Syl Wilson Marketing Chosen as Prime for FDS Head Start New Website

Recently, Syl Wilson Marketing was chosen as the prime website design firm for Family Development Services (FDS) in Indiana. The former website had a clunky back-end making images slow to render. The main menu was very hard to navigate to find the core items needed. We re-designed the site with a mobile friendly version, new and improved navigation and also provided content development services. We are proud to say “Welcome to your new online home, FDS!”

This was a fun project from the start to the finish. We were able to interview current employees and staff to get to the core values of the company. FDS is a head start program, they are doing amazing things for the community and we are PROUD to have been a part of this amazing journey. We look forward to partnering on future projects.

View the site online

Syl Wilson Marketing Chosen as Web Designer for Safe Return To Schools Covid Protocol Website

Recently Washington University in St.Louis commissioned Syl Wilson Marketing to design a website for the “Safe Return to Schools” for children across the country with disabilities.

The website summarizes the recommended best practices for returning safely to school, based on information from the Washington University Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center working with staff at the Special School District of St. Louis County, Missouri through the COMPASS-T project.

It has been an honor to have been a part of such an important and vital project during these unprecedented times.

View the site here: https://lnkd.in/eAs7sVE

New E-Commerce Website Launched for Syl’s Art – Sylvester Peebles

Several months ago, the most important client of my life asked me to design a website to showcase his art collection. It was my hero, my father! How could I say no? My dad, Sylvester Peebles, has been drawing and painting for as long as I’ve been alive. He has had artwork showcased in the St. Louis Art Museum and won first place in several art shows over the past few decades. One funny story he shared with me was the time he and my sister entered the same contest for art, (I think it was the Creve Coeur Days art show) and he said that he won second place and my sister (who would have been about 7 years-old) won first place. The only issue with that was first place won $100 and second place won a ribbon. My sister was crying because she did not want money; she wanted the ribbon. Ah to be young again.

Back to the original point of this post. My dad asked me to design

When it comes to copywriting….The creative process starts in marketing.

Start by answering the question, “What am I selling?”

You need to first:

• Learn everything you can about your product and/or service.
  • What does it do
  • How does it function
  • What problem does it solve
• Use it (read back issues, take a demo, see how easy it really is, check out the competition).
• Talk to current or past buyers, subscribers, donors and/or members
• Talk with telesales, service, tech-support reps
• Analyze: why and how is this going to help me? What problem is it going to solve?

 

Project into the mind of the user what the experience will be like with your product!

The importance of Benefits….

The more you talk about how your company, product or service will improve the life of your customer (“you” copy), the higher the response.

….vs. Features

The more you talk about the company, the product, the service (“we” copy), the lower the response.

There’s an elephant in the room…and by elephant I mean your website.

I was recently looking through many of the non-profit industries websites online. Just a random google search of about 200 sites. What I found was pretty disturbing. Of the roughly 200 sites I viewed I found only two that were designed well and had content that even applied to the services they were intending to push out. So what’s up with that? Do they not notice…that big elephant? If your in the non-profit industry and your website isn’t bringing in donors, then what is the point?

When you think about what type of content to put on a non-profit website, first consider this:

Your location can be pinpointed by what photo you post on the internet

Did that title scare you? I know when I first found out this I was very worried. I mean…who doesn’t post photo’s online to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other social media outlet? I know I do. I love sharing my day with friends. Well I got an email last week that had this little newsclip in it, watch it by clicking here..In the clip they say uploading photo’s to the internet can be a ROADMAP to your location. My first thought was this is a hoax…So I investigated further by contacting someone who I deem as the expert in everything technical…My sister! Guess what she had to say?

Facebook…for developers

Want to know about all the changes that Facebook is constantly making? Here is a great link that will keep you updated.

http://developers.facebook.com/roadmap

The link includes box sizes, iframes, and more. Have fun!

Camera Raw – Adobe Photoshop CS5 makes me wanna dance!

How many of you have ever wanted to do some cool editing of photo’s like the professionals do? Well, Adobe CS5 has given us the tools to do it without all the techy stuff! And OOOO EEMM GEEE it is so cool, you are going to want to keep this such a secret! You know how I am though, I love giving as much information away to my readers as possible. So when I saw this one, I had to post up right away. Okay, here’s how it works. Open up your version of Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Creating a Mask in Adobe Illustrator CS3 or CS5

Masking lets you create a stencil effect. You can cover an object with a masking object, so that the image only looks through the shape of the masked item. You can have many paths as masks and can have multiple masks on a page, although, multiple or complex masks could cause printing problems.

Making a mask:

Draw the item you want to mask

Now place on top of these objects your masking object (or mask)

Select both the objects and the mask.

Go to the Object menu and choose Clipping Masks, Make:

You can use your selection tools to move your mask or the objects around and change how the mask looks.

Job hunt got you down? Try a new resume design

It may sound crazy, but sometimes when you feel that you have done all you can do, as far as finding a new job, you’ve got to try something different. That something, may be to simply have your resume professionally designed. Some people can do this themselves, and some may need to hire someone, or ask a good friend in the design industry to help them out. With the economy at such a volatile level lately, you may not have the funds available to get a swift design done.

So what kind of designs are Human Resource departments interested in? Well, that depends on