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August 31st, 2010Blown to SmithereensOur client Hollister Incorporated, was a sponsor for the Vernon Hills Summer Celebration featuring the Smithereens. Here are a few photos taken at the concert. And here is some “archival” footage! The Smithereen’s are great live performers! Here is their show schedule. August 31st, 2010Barcode, schmarcodeThese 2-D barcodes are popping up all over the place and can be a great way to reach out to your customers. This particular sample is called a QR code, but there are many other types. They can be printed, appear on a web page or email communication and can contain a web address, a text message, an email address, or up to 250 characters of text. Software is available for most camera phones to read these codes and you can see how small a code your camera will read by downloading this handy reference. Just print the sheet out and see what your camera can read. Challenge: August 31st, 2010Fine art or an amateur Photoshop piece?Mickalene Thomas created this screenprint of Michelle Obama for the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. We are big believers that great art stimulates debate and this is certainly causing an uproar in the political and art fields. So to add fuel to the flames, we’ll show you how to create your own portrait suitable for the Smithsonian in a 9 easy steps using Photoshop!  Step 1: Get a head shot. We don’t know who this woman is, but we’re going to make her famous. Click here for a practice image.
 Step 2: Open the image in Photoshop and convert from color to grayscale.
 Step 3: Adjust the levels.
  Step 4: Convert image to bitmap using a 50% threshold setting. You’ll have to clean up the specs a bit, so use the eraser tool.
Step 5: Convert the image back to RGB color. You’ll have to convert from bitmap to grayscale first, then from grayscale to color.
 Step 6: Add a layer in the Layer pallet and place it underneath the image. Select the layer with the image and delete the white areas around her head. Use the Magic Wand to select the white areas. Then, hit the delete key.
 Step 7: Almost done. Select the bottom layer, then pick a nice color for the background. First Lady Obama picked a Tiffany’s blue, so we’ll pick something similar.
 Step 8: Using the paintbrush tool, paint the background with your blue color.
  Step 9: Flatten the image — bam! you’re done.
 Who says you can’t create fine art in two minutes! July 22nd, 2010KC and the Sunshine Band
Buster Creative is a proud sponsor of the Lake Forest Festival and Fireworks. Over 10,000 people attended the live KC and the Sunshine Band concert, raising awareness for the Friends of Lake Forest Parks and Recreation Foundation. We would like to give a big “thank you” to everyone who attended this year’s event! It was a big success and gets better every year! Comments OffJuly 22nd, 2010Paper’s not dead yet.
American Greetings is adding a flavor strip, similar to those in breath mints to their cards so you can taste the vanilla cupcake image on the greeting card. Check out these links: If you want to make your own flavor strip, contact these guys. We’d be happy to design the packaging for you!
A Company called Scentisphere makes a new and improved scratch-and-sniff material that prints like a conventional varnish. Unlike the old stuff, the Scentisphere material can be printed inline on the printing press, at a much lower cost than before. An entire page can be covered with microscopic capsules containing a scented liquid whose aroma can be released by rubbing the paper. This image shows the tiny white fragrance specks. The colored dots are the ink. You can use your own fragrance or use one of the many Scentisphere has available. In addition to vanilla, cinnamon and the other standard fragrances, they offer Bacon, Dill Pickle, Stinky Cheese, Suntan Lotion, and Marijuana. Just sayin’.
