Saw these today and it just made us smile – tea bag shaped biscuits perfect for dipping into that afternoon cuppa to fuel the rest of the working day.

Thinking about it, these would also work very well with a nice cup of hot chocolate. In fact – we might need to send someone out on a hot chocolate run this afternoon now!

You can see more posts like this on a few of our growing Pinterest boards:

Made Us Smile – http://pinterest.com/weareblink/made-us-smile/

Blink Goes Geek – http://pinterest.com/weareblink/blink-goes-geek/

And on our Facebook page:
Like Blink on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/WeAreBlink

Hope to see you there!

We plan to offer discounts and exclusive offers to Facebook fans and Twitter followers in the future so why not hit that Like button today?

Talk to us on Facebook at Facebook.com/WeAreBlink
See our boards on Pinterest at Pinterest.com/WeAreBlink
Follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/WeAreBlink

See you there!

Facebook Timeline:
Your updates are now printed on the page in the order they chronologically happened, rather than the order you posted them in. So you can add photos with a date in the past so they appear on the timeline in the correct place, something you couldn’t previously do with the news feed style layout. This can be great to add photos and posts relating to time specific events, company milestones and generally helps keep things in order plus gives you the  to dictate where things appear. ‘But don’t my posts no longer show up at the top of the news feed page if the date is old?‘ Nope, Facebook knows you only just posted them and treats them as recent activity, it differentiates between when you posted it, and the date the post relates to chronologically.

Confused? Don’t be. For the most part you will be posting status’ as usual and won’t notice too much difference, it’s just a handy way to post photos to the correct part of the timeline if clients share photos of events or products which relate to a specific date and need to be kept together.

Timeline Milestones:
These are another new addition. These add a full width marker to the timeline to highlight a company milestone and are especially useful for businesses – you can mark milestones for whatever you want – from a new product release, company anniversary, hitting a target for number or employees, customers or turnover, winning an award… the list goes on. We like milestones and think this is a great way to highlight your business’ achievements and allow them to stand out amongst all the news and general Facebook chatter. And, because you can post in the past, you can retrospectively add milestones for dates even before you set up the page allowing your Facebook business page to accurately represent the company timeline regardless of when you set the page up.

Profile photos:
Whilst these have always been around on Facebook, now the dimensions are fixed, if you are familiar with Facebook business pages you will know they often utalise the free height of this space to include a tall skyscraper style image which promotes more than just their logo. However now these images are fixed proportions of 125 x 125pixels on the header and in posts, meaning the rest of the image is only visible if someone looks at them in your profile photo gallery. However the new developments with the profile image overlapping the cover photo do allow for some playful creativity which is exactly what we have been trying to use the profile images for so far.

Good examples of how to creatively use the profile photo and cover photo overlap (copyright belongs to profile owners):

Cover photos:
These are completely new, separate from profile images on Facebook, these allow you to express something about the profile or page rather than being a photo of a person or brand, they are a free space the full width of the page to say something more about what the page or person is about. There are however some stiff new rules on what can be done with these images. The main ones which are vital for businesses’ using Facebook to know are (according to Facebook’s new terms and conditions):

- The ideal dimensions for cover images are 850px wide by 315px high.
- Must NOT contain price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
- Must NOT contain contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
- Must NOT have references to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
- Must NOT promote calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

This is the aspect of the new design which will cause the most controversy – as these are exactly the sort of things we really want to use the cover photos for. When we read this we were really shocked that even contact information is prohibited. Based on the cover photos already on Facebook it seems as if policing these rules is yet to come into force. Will they really take images down if they are mainly text? We think these will be treated with some leniency as people will want to put up quotes and lines of meaningful poetry etc as part of their image, especially if they are writers or poets themselves. So we will be eagerly watching to see what happens and if the rules are relaxed or if these people, including some of the examples above, are asked to alter their images.

