Archimedia Studios

The Grid System in Design

Grids are the core foundation of any design. Think of them as an invisible skeleton upon which visual content is arranged. They structure information so that the viewer can easily assimilate and retain it. They make compositions more aesthetically pleasing. They enhance user experience online. Grids came into public awareness during the International Typographic Style (Swiss Style) of the 1950’s but have in fact been used since the beginning of human history. Even the earliest cultures have employed grids in their town layouts, architecture, and art. The most basic grid systems are usually made of intersecting horizontal and vertical lines (a universally adopted standard) that tend to have a “grounding” effect and are perhaps linked to man’s earliest relationship with time and space: the movement of the sun in relation to the horizon. More advanced grid systems can be made with complex geometry, contain multiple layers, and be three-dimensional or even organic.

Grids, however, seem to have a very low priority in today’s visual design, especially for web developers.

If you are a designer, I urge you to study and understand grids. Grids are tools that we should learn to use and recognize, since it is up to us to create a future rich with effective and engaging communications. Below is a breif slideshow presentation that will help you to begin to understand the Grid System.

Grid Systems

View more presentations from Bas Leurs.

Do not Focus on Quantity over Quality of Fans

Focusing on quantity over quality of fans. This is a trap that many will fall into. DO NOT make the mistake of thinking that the more friends you have, and the more people you follow, the closer you are to success. Anyone can spend day after day in front of a computer clicking the ‘add friend’ or ‘follow’ button.

While a large fan-base is obviously the endgame, it is also a long-term goal to shoot for, not a short-term goal. There is a crucial piece of the puzzle that is missing from the term ‘large fan-base’- loyalty and dedication. This is truly what you are striving for. Dedication and loyalty to an artist or band or even just the music will be a stronger component in your overall success than a bigger, looser following will be.

When you are marketing yourself, your band, your music, and ultimately your brand, focus on creating a smaller group of loyal followers who will be willing to spread the word because they are dedicated to you and what you are doing. Instead of just shooting out updates to these people, work to create create real, lasting relationships and give them a legitimate reason to want to promote you. By building this kind of a following, it wont matter that you don’t have 2 million fans, because the 100,000 fans that you do have will be willing to buy everything you release, follow you on tour from city to city, and allow your career to last longer than those whose fans are just listening to you cause its something to do.

Essentially it draws back into the Pareto Principle which states that 80% of your income will come from 20% of your clients, or in this case, fans. We are a strong believer in this principle. For it is the super fans that bought the t-shirts as soon as you pull them out of the box, the same ones that pre-ordered the CD, the ones that bought advance tickets, and so on.

We  see the same results with nearly every artist that we work with – the super fans, or “true fans” as based on the Long Tail graphic bekow. So the question now becomes, how do we determine and ultimately access these fans ?

We will have some solutions to this question in upcomings posts!

Why every recording artist needs a website

Archimedia Studios is a  huge advocate for bands and musicians having official websites. We maintain that a professionally designed website must serve as the foundation (hub of a wheel) in any Internet marketining or branding strategy for a musician or band  with the many social media outlets (the spokes of the wheel) deployed  to aggregate  fans to your website. Social media is a great way to update your fans, but with Facebook’s current news feed algorithm and Twitter being updated nearly every .0000001 seconds, your updates are likely to go unnoticed if your fans are not online at the exact moment that you publish the update. And even then they are not guaranteed to see it.

Here are our reasons why bands and musicians should have their own websites :

  1. You own your website. There is no fear of being deleted because you are being too “commercial” or violating any 3rd-party terms of service.
  2. You can claim your brand on the web and prevent others from taking your name.
  3. You are creating your own brand equity, instead of relying on 3rd party websites.
  4. You increase your web exposure.
  5. You develop a stable presence on the web. You never know if that 3rd party website will exist in the future (MySpace?) or be as relevant.  How much time was devoted by artists on Myspace the past 5 years?  What would happen to all your  email addresses tht were captured, as opposed to capturing fan email addresses through your own  official site.
  6. You control your search engine results. Be ranked #1 for your artist/band name. If you have your own dedicated domain name it is easier and also you can receive search “juice” or “pagerank” to your official page by linking to your official site from social sites as well as others linking to you.
  7. Building a brand is a long-term strategy.
  8. Visitors to your website have a much higher sales conversion ratio than 3rd party sites.
  9. You control your own brand, image, and user experience,instead of relying on what a 3rd party service provides.
  10. You portray professionalism and legitimacy. Would anyone in the press or in the music industry take you more seriously if you had a website or if you did not have a website? First impressions count.
  11. You can funnel and aggregate all your social media and widgets in one location, where it is convenient for your fans to find information about you.
  12. Flexibility. You can create polls and add any programming, widgets or any modules of your choice without being limited to 3rd party restrictions.
  13. You can own your shopping cart and keep more profit from your sales.
  14. You can add your own advertising and sponsors on your page.
  15. You can offer unique product bundles and exclusive contests for your fans.
  16. You build credibility with your fans as well as can create a fan club area for your superfans as well as dedicated message boards to interact with your fan.
  17. You can strengthen your online presence by linking to and from all your social media profiles.
  18. You can add tracking code like Google Analytics to measure your performance and see what parts of your site get the most traffic. Using such metrics can help you measure your site performance and sales, and assist you in making changes to improve your bottom line profitability.
  19. You can collect emails and create a newsletter designed to keep you in touch with your fans, give them up-to-date news and increase sales. It is more expensive to acquire new fans than to maintain your current following. Recurring sales are integral to your success
  20. Invest in yourself and not others. Websites are like cheap virtual real estate property. Why wouldn’t you invest in your domain name for only the costs of a few Starbucks a year?

Marketing tip for musicians – Show Behind the Scenes

It’s all about establishing and nurturing your relationships with your fans, developing your “loyal” fan base . Give your fans a glimpse into your musical journey. Film studio sessions, photo shoots, tour bus adventures; basically anything having to do with your musical journey that may be of mild interest. Complement your written blog with a V-blog where you summarize the day that has been and express your opinions about things. Address common questions you get, talk about the meaning and history of your songs, introduce the people that you work with. We’ve seen some artists film pranks they’ve played on their managers, and other amusing themes. By taking your fans on a journey behind the scenes, it enables them to get to know your person better, which can strengthen their loyalty and interest in your career. (Unless you’re a boring person), your fans will also enjoy the exclusivity of getting a look behind the scenes. But perhaps the most important aspect of this, in our opinion, is that videos and pictures have a much higher spread-rate than any other virtual content. People are more likely to spread your tour bus escapades or live show performances than your blog entries or tweets. We would rather watch a video tutorial than have to read through a lengthy manual, simply put.

While using professional videographers is always preferred, you can still accomplish your goal without the need of expensive video equipment. iMove or MovieMaker  with a Flip Video camera will work just fine if you are on a tight budget but still want to produce quality productions. Artists using this technique today, very effectively, are Martina McBride, Little Big Town, Lady Antebellum.

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