Home page of Joara Pottery Festival website

The Exploring Joara Foundation recently hired MESH Design Group to develop a website for their annual Joara Pottery Festival. Since pottery festivals are popular in western North Carolina, they needed a website that would look and function better than other pottery festival sites.

So we created a custom website design that reflects that artistic nature of the event. All important information — the date and location of the event — is prominently featured on every page of the site, so it is immediately seen regardless of what page the visitor lands on when coming to the website.

We also included  a page for each artist featuring a photo of their pottery, so visitors can see the quality of work that is featured at the event. Even the Artists’ navigation menu has thumbnails of each artist’s work for a great visual effect.

We built this website (and many others) using WordPress, today’s most popular open source Content Management System (CMS). WordPress is an incredibly well developed CMS with 100s of developers contributing regularly to the project. The number of developers working on WordPress has created a system that is very fast, very secure, and very easy to use.

Our custom website designs built using WordPress provide our customers with websites that allow them to easily add and maintain their own content while enjoying a custom design that is unique to their business or organization.

We look forward to continuing our relationship with the Exploring Joara Foundation and can’t wait to check out the 5th Annual Joara Pottery Festival!

Poster Design

You may have noticed one of the posters we designed for the upcoming Brown Mountain Lights Symposium hanging around town. This event promises to be an informative day of learning about the extensive research that has gone into attempting to explain the cause of these lights that appear on Brown Mountain.

We were asked to develop a poster for this event that reflected the mysterious nature of this nationally known phenomenon. Drawing on the style of science-fiction movie posters of the past, we created a poster worthy of hanging on your bedroom wall.

Printed pieces designed for American Roller Bearing

We recently had the pleasure of working with American Roller Bearing (ARB) and Honey Bees Event Planning on the print collateral for ARB’s 100th Anniversary Celebration. Our responsibilities included the creation of specialized print collateral, on-site posters and a Power Point presentation. While there are too many pieces to show here, the images below illustrate the general aesthetic of the event.

Through consultation with ARB, it was decided that all materials would feature a historic, turn of the century, feel accomplished through typography while remaining very much in the now. The centerpiece and most ambitious project was the invitation for the event.

Graphic Designer Eliot Lytle’s concept for the invitation required a leap of faith for the staff at American Roller Bearing. The design would be using specialized printing techniques that wouldn’t reproduce in the proofing process.

Eliot said, “Trust me.” They did. The results are astounding.

American Roller Bearing’s Centennial Celebration Invitation

The circular design stands out from the other 99.9% of printed collateral. A 6-color printing process uses 2 metallic inks to create reflective duotones of the bearing images not possible through the regular 4-color printing process. Finally, a registered embossment lends a tactile feel to the design. The result is an invitation that is a impressive to view and a joy to hold in your hand.

We thank American Roller Bearing for the opportunity to work with them and help make their Centennial Celebration special. It’s not often a company turns 100. We enjoyed learning about their company and how their products have played a part in American history. From the earliest trains to the oil industry to the space program, American Roller Bearing has been there.

Also, we must thank Blue Ridge Printing of Asheville, NC. Their knowledgeable staff and specialized skills were instrumental in bringing the ambitious invitation design to reality. There are few print shops in the region that we would trust with such specialized work.

Click above to visit the website

Years ago, our Web Developer Joe Carey designed a website for Apple Hill Orchard located south of Morganton, NC. Recently, Joe got an e-mail from the owner Harley Prewitt asking that we update his site with a new look and added functionality.

Harley and his family have built a thriving business from their apple orchard and regularly draw upwards of 800 visitors on Saturdays during apple season. Many of these visitors are from outside of Burke county, so his website plays a crucial role in bringing visitors to the orchard. It was important that we provide a site that is user friendly, easy to navigate and looks great!

For their new website, we created a fresh design with colors pulled straight from the orchard. The site is built on a content management system that allows Harley to manage his website making updates and adding content. A scrolling news ticker at the top of the page shows the latest news from his blog. The newsletter signup form is part of a self-contained newsletter system, complete with double opt-in and unsubscribe functions, that allows Apple Hill Orchard to create and send their own newsletters.

We believe this new site will serve the orchard for several years. We appreciate the return business and are excited to be connected with another successful local business in Burke county.

One very good reason to do this is it is against Facebook rules to have your business set up as a profile. So there is a risk that the profile could be removed at any time by Facebook for violating their rules of use.

Other important reasons for creating a Facebook page instead of a profile for your business include:

• Pages are indexed by search engines.
• Pages give you access to Insights — analytical data on your fans and how they interact with your Page.
• Other pages can like your page. That is, a page can like a page, but a page cannot become friends with a person.

