For the third year in a row, Mazzarello Media and Arts has received the Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award in the Graphic Design category!

Mazzarello Media And Arts received 5 Stars and was named among the Top Businesses for Customer Satisfaction in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Only the very best businesses have been chosen to receive the 2012 CMUS Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award. The award was created to showcase companies that excel in serving their customers and receiving high marks.

Ratings are calculated based on consumer-review websites and blogs, social networks, business rating services and other award information to determine the top companies across the country. Only those high ranking businesses with a 4-5 star rating win the Talk of the Town News Customer Satisfaction Award.

For the third year, Celebration Media U.S. (CMUS) and Talk of the Town News are co-sponsors of the award and are independent professional publishing, research and marketing companies that monitor positive and negative reviews, blogs and social networks to determine the highest-rated and top-reviewed businesses in all 50 states of the country and parts of Canada. Talk of the Town Honors celebrates the highest achievements in customer satisfaction and posts the findings free of charge.

http://www.talkofthetownnews.com/awards2012/5107616360

We had a wonderful 2011! It was a year full of great people and exciting projects. 

We ended up working with 34 wonderful clients! Here is a sampling of some of our favorite projects:

• Boilerhouse Restaurant - Website Design and Implementation
• Craneway Pavilion - Website Design and Implementation
• Critical Pass - Website Design, Implementation, and Product Photography
• Savvy Bride - Logo Identity Package, Website Design and Planning
• Duxbury Court - Website Design, Implementation and Illustration
• Matter - Identity Package, Website Design and Implementation
• WebEngine - Identity Package, Website Design
• Cutline Communications - Business Cards, Website Design and Implementation
• Christ Church - Teaching Series Designs, Promotions, Video Production and Photography
• Peerless Lighting - Identity Package, Softshine Video Production, and Promotions
• Pig in a Pickle - Logo Identity

We are so excited to see what 2012 has in store for Mazzarello Media and Arts.

Italy’s financial problems are all over the news, but our news about Italy is that we were reminded of how wonderful it is. A country that is full of culture, creative people and fantastic food.

Last month we traveled for two weeks in northern Italy. This trip was all about being inspired to create. To fill ourselves with visuals that would stimulate our designs and artwork. To see beauty and then come back home to create it. By our estimation the trip was a success in a variety of ways. We are creating on our computers, on canvas, with the camera and in the kitchen.

Here are a few of the things that inspired us while we were abroad, and we look forward to showing you our newest creations very soon.

• La Bienalle (Venice) The 54th International Art Exhibition featured 83contemprary artists from all over the world
• Museo Ferrari (Maranello) Nestled in the sleepy villlage just around the corner from the factory and test track
• Museo di Castelvecchio (Verona) Great exhibits on historic Veronese church art
• Museo Archeologico and Teatro Romano (Verona) Ancient Roman ruins and artifacts
• Arena di Verona (Verona) Ancient but still useful mini-colosseum, where Verona hosts its annual opera
• Museo del Novecento (Milan) Features Twentieth-Century Italian artwork
• PAC (Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea) (Milan) Increadible retrospective on the photography of Silvio Wolf
• Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice) The personal collection of Peggy Guggenheim displayed in her home

We have been working with the incredibly talented Daniel Bowen of Matter, the video production company we recently branded, to create a series of videos that shares the story, passion and personality of Mazzarello Media and Arts.

Recently Matter video did a test shoot at our studio and we would like to share it with you, view the video below or watch it here:

http://vimeo.com/30529850

As a graphic design studio and a married couple that pretty much spends 24/7 together we found it was important to build a necessary interruption into the rhythm of our lives. That break serves as a milestone in our year and allows us to focus on a goal and build momentum towards it. 

• Languages are very stimulating to our ears, mouth, and mind.
• Signage, art, and architecture are very stimulating to our eyes. 
• Food stimulates our palate.

