I’m so happy to have created some of my first printed grad invites for some sweet girls! #print #invitations #prettyinpink #graduation #gradparty #design
Finally getting to design some mobile ui! Woohoo! #design #nerd #iphone #ios #newapp #comingsoon #werk
Exploring Ann Arbor
These past couple of weeks, I have had the pleasure of exploring one of the coolest cities in the U.S: Ann Arbor. Did you know that Ann Arbor is one of the 20 best vacation spots in the country? It’s also been named the 5th happiest city in the U.S., the best place for singles, AND one of the best towns for recent grads. (Thanks AnnArbor.com for the info). Not to mention, it’s the 16th most geekiest city in America (Forbes, 2011).
My family relocated to the Ann Arbor (from South Lyon, MI) area a few years ago and now I am back after graduating from Wingate University for undergrad and Elon University for grad school in North Carolina. I wanted to come back with my fresh new master’s degree in Interactive Media not only because my family is here, but because I love this state and I recognize the need for more graduated individuals such as myself to help build back up this state’s economy. As far as I’m concerned, I see that Ann Arbor is thriving and I most definitely feel that I’m in the right place at the right time with the right degree.
For the past two weeks after adjusting to returning back to the Mitten, I have been keeping myself busy with job hunting and also, just as importantly, networking. I had the chance to attend the last two LA2M meetings, or Lunch Ann Arbor Marketing, run by Ingenex Digital Marketing. LA2M meetings are for individuals who are more interested in learning about marketing in the Ann Arbor area. This past week, I listened to Steve Sadler, author of Exposure to Closure and founder of Buz.fm. He discussed how to be present as a business in social and in search, two major things that help drive successful businesses. By listening to Steve, it made me realize how much I really need to learn about SEO and SSO (social search optimization).
Though I have had my final matriculation, I am finding that I still thoroughly enjoy learning! I also had the chance to listen to Bud Gibson at the last LA2M meeting discuss more about SEO and search marketing. Bud created the first and only search marketing program at Eastern Michigan. He, and his students, make me really want to sign up for this!
On Monday, I attended my very first Ann Arbor SPARK meeting about creative marketing for entrepreneurs and businesses. It was great to be able to see what SPARK does and get plugged in! I recently created a job profile on their site. I would recommend it! Seems like there have been a lot of people who have experienced success with their assistance.
Ann Arbor may seem like a big town, but it definitely has the small town feel. I’m happy to be in a place that has so much going on, but I’m also willing to explore Michigan more! We’ve got lots going on here, so give us some more credit :)
If you are looking to hire, shoot me an email at me@kelseytrabue.com and check out my portfolio. I have a wide range of skills that I just can’t wait to start using!
-Design: print, web, mobile, UI
-Strategy: digital marketing, social media
-Social Media: planning, strategizing, campaigning
-Project Management
-Dog walking ;)
@ELLAunwound’s website is launching in less than 3 days! Can’t wait! www.ellasven.com (Taken with Instagram)
Some more #infographics for ya!
As part of a class assignment, I was fortunate enough to work with a group who designed some neat infographics after the rest of our class gathered the information we discussed in a whitepaper. We researched how Pinterest would be received in India and China and how the users of those countries could benefit from the burgeoning social network.
Below are the infographics I designed along with Steph Olsen, Emily Kamischke and Liz Shroyer to go along with our data, take a look!
I LOVE infographics, and I was lucky enough to run across this one while perusing the web: the evolution of geeks! Since my blog is titled “The Humming Nerd,” I only thought that this infographic would be an appropriate fit :) Enjoy!
Ella Sven: SEO and finishing touches
Today was a day that I was going over the analytics of Ella Sven’s website. It was a pleasant surprise to see that organic traffic was up! Before, our second highest source of traffic was, gratefully, from Twin Stripe, an amazing online magazine started by a couple of my iMedia comrades, Katie Williamsen and Alison Harshbarger. For the week of April 25 through March 2, it has been great to see that organic traffic is second, while most of our traffic comes from Facebook! I have been lucky enough to have, in addition to creating Ella Sven’s website, be running her social media campaigns and practices. We are up to 254 likes, which has been rewarding to see the growth over these last few months, way up from the 100 or so Ella Sven had before.
I have been looking up some keywords to enhance the SEO of Ella Sven’s site over the last couple of days. It is difficult to find when I run into high search terms like “fashion,” “dresses”, “jewelry” and such. There is a lot of competition out there, so we are focusing on creating content that is unique from the rest and also having a great product that people will love to own. See a photo of one of the product pages below!