Comments OffJune 30th, 2010We Want to Create Your Custom E-Blast Campaign
E-mail marketing can be a very effective and targeted way to generate business, contact us to learn more. We will: Benefits include: Use e-mail marketing for: June 30th, 2010Join Us July 4th
Buster Creative is a proud sponsor of the Lake Forest Festival and Fireworks, presented by the Friends of Lake Forest Parks and Recreation Foundation. The 2010 Fireworks Festival will host KC and the Sunshine Band. They have been shaking booties since 1973, so dig into your closet, put on your “Boogie Shoes” and “Get Down Tonight!” We invite you to be our guest! For more information friendslfpr.org/wp27/ May 25th, 2010The world is going mobile. As if you hadn’t noticed.As the progression from desktop computer to laptop to smart phone proceeds unabated, it is important to understand the limitations of each device and to be able to reach out to your audience in a way that makes it easy for them. Today, we discuss web-enabled smart phones. Most smart phones can render HTML pages and because the screens on mobile devices are so small, viewing an entire web page becomes inconvenient or even impossible. Plus, bandwidth and microprocessor power limitations on mobile devices make web surfing frustratingly slow. What to do? Design the web page for the device. Great examples are cnn.com and ebay.com. These sites optimize content for small screens. They use narrow columns and smaller graphics and refrain from using Flash and scripting to make browsing fast and easy. How do they know that you are viewing the page on a mobile device? Typing google.com in a browser on your desktop will direct you to the familiar home page for Google. Type in the same web address on an iPhone and Google knows to present a page perfectly formatted to the small screen. When the mobile device makes a request to the browser for a page, it tells the web server a bit of information about itself. We can then program the web browser to choose the mobile version of the web page or the standard page. For example, when a mobile browser visits bustercreative.com, they are redirected to our mobile site. If you believe providing mobile content is valuable to your clients, we can help. We’d recommend starting small and adding content as your needs and budget allows. Call us to find out more. Apple sold a million iPads in record time. Kindle is Amazon’s number–one selling product. Sony has an ebook reader, so does Barnes & Noble. Ebook readers are being distributed in ever greater numbers — making them an excellent platform to get your message out. Sales support, technical documentation or data-driven applications can all be read on ebook readers. Unlike PDF files, which have fixed formatting, ebook files are free flowing and well suited to 5″ to 9″ screens. There are many file formats that are used by ebook readers, such as plain text, HTML, EPUB, Mobipocket, Kindle and many others. Creating a document based on some of these formats can be complex and time-consuming. We can help you repurpose existing documents to be compatible with most ebook readers. April 22nd, 2010Make Your Presentations Picture PerfectBuster Creative can help you develop a branded presentation for your sales force. Effective and captivating slide presentations are difficult to create. Presenters have it tough enough getting all of the content together. We help our clients transform content-heavy PowerPoint or Keynote presentations into an engaging selling tool. From a Sales Perspective we can:
From a Marketing Perspective we can:
Contact us to review your next project. April 22nd, 2010Don’t Get Lost in TranslationCreating multi-lingual packaging and printed materials can be a eye-opening experience. ¡Para sure! Read our “must-do” and “never do” checklist!
Quality translations let your customers know you are committed to creating products specifically for them!  Paslode Packaging English/Spanish April 16th, 2010Optical IllusionsBuster Creative’s newest spring resident has created quite the office buzz. Colors and texture are amazingly well camouflaged. Take a guess, what could this possibly be?