• Swimming in the Tyrannian Sea of the north coast of Sicliy
• Viewing the The Caixa Forum Museum in Madrid
• Evening vespers at Christ Church Oxford
• Fica (afternoon coffee and pastries) in Stockholm gardens
• Wandering the passages of the Paris Metro
• Evening sunset view from Lisbon’s hilltop Castelo de São Jorge 
• Dazzling ceiling and windows in Barcelona’s Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família
• Majestic beauty of Cordoba’s Alcazar
• Visiting the Mazzarello cemetery in Naso, Sicily
• Taking a boat through Nyhavn, a 17th century waterfront in Copenhagen.

• The plan is to stay 5 nights with my cugina Sylvie at Acetia Leonardi, a 5th generation balsamic vinegar estate in Modena, Emigla-Romana, land of Ferrari and Masarati, Parmesan cheese, and Ragu alla Bolognese. 
• Then off to the Veneto to explore the crumbling walls and wander the canals of Venice where we hope to photograph about 4GB of ancient textures. 
• From there we head to “fair Verona”, to see its artistic delights and witness the majesty of the ancient amphitheatre built by the Romans. The city has been awarded world heritage site status by UNESCO because of its urban structure and architecture. 
• Lastly, we will go to Milan, the capital of Lombardy and the commercial capital of Italy. Not only will we get to see Leonardo Da Venci’s The Last Supper, but we will also be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary in Milan.

In the late afternoon of a very ordinary Monday afternoon on July 11, we got a call from Emmy award winning journalist, Heather Holmes of KTVU Channel 2. She asked if she could come over to do "an on-camera interview" about our graphic design piece we entered in the "I Choose Oakland" campaign. Of course we cleared our schedules and invited her and KTVU cameraman, Ryan, over for the interview.

We were surprised how fast and efficient the interview went. Before we knew it, they had arranged the camera set up, lights and even wired me with a microphone. After it was all over, I wondered what I even said, as time seemed to fly by.

Overall we were happy that we got to represent our wonderful city of Oakland and it was so great to know Heather quoted me on things I love about this amazing city, like incredibly creative people, landscape, transpiration and most importantly exceptional dining!

Watch the video

We wanted to share with you some recently completed identities for some wonderful brands. We get so much joy helping companies and organizations connect the soul of their brand to the visuals of a logo identity.

We work with such a broad spectrum of clients and this spring's identity projects show that very well. Here are some brands we recently designed:

• Family Paths - Provides mental health and supportive services with respect, integrity, compassion, and hope to Bay Area families
• Pig in a Pickle - Marin County BBQ restaurant that supports local, organic, and sustainable agriculture as well as responsible and humane animal stewardship
• GoodMeets - Bay Area based dot com start-up social network
• WebEngine - Robust, user maintainable, web development platform developed by Tap Consulting
• Tap Consulting - Central Coast web development and hosting service provider and long time tech partner for Mazzarello Media and Arts
• Matter - East Bay video production studio specializing in non-profit commercial videos and wedding videography

Mazzarello Media and Arts is proud to announce that we have been hired to redesign the Craneway Pavilion website! Craneway Pavilion is a world-class, sustainably designed event, concert and production facility centrally located in one of the planets most iconic destinations San Francisco Bay Area.

The Craneway Pavilion has a historical significance of innovation and community. This 45,000 square foot iconic destination, The Craneway Pavilion is in the heart of the East Bay, adjacent to Berkeley and Marin County. A spectacular indoor-outdoor environment,landmark architecture, and state-of-the-art infrastructure and amenities set the stage for cultural events, public gatherings and private affairs—of every size and every stripe—as unforgettable as the San Francisco Bay Area itself.

Craneway Pavilion is designed for maximum sustainability, combining the 21st century’s most forward-thinking building standards and green technologies with the structure’s original environmentally friendly features – including more than 40,000 panes of glass that welcome in an abundance of natural light.

The Craneway is also accessible by helicopter, BART and Amtrak (+ shuttles from nearby stations), car (the venue has 1,200 dedicated parking spaces), and by foot from the beautiful shoreline Bay Trail.

