Barrett

This new year I was asked to build a standing desk for a friend at Sasnak Management here in Wichita.

The design is focused on storage and maneuverability. The desk replaced one that was both in front and behind you with vertical storage, so storage was a priority. The shelves are conveniently located directly under the work area. 

It's made out of 4x4 pine, construction 2x4's, and red oak topped 3/4" plywood.

The desk was built in 5 separate pieces and assembled in the main office upon delivery.

Pregnancy Crisis Center here in Wichita has designed a new way to give. They now take specific donation amounts for unique gifting opportunities.

You can donate a single ultrasound appointment or an amount to run the entire facility for a day.

This was developed to make giving easier for you. You know exactly where your money is going, which can lead you to give where your heart is lead.

Kice Industries manufactures equipment for a wide variety of industries. Their challenge for me was to develop a functional introduction page that displays both their industry reach, their work, and their personality. Check out their new frontpage here.

Their products page is one of the key entry points to their website. Its navigation and layout was re-designed and organized with a natural clean look.

Also their overall navigation was refreshed into a device friendly menu with clean lines and intuitive navigation.

Standing desks have become quite the talking point around the corporate workspace. From graphic designers to accountants, everyone wants to be healthier and standing definitely helps with the calorie burn during the day.

Sasnak Management here in Wichita Kansas asked me to build my first standing workstation. What separates a desk from a work station? This baby is in two pieces, has two monster drawers, and cable management underneath for everything from your monitor to an enormous calculator.

This is the third desk I've built for standing. It might be my 6th desk since I started building desks in general. I love desks. They should match your personality and your style. You are at to your desk for the majority (if not all) of the work day, shouldn't it match up to your amazing personality and drive to succeed?

The design is simple and helps you to appreciate nature through the use of natural wood grains. It's built to be as functional as you need it to be. The construction is solid heavy, it's built with 4x4 legs, 2x6 edging pieces, and the top is a red-oak 3/4" plywood.

Check out the photos below to see her in the wild. I couldn't be more happy with the finished product. If you're interested in another design, check out my standing drafting table and desk.

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This Spring Grace Hill Winery asked us to design a couple labels for their upcoming releases. This one is called Peckerhead Red.

The past bottles are highlighted here in one of our previous posts.

Peckerhead Red is a great wine to try if you're palet enjoys sweet Kansas red wines!

How do you take an impressive amount of quickly accessible information and organize it in an intuitive way that lets a customer service representative and management staff uniquely sort, tag, search, and manage from offices in DC and Iowa, and is accessible to your sales team on the road?

Design with a purpose.

Each person’s brain looks for information in a different way. Some love to immediately look for a category. Others go alphabetical then read each line of titles. Some want to type keywords and see relevant results. Others want a ‘most popular’ list sorted by views in the past couple of weeks.

This site offers each individual way, all from one page. One of my biggest challenges was keeping it all separated, but close, in a clean and easy to understand simple layout.

Information management is one of the toughest things to design. Mostly because you are limited on your number of design elements, it can’t have a sluggish load time, it can’t make you frustrated because it’s not organized how you want it to be. It’s unbelievable how important spacing and padding is...

User interface needs to be to the point. You never can leave the user guessing which button does what function, or where in the world do you find the most important thing ever, right now!

Fluid content and fluid design.

This site is continuously updated by their staff. It has full commenting features allowing the daily users to add their two cents to every page of the site. If one customer service rep has a unique experience with a special care account and wants to educate the staff how to handle it more effectively, they can comment on the bottom of the page. The site never stops growing, and it does so in a smart way.

If you think your organization could benefit from a system like this, organizing your files in a password protected website, allowing every staff member access to your most important documents, allowing it to grow with the experiences each unique user can express, then let me know.

This was fun! It gave me the experience of user based engineering of information management. What a powerful tool and experience.

Thank you to the National Geographic Student Publishing staff for this opportunity and privilege!

All Systems needed a clean, modern design for their website. While working closely with their marketing coordinator we assessed the importance of each piece of information on their site and how it interacted with the user. Most importantly we worked on how it brought the client full circle to contact their offices.

Pain Free Organization / Navigation

All Systems provides services to 4 separate industries. All of their service areas are just as important as the next so they each had to be organized in a non hierarchal way that was fluid and consistant.

Providing service area icons on every page and a footer that links to each service's detailed section provides the user a one click access point to anywhere they need to go on the site.

Emotionally Captivating Imagery

The banner images tell the story about each page. Some of them rotate showing the different items available in the section they are viewing. The rotating banners are clickable to access that highlighted page.

Client Access and Login

There is also a login / client restricted capability to this site. All Systems needed a way to separate public from private content. They can assign usernames and passwords for their clientele to access certain documents pertaining to their industry.

