The Case for Customization

I was walking through a vacation home area in the woods this winter and taking stock of the differences between the traditionally built homes and those that were clearly of the modular/manufactured variety. It’s not easy to explain why it was clear that the latter weren’t among the former, but it was.

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Jumping Into Social Media

It’s easy to say that social media is transforming the way businesses communicate with their customers, but describing exactly what that new environment looks like can get a bit more complicated. Over the last few years, the social media landscape has become something of an embarrassment of riches, with a diverse and expanding collection of services each offering its own set of tools and a slightly different customer base.

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The Pervasive Brand

The business and design communities throw the word “branding” around a lot these days, present company included, but what really is a brand? I like to keep the definition broad: the voice with which your company speaks to the world. That company voice is exercised in a number of ways — logo, advertising copy, website design and content, etc. But your brand doesn’t (or shouldn’t) stop there.

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Getting the Best Bang for Your Blog

Maintaining a blog can be one of the most effective ways for a business to raise its profile, promoting its brand and engaging its customers. But making a company blog into an effective resource involves combining a lot of different factors, some of them more intuitive than others.

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State of the Social Sphere, 2012

It’s been a big year for social media, with plenty of ups and downs for the giants in the field, and a few newcomers becoming household names. It can be a bit of a headache just keeping track of it all, to say nothing of constructing a social media strategy. So here’s a quick rundown of the most popular social sites: who’s up and who’s down, but also what each set of readers is likely to be looking for, and what you can do to make each service work for you.

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Case Study: the Mobile BackBoard

Guess what hasn’t made it into the 21st century’s second decade? Pro-fessional sports internal communications. Yep, those athletes are all carrying the same smart devices that the rest of us use, but the norm for distributing logistics and scouting information is still text messages and paper printouts. Seems a bit antiquaited, doesn’t it?

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A Pictorial History of the Angled End

The August branding facelift is far from the first time that AEI has changed its look. This month we take a reminiscent walk through the company’s history, starting with its first website, launched in late 2001.

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The Emperor has New Clothes!

If something seems different around here, that’s because everything is. Angled End Identities has been completely rebranded, offering a beautiful new logo and facelifts throughout its online spaces. Let us know what you think about the new look!

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A Precocious Redesign of Tara Bella Winery

The Tara Bella redesign is live! We never tired of the original site that Angled End created for them five years ago, but our favorite Sonoma winery eventually just needed some new shoes. The new site is significantly more dynamic and expansive than its predecessor....

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The Design of Social Media

You’ve probably heard this by now, but social media is kind of a big deal. Any business worth talking about is expected to have a “Like” button set up for you to click, and a team of social content gurus to go forth and promote their brand. And with so many businesses jumping on the bandwagon, it’s easy to forget that a lot of them aren’t quite sure what they’re doing.

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Generating Repeat Business: Why Brand is Important

It is a well-known statistic that on average it becomes five times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to earn repeat business from an existing one. For small businesses struggling to maintain margins in an already tough economy, thinking outside the box on how to leverage their existing customer base is not only key to staying afloat but can significantly boost profits without the need to burn out on cold-calling, or expend scare resources on new sales staff.

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3 Ways to Sell More Effectively

It’s 8.45am. You have your extra-caf latte sitting beside the computer, and you are staring at your headset with a mixture of anticipation, competitiveness, and dread. It’s another long day of selling ahead, and while your numbers are by no means shabby, you are not...

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The Mobile Market Cometh

The basics to making your website mobile-friendly Not sure if you've noticed this, but people are surfing the good ol' fashioned web with some decidedly not old-fashioned devices these days. I'm talking about mobile devices, of course - smart phones and tablet...

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The Life of a Design Project

A simple walk-through of how an Angled End piece comes to life It's always easier to begin any business venture if you know the process beforehand. This article describes how a typical design project works from start to finish: #1: Contact & Agreement of Terms The...

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