Hello there my furry and human friends! This past week I had the pawesome opportunity to virtually lecture at my local university and I got to speak about a topic that is close to my heart. Adoption. For those of you that may not know, I used to be one of the adoptable pups from Griffin Pond Animal Shelter and when I met my human it changed my life along with some other pups in the office. Check out our stories!
No one wanted me because I was a “runt,” so I was the last lil pug left in a litter of puggies. I had to watch all my brothers and sisters go to their furever homes one by one. I was only there for 24 hrs and it made me so sad! Finally, my human Jamie came and found me and we’ve been best buds ever since. I can’t stand it when she’s not around, I start to make sad sounds!
Poley
I was a stray for a good part of my life, but I was ok with people. I had some training and my new human lady found me and took me off the streets and I felt like a new dog! I started feeling like myself again and not so scared – I could be comfortable and safe in a house.
Gryffy
I was previously living in an abusive home, my owner didn’t like me much. I moved around a lot – I had 4 homes before I was a year old. Finally, Dennis and his family took me in and I quickly bonded with Dennis. They tell me I became his “therapy dog” because I’m full of energy and help keep him active with his Wobbler’s Syndrome, which can be discouraging for him sometimes. I’m so happy I found my furever home and met Dennis!
Hi there I’m Mars! You may know me as the sleepy bagel or the dachshund that barks at you after you leave (sorry I’m trying to protect my human and I’m a wise boy). This past week our goodest boys and best girls had our monthly obedience training today, directed by yours truly.
We’re still able to produce great content with our clients while practicing safe social distancing. We all have a very powerful camera right in our pocket on our smartphones. We’ve challenged some of our friends to get creative with their devices and film their own footage that we can then edit into engaging branded content.
Here are some tips we put together for filming your own video at home. Grab your phone and a handy dandy helper if you can — it’s tough being the talent and the director at the same time!
Settings
Shoot at the highest resolution possible in your settings. 1080 is better than 720, but 4K is best. The higher the number of frames per second, the better. 60 frames per second (fps) is preferred.
Lighting
Experiment with light and be aware of your main light source. For instance, direct bright light may be a little harsh on your face and cast strong shadows. Softer, natural light is more flattering. Take advantage of the light coming through windows without getting so close you need sunglasses. Contrary to what a lot of people think, overcast or cloudy days are actually the best for filming because clouds filter the light.
Setup
Film with your phone horizontally, not vertically. The camera on the back of your phone is generally better than the front facing camera, this is where a helper might come in handy. Place your phone on a flat surface at eye level with your subject. Don’t attempt to hold your phone for filming! Make sure the lens is clean and your subject is in focus, tapping a face on the screen will tell the camera where to focus.
Framing
Framing your shot is important. Align yourself with the center of the screen. We don’t need to see your whole body – we’ll want to focus on your face. You can sit or stand however you’re most comfortable, but remember to stay in one place for the duration of filming. Be conscious of the environment you’re in; make sure the background is not too busy or distracting. Get creative! Move a plant into the background, add a soft blanket for a different texture, or remove excess clutter.
Sound
Find a quiet place with no background noise, silence other devices, and turn the TV off. Let others in your home know you’re filming to avoid any on-camera disruptions. Do a test to make sure there is no echo in your space and make sure to speak loud and clear.
Send your footage
When sending your video files, choose full size. They may be too large for email, you can send via Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, or Hightail.
Every project we have the pleasure of working on has its own special place in our hearts, but every now and then, there are those projects that stand out from the rest. This past weekend was a humbling experience to see our work awarded for creative excellence at the American Advertising Awards (the Addys).
The American Advertising Awards is a multi-tiered national competition that begins with a regional entry. For our Posture fam, entering this competition is a time for us to reflect on what we’ve accomplished over the past year and really appreciate the partnerships that have allowed us to create such amazing work.
The night was filled with inspiring work from all over the region. Cheers to all of the creative professionals and students who were honored this weekend at The American Advertising Awards and THANK YOU to our friends and fellow business owners who trusted us the opportunity to bring their vision to life.
Here’s a glimpse at the projects that brought home awards.
Madame Jenny’s
Gold Addy, Judges Choice and People’s Choice
Our favorite part of this integrated brand campaign was entwining the mystery of the Madame and the history of this gorgeous downtown space. Between the tantalizing social ads, sultry website, and intriguing guerilla campaign that involved leaving “Jenny’s keys” around the city with an invitation to her bawdy house, we were bursting at the seams ourselves just to get a sneak peek into the Madame’s jazzy little speakeasy.