Recap

• Clean open layout
• Pain Free Organization
• Client only content

Why redesign a beautiful site?

Eastminster users were having a little trouble finding important content on their website. Comments ranged from not realizing video and audio messages were readily available, to also not realizing most every important document or meeting was currently publicized on their site. We found the trouble focused mostly on content immediacy. When users landed on the homepage their desired content was in one, or sometimes two clicks away, which is often instant trouble for all users. (of all ages)

It's hard to convince someone to search or look for something when they believe it should be the most important item on the site. Eastminster users have a strong sense of ownership of their information. They produce some beautiful publications, riveting messages every Sunday, and have tons of events throughout the year. Plus every ministry's information is just as important as the other.

Fresh News

One of the website's strong-points is the amount of fresh content. There are updated pages and new events and promotions added daily. How do you display all of this information effectively?

We thought it to be best to introduce an often overlooked feature, the newsfeed. It was on the homepage already but not located in the hot-spot where users eyes go to first, the top left corner. The beautiful banner slide-show was taking up a lot of space that is now being used for important information users regularly visit the site for.

The most recent blog posts from every blog that Eastminster publishes is now on the homepage too. It dynamically collects posts from multiple blog’s *feeds*.

I want to go to there

The importance of their content brought us to another decision point about ease of navigation and ease of use.

Along with adding a newsfeed concept, ease of use was a key factor in the new design. Every age group uses this site. It has to be user friendly for ages 6 through 96. That's where the drop down menu evaluation begun. Every ministry is available one click away, it's awesome.

Also, once click access to those pages is located in the footer of every page. The sub pages of each main page are listed in a clear, simple site-map in the footer, consistently.

Multi / Social / Media

There's also the most recent message (sermon), available from their new Vimeo account. It's located in an embedded video player on the homepage. Vimeo allows for lengthy content, way longer than 15min. I created a new sortable and taggable video browser to view their most recent sermons directly on their site. You can also check out and comment on any of their 3rd party accounts, directly from your account (Web 2.0, right where you are!).

They already had a YouTube account with videos from months past, a lot of videos, so we put their YouTube account icon with the rest of their icons, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, and even a signup form for their Email Newsletter through MailChimp. That's another strong point, they publish everything everywhere. All quality content, all the time. That's why the icons to each of those mediums are available on every single page.

Details are the Design

With all of this fresh content the design had to be clean. It had to be simple enough to keep the users attention on the content and not on the intense graphical edgey shades of popping grunge (sorry, church marketing lingo). This new design is for the users, for the content they visit the site for, and for the many ways they can follow and interact with the church.

Recaps

• Newsfeed rich homepage
• Immediate access to every page and section of their site.
• Clean and simple design that focuses on the content.
• Easily updatable from their office from multiple administrative accounts
• I also took their new staff portraits!
• Loved this project!

Be sure to check out Eastminster's previous site design before you go!

The beginning of this year has been quite the whirlwind. This is mostly because of the vast variety of projects that have been in process.

This one takes the cake for being unique.

I love designing on mediums that are new to me. The banners posed an initial question of photo resolution, then deciding an overall theme, their mobility, usability, it was fantastic to problem solve their overall use!

They will be used for trade shows, for presentations to architects, small gatherings, larger rooms, setting the stage for any event, or the backdrop for their offices. They model the same look and feel of the brochures Cladding Corp had me produce throughout last year.

This year Timber Creek Paper developed a complete flash website with me. We focused the entire project on using personal, character driven imagery.

Timber Creek Paper has a lot of history floating around their warehouse. Character is built into their walls, their old wooden carts, their workbenches, their way of doing things, it all has a history. It makes a customer step back, breathe in, and actually think about what type of historic company they are working with.

The photography on their site helps a potential customer see this character and their products. They have a huge selection of paper in their warehouse and an even bigger variety of options you can custom order. After my first meeting I walked out of there with paper samples I've never even heard of. They offer most every thickness, every color, even paper that reacts to heat, and a paper that feels wet (but it's not!)

If you love paper and can't for the life of you find what you're looking for get in touch with Timber Creek Paper. They are based here in Wichita, and have an office in Oklahoma City too.

Check out the screenshots below and be sure to follow the link to browse through their site.

Terra⁵ is another line of cladding products from Cladding Corp. They asked for a brochure to match their current branding and overall marketing direction. Using clean lines and a direct approach to re-organization the final product accomplishes both of those goals.

The overall design of this brochure was completed using the same concepts as their Cem⁵ brochure produced last year. So far there are a total 5 brochures with this look, within the next couple of weeks this site will highlight the entire package of their arrangment.

