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Guidelines for Creating Your Company Logo

More is required of your logo today than ever before. It needs to look great on a desktop computer and a mobile phone. In print on a business card and as a small square on Instagram. Have a logo that conforms to these different states are known as responsive logos. Send these guidelines to your designer to know they’re creating a useful logo for your brand.


6 Incredibly Helpful Mac Apps

Textexpander This application runs in the background and lets you setup keyboard shortcuts for commonly typed items. In essence, it expands your text. For example, if I want to send someone the link to my TEDx talk, I just “;ted” and it automatically replaces “;ted” with https://youtu.be/zRtFOwofqsw. ExpressVPN This application also runs in the background […]


Redesigning Voice Mail — The UX of the Missed Call

It’s time we re-examine the user experience of calling an individual. Voice mail was labeled as the brain child entrepreneur, Gordon Matthew, back in 1979. Throughout the 1980s it gained in popularity, but required such complex systems that only large corporations could afford the technology at the time. Over 30yrs later, the “experience” of calling […]

How to Quickly Establish a Mailing List for Your Business

People despise current email marketing tactics because organizations send…well, mostly crap. As companies like MailChimp, Constant Contact, and iContact made it easier to send emails, companies took advantage of this to overwhelm people’s inboxes. Instead of sending value-based emails that assist in making their customers’ lives easier, companies began sending promotion after promotion in their […]

The music competition that ushered in a new era of virtual fundraising

This elimination-style competition was built for Chicago musicians and promoted over Instagram. During its run, viewers were able to watch and vote for their favorite musician every Wednesday night while also enjoying surprise messages from television host Ryan Seacrest and Lina Gaudenzi of NBC’s the Voice. Created by Joe Martin and Ashley Havertine, the event raised money for breast cancer research and […]

Martin Creative — 2021 Awards

Including Community Effort of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Person of the Year — here is a list of some of the best things 2021 had to offer. Ad of the Year Geico |‘Scoop, There It Is’ I’m pretty sure the commercial department at Geico is a box that allows anyone to submit a video […]

3 Tips for the Person Who Put Their Own Ad on the Blue Line

On Wednesday of this week, an anonymous individual decided to place their own, handmade ads on a Chicago Blue Line train. After sitting across from the ads for a solid 20 minutes, I had some critiques. The following are some tips for that person regarding effective advertising. 1) Establish Purpose Understand what it is you’re […]

Can Facebook Change Society with 1 UX Update?

At the corporate level of design, small changes have a significant impact. For that reason, any change is tested, analyzed, researched, tested again, etc. This is because a simple change can influence millions of dollars in revenue. Nicole Maynard, head of UX for Hyatt says: “One small change can take months before we place it on […]


Redesigning Voice Mail — The UX of the Missed Call

It’s time we re-examine the user experience of calling an individual. Voice mail was labeled as the brain child entrepreneur, Gordon Matthew, back in 1979. Throughout the 1980s it gained in popularity, but required such complex systems that only large corporations could afford the technology at the time. Over 30yrs later, the “experience” of calling […]



Martin Creative — 2021 Awards

Including Community Effort of the Year, Artist of the Year, and Person of the Year — here is a list of some of the best things 2021 had to offer. Ad of the Year Geico |‘Scoop, There It Is’ I’m pretty sure the commercial department at Geico is a box that allows anyone to submit a video […]




12 Examples of Great First Sentences

What makes a great first sentence? And more importantly, do you have one? Showing may be easier than telling, so let’s look at some of our own examples below. Be on the lookout for ways we use brevity, clarity, wit, humor, and value\outcome-specific messaging to achieve a great first sentence. With each example, we’ll also […]

How to Write Blogs Faster

I recently had a friend share a formula she picked up for writing blogs faster. The process itself is pretty great since it forces you to be concise. You don’t have the opportunity to get lost in paragraph after paragraph. Instead, you’re forced to tell the whole story in the shortest way possible, then expanding […]

MacBook’s Touch Bar Made Sales Presentations Customizable

There was a time when giving a sales presentation was a linear process. The 2017 MacBook, with it’s rather ingenious Touch Bar functionality has put an end to that time. As sales & marketing industries continue to find new ways of gathering data, we look at new ways of using that data to better the […]

A list of 18 copywriters to consider for your next project

The following is a list of copywriters I independently gathered through a copywriting group. As a copy strategist myself, finding the right people to help communicate your message is extremely important. The names on this list are not a personal recommendation. While I also work with copywriters, I have not had the chance to personally […]