It was quite the challenge condensing a year’s worth of creativity into a single sizzle reel, but we’re proud to finally produce a piece that shows off our favorite work while being as high-octane rapid-fire in-your-face as we are. And of course, we made our own music, too. You’re welcome 😉
Fighting for Change
Silver Addy: Interface & Navigation
Sometimes we do our best work when there is a social cause at stake, and this project proved just that. This website and video interview series centered around fighting for a conversation within our country via effective campaigns that inform the public on key issues. We strived to match that positive energy through this website’s bright and engaging user experience.
We’ve been working with our friends at Avanti for several years now on continuously building brand awareness with a new generation while showing an appreciation for the history of this product. After re-launching their web presence, we were delighted (and a bit sweaty) when we had the opportunity to capture stunning drone footage of the fire-curing process at the crack of dawn in Kentucky and Tennessee.
When your business has “fancy” in the name, you’re already setting the stage for a classy website experience. Our goal was to challenge ourselves technically (we love playing in React!) to create a web presence for this architecture firm that fits their modern style and forward-thinking mindset. It’s always gratifying to see a brand that you sprouted several years earlier take on new life in a fancy website form.
We’ve partnered with Electric City Roasting on their package designs since they were just a baby bean. Every time we collaborate on new packaging, we try to push the brand further while maintaining the integrity and recognition that coffee enthusiasts and baristas have come to know and love.
It was the mid-1990’s when I first caught the web development bug. Home computers were just becoming affordable, dial-up was about as good as it got and Geocities was all the rage. (For the uninitiated, Geocities was akin to the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Wix.) The very first website I built was a fan page dedicated to the old TV show “The Wonder Years”, and it had it all! We’re talking about colorful backgrounds, marquee headlines, a view counter and most importantly for any website of the time, a working Guestbook in which viewers could leave feedback.
In those days, the technology stack was fairly simple, relying on mainly just HTML (HyperText Markup Language) with inline styles and built-in tags. Given the lack of options, the table-based layout was king if you needed anything spanning more than one column on the page. Think of an excel spreadsheet; it’s the same concepts where you have rows and columns and can span elements across multiple or single rows to achieve different layouts.
In 1994 everything changed for web developers.
The first iterations of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and PHP were first introduced, with JavaScript following shortly after in 1995. CSS gave developers a way to separate the markup (AKA HTML) from the styles (CSS) so you could have cleaner files by applying styles to multiple elements on the page using classes and IDs. Similarly, PHP allowed the user to create reusable templates and cut down significantly on copying and pasting the same code over and over. It also gave us a convenient way to interact with the web server, allowing us to create forms to pass data from the web browser to the server and back again (think of a basic contact form).
Arguably one of the most important changes to the web happened in 1996, with the advent of Javascript.
As a front-end language, it allowed developers to take advantage of some functionality previously only afforded by a backend language. Meaning, we could now leverage the power of the browser to capture and change elements on the page without reloading the page. How exciting!
Since then, the web has changed quite significantly. We’ve seen the rise and fall of Flash which offered a great solution for not only animations but also allowed for video on the web. We’ve watched Google go from a little-known web search engine that helped you find your favorite websites, to a global conglomerate and behind every technological solutions is a team of web developers.
Instead of trying to learn ALL of the things, focus on a particular framework that meets your needs, has a good community following (this one’s huge on the path to success)…
Modern web developers now rely on a wide-range of tools beyond just the basics.
We still have the basics: HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP etc. but now we have sub-choices to make. Deciding WHAT backend and frontend frameworks you want to use is just as important as a designer choosing a color scheme… and what a number of choices we have! There’s a running joke in the web development community that a new Javascript framework is written every day and the names become more and more ridiculous with each iteration. Take for instance handlebars.js which is an extension of the moustache.js templating system. (No. I’m not joking. Look it up. I’ll wait.)
As the name suggests, it was named mustache because the parentheses look like a Mustache. E.g. {{placeholder}}
With so many choices, how does one decide?
The answer is actually quite simple. Instead of trying to learn ALL of the things, focus on a particular framework that meets your needs, has a good community following (this one’s huge on the path to success) and never stop learning! The reality is that what used to be a single person’s job, now requires a team to be successful. That’s not saying that a lone developer can’t be successful, but behind a single developer is a network of colleagues that help redefine the web landscape through open-source contributions and are available to share expertise on matters that require a unique perspective. As an example, a typical day on the job for me involves the following technologies: HTML, CSS/SASS, Foundation/Bootstrap, Javascript, NPM, PHP, NodeJS, ReactJS, Webpack, SASS, MySQL, WordPress, Adobe XD/Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator, I could go on but you get the picture!