The latest trend on Social Media has been to share photos with refreshing life quotes on them. The quotes are typically harmless and uplifting saying something about your personality. Some though are harsh, and witty, making you aware of people’s ‘other side’.

The irony though is that sharing these unique quotes is an action of grouping users together with each person who has shared it, making it less and less unique.

The importance of being yourself is much greater than sharing what you want others to ‘think’ about you. We know who you are, you are human (or are a group of humans), and you have individual unique offerings that we want to learn about and see daily. We want to see you for who you are. Not the YOU who likes something that 1k’s of your BFF’s (Best Friends Forever) like too.

Keep striving to live life the way you were born to live it. It shouldn’t be to mimic the actions of others unless it’s to join a good cause, or a movement that has a real effect on this world.

This goes for corporations, LLC’s, non-profit orgs, start-ups, and every other type of business out there. There is a human side of you we want to see. We want to know you are here making a difference, making change happen in the world, and not just rolling along liking everything you see.

Delivering the latest desk to Sasnak was quite the task. This two piece workstation is heavy. I wanted to shoot some photos of it before it was installed so we stopped by a friends walnut grove for some photography.

It was quite the scene. @MicahDerr and I heaving around the pieces, trying not to scratch anything, and making sure the delivery truck wouldn't harm the fresh coat of finish on the dirt roads.

It was a success beyond expectations! The desk looks great in the newly designed accounting office! (which will be another write up all in itself!)

For cable management under the desk I grabbed some 'hook and loop' tape from Monoprice. Worked perfect with a staple gun.

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Happy Earth Day 2011!

My wife and I are trying to be more earth friendly. This year our theme has been composting (and recycling). I built a dual bay composter with removable front slats for easy shoveling, plus removable dividing slats for easy mixing. So far so good.

A friend asked if we used wood that doesn't compost... *puzzled*... we have no clue. Hopefully it will at least last a couple of years!

Nothing we own stays shiny and new. Especially the things we keep outdoors. As you spend time outside this year try not to waste your time and energy on keeping shiny new things so shiny. Instead spend your time growing a garden, or composting, just trying to live off of the land around your house in some way. You will love the return on investment of your time and you will most likely learn a lot from it.

Thanks for reading, and hope you have a good weekend!

Barrett

** The photo is from our trip to Colorado last year of some bighorn sheep. We were on our way from the cabin to town and saw these guys sitting up on the ridge. **

Here’s a story about a brand that we are thankful for.

So I saw a cool patagonia shirt about living within your means over at their online store. A pair of scissors cutting up a credit card. goo.gl/AGZ7r

I wanted to get it for my wife but I didn’t want to pay with a credit card online. We don’t live near a patagonia store. We do live near a retailer who carries some of their products but it was a new release and I was eager.

I sent a twitter message out questioning how I could purchase it with cash. I didn’t want my wife to get the grief that would come from buying the shirt with a card.

They tweeted a message back about it and tagged me (my heart jumped out of my chest a little, huge patagonia fan), and said they could figure something out.

I called the 800 number they gave and a nice sales guy got on the line. It was similar to talking with a hiking buddy after a day trip. Chill, relaxed, and could do anything to help you out.

He said I could do a mail order, pay by check, and they would ship the item once they received my payment by mail. All transactions would be from real money, justifying the message of the shirt.

The reason I’m sharing this on here is to give a good example of social media marketing. A one man design shop in Wichita Kansas got a response from the most environmentally active international outdoor clothing company in the world. All through twitter and then a phone call. This is what social media is about, connecting real people to real people.

They are doing a fantastic job.

Follow me on Twitter!   twitter.com/bmdllc

Ever hear people ask "What should I promote this time of year?" or "What type of features would drive more sales during this season?"

The trouble with that style of thinking is that by the time you gather your thoughts and ideas, conceptualize your plan with your designer or branding agent, the season you are going for has long passed.

It's best to be focused on promoting the NEXT season. Or even 2 seasons from now.

It's great to keep a separate calendar of when to start promoting different elements of your business. Think one season or one holiday ahead of the current one. Come up with Spring promotions during the Winter so you can execute them at just the right time. Think about your Christmas marketing way before Halloween comes. Consider summer time promos while you are couped up in your cozy loft apartment all winter.

So what do you do right now? Look at your sales last year. What items sold great in the Summer? Develop your Summer strategy now with your designer, and start executing it as soon as Spring hits. Get people excited for your product and correlate it with the thought that Summer is almost here! (If I saw a commercial right now with someone hiking in the mountains on a warm summer day, whatever product they started promoting I would be sold!)