• Set on 25 breathtaking waterfront acres with panoramic 180-degree views
• Expansive 45,000 square-foot venue with flexible sizing for 250 to 5,000 guests
• 20,000 square-foot wharf patio creates flow between open-air and interior spaces
• State-of-the-art sound, lighting, communications and green power systems.

Historical Background

Designed by legendary 20th century industrial architect Albert Kahn, the building opened in 1932 as a Ford Motors production plant.During WWII, it was retooled to assemble tanks and jeeps, becoming a hub of homefront efforts that gave rise to “Rosie the Riveter.”

It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988. The restoration of the Ford Assembly Building, part of which is the Craneway Pavilion, has won the National Trust for Historic Preservation Award.

Today we are excited to announce that Mazzarello Media and Arts is teaming up with Rewardy, a mobile loyalty stamp card app for your iPhone, Blackberry and Android phone. We are happy that we can provide this proven technology to our clients here in the Bay Area.

I am sure you can agree that getting a stamp on your loyally card at your local coffee shop or gelateria is a great idea. Buy 10 get one free, right? I myself carry about nine cards with me. I have one for Lush Gelato, one for Grand Lake Coffeehouse, one for the burrito bar at WholeFoods and I love taking advantage of them, when I remember to pull it out or search for it at the bottom of my satchel. The problem is I always forget to get them stamped. So now I actually have three Lush Gelato cards, each with 2 stamps.

But now with Rewardy, a single app you have on your mobile phone, people can carry their card with them at all times. Rewardy is ideal for cafes, bars, spas, eateries, laundries, and many more types small businesses.

Paper based Loyalty Stamp Card is a traditional and an efficient way for businesses to retain and reward their loyal customers. The new Rewardy Mobile Loyalty Stamp Card application is now taking this proven marketing tool to the next level.

How does the Rewardy service work, you ask?  A customer learns about the card via a flyer or a sticker that you place at your business (provided to you by Rewardy). If they do not have the Rewardy Free app installed yet, they download it for free from the App store and select your business card. To stamp a card, you ask the customer to hand over to you thephone, and stamp it by entering your password. When you stamp the "free" spot, you give the free item to the customer and the card resets automatically.

Find out how Mazzarello Media and Arts can set your business up with a Rewardy customized account and marketing materials!

Identity Design and Packaging: Notes from the 2011 Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild Annual Conference

Below is the outline to the presentation I gave at the 2011 Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild Annual Conference on Friday, May 20, 2011 in Miami, FL.

We have also made the 90 minute presentation available in PDF format for you:

Download Identity-Design-HSMG-2011.pdf (104 slides, 26MB) 

Meet the Team

• Team
• Bryan
• Stephanie
• Baz

Look, Learn, Collaborate, and Connect

• Look
• Learn
• Collaborate
• Connect

Design Process

• Process
• Services

Part 1 - Design Theory and Design 101: technical and theoretical overview

• Color
• Typography
• Texture
• Shape
• Layout and Grid
• The Project Triangle (Choose 2: Good, Cheap, Fast)

Part 2 - Holistic Design: integrating heart and passion for your business with your branding

Are you asking the right questions? Who are my customers?

Is my product local, national or global? Is my product serious or playful? Is my product a luxury or commodity? What other brands would I compare myself to? What other brands do I want to avoid looking like?

Taglines

• Nike - Just Do It Milk - Got Milk?
• American Express - Don’t leave home without it
• Allstate - Your in good hands with Allstate
• Apple - Think different
• M&Ms - Melts in your mouth, not in your hand (not really)

Packaging

With the logo finalized and your product in hand one could think why don’t I just slap a sticker on a bottle or a box and there we go? This would be a big mistake because this is where it really all comes together. This will be the culmination of what you have dreamed and created. This is what will go in people’s hands and homes.

Are you asking the right questions?

