Rants and Raves

MiKro Craft Beer Bar opens in Hamden, CT

admin — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 00:47:16 +0000

MiKro Beer Bar has just opened in Hamden, CT. They offer 18 different beers on tap, as well as a great selection of big bottle beer. They really pay great attention to the details and have a great glassware selection to match their beer offering. The food is great as well, carefully crafted with the beer in mind, Hangar steak, chicken flatbread pizza and an assortment of other dishes. Their tagline is “Big Beers…Small Plates”…

I definitely recommend the place, the owners are great, formerly of Prime 16. Here is a link to their site, sign up to get on their mailing list and to see their new website which is coming soon.

MiKro Beer Bar

Forefront Design to Offer 15% off for CT-Based Businesses During Month of July

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:33:45 +0000

As the digital space grows increasingly competitive, many companies are struggling to find ways to attract new customers and distinguish their brands online. To help local companies facing this common challenge, Forefront Design, an innovative web design and interactive marketing agency is currently offering 15 percent off all web design and interactive marketing services during the month of July. The company specializes in helping its clients enhance their online presence with compelling and engaging websites and buzzworthy online campaigns.

“Your website is not an online brochure,” said Maendel. “Our goal is to help companies understand the vast potential of a well-conceived website, and how increased functionality and a more robust and dynamic platform can completely change the way customers perceive and interact with their brand, and drive sales.”

Forefront Design offers a comprehensive menu of services designed to help companies enhance their online presence and their relationships new and existing customers. From concept to completion, the firm works with businesses across a number of industries to launch custom websites keenly focused on user experiences, and interactive marketing campaigns, including online advertising, email marketing, search engine optimization and social media.

Jeremy Maendel, the creative vision behind Forefront Design, has more than a decade of graphic and web design and interactive marketing experience. Over the course of his career, he’s worked with leading enterprises to create and maintain consistent brand images develop unique and profitable online marketing strategies and leverage social media and other trends and strategies to launch profitable online campaigns.

“The substantial rise in the popularity of social media has proven that customers want to be engaged online, and the key to engagement is interactivity,” said Jeremy Maendel, owner and lead designer of Forefront Design. “If your site isn’t designed with this trend in mind, you’re missing sales and opportunities.”

For more information about Forefront Design, including the company’s portfolio and a complete list of services, visit www.forefrontdesign.com. To receive 15 percent off all services during the month of July, reference code FFJUL15.

Papyrus

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:43:19 +0000

Why are you everywhere?! Not a day goes by that I don’t see this font used somewhere. From Avatar to Arizona Iced Tea, this is the default choice of people everywhere. People automatically associate this font with classy design or something great. I don’t get it, maybe I’m biased because I am aware of the thousands of options available. Microsoft Word should come with a disclaimer that pops up that says that this is not the only type face in the world. If people only knew how much that font made designers cringe when they see it!

I don’t mean to offend anyone, I just wish that people would take a little bit of time to explore the thousands of available fonts that are available to them in the world that are free.

I am not a computer repairman

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 03:30:56 +0000

Companies should stick to what they are good at! They shouldn’t branch out into other areas just to get work. That’s like having a painter who all of a sudden starts offering their services as a carpenter. Sure, they may be able to do some rudimentary carpentry work, but its definitely not what they are good at, its definitely not their specialty. This makes things harder for customers who are looking for a quality carpenter and it also makes things harder for real carpenters who lose jobs to ‘wannabe’ carpenters just because they can’t get any painting work. These are what you call ‘HACKS’.

Who knows, maybe they aren’t even that good at painting! If they were they wouldn’t have to creep elsewhere looking for work!

The same type of thinking also applies to the world of computers. There are some companies who are specialists in hardware and software. They setup networks for homes and businesses, fix computers, fix your router, restore your hard drive when it blows up. This is what they do, this is what they are good at.

There are other companies out there who, even though they use a computer every single day, do NOT fix computers, setup networks or tell you the proper TCP/IP settings to use in your network config.

Some of these companies include web design agencies like my own who specialize in a very specific niche of digital media. We are web design professionals. We strive for the perfect UI. We are demanding in our planning and wireframes. We are exact in our CSS and standards compliant code.

Companies should stick to what they do. They shouldn’t pretend to offer services when they have no skills in that field whatsoever! They should stick to setting up networks rather than offer mediocre ‘web design’ services just because they read an HTML 4 book like 8 years ago.

I don’t pretend to fix computers, you shouldn’t pretend to do web design.