Whether you’re a Front-end, Back-end, or Full-stack developer, there are so many jobs to be done in order to ensure a successful website. It’s not only about possessing the knowledge and experience of HOW to build a website, BUT also having a good support system from designers, marketers, project managers, and colleagues.
Overall, the community of developers have accomplished so much in just 15 short years, and personally I’m excited to see how far we can push the limits of technology together.
Hello and welcome to Posture’s VideoQ&A: Heir to The Sleigh Edition! Today we’re chatting with Sal and Charles about our interactive holiday video, Heir to the Sleigh. Join us for an inside look at the creative process and technical organization that is required for a successful interactive video project.
What was your initial reaction to the idea of an interactive video?
Sal: I knew this was a cool idea from the start! It’s not like any traditional narratives we had done in the past. When you start to make it interactive (similar to the movie Bandersnatch) and add branching paths into the mix, the project starts to get more exciting.
How did you organize such a content-heavy project?
Sal: Once the script came together we immediately started taking all that information and putting it into a visual flowchart (as shown). The chart was very handy on production day!
What were some of the challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?
Charles: A challenge we faced was developing the right solution for the user experience without sacrificing our vision for the video. We found a few services that did what we were trying to accomplish, but they were for much larger projects. Luckily, our awesome development team was able to save the day with a semi-custom solution.
Sal: Another challenge was our limited time window to shoot all the video content for the project in just one day. So, we decided to keep the execution of the shoot as simple as possible!
Tell us about the editing process and how user decisions influenced the story.
Charles: It was very segmented and organized. Every path had to be siloed to keep our organization and each scene was given its own sequence. An important thing we had to keep in mind with any large video project is quality control. For example, if we do a color correction to one iteration of a clip we have to be sure we’re keeping that color consistent throughout any scenes whenever that shot is used.
Was there anything you would have done differently?
Charles: I try to not look at a project like this as ever completely ‘done’, there’s always improvements that can be made, and keeping it open in my mind can set you up for success.
Sal: The obvious answer is “more time for pre-production”. In a perfect world, every project would have exactly the amount of time needed to plan everything out but that isn’t always the case.
Charles: I agree, but it was still exciting for us to push the limit on something like this!
What would you tell someone interested in video production?
Start yesterday! Your first video won’t be perfect; mine definitely wasn’t. But use whatever tools you’ve got at your disposal, even if it’s just your phone, and get creative! Start assembling a crew of collaborators, friends, supporters, and people who bring out the best in you, mentally and creatively. A lot of cool stuff can come from a group of inspired creators!
Sal Bulzoni
To anyone who has an interest in video production learn from everyone, everywhere! There are so many differing opinions on everything, so listen to people’s production stories, they can teach you a lot.
Have you ever stared at a word for so long that the spelling begins to look wrong?
In logo creation, we designers are OBSESSED with the lines, curves, and shapes the letters of our language make when placed next to one another. Serifs, sans-serifs, scripts, block fonts, and slabs can change the mood and emotion of a word. It’s easy to find yourself wrapped up in an emotional journey of letters struggling to find just the right way to say something, without needing to say anything at all.
Since man has been able to communicate, letters have been a necessity to languages around the world. Starting with cave paintings humans needed a way to communicate without a voice — pictured turned into symbols, symbols turned into letters, and letters formed words. However, to the everyday person typography, traditionally, was an element of necessity with a simple utility function. That’s not the case anymore. In today’s digital age font options are endless and with access to so many options, typography has gone mainstream! People now have favorite fonts and have become more in tune with the emotional response typefaces can add to a message. For a wonderful look at the impact, typography has on our lives, check out the Netflix episode of Abstract with Jonathan Hoefler.
Jonathan Hoefler is a typeface designer and the founder of the Hoefler Type Foundry and typography.com. You may not realize it, but you probably see his work in your everyday life. His fonts are stables on Apple devices and brands like Tiffany & Co., Nike, and the Guggenheim Museum have commissioned the Foundry for custom brand fonts. The 2008 Obama campaign put Tobias Frere-Jones and Jonathan Hoefler’s font Gotham on the map with its bold san-serif letters exclaiming HOPE and CHANGE on posters seen around the nation.
The Hoefler Type Foundry is also the designer of the font, Archer, which we have entrusted to proudly say our name — Posture. Archer is a slab serif font that was originally commissioned for Martha Stewart Living magazine with the goal of being personable, straightforward, and credible. While,at the same time, looking pretty, hard-working, and frank. It makes sense why we chose this font to represent Posture, right?