• How does my logo connect to my packaging?
• Do I want a bar completely wrapped or partially wrapped?
• Do I need excessive packaging?
• Can I get everything to be recyclable?
• Is it made from recycled paper or plastic?

Part 3 - Design Process: taking dreams into reality

Identity Survey

ThinkHouse Collective logo process

• Research
• Concepting
• Comps
• Refining
• Color
• Final Logo (Colors: RGB, CMYK, Black and Format: PDF, EPS, JPEG, TIFF, PSD, Icon)
• Logo Integration (Business cards, postcard)

Other Logos:

• Artists Moving
• Caffe Santoro
• MB Realty

Part 4 - Case Studies: successful brands have successful design

• Big Coffee Brands
• Micro Roasters
• Big Soap Brands
• Well branded soaps

About Mazzarello Media and Arts

Born from the imaginations of husband and wife team Bryan and Stephanie, Mazzarello Media and Arts is an artisan design studio based in Oakland, California. We collaborate with businesses, non-profits and artists whose enthusiasm for their trade feeds our creativity and inspires our problem-solving instincts. We also care deeply for social justice and environmental issues, which weighs heavily in our business decisions from ink and paper to the non-profits we support. A new project is like getting our caffeine fix—we get a rush from new opportunities to learn and collaborate. We strongly value what you entrust to us: your dream, your vision, your passion.

For the second year in a row, Mazzarello Media and Arts has received the Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award in the Graphic Design category. Mazzarello Media And Arts received 4 Stars and was named among the Top Businesses for Customer Satisfaction in 2010 and 2011. Only the very best businesses have been chosen to receive the 2011 CMUS Talk of the Town Customer Satisfaction Award. The award was created to showcase companies that excel in serving their customers and receiving high marks.

Ratings are calculated based on consumer-review websites and blogs, social networks, business rating services and other award information to determine the top companies across the country. Only those high ranking businesses with a 4-5 star rating win the Talk of the Town News Customer Satisfaction Award.

For the third year, Celebration Media U.S. (CMUS) and Talk of the Town News are co-sponsors of the award and are independent professional publishing, research and marketing companies that monitor positive and negative reviews, blogs and social networks to determine the highest-rated and top-reviewed businesses in all 50 states of the country and parts of Canada. Talk of the Town Honors celebrates the highest achievements in customer satisfaction and posts the findings free of charge.

http://www.talkofthetownnews.com/awards2011/5107616360

As many of you blog readers my know, our preferred project management tool is Basecamp. Well at last Basecamp is now on your mobile phone, and it is not an app but HTML5! Now you can manage your project on BART, casual carpool or at the lake.

The entire Basecamp mobile interface was designed for small screens. It’s easy to read, easy to tap, and fine-tuned for speed. Carefully crafted and elegantly presented, Basecamp mobile is a pleasure to use when you’re on the go.

No apps to install. It’s HTML 5. Basecamp mobile is designed for use with your phone’s web browser. You don’t need to download an app from an app store. Just visit basecamphq.com on your phone’s browser, and you’re good to go!

Access all of your Basecamp projects. Post new messages for your team and clients to see. Read and add comments to project messages and milestones. Create and check off project to-do items. View all of your Writeboards, image attachments, and files such as Microsoft Office documents or PDFs in their original format.

Learn more: http://basecamphq.com/mobile

Stephanie and I have been hard at work recently on a special project. We have been wanting to create a way for people to have another way to connect to us as designers. We got a lot of positive feedback on the illustrations on our new website we launched back in September so we knew we wanted to use those, but we did not have a format to display them other than online. Some people mentioned they would like a calendar and others said t-shirts. Ultimately we decided on greeting cards. So we went to work.

We ended up picking our favorite icons from the illustrated series, a typewriter, our cat Baz Kitty, our Bialetti Caffettiera, and a mailbox.

