I got my first cellphone in 2001. It was a Nokia with a large 1.5 × 1 inch screen that could reveal the entire spectrum of colors as long as those colors were black or white. With the increased functionality (not to mention screen size) of today’s cellphones and tablets, one of the biggest changes for designers has been figuring out how to tailor their designs for mobile platforms and devices. Here at Studiobanks, we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of mobile-based projects that we’re working on. Mobile websites and apps used to be an afterthought—now they’re more important than ever.

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For college students and recent grads, finding the perfect internship can be a pain. I mean, the biggest decisions we make on a day-to-day basis are choosing which microwavable meal to eat and whether or not we’re going to meet that English paper deadline. How on earth are we to know which internship to choose? This was my mindset going into my marketing internship at Studiobanks. I didn’t know what to expect, so I decided to just jump right in and learn everything I could about digital marketing.

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There are many different ways to look at and define a company’s brand. My personal favorite is covered in the book The Hero and The Outlaw, written by Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D. This hefty tome outlines a system for identifying brands by comparing them to archetypal personalities.

So what’s an archetype? Well, it’s a universally understood symbol or pattern of behavior that’s used in myths and storytelling across different cultures. It’s sort of like a stereotype or a generic personality.

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Contrast, at its most basic level, is our awareness of adjacent opposites. It is something that our human senses were built to recognize. It is always that unique sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch that causes us to take notice. The stimuli we notice first are those which set themselves apart from the “noise” in our perception.

Imagine the distress you may feel as the smell of burning plastic interrupts an otherwise relaxing evening at home, instantly demanding your attention. Imagine the sound of an ambulance siren, and how it so easily pierces through the drone of urban ambiance. Imagine the ancient bowhunter who catches a sudden, jarring glimpse of bright red drops spilled along the green forest ferns, leading him to his wounded prey. Regardless of whether these contrasts are manmade or natural, our response to them is a very potent mechanism of insight, and it has since become a very useful tool for those of us in the business of advertising and design.

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You may have read that listening to music while you work can improve productivity and the work you produce. But sometimes you might want to change it up a bit and learn a little something while you're at it. Listening to quality podcasts about the industry you work in can provide tips, techniques or insight that will help you in day-to-day business or when a tricky situation raises its head.

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A few years ago I came across the site Copy Paste Character, which allows you to simply click and copy symbols from a library. It is an incredible resource for me as a designer because it allows me to access symbols that normally would take some time to figure out the keyboard shortcuts.

Well now this resource is available for your iPhone for $0.99. It offers the same simple touch to copy and paste feature as the original website. So now you can add fun symbols to your status updates, text messages, or emails.

If $0.99 is out of your budget, there is a free version of a similar application here.

Enjoy ✌

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It's been five years since a major release of one of the most respected Mac FTP applications, Panic's Transmit. Despite the wait, it seems several features will make it worthwhile. A big one for starters: SPEED! Transmit 4 boasts transfers up to 25x faster than previous versions thanks to a modified Twin-Turbo transfer engine, Multi-Connection transfers, and FXP support for server to server transfers.

Oh, and if your sick of FTP transfers stealing your delicious bandwidth, Transmit 4 now has support for bandwidth limiting (which sadly has been in other —even free— FTP apps for a while).

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Last week I stumbled across Support Details – which is a simple, single serving site by Imulus that tells the user the operating system, screen resolution, web browser, browser size, ip address, color depth, if JavaScript is enabled, the version of Flash installed, and if cookies are enabled on a user’s computer. The site even allows the user to take their results and export a PDF, export a CSV or email their results to a desired recipient.

It shouldn’t be hard to see how a service like this can be particularly useful when attempting to debug issues with less computer-savvy clients who are unsure how to acquire any of this information. If you find yourself attempting to address a similar issue with a client, I’d recommend using Support Details.

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