Typography.com describes Archer as the colorful slab serif: sweet but not saccharine, earnest but not grave, it’s designed to hit just the right notes of forthrightness, credibility, and charm. It’s a font that’s friendly without being silly, and attractive without being flashy, Archer is a typeface that’s well-mannered, easy to work with, and inviting to read…just like our Posture peeps!
As you walk down the street, I encourage you to not just read the words around you, but really look at the letters, what do you think their story is?
Happy Halloween everyone and welcome to Posture’s Logo Graveyard! Where we keep the logos that are no longer with us...
This year at Posture we’re bringing in a new spooky and haunting tradition. Take a scroll, if you dare, to see the unchosen logos of the past. Read their headstones to see how they made it to the graveyard and don’t forget to check out their lively websites.
Client: Madame Jennys
Why we like it: Inspired by the dial on the vault door that is currently at the entrance to the speakeasy, this logo is as sexy as it is silver. Also a nod to the feminine mystique of Jenny Duffy with her eye always watching over Scranton and her business – we weren’t going to get away with putting any smooth moves on this logo.
Why it went to the logo graveyard: The Madame was looking for something bolder and more representative of Jenny herself. Don’t you just love seeing her lovely silhouette behind the bar now?
Why we like it: This treatment just gives off that “cool kid” vibe. We want to hang out with this logo after school behind the bleachers and listen to Blink 182 while we talk about how much our parents just don’t understand.
Why it went to the logo graveyard: We went just a little too “grunge band meets Japanese steakhouse.” This concept didn’t fully convey the freshness of the amazing healthy food that FitAF provides.
Why we like it: Just like a fine wine, you notice the subtle notes of architecture in this logo as you spend more time drinking it in. The anchor points, the doorways, the possibilities!
Why it went to the logo graveyard: A little fancy, but definitely not much Parsley (and we definitely need to get more greens in our diet). Didn’t quite give off the vibrant and creative personality of the people behind the alluring brand name.
Bonus: We REALLY loved animating the final logo design on this website ?
Did you ever have one of those days where the clock magically turns from 10:15 am to 5:15 pm and you have no idea how that happened? Somewhere between meetings, emails, unexpected visitors and scope creep, you completely lost track of your day and now your head is spinning in disappointment and confusion. You’ve just been sandstormed.
Named after the popular trance techno song of the same name, “Sandstorm” is our Posture term referring to our day being thrown into fast-forward.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the song, but just in case, you can check out the original 1999 track by Finnish DJ and record producer Darude(listen here).
The seven-minute song has an iconic repetitive beat that embodies sheer speed and momentum. When Spotify played this song one too many times in a single day, our entire office found ourselves transported throughout the day with no reason behind the rapid passing of time or scattered nature of our brains. That’s when we coined the term: we had been sandstormed.
FUN FACT: The song’s name came from the text on the startup screen of the synthesizer used in the song.
So how can you avoid the storm?
Well, first of all, don’t listen to Darude in the office. But the real problem behind an office sandstorm is time management, something we all struggle with. Here are some ways we try to avoid the storm:
Stop multitasking
Whether we want to admit it or not, our brains are not natural multi-taskers and shifting between tasks and yielding distractions does, in fact, slow us down.
Forbes reports “Changing tasks more than 10 times a day drops your IQ an average of 10 points.”
Make a list and check it twice. In our office we use a phenomenal project management system called Asana. With fun checkboxes, project lists subtasks and all notes and conversations housed in one place, it keeps us on task and all tasks in one place.
Stay conscious of the time. I went through a phase where my mac was set to obnoxiously announce the time every hour on the hour. While it was a creepy robotic voice that was startling to the entire office, it was immensely helpful in giving me a reality check on how long I had spent on a particular task…or how much time I spent avoiding a particular task.
You don’t need to watch the clock to be aware of the time
Track your time
Our agency runs on time as our currency, so it makes sense that we track all of hours as an essential part of our billing system. But it’s easy to rack up three-hours of uncategorized or unbillable time. Treat your own business like you would a client. Maybe no one is pulling those hours for a bill, but at the end of the week you’ll be able to review the data… you’d be surprised how much time you spend answering emails!
How does the Posture team manage time?
“I like to make small lists and accomplish each task one-by-one.”
Gabby
“I schedule blocks of time for my daily tasks so that way I’m not bouncing around aimlessly between to-do’s.”
Kat
“Everything kinda feels important to me, so I try to break it down into three categories: critical non-negotiable (eat, sleep, etc.), critical (the meat of the day), and important (everything else).”
Mat
“When it’s time to focus, I throw on headphones and avoid eye contact.”