March 25th, 2010FAX COVER SHEET: BUSTER CREATIVETo: Buster Blog Readers It’s true. We killed our fax machine. No need to lament the loss, though. Our fax machine has been on the fast track to obsolescence for the last two years and follows the demise of the copy machine (“we don’t copy here, we CREATE”). The fax machine served us well but the days of trying to read client revisions on the side of the page, dealing with paper jams and slow transmission are over. Besides, most of the faxes we have received lately have been for discount vacations to the Caribbean. Now we use PDFs, scanners, our in-house digital asset manager and when we need to, the nice people at FedEx. ____ Urgent ____ For Review ____ Please Reply ____ Please Comment ____ Please Recycle P.S. Postage meter machine: Better watch out, you’re next! March 25th, 2010How long is 50 milliseconds? For a website, it’s long enough.50 milliseconds (1/20th of a second) is the length of time it takes web users to form an aesthetic opinion of your site’s credibility and trustworthiness*. With such a short interval to establish your brand’s perception and authenticity, here’s how to make that first impression a good one: • Design for fast downloads We would love to hear from you and add your impression to our list of what holds a user’s interest at first glance. Or what looses a user’s interest at first glance; see our examples below. *Lindgaard, G., Fernandes, G., Dudek, C. & Brown, J. (2006). Attention web designers: You have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression!, Behaviour & Information Technology. 25, 115-126
March 23rd, 2010Buster Creative Corporate Video ProductionBuster Creative loves branding YouTube channels for our clients. We also love creating videos for our clients’ YouTube channels. Give us a logo, some product photography and we will create a video that connects you with your customer. We will make sure your corporate message is consistent and branded. Call us, we’re ready to help you get “in motion”! March 17th, 2010Corporate YouTube UsesBuster Creative’s Top 5 Reasons for a Corporate YouTube Channel! 1. Protect Your Brand. Make it a priority to search your brand, corporate name, and even tagline at YouTube.com. Brand “hijackers” and brand fans are creating YouTube channels using your brand name, corporate name or slogan. 2. Steamline Corporate Site Videos. YouTube is an organized location to maintain and file all corporate video clips with a simple link from your corporate site. 3. Reach a Large Audience at a Low Cost. Visual material that has the possibility of broadcasting to millions. 24/7 International. YouTube channels are FREE! 4. Use for Marketing Promotions. Videos of new product introductions, new services and new promotional campaigns. Opportunity to create a well branded integrated campaign. 5. Google owns the rights to YouTube. Search engine optimization, YouTube will be given a priority in Google’s PageRanking. Has your corporate YouTube channel created more opportunities? We would love to hear from you.
March 16th, 2010Corporate Twitter UsesBuster Creative’s Top 5 Reasons to Corporate Tweet! 1. Protect Your Brand. Make it a priority to search your brand, corporate name, and even tagline at twitter.com. Brand “hijackers” and brand fans are creating Tweeter accounts using your brand name, corporate name or slogan. 2. Connect with Your Customers. Social media is so mainstream, most of your customers are checking their Twitter accounts before they leave for work. Make your customers aware that you get social media and value the human connection. 3. Get Customer Feedback. Encourage interaction through Tweets, and get good advice to help improve your: customer service, product, and future. 4. Use for Direct Marketing. Twitter is a FREE service to get your brand noticed. Twitpic.com allows you to develop a branded campaign to a very targeted audience. 5. World’s Fastest News Source. Twitter lets your produce up-to-the-minute news easily, 24/7. And reaches an international audience. Share your corporate Twitter successes, we would love to hear from you.
February 26th, 2010Dealing with SpamNew Scientist has a great summary on the state of spam emails. The attached chart demonstrates that the enormous volume of spam and its continuing growth represents a real challenge for email marketing. Spammers are happy with a 0.000008% response rate because it still generates millions in revenue for their products (who IS buying this stuff?) Developing email campaigns that
are not easy. Here are a couple of tips that really help:
February 24th, 2010Ladies Who OprahWho knew there was a subculture to the “Ladies Who Lunch”? The subculture that celebrates being with friends, sisters and mothers. Another excuse to celebrate ME, I had no idea, until… Friday Feb. 5, 2010 Who are these women? These women are “Ladies Who Oprah”! I discover I don’t want the Oprah experience to end either, I am purchasing things with “O”s on it, I am at the restaurant with the ladies in neon colored shirts. I discover it is pretty fun to be a “Lady Who Oprahs!” Share your fun Oprah Show experiences with us! February 24th, 2010Art and technologyAfter admiring the traditional Around the World Christmas Tree display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, we were quickly drawn into the avant-garde light display in a new exhibit. The exhibit, called Fast Forward … Inventing the Future, showcases cutting edge inventions that will reshape our world. (okay, maybe a dress with embedded LEDs won’t reshape the world, but the concept demonstrates technology that normally lives inside a pocket or purse is now acceptable for the outside world) MSI takes an artistic approach to showcase the inventions by appealing to all of one’s senses — vibrant lights, techno sounds and designer steam. http://www.msichicago.org/whats-here/exhibits/fastforward/
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