The cards are 4" x 5.5” and are CMYK printed at GreenerPrinter in Berkeley, CA on 95# Reincarnation Matte paper from San Francisco based New Leaf Paper. They are made of 100% recycled paper and Processed Chlorine Free and printed with soy-based inks. Our hand-crafted 8-pack comes with 2 cards of each design and comes wrapped in our custom hand-made craft paper envelope with either an ornament or Christmas tree tag tied with twine.

We only have 17 custom 8-packs left. So get your orders in now before they are all gone. Only $15 for a limited time!

Email us to inquire about a purchase: contact@mazzarello.com

The following is a reprinted by permission from our strategic partner, Nora Isaacs at Isaacs Ink.

A lot of people ask me for advice about writing a blog. Here are eight tips to get you started. No excuses!

1. Create buckets of categories.
 Put things into categories: events, news, inspiration, case studies, etc. Then start filling them up. Carry a notebook or a tape recorder with you when inspiration hits.
2. Your Headline is Everything.
 People make snap decisions whether to read or not based on a split second. Write a catchy, active heading.
3. Be authentic.
 Don't try to be someone you think you should be. Take a risk and let your true voice come through.
4. Avoid the passive voice!
 Which sounds better?
Mrs. Smith is an accountant in Oakland, California.
Mrs. Smith, a certified public accountant, cut her teeth doing books in the competitive world of New York City fashion.
5. Show, Don't Tell.
 Instead of just saying what you do, tell a story that illustrates it.
6. Be aware of sentence length.  Mix long and short sentences so you establish a rhythm and a flow. Go ahead. Try it.
7. Start a conversation by ending with a question.
 Keep the dialogue going by inviting comments.
8. Keep it short. Enough said. 

Nora Isaacs — seasoned copywriter, journalist, editor, ghostwriter, and author — has been crafting words for over 15 years.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon.com, Health.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, Women’s Health, and elsewhere. Nora is also an experienced corporate writer whose clients include Kaiser Permanente, California Pacific Medical Center, Sunset Custom Publishing, The Seva Foundation, Demo Conferences, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, and more.

Nora is also the author of the book Women in Overdrive: Find Balance and Overcome Burnout at Any Age.

Nora has written about hundreds of fascinating topics across many industries and has honed her skills as an expert researcher, interviewer, and writer.

She graduated from Lafayette College with a degree in English. At Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she majored in magazine publishing and wrote her thesis on performance poetry. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, two sons, and their Rhodesian Ridgeback.

We are back in the driver seat after almost a month traveling in the Mediterranean. This year we focused on Portugal and Spain with a side trip to my family’s homeland, Sicily.

It is amazing how draining creating can be. Especially when you are running the business and designing. The remedy we found is intentional travel. Inspired by Stefan Sagmeister’s TED Talk we decided to take an annual month long sabbatical. Every seven years, designer Stefan Sagmeister closes his New York studio for a yearlong sabbatical to rejuvenate and refresh their creative outlook. Watch his TED talk and be inspired yourself.


Last year Stephanie and I spent a month traveling England, Sicily, Denmark, Sweden and Paris. This year we decided to focus on the Iberian Peninsula and see what Portuguese and Spaniards are doing.

We had thought about travel in Portugal before but after reading Communication Arts 2010 May/June Illustration Annual 51 which features the energetic design scene in Portugal, we were confirmed in our interest. Read the article (PDF).

We also have been hearing and seeing good things from our web design colleague and local Lisbon boy Hugo Baeta  who we met at An Event Apart SF 2008.

Of course we had to visit Spain as well. So many friends raved about Madrid’s art collection, Barcelona’s modernist architecture and the vibrant Andalusian sites and sounds. We had an incredible and inspiring time. We hope to share with you over the next month memories and photos from our trip. In fact often times our design techniques improve after a trip like this. For example we now have an expanded design vocabulary after researching the incredible art and pattern-work of Moorish artists in Europe.

Another interesting thing to note is our fascination yet again with street art and graffiti. For some reason we kept running across striking graffiti, especially along the riverfront in Seville.

