, I feel, the best option as a free CMS. Aaron also shared a very cool plugin called Flutter. Flutter is a feature rich WordPress CMS plugin that focuses on easy templating for the developer and simplifies content management for the admin by creating custom write panels that can be fully customized (radio buttons, file uploads, image uploads, checkboxes, etc).

After the presenters were done AIGA provided pizza and refreshments for everyone and gave us time to mingle with the speakers, Mono staff and other designers that were attending. If you’re a member of the AIGA you really should be taking advantage of these meetings. Even if you aren’t a member, like me, you’re more than welcome to join at a very small fee (this one was $15). I had a great time and I look forward to attending future AIGA meetings.

For more information on upcoming events sponsored by the AIGA checkout their website at: http://minnesota.aiga.org/events

Tags: Cargo Collective, flutter, friendfeed, Issuu, Tumblr, Wordpress
Posted in Events, Print Design, Web Design | No Comments »

New JWI Business Cards

February 25th, 2010 - by Jeff Wagner

I recently put together a new look for my business cards. I wanted to keep the branding of my logo the same but I was looking for the high glossy and very polished feel. I couldn’t be happier with the results when I got them from the the printer yesterday.





I worked with a wonderful printing company called W & C Printing. They were great to collaborate ideas with and I think the printing quality speaks for itself. Below are some of the printing options we used:

• High Gloss Paper
• UV Protective Coating
• Digital Press Printing
• Rounded Corners

If you’re in need of a new design for your business cards send me an email at jeff@jeffwagnerinteractive.com. If you’re looking for printing services send an email to Amy Storm at W & C Printing, she will walk you through all your printing needs.

Tags: Business Cards, Marketing, Print Design
Posted in Marketing, Print Design | 5 Comments »

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