Purchase David Pu’u works here at our Studio Shop.

Please join Pi Design as we launch our new venture, Pi Studio Printing. We are opening our doors on March 12th to artists, photographers, friends, family, clients, and design professionals! To showcase the capabilities of our latest addition to the Pi family—the giant Epson Stylus Pro 11880 printer, we will be showing the breathtaking work of David Pu’u, editorial photographer and cinematographer. David will be in attendance and to share his experiences traveling the world photographing and filming surfers, sea life and other wondrous phenomena.

Please join us for refreshments and great company as you tour the Pi Studio Printing facility. This grand event takes place two days prior to our favorite holiday, Pi Day! In honor of this glorious day we will, of course, have much pie on hand as well as other roundish treats.

Pi Studio Printing will be raffling off all kinds of great prizes like gift certificates to Vie, the Spa upstairs, David Pu’u prints and more!

Leave work a bit early on Friday and come have some pie with Pu’u. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.)

When: March 12th 2010 from 3:30pm to 6:30pm
Where: 760 Las Posas Road, Suite A1 and A2, Camarillo, CA

To RSVP click here

Read more about David Pu’u here: http://www.davidpuu.com/bio.php

We had such a great response to our previous post on this subject matter that we compiled the comments to craft these new gems added a few more submissions of our own. Thanks (and apologies) go out to Barbara, Kathleen, Jerry Lund, Joe Howard, Ed at CR Print and Josh Brown for their comments, which we so selfishly tweaked to fit our twisted thought process.

1. I already have an idea for my logo, on this bar napkin, and I shouldn’t have to pay someone just to stick it on a 3.5″ x 2″ piece of paper along with my name and phone number. Can’t you just make copies of it? Oh, but I want to make the letters nice and clean and maybe spruce up my drawing a bit.
2. I can download free fonts and a paint program to create an effective brochure for my upcoming trade show… Can’t I?
3. 4 Colors?! WTF?! There are billions of colors in the world and that !@$#@ designer only wanted to print with 4 of them?!?!? (more…)

My daughter has kept herself busy this summer creating origami animals and geometric shapes out of paper, Post-it notes in particular. I, too have always had a fascination with paper. I love the different textures and colors, especially those of the handmade variety. Fashioning something three-dimensional from a flat sheet requires extreme patience while completing a challenging combination of cutting and folding in just the right places. I have been amazed by the tiny things she does like the miniature presents in this photo. She will often cut a Post-it note down to a half inch square and fold microscopic origami cranes that sit on your fingertip

(more…)

AeroVironment provides us with constant work. We love everything about them. They are great people to work with and the technology they develop is awe-inspiring. From clean technology solutions to unmanned aircraft systems, they have consistently provided breakthrough engineering since the early 1970’s.

This video reveals the progress on their latest gadget, a flapping robo-sentinel. It is the first-ever hovering air vehicle to use flapping wings while carrying its own power source. The hope is that the hummingbird will be useful for indoor and outdoor surveillance, as well as dropping off listening devices and other super-spy cargo.

Check out their website for more info on their other products:

http://avinc.com/

Here at Pi Design we spend a great deal of time educating ourselves so that we can stay current with trends. We pride ourselves on knowing what colors are in, what typefaces look outdated this week, as well as contemporary trends in language. We love to share our findings. Please enjoy this very educational video.

I know this doesn’t really have anything to do with Design or Marketing but it soooooo worth sharing. These were a huge hit at our Pi Day event. Amazingly yummy. My client/friend Vicky made them with fresh lavender from her own fields and they disappeared so fast. She was nice enough to share her recipe. She says, “If you don’t have lavender florets, you can always use 1 drop of lavender essential oil.”

The dough needs to be refrigerated for at least an hour before rolling.
INGREDIENTS:
• 12 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon dried lavender buds
• 1 Tablespoon grated lemon zest
• 1 egg
• 1/2 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2-1/4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour          (more…)

Many of our clients lately are asking about whether they should be incorporating social media into their marketing plan. My answer is YES! Marketing is really changing these days. People can block out the message you’re trying to get across with the old traditional methods of advertising and marketing by using Caller ID, TiVo and Junk Mail settings. Magazine and newspaper subscriptions are way down indicating that you have to be more careful with your advertising dollars. We must constantly look for new methods for promoting our companies in places where people are open to the message and don’t feel interrupted.