I have also been busy at work finishing up the Ella Sven shopping site! The official shopping portion should be completed by mid-July, but I will be unveiling a sneak-peak for my capstone exhibition at Elon University. If you have the chance you should check it out! My own personal hashtag for the evening will be #ellasven. The IMX, which I helped create our theme and advertising pieces as seen below, will be on Wed. May 16 at Elon University on the second floor of the Powell building.
Graduation is so close! I can taste it!
Let’s make things more Pinteresting…
As you can tell, I happen to LOVE social media! When one of my great friends invited me to Pinterest back in July, it was one of the greater social media moments of my life. Ok, that may be a bit dramatic, but I cannot deny my affinity for the thing!
It surprised me that it took so long for the social media outlet to take off. When the Pinterest buzz started spreading (stemming from Mashable and beyond) it got out of control. I was getting tens of followers per day, in comparison to about 1 per week (if that) before.
I am happy that Pinterest has taken off, but even happier that business have realized the potential marketing they can do with it!
I have decided to take the marketing of my own brand up a notch with Pinterest. Though I do love my “Puppy love” and “Things I want to make” boards, I know I would not be doing a service to myself if I did not put up a “Portfolio” board. I just completed my own portfolio site (though I’m still working out the kinks) and what better way to supplement my work than by pinning my work to Pinterest! I know that others will see it and hopefully repin it or become interested!
How to make your own PinFolio:
1. If you have your own portfolio website, I would start there by selecting the pics you want to pin and just going at them one by one. You will want to think of the descriptions of each pin so that people can quickly and easily see what your design/photo/etc. is. I also have been posting the URL to my website at the end of each caption like so:
2. If you do not have your own portfolio site, I would suggest uploading your own pins of your work. Pinterest is the perfect platform to showcase your work without having your own website! However, if you want to be a serious designer, I do suggest having your own site ;)
3. Pinterest does not have to be specifically for those who create visual works. That’s the beauty of Pinterest. My friend Sam her journalistic ventures. I am planning to add to my writing pieces to my own PinFolio soon!
4. Now that you have established your own PinFolio (if not, get started here), then you need to organize your boards. Pinterest has established a simple way to display your work elegantly. You want to arrange your boards in the order of highest priority to lowest. Here is a look at my top four that I want other to see first:
To rearrange your boards and click on “Edit Boards.”
Hold down and drag your boards around to the order of your liking :)
5. Having boards on Pinterest is like having your own voice within your other social media accounts. You want to stay consistent across the board (get it? Haha, I like stupid puns). If you want others to view you as a designer, have a board dedicated to it. This same idea can be applied to other areas of your interests as well. I plan on creating a social media board and also an infographics board! I happen to love typography, so I already have a board for that :) When thinking of names for your boards, also try to be creative. You want people to actually want to see those boards, not just glance over them and move on.
*Another note. Pinterest now shows you all of the measurements of your pins right on your profile! It’s an easy and quick way to see how many followers you have, and those you are following, pins, repins, where you are pinning to and all sorts of other activity.
What are you waiting for? Get started on that PinFolio!
Ok, that’s my bit of humming nerd advice for now, keep checking back for more!
These are my portfolio mockup and business card sketches!
Like a good student, progress is there
I happened to just see a State Farm commercial and thought of that catchy headline, you like it?
Ok, so I have been a busy bee finishing up my business cards, finalizing my schedule and beginning my portfolio mockup. I spent the entire weekend in the computer labs of iMedia.
I had been working on my business cards for a while now. I did my research and tried to find inspiration from every which way. I conjured up some different designs, check them out in the post below…
Though I liked the look of these, I decided, “these are little boring.” A thought popped into my head after browsing through visual.ly, an infographic dedicated website, that I should make my business card into an infographic of some basic things about me that I feel that employers might want to know about me :) It’s going to be a folded up business card! I’m hoping it’s going to make me stand out just a little bit. I used Illustrator to create the business cards.
I also wanted to take a different approach to my portfolio site. I have been researching and scouring the internet for various examples of parallax scrolling sites. I love the single page look with the cool way of scrolling and moving objects on the page. I’m excited to get it completed so I can begin applying for jobs.
If you have any questions, please let me know! Check out the pics in the next post of my sketches for my business cards and my portfolio mockups.