For profile users these rules would be seen as a nuisance, for businesses this is a major concern. We would love to use our cover image to promote our brand, that’s what our Facebook page is for, the desire to add text saying ‘Like us!’ or ‘Visit our new site’ is very high and with the new rules slightly hidden away rather than being waved in front of us I suspect a lot of companies and businesses will fall short at meeting these strict rules. Until someone is called up on this however we have yet to see Facebook’s real stance on such actions so have to advice caution as when they do enforce a rule they tend to suspend accounts breaking it as the first port of call.

Have you got a great creative cover photo for your company page? Or have you had feedback from Facebook about your cover image for your business? Please let us know by commenting below.

You can read up more on cover image regulations on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=276329115767498 and general page help and guides here: http://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php

Pinterest is a new exciting social networking paltform allowing users to share images on their own pinboards. Just like Twitter you can follow pinners, ‘like’ pins, comment on them and even re-pin them to your own boards.

You can see our pin boards at http://pinterest.com/weareblink/ We have boards on design inspiration, email newsletter designs, fun geek items we found on the internet and more.

Join us and start exploring the world of Pinterest.

Why join Twitter?

Twitter is a great social networking tool, it allows you to post short status updates and links to a wide range of people. It can make it much easier for people to find you online and see your design portfolio website and get to chat to you in an informal way.

How committed do I need to be to Twitter?

People who do well on Twitter post often and to a regular pattern. The exact number of tweets vary between users but you do need to be consistent to a certain degree. Posting a hundred one day and nothing for the next few weeks is unlikely to gain you loyal followers. Think of your stream like a newspaper, whether you post a few times a day or 20 times a day – you need to find a pattern that works for you and your followers and stick loosely to it.

Do I need to post constantly? Is quantity better than quality?

Quality is always better than quantity – the same as whittling down your design portfolio to the best pieces gives a better impression than throwing every piece of work you’ve ever done into a portfolio, tweets need to be interesting. If you have ten things to say one day and nothing for the next 5, space your tweets out rather than bombard the stream before vanishing. The only exception to this is if you are covering a specific event and tweeting live for the duration of a conference or event, in which case warn your followers up front of the coverage and ensure as always to post relevant tweets.

Does my account need to have a purpose?

You can tweet about yourself and your work, or cover industry events, tweet advice and be a expert resource on a particular topic or a combination of the above. Think about what interests you personally as well as what you think will interest other people following you. You need a balance of something you enjoy tweeting about and which other people enjoy reading.

So I want to get a job – should I tweet about how great a designer I am?

Well you could, but who would want to read a constant stream of adverts? You can of course post about your own career and achievements, post links when you make site updates or link to a project you have worked on you are particularly proud of. The trick is to make sure your tweets are more than just trumpet blowing. Share your work and let people make up their own mind. Better yet, write articles and helpful posts which show your expertise and tweet about them. That way you can help people and show you have a good understanding of your topic.

So can I tweet whenever I am looking for a job asking people to hire me?

You can say you are available for work, however a constant stream of ‘please hire me’ tweets is not interesting to read and will have people clicking unfollow if you do this too often. I think if you are a graduate or looking for your first job it is more approproiate to say you are looking for a job, however be careful how you word these tweets and how often you send them. If you are a junior looking to move job, be aware how your tweets look to your current employer. Remember as well that agencies will often post when they are hiring on Twitter giving you an edge to reply speedily with your CV. It isn’t all about them finding you, you can use Twitter to find vacancies to apply for as well.

So should my tweets appeal to designers? Or business owners?

Well it could be either. If you are a junior or graduate it will often be a senior designer or design director employing you so there is no reason why tweeting about design cant help you get a job directly. You can also use Twitter to read about and comment on work by companies you would love to work with. Say you want to work in a very niche area – say animal charity design, then perhaps your love of this area will come out in your tweets rather than them being about general design topics, but that will be natural for yourself as your love of the topic will be why you want to work in that specific environment.

About content… can I tweet about my nights out? Relationship breakup?

People take very different approaches to what they tweet. Some are very personal and some are very businesslike. If you plan on using one Twitter account for both personal and business use be aware that the people who want to read about how ‘wasted’ you are on a Friday night might find it funny, but potential employers may look differently on this… Equally those design tutorials you are retweeting might bore your pub friends. Which leads us into…

Should I have one or two accounts?

