Seattle Wedding Show

I just got back from the 2010 Seattle Wedding Show. I was a little hesitant about it, picturing swarms of crazy brides elbowing each other out of the way for cheap wedding dresses. But, since I am getting married this year, and I wanted to make some contacts for Vivid City, I decided I should go.

I was pleasantly surprised! I had a great time and got a lot of ideas for my wedding. Here are my top reasons to check out a wedding show when you are planning your big day:

1. Great vendors. We met vendors from all different areas: DJs, invitation designers, florists, tuxedo rentals, gift registries, caterers, and more.

2. Dresses. We saw a great fashion show, and were able to skim the racks of a lot of dresses. It was so great to see dresses on real people, in person, instead of just in wedding magazine ads.

3. Great deals. Many vendors give away great discounts at the show only. Make sure to pick up coupons and sign up for discounts wherever possible--weddings are expensive!

Don't get overwhelmed! Vivid City can help you navigate the confusing waters of wedding planning. Email us at info@vividcitymarketing.com

Web Trends for 2010

As the year winds down, not only do we review the past year, but also look to the upcoming promise of the New Year. 2009 brought us many online trends including tweeting and ‘unfriending’ but what will 2010 hold? Mashable is a Social Media blog I started reading about 6 months ago and have seen some great posts from their contributors. Their CEO, Pete Cashmore has some thoughts on what will be big 2010. Not only am I excited to see if his predictions come true, I am excited to try some of them out – especially the flexibility that cloud computing can hold. Check it out

Color!

I'm always interested in how advertising and marketing uses color to enhance, clarify, and create campaigns. In my past life as a photography buyer, I spent so much time doing photo research that I could pick out where most images in print campaigns I'd see around town came from. I am still on the email lists of quite a few stock photography houses, and I just recently received a case study from Aurora Photos about a campaign they did for a neighborhood bank in Maine. They did TV ads, print ads, brochures, and other collateral. I think the campaign has so much vibrancy and energy that they would have missed with a "quieter" color palate. The bank has even reported a direct return on investment. Check it out!

Photography Searching Made Easy

I've been meaning to post about this website for a while now, but I'm just getting around to it now. For two years, a large part of my job was purchasing stock photography, picking images for marketing campaigns and magazines, and being the general go-to-gal for all things photography at my company.

I'd spend hour after hour searching for that perfect image for a campaign. You cook up this visual in your head of the perfect image, and then it is almost impossible to find an existing image that meets your imaginary criteria.

I recently heard from a contact at Masterfile about their new search functionality. It has been around for a few months now. It is AWESOME. It was actually honored at the Webby Awards. They have tools called "SimSearch" and "Visual Matching" where you can take an existing photo, and it will recommend other images that suit it well. I don't know how they do it. Tiny elves? Magic wands? Some kind of potion? (see why I don't work in tech?) However they did it, they did it well. Check out these examples:

Masterfile has posted a demo video here.

Winter Song

I am a huge fan of Ingrid Michaelson. I went to her concert about a year ago, and she is fantastic.

About the same time last year, I came across a song called "Winter Song" that she did with Sara Bareilles. The song is really beautiful, and the video for it is so ridiculously cute. I love the old-time movie reel effect, and the animation is so simple and fun to watch.

Given that it seems like it will never be sunny in Seattle again, this seemed like the right thing to post on a rainy, cold, windy day like today. Enjoy!

Social Media here to stay?

I found this really interesting video on YouTube today about social media and its effect on marketing and advertising. As more and more companies are learning how to market their product or service through social media, some experts are wondering if social media is just a fad, or something that will be a permanent change in the way we do business.

This video is really well done, and makes you think about the way social media affects our daily lives. Check it out.

Learn something new every day!

A friend of mine just passed along this link to Learn Something New Every Day. I think it is so cute and the drawings are really creative and fun. I also love that the writing is British English. I spend a lot of my day at work editing in British English, and I love the way they spell everything. Perhaps because I secretly wish I was British. And lived in London. sigh.

Here is today's.