Think ahead and keep your clients at the forefront of your thinking, so they will in turn keep you at top of mind when the right time comes.

-Barrett

This year has been remarkable.

Along with having some of the most enjoyable projects to date, we have a couple new relationships with some amazing new clients.

Out of all of our current web clients whom we monitor their traffic the total count this year for visitors reached over a half million visits!

That includes every visit from throughout the year.

Some stats for this Barrett Morgan Design LLC's website -

Our most popular blog post was our Standing Desk Drafting Table.

Our most popular project was Botanica Wichita Flash Homepage.

The most popular photo gallery was our Family Portraits section.

Most fun keyword that brought someone here - " be righteous barrett "

15 visitors out of a couple thousand looked at it on a Dial-Up connection... so sorry.

Our friends in Germany spend an average of 9min per visit on our site! Awesome!

We hope you all have a very jolly happy merry holiday this year. Don't hold back, go out and enjoy yourself. Thank you again for your support and helping this business grow!

-Barrett

When I take a step back and look at how Wichita has grown with the economy and has ebbed and flowed with the recession, I get excited.

It makes me wonder “What’s next?” The recent city plan is a remarkable design for developing our downtown to be a thriving community. But what’s going to drive this city’s economical bottom line to increase rapidly enough to stimulate this development?

Businesses are going to have to grow, innovate, and develop new things that will get consumers excited again, even during tough times.

It made me ponder the idea of ‘How could we use all of Wichita’s skill-sets to develop a product or innovation to stimulate our local economy and benefit the global economy?’. Is there a think tank who’s sole purpose is to help our local businesses collaborate? Could they work seamlessly with a common goal to ‘Produce a better product that would produce a better Wichita?’

Wichita being focused mostly on aircraft you can assume we are very good at making things ‘lighter’ than the average industrialists. Another major manufacturer in the area is good at producing powerful, custom, sexy motorcycles. We can also develop state of the art camping gear. Plus one of the largest privately owned companies in the oil business is here, and always growing.

How could these businesses benefit each other? How could they work together to stimulate the area’s growth and economy? What new products could they develop that are sponsored by a handful of Wichita companies which could benefit every party involved?

Think about this Wichita. Brainstorm collectively with your businesses. Brain-tornado more like it. Get your minds around the fact that we need each other to survive in this economical time. To support each other's businesses with our own products and innovations. It’s time to get off the individual gravy train and help other business’ out. Start shaking hands again, start supporting your neighbors, and learn how to innovate for tomorrow, together.

This past month I had the opportunity to go to the Christian Legal Society’s National Conference down in sunny Orlando, Florida. After designing and developing their website over a year ago there have been some transitions within the organization and it was good to catch up and visit about their goals and help them out on location during the conference.

It was an opportune time for me to meet some of the board members, chapter leaders, as well as connect with many attorneys throughout the US.

First thing I learned - Drink plenty of water before shaking hands and talking all night. It gets exhausting after a couple hours. I felt like I should have carb-loaded.

The highlight of the weekend for me was during Thursday night’s opening ceremony. Don Davis of World Impact led the group in a passionate talk about the name Christian and owning that name as an organization.

Second thing I learned - Be passionate about what you do. People notice, and it changes lives.

I was able to connect with Don that night during dinner before the ceremony and he asked about what I do, talked a lot about Wichita, and we joked about how it took us flying to Orlando to connect. The man has a heart the size of a football.

Third thing I learned - Circumstances are for naysayers, there is a purpose for everything that happens in your life.

One of my good friends, Carl Hebert, was also in Orlando for business. We were able to connect one afternoon and evening, and we shared about how being in Orlando on a business trip was really really hard...

Fourth thing I learned - Stop and smell the roses, even when you’re being challenged.

I highly recommend traveling to Orlando during October and November! Especially if you can take a day to enjoy the extreme amounts of touristy things - it makes you feel like a kid again!

Fifth thing I learned - Always take your wife with you to Orlando!...

*** Also, on the flight home, the very bottom picture shows the beginning of it all... we flew into Atlanta into some serious storms. When it lightninged around us, it was instant thunder, because the lightning was RIGHT OUTSIDE THE WINDOW. It was great! ***

Have Laptop, Will Travel

After the Business Summit a couple months back there was a lot of motivation to develop my own professionally printed business cards and brochures.

There was a great response from everyone who received either of these at the conference I went to in Orlando. The brochure helped its recipients have a much better understanding of what I do... I'm not just a web design company anymore. It walks you through my love of design & how it can translate into all of your business which helps build you a better brand.

All of these new marketing pieces are printed on 100% recycled content, 60% post-consumer waste, processed chlorine-free paper. I want this earth to stay here a while and it's the little steps that count.