How Little Do Users Read?
Stumbled across a tweet that led me to this older study “How Little Do Users Read?” (via Jakob Neilsen’s Alertbox) Apparently, not very much. In summary, (even though this article is 3 years old) people were already only reading at most 28% of your words on an average visit, spending maybe 4.4 seconds on each 100 words. I’d wager a guess that maybe now, 3 years later, these numbers have dropped…viewers spending even less time dwelling on your site and absorbing even less content. My own site visitation numbers...
read moree-Newsletters
I got my newsletter out last week. I’ve been trying to get out one of these each quarter, but I keep missing my own deadlines lately. So terrible! But it’s out…I like how it turned out. The responses have been good so far. Each time I send one of these out, I generally see at least 1 or 2 clients come out of the blue and need new work. It’s like a gentle reminder to clients who may have wanted work but have put it on the backburner. I highly advocate using e-newsletters if you can use it for your business, I...
read moreChamber of Commerce Hawaii luncheon
I attended the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii annual luncheon today ready to get my schmooze on with roughly 800 other business people in attendance. Lowe Studio Inc seemed to have been well represented as I knew at least 2 clients there (BackOffice Solutions and Consumer Service Analysis) there with my logo and work proudly displayed. I did get to see old co-workers from LavaNet, some other business people I had met through BNI, and even ran into an old elementary school classmate there as well. Kind of intimidating being there with so much...
read moreBrochure Design
As I prep for my upcoming client newsletter, I figure I’d put up a sample of some recent print brochure work I did lately for a home remodeling client. We’re currently working on a matching website…that’s coming on pretty strong and I’d be excited to show that off as soon as it’s done. The brochure itself turned out ok…the digital printing we did shows up with a little bit of cracking on the folds. I’d like to see how this would turn out with offset printing but those decisions aren’t...
read moreCelebs who will make me ball like a little girl…
Today I figured I’d just shoot the shit (WAAY off the subject)…you know for a long time I’ve wanted to write a post about celebrities. You know with all the big stars passing away in recent years, I thought about the celebrities that really made a difference to me when I was growing up. When these folks pass away I’ll genuinely be distraught….you know when Michael Jackson passed away I thought it was sad but not as much as the many folks I saw on TV. So here’s presenting my own small list of...
read moreModel business card
OK, in the world of cool business card ideas, here’s one that’s definitely jumped a few notches up my list. Apparently Tamiya, the company that does those cool modeling sets, has a business card that you can actually pull apart and build with it. Racecar, airplane, boats, etc. Only problem is that once people pull apart your card, I think your contact information is lost. But oh the fun I’d have with this! (via GeekOSystem)
read moreCruise
It’s looking like next year we’ll be going on a Caribbean cruise. Exciting you say? (I don’t know who’s saying it but I’m answering all the voices in my head). Yes, it’ll be on one of the big new ships the Allure. It was decision done at the midnight hour. My mom and all her sisters had been planning this reunion cruise for months now and my 80 year old grandma is going to be going along. We weren’t planning on going but with a little gentle nudging from my mother I guess we’re going to hop...
read moreDon’t Do It Alone
Had a new experience today sitting down with 3 other independent graphic designers today for a lunch meal. I tried organizing this way before Christmas last year when I had met these other designers across other networking groups. I figured it’d be fun just to swap horror stories or get inspiration from other like-minded folks. Ended up we always had some excuse or another that prevented us from getting together up until now. I ran across this article the other day “Web Designers, Don’t Do It Alone”, and it kinda...
read more20 Witty and Creative Posters about Graphic Design
Every week I get in front of a small group of business professionals and I try to clarify what Graphic Design is and what it isn’t. I stumbled across this nice selection of 20 Witty & Creative Posters about Graphic Design. Some of them do a pretty good job of expressing the point. (via Best Design Options)
read morePixel goodness
I’m old enough to remember my first time looking at the graphics in “King’s Quest 1”, thinking how gorgeous it looked to me then. At the time we were still playing very flat looking sprite games on Atari & Coleco consoles and then there’s this wonderful game that comes along that seems to give a new 3rd dimension in gaming graphics. “Look he’s walking behind the tree! Wow!” You know you look at that stuff now, it’s all just a bunch of moving blocks and pixels. But even with...
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LoweStudio Inc was founded by me, Raphael Lowe, a Honolulu based illustrator and web designer. I presently design and manage a few dozen commercial websites, but my main focus these days is acting as the head developer for Kapiolani Community College and teaching