kitestring’s 2010 theme harks back to the days of marketing, design and advertising’s past. Expect to see more renditions of kitestring’s team portraying our own industry’s stereotypes from past decades in humourous shots and spots.

Hiloro is an Andean Imports Company that specializes in unique, high-end Andean Stone. Derived from our naming workshop with our client, kitestring illustrated the brand using metaphors regarding sewing and common experience coming from the word hilo, the Spanish word for thread. The brand name also takes from the word oro, Spanish for treasure, evoking the warmth of home as a priceless luxury. The brand icon we created uses colours inspired by Peruvian villages and depicts the steps Hiloro takes to bring a natural treasure to its customers from mountain to sea to another land.

HYPE isn’t like other networking events around town. It says "No" to stuffy business card hand offs and feather plumage puffing. However, if you vote "Yes" to cups of cheer and meeting like-minded people in your pond, you’ve come to the right place.

The latest HYPE (Hamilton Young Professionals and Entrepreneurs) event invited all young creative professionals in the city to meet others like themselves at The Ship, our favourite new indie seafood bar on Augusta Street.

As always, this casual meet started after the nine to five grind, but unlike previous events, had a whole new crop of young creative, media and marketing professionals come out. The common consensus was that it was great to meet others in the industry living in the same city, and that we should do it again soon!

The next HYPE event will be on February 17th. Email meg@kitestring.ca or follow @kitestring and ask him to add you to the HYPE list on twitter (Twitter HYPE List) to get the latest info.

Check it out: Holiday HYPE

The team at kitestring creative marketing + design was pleased as punch to speak "on creativity" at Mabel’s Labels’ first annual marketing retreat earlier this month. As kitestringers, we’re believers in the idea that creativity isn’t something you can get on top of to speak, but that as equals, we can only speak "to" creativity. All mantras aside, we had a blast watching the savvy business women of Mabel’s Labels envision a full blown marketing plan for selling water on Planet Zoltan, previously a never before seen product. For this activity we posed that all you need to find creativity is a problem to solve and limitations to overcome. Thanks for the fun Mabel’s Labels!

Check out our video of the workshop here

It’s time to tweetup Hamilton! Come on out to the Pheasant Plucker on Augusta in Hamilton on Jan. 28th 2010 from 6 till whenever and meet your twitter peeps! Use your tweet power and sign up here! We have a strong twitter community in Hamilton and it’s time to make it even stronger! kitestring and The Big Tweet’s official sponsor venue, The Pheasant Plucker, are so excited to host the first event of this kind in the city. Snacks, social networking and cupcakes! Sign up and see you there!

Remember when the word "social" inspired visions of teacups, friends and dessert? Can you think "social" today without wondering what the tweet to do about social media?

Bringing old and new together for the first time, kitestring is pleased to host Snow Ball: A Social Media Social!

In celebration of all things worth juxtaposing, Snow Ball: A Social Media Social will feature a collaborative, interactive workshop where guests can learn and share their modern social media know-how with the kitestring team, followed by an old fashioned tea social, accompanied with all of tea service accoutrements like scones, jam, tiny sandwiches and doilies! Oh my!

The social will be held at the beautiful Staircase Theatre (27 Dundurn Street North) on March 3rd, 2010 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

kitestring welcomes marketing professionals, entrepreneurs, social media newbies and pros, groups and singles to the Snow Ball! We’ll learn from each other by building on shared experience.

kitestring’s first ever social media social has limited seating, so please register here by purchasing your ticket.

Snow Ball: A Social Media Social
Hosted by: kitestring creative marketing + design
Wednesday, March 3rd 2010 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Staircase Theatre, 27 Dundurn Street North, Hamilton, Ontario
Find out more and Purchase Tickets online at kitestring.ca/the-snowball-social for $25 per guest, limited seating

There are a lot of web development and design buzzwords being thrown around and misunderstood these days. Some of the most common that we’ve seen lately are: re-skin, dynamic, and CMS. Below are examples of how they are used, and what they really mean.

Re-Skin
Common Request: "We need to update our site. Basically a new look and feel, new content, completely different sections, and we want to be able to edit the content in-house. So, can you quote us on just re-skinning our current site to fit this? The site has done us well since 1999, but could use a bit of a re-skin."

The Truth: A true re-skin really means to change some imagery, the header, some fonts and styling, and keeping the rest of the site generally the same. However, with an old site that uses older programming techniques, this may not be a simple thing, and will often require a redevelopment.

Real-World Equivalent: "Hey, Mr. Car Mechanic, my engine is pretty much done, the tires are bald, and the steering wheel is missing, can you please give me a paint job to fix all those things? Also, I hope the car is much bigger and more powerful after this paint job."

Dynamic
Common Request: "Can we make the site more dynamic, make it pop".

The Truth: We have no idea what this means! Dynamic can mean a lot of things, such as the content is dynamic and ever-changing, or the images move in a seizure-inducing way. As for making it "pop", the design and development world is still trying to solve this century old riddle. Dynamic is a vague term, and one that is perhaps to blame for the excessive use of Flash in the early 2000’s. This type of request is also done by totally disregarding the website’s audience; if you make a website flashy and dynamic in a way that only a kid will like it, and your target demographic is a corporate big wig, then you’re just doing it for the cool factor, and it will detract from the experience.

Real-World Equivalent: "Okay, so I want this cup of coffee to pop, you know, be really dynamic to get people’s attention. Maybe tie a balloon to it, and put a bunch of decorations inside the cup! I know people won’t really be able to drink it, but it will get their attention!"

CMS (Content Management System)
Common Request: "The site looks great, can you now add a CMS to it so that we can do everything in-house? That shouldn’t change anything right?"

The Truth: It takes a considerable amount of work and knowledge to take a custom built site and apply it to a CMS. This is something that should be determined at the beginning of the project, and not at the end. While we definitely encourage the use of a CMS and the client having control, it is added work, and added cost. There really is no "build website" button that does everything for us, no matter how much we wish there was.

Real-World Equivalent: "The house looks amazing! I think we’re ready to move in. Can we just quickly change the foundation so that we can eventually add a garage, and change the layout of the rooms whenever we want? Let us know when it’s ready."

kitestring has been working closely with client Ladies Choice AutoCare, revamping their brand with a new website that includes a brand new look, feel and sound. kitestring worked with Marta Hewson Photography to achieve the crisp, lively images deserving of this brand’s unique business model that is based on empowering women through their AutoCare, EduCare and DivaCare services. Stay tuned for Ladies Choice AutoCare’s commercials on the Rogers Channel. kitestring enjoyed developing two creative concepts and creatively directed two television spots, produced by MediaFace, that will begin airing in mid-January.

Check out kitestring in the Hamilton Spectator here. – http://www.thespec.com/Entertainment/article/695661

Our good friends at Citizen Kid on Locke Street are donating all sales of toys bought at their store on Friday, January 22nd to the Red Cross. What does this mean for you? You get toys and you get to help our Haitian neighbours! kitestring will be there on Friday and we hope to see you there too! Check out poster here! http://www.kitestring.ca/buy-toys-give-to-haiti/