Well personally we recommend being wary of anything you post online which can be traced back to you. Tweeting about your old ‘hag’ of a boss or how much you drank the day before you ‘pull a sickie’ can land you in a lot of grief and once posted is online forever. You may wish to have two accounts to keep business contacts and personal chatter separate, however bear in mind people can put two and two together and view your other stream if they so desire. If you really want to let loose on your Twitter account between friends consider making your tweets private.

These accounts… what should I call them?

This depends on how you plan to use your account. Is this account about you (personal), you (as a designer), your company or a specific purpose? For example: Say you are logo designer… maybe you want to tweet exclusively about new logo designs and logo design events as a resource for other designers, you may want to call yourself something very different to if the status updates are about yourself.

For personal accounts you may want to use an internet handle, something familiar to friends but not your actual name. This avoids the issue where an employer googles your name and immediately sees all your personal tweets, this can be avoided by using the private setting on Twitter BUT as well as it being potentially troublesome in future to tweet under your full name, it can be potential beneficial to use it for business tweets for exactly the same reason. If your name googles and brings up relevant intelligent tweets on graphic design, this can be beneficial to your career. You can also use your business name if you want to setup as a freelancer and create a professional image.

If you want to work for another company you can also use a name such as YourName_Design or similar to take advantage of keywords. For any Twitter name we would say as a general rule: avoid cheap puns, avoid terms that may be misconstrued, avoid swear words or drug words (it may be funny to your teenage mates… but your employers might think differently) and remember the name needs to give the impression you set out to achieve. If you are an email design expert then EmailExpertLondon might be perfect (as long as your tweets ARE about email) so brainstorm ideas before you set up that account.

So, I have a name, an account and I am tweeting regularly… how do I get anyone to follow me?

Part of the fun of Twitter is that people will stumble over your tweets and add you. There are of course a large number of ways you can gain and keep followers. Firstly: Share your @name and URL on appropriate sites and forums in your signoff, add it to your email signature, put it on your business card, add it to your Linkedin page and website. You can also often add widgets to your site to show recent tweets which can be a great way to gain new followers.

The other most important thing is to realise Twitter is a multi-directional communication tool. It is designed as a way to talk to other people. Rather than write tweets and expect everyone to retweet and link to you, retweet pother peoples content if you think it’s great. Send the occasional FF (follow Friday) list of @names of people you follow and think your followers would like. Talk to people. Add people relevant to you who you want to read about. Twitter is more than a tool to shout into the net and more of a way to talk with others.

OK, so now how do I get a job?

Tools like twitter help build your online presence. They can provide a way for you to soft-sell yourself to potential employers by talking to them in an informal setting. Tweets can also provide a way for people to easily stumble upon and share your work with a very wide audience. Twitter (and indeed anything else) are just useful tools which can help people find you and show your expertise and elements of your character to potential employers.

At Blink we have had 3 projects come in to date directly due to our Twitter account. However we have no specific targets for sales via Twitter or heavy game plan for pushing people from followers to leads. People can tell a salesperson a mile away and sales copy is as boring to read as it is to write. If you decide to use Twitter as part of your plan to land your first graphic design job remember to use it as just part of your arsenal, still put effort into your all important portfolio, website, CV and how you present yourself at interviews. And above all, have fun!

Note: Graphic property of QuickCert

Site’s such as Wikipedia, Boinboing, WordPress, Flickr, Mozilla, Reddit, Wired and many more started controversial strike action yesterday blacking out their sites and replacing them with a strong anti SOPA and PIPA message. Sites such as http://sopastrike.com/ sprung up to share ways to black out websites with site owners as well as a list of other sites on strike.

The acts allow anyone found owning a site which streams copyrighted material without permission or sharing links to such content to be removed from the web in the US. This would see America creating it’s own ‘Great FireWall of China’ as it intends to use the same ISP immunity technique which would effectively make them “disappear” from the internet. They will be able to do this based on ‘credible evidence’ which makes it tempting for sites to falsely report rival companies. Something they say they will screen for but will in practice be very hard to implement.