These are all great reasons to make sure your business is represented properly on Facebook as a page, but there is still another reason. Perhaps more important than all the rest. Here it is. In our current technological times, it shows you know what you’re doing.

If you already have your business set up as a profile on Facebook, you can visit this link for a clear understanding of the pros and cons and instructions on how to convert your profile to a page.

http://pennybutler.com/facebook4biz/convert-facebook/

And happy Facebooking!

Website design for Kala Gallery.

With the opening of their new location in downtown Morganton, NC, Kala Gallery wanted to redesign their existing website to improve how it serves their business. The new website would need a photo gallery featuring descriptions and photos to showcase works by the artists the gallery represents.

Owners Terry and Fransien also wanted complete control over all content on the site including the gallery section. So we implemented a customized theme under the WordPress platform, allowing them to keep their site current through a secure administration section.

The new website was launched in early June, 2011 to meet an award application deadline, and Kala Gallery recently announced they have been named Best New Gallery by NICHE Mag­a­zine.

NICHE Mag­a­zine con­nects art gal­leries and craft retail­ers with the finest whole­sale crafts, hand­made gifts and dec­o­ra­tive art objects made in artist stu­dios through­out the United States and Canada.

Custom Logo for Phil Jablonski

Logo design and identity development are the most challenging and rewarding things a graphic designer can do. Being responsible for how a business is identified for years to come demands a great amount of creativity, so it is important to always evolve and not use the same old tricks.

When Phil Jablonski came to MESH looking to get his identity together, we went through the usual interview process to get a better understanding of what Phil does so we could start brainstorming about type forms etc. We quickly found that what Phil does cannot be pigeonholed. He’s an artist, a craftsman, and a custom fabricator who repurposes found objects for artistic and utilitarian uses. After looking at some of the projects Phil has worked on over the years, we realized no two jobs were the same. The lines were blurred as to which discipline was a defining skill for Phil.

Soon after the creative process was begun, MESH Graphic Designer Eliot Lytle determined that nothing coming strictly from the computer had the tactile quality found in Phil’s work. So he decided a visit Phil’s studio was needed for some inspiration. One step into Phil’s workspace and Eliot knew what was needed to do the logo justice and accurately represent Phil Jablonski and his work.

You see, Phil is a pack-rat (as he should be). He has 10 of everything and many of those items could be used as type forms. So Eliot decided to create a logo using a creative process that directly mirrors what it is that Phil does, repurposing found objects.

The resulting custom logo is, as Eliot says, “one of the most rewarding logos I’ve ever done. The logo speaks directly to Phil’s creative process and the tactile nature of his work.”

Business Cards (Phil’s friends call him “PJ”)

Logo and business card designed for Stomping Grounds Coffee & Wine Bar

We recently “crossed the state line” with this logo designed for Stomping Grounds Coffee & Wine Bar, a new business opening soon in Greer, South Carolina.

The goal was to design a logo that balances the two segments of the business while bringing in tactile elements to  reflect the atmosphere of the establishment. Careful selection of colors, fonts, and font weights combined with the graphic “ring” elements have created a clean, professional logo.

The business cards bring in a textured paper background element that reinforces the tactile experience. The inclusion of a “Buy 10 beverages & get 1 free” feature on the back of the business card allows it to serve an extra purpose.

Poster for Art in the Park

You may have seen the poster promoting the First Annual Art in the Park around Morganton recently. Designed by MESH Design Group, the poster features a watercolor painting by Jan Alms.

We were excited when we first heard about the Art in the Park event being organized by the Morganton Parks and Recreation Department. When they asked if we would design a poster, we were more than happy to help out. It is always great to see a new art oriented event taking shape in town!

Art in the Park will feature fine art, sculptures, pottery, jewelry, metal work, and live music — plus it’s FREE! Be sure to take part of your day on May 14th to visit Catawba Meadows Park and enjoy some art.

Click image above to visit the Signature Studio web site

We are excited to announce our partnership with The Enola Group with the launch of an e-commerce website representing the artists of Signature Studio. MESH Design Group not only designed and implemented the website, but will also be The Enola Group’s online sales representative, taking on the role of maintaining the site, promoting the site and processing and shipping orders.

We look forward to working with The Enola Group promoting the amazing talents of the Signature Studio artists and solidifying their reputation as a unique program for artistically gifted adults with developmental disabilities.

The website currently features pieces by Harold Crowell and Brooks Yeomans, with more works from all of the studio’s artists coming soon.