Today people expect a strong online presence. If you don’t have one you are losing potential customers daily. Everyone between the ages of 20-40 is online for at least part of the day, everyday. They are more likely to search for something on Google than in a phone book. Come on, when was the last time you actually picked up that huge yellow book and thumbed through pages? I used to heft it out to find the phone number for the pizza place. Now I even order my pizza online! Below are some things you should be doing to promote your company (and yourself) if you’re not already: (more…)

When people Google, they know basically what they’re looking for so your site has to speak to your potential client/customer instantly. What with the bombardment of information we receive on a daily basis, no one wants to sit and read a lot of fluff about the details of your business. They want to know why they should choose you immediately. Everyone is in a hurry to do their research and get on to the decision making. If you don’t tell them right up front what makes you different and better than your competitors you had better believe they aren’t going to dig through the paragraphs of copy blabbing on about your superior this and ultimate that to find out for themselves. They are going to jump right to the next site listed on that first page of Google.

Your home page content should do these three things:

1. FOCUS on your differentiation – Choose one and only one differentiation because that is all people can remember. Do not list and describe all of your services on your home page. Make the decision to choose your company easy because your difference is obvious. The less information we are given, the more likely we are to remember it later. This FOCUS is fundamental to branding and should be maintained throughout all marketing materials. (more…)

With FREE PIE and other goodies!

In honor of the mathematical value that is represented by the 16th letter in the Greek alphabet, Pi Design will be hosting an OPEN HOUSE to celebrate Pi Day in our own way with a PRE-PI DAY event. We will be serving up FREE PIE and other circular treats to all attendees. The first piece of pie will be served at 3:14 pm (in honor of the value of pi) here, at the Pi Design studio on Friday, March 13th. We will continue celebrating until 6:00pm.

In attendance will be Essential Wine Company’s, Jim Casey as a special guest pourer of dessert wine tastes to pair with the pie. Other sponsors of the Pre-Pi Day event include In the Know Resources and Vie, the spa in suite A3 who will be serving cheese, providing tours and handing out samples of their custom formulated lavender bath salts.

Pi Day openly promotes the celebration of mathematics education, the collective enjoyment of mathematics, and the ageless, multicultural interest in pi. Pi Design wishes to join together with the community to express in an imaginative way, their passion for the longstanding creative nature of mathematics. Pi Day is observed on March 14, due to pi being roughly equal to 3.14. Pi Day also celebrates Albert Einstein’s birthday. Pi is one of the most common constants in all of mathematics. Nobody knows its exact value, because no matter how many digits you calculate it to, the number never ends. In honor of this incredible number, we will be taking donations to get middle school students excited about math. We will provide a select middle school child with a scholarship for a math tutor.

Pi Design is always looking to share our passion for design. This event is a way of connecting with our clients and the community. We are excited to open our office and invite everyone to celebrate the irrational and transcendental mathematical constant that is Pi. Pi represents to us, the science of design. Every design problem has infinite solutions. It is our job to find the one that works best for each individual client. And we have a great time doing just that.

For additional information on the FREE PIE on PRE-PI DAY EVENT, contact Sharene Lewis at 805.383.0054

As I become more involved with trying to decipher the social media mystery and how to use it effectively in marketing I thought I would really hate TWITTER. I figured it would be just another social media distraction in my already crazy busy day. I have found just the opposite to be true. Just like Flower, Thumper and Bambi, I am twitterpated. You know, that flighty exciting feeling you get when you think about the object of your affection. Twitter is not as all consuming as I thought it might be. People are not just posting tweets about what they are doing at the moment. They are posting helpful, insightful tips and useful links. It is a tool where you can connect with all kinds of people in a quick, professional way. I find that I am excited to check what new info is waiting out there provided by people that I know have similar interests. In the last year the number of people in the U.S. using Twitter has exploded. According to statistics from compete.com the site grew from 4.1 million monthly visitors in February 2008 to 54.2 million last month.

In reading other people’s tweets, I have run across many interesting articles. One of which is about the many ways social media is changing the way we, as designers and marketers, work.

Check it out: The 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009

This one gives good insight into The 90/10 Rule of Successful Twittering