We look forward to continuing to process all that we experienced and investing in into our work for our clients.

View the Sevilla wallpaper

We have been able to increase our business exposure and gain new clients using free online listings like Google Business Listings and Yelp.

If you are a business owner, take a few minutes this week, log into biz.yelp.com, and start building a rich profile. If it’s partially complete, finish it. These tools give you an important voice on Yelp and allow you to put your business’s best foot forward. Here are six things you can do to increase your business’s exposure on Yelp.

Your Business Owner Account allows you do some great things:
1. Respond to reviews (great client outreach tool)
2. Announce events and special offers
3. Upload as many photos as you would like
4. Tell your story: give users a blurb about yourself, your business’s history, and your specialties
5. See how many people are viewing your business page (This is really helpful)
6. Link to additional locations or friends’ businesses using the “Recommended Business” feature (great way to network)

Investing fifteen minutes in your business’s online presence can pay off.

View our Google Business Listing

View our Yelp business listing

Repurposed from Yelp email newsletter, "Week of September 27".

We are happy to announce that we recently launched SalonTivoli.com.

If you have never heard of Salon Tivoli then hop in the car and head out to historic downtown Livermore, in the East Bay wine country, where you can get a luxurious mani/pedi or a new hair style in an exotic salon in a former movie theatre space. They take serious pride in making you feel relaxed and welcome. From plush couches, browsing a salon iPad, sipping a glass of local Wente wine, or a fabulous hug from Salon Tivoli owner Susan Ulatoski.

One of the reasons we are so excited about this site launch is that the hair salon industry is not known for usable and useful websites. We saw that is an opportunity for them to shine online.

We took a lot of time and energy to research the business and industry. Of course that meant taking advantage of their skills. We are currently sporting recent haircuts that can be seen in our new photoshoot on our site.

Site Highlights include:

• Featured Staff tool
• Events & News tool
• Homepage slideshow
• Social Media Integration
• Product Listing Tool
• Flickr Slideshows
• Custom Drawn Map

Check Salon Tivoli out for yourself:
View SalonTivoli.com
View Salon Tivoli’s 4.5 Star Yelp page
Facebook Fan Salon Tivoli

After a lot of late nights of sorting through 14 years of portfolio pieces, editing photos and writing copy we are at the soft launch phase of our site!

We still need to fill out descriptions on all 54 portfolio peices but the major labor is over (we added over 300 images to the site)!

Special thanks has to go to our technical partner at Tap Consulting, Aaron Barker, for his patience and his genius for helping us build the site.

Also special props go to WebEngine Studio for their amazing CMS tool, Stephan Babuljak for his photos of Stephanie and I, and finally Janna Santoro for making sense of our web copy.

Artists Moving is a professional labor and trucking organization made up of creatives who are masters in the art of the move. As artists it was important to them that their logo, print and website be visually interesting and portray their creative spirits.

The logo was hand drawn incorporating a wheel and three dimensionality to reference both motion and moving boxes. The colors pop, but also remind us that the Bay Area is about roads, land, sky and sea coming together.

For print pieces and the website we decided to create the illustrated cityscape in the same style as the logo reminding us that these are urban movers. The final designs bring together texture and simplicity, respecting the creativity of the artists and their high quality professional work.

View more

Mazzarello Media and Arts has teamed up with San Francisco's La Cocina to create a website for a fantastic SF bakery, Delicias Salvadoreñas. Part of the fun is that our website will be competing against other websites designed for La Cocina.

The new website will be live by midnight on Sunday August 15th so the public can vote on their favorites via Facebook, the San Francisco Street Food Festival website and the La Cocina website until Friday August 20th.

On August 21st, 2010 at the San Francisco Street Food Festival, a winner will be pronounced and be awarded. So be sure and vote!!


Delicias Salvadoreñas:
Patricia Rodriguez, owner of Delicias Salvadoreñas grew up in San Salvador, El Sal vador, the daughter and granddaughter of bakers. As a child