Here at Blink we are in favour of protecting copyrighted material from abuse, however, as stated by Steven Fry; “Art flourishes in ages of soft copyright & dies with none or over-strict copyright”. No real understanding has been made in this bill that many areas are grey when it comes to copyright infringement.

Quite often sharing something not for profit is a neutral or good thing rather than a clear cut crime. Ever uploaded a music video to Youtube to help promote your favourite band? A movie trailer of an upcoming movie? Or shared a link to such material? These videos are not being sold by the copyright owners and you are not selling them. In fact this is free marketing for the band/film in question something they should be happy to know they were reaching a wider audience. AMV’s are another grey area, these are home made music videos using animated materials from TV shows by individuals to create their own piece of video to their favourite song. Often they list the animations used and the band responsible for the music – technically copyright infringement but also an artistic expression and free viral marketing for the music and shows. Another very grey area are fan-subs; Small groups of people band together, faithfully translate TV shows with no subtitles and release in their native country and share the files at no profit, many also remove their files if an official version is released. These acts seem to allow a certain degree of interpretation which could potentially make the ‘perpetrators’ of the above and those who shares links to their sites criminalised and have their sites blocked without trial.

The internet is rife with people illegally sharing movies and music against the will of the copyright owners, it is also full of people sharing grey area media, linking to sites which may contain either or the above and young people linking to all these sites. Some are definitely malicious, some are definitely not, many are in between. Either way, everyone deserves a fair trial and chance to have their say and correct their actions before being punished.

These are just some areas to think about and we hope these bills go through some serious revisions before they are passed. We feel they are too all-encompassing and heavy handed. We hope a compromise can be met which not only helps protect copyright holders from infringement but also upholds free speech and implements a fair system of investigation and punishment for any guilty parties.

Supporters of the bills include television networks, music publishers, movie industry bodies, book publishers and manufacturers.

Critics include Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo, eBay, LinkedIn, AOL and Zynga.

You can read up more on SOPA and PIPA at the following links:
BBC explaination on SOPA and PIPA
BBC article on the blackout protests

Freecom decided to upgrade their flagship site’s 5 page shopping cart experience to improve their conversion rates. Based on the response to the changes Blink designed for the UK site the new design will also be rolled out to all their other language sites globally.

Freecom needed the new shopping cart to work with their exisiting site, be easy to understand and navigate, give the user more functionality to edit and understand charges on their order as well as look more appealing and reassure users of the security fo the site. Blink, in conjunction with Digitial River, reviewed the exisiting user experience and the pain points of their customers. Based on this we came up with a list of improvements we could make. Blink then managed the redesign process resulting in a new design which satisfied the points raised. The new cart is much easier to understand and use with helpful tool tips and higher contrast on text colour. The new cart layout is clearer where in the process you are, the security of the site, has a cleaner more modern look which complements the main site and is already having an impact on cart conversion rates.

Freecom is a global provider of stylish and reliable USB external storage devices and hard drives.

Vivastreet France wanted to launch and promote a new ‘Services’ category for their website allowing their users to find local services and promote their own local services. The sub-branding needed to be vibrant and fun showcasing a range of services and using the parent brand colours and overall style. We created a range of materials including exhibition stands, flyers, emails and the main landing page.

Vivastreet operates in the UK, Europe and South America allowing users to buy and sell items and services.

CONTEXT is the GTDC’s sole Database Partner outside North America and we track IT sales in 18 countries in EMEA and pricing in 35 countries globally. Established in 1983, they have over 25 years experience in tracking the international ICT Distribution market and working with the world’s leading IT vendors and channel partners.

Vivastreet uses a range of themed campaigns to highlight events and occations for their european user base – from animal themed promotions for local pet shows to tongue in cheek Valentines campaign where we learnt the Italian term for being ‘dumped’ is to be ‘planted’ complete with comedy visuals!

We have also put together accompanying landing pages, micro-sites, banner ads and flyers to work alongside these campaigns.

Vivastreet is a friendly online community where people can buy and sell their unwanted items for free.