Connecting to Instagram and Other Social Media in WordPress Using Advanced Custom Fields
As a web developer, it’s not a stretch to say that social media feed integration has become a de rigueur project spec for any new website I take on. Clients realize that when done right, these feeds can increase traffic, boost revenue, and improve engagement with their brand. When working on the WordPress platform, there are many different approaches to take — some of which are more desirable...
Black, White & Shades of Gray: Leveraging Discovery to Write a Better Brand Story
While product, market, and user research are all now widely recognized as key components of product design, this wasn’t always the case. For a long time, we thought good ideas automatically made good products, good brands, and good marketing. (Remember Mad Men’s “It’s Toasted” success?) But taking on product design without doing research is the equivalent of having a conversation without...
To Create a Web Component Library, Think Like a Lego Master Builder
To develop for the web is, by nature and necessity, to be a problem-solver. While my personal path to web development has taken many turns (including photography, 3D animation, and game design), none has been more foundational to my knowledge of good programming principles and problem-solving skills than Lego. My hobby of designing Lego cars — one that lives at the intersection of design,...
Choosing the Right Image: A Design Blog for Content Managers
When designing a website, sometimes content isn't immediately available to work with. In this instance, two things are needed: placeholder copy and placeholder photos. Placeholder copy is typically fairly straightforward, but choosing placeholder photos can sometimes be a challenge. The goal is to try to find images that are relevant to the brand, but also find images that are professional...
Time to Jam: Why Rethinking Your Process Leads to Big Creative Payoffs
What does one do upon the introduction of a new component library into daily work practices? Set up a super fun, “Great British Bake Off”-style Creative Jam, of course! Come again? You may be thinking. That’s right. We decided to shake things up one day by taking an afternoon to create and learn together. Inspired by the Adobe Creative Jam that we attended earlier in 2018, we split up into four...
Digital First — Rethinking the College Viewbook
Over the years, we have worked with many colleges and universities on a wide array of marketing materials, and we have found one common denominator when it comes to traditional student viewbooks: They tend to look and sound the same. The formulaic approach that so many colleges take to this printed brochure geared towards incoming students generally includes uninspired photography — students...
Tapping Into Emotion: 10 Tips for Driving Connections in Higher Ed Marketing
When it comes to the higher education experience, what are the hidden drivers of emotion? The elements that shape students’ lifelong aspirational connections to one university versus another? These are complex questions, with no clear-cut answers, especially when it comes to the science behind marketing, content, and the college connection. Obviously, what tugs at the heartstrings of one student...
Creating a Media Cropping Experience in Drupal Using Lightning Media
Working with media has long been a thorn in the side of developers working with Drupal. But with the incorporation of DropzoneJS and Lightning , we’re getting closer to a smoother, user-friendly solution. This post provides a step-by-step tutorial for setting up a manual media cropping experience — a process that we have successfully tested in Drupal 8.5.x. The advantages? Uploading images via...
It’s Not Personal: The Art of the Design Critique
As an experienced design professional, part of my routine each day consists of giving and receiving design feedback. It’s such a regular part of my job, in fact, that it has become second nature to me. But that wasn’t always the case. As a young college student facing the prospect of hearing opinions about my work, I used to take critiques really personally. It wasn’t something I was used to, and...
Incorporating Motion Into Design Systems
During the past decade, the role of designers has changed dramatically. We’ve largely shifted from print to digital media, from designing desktop experiences to responsive mobile-first websites — and from a static environment to one that is quite dynamic. Throughout this evolution, we’ve had to adapt to several very different roles and expand our skill set and vocabulary in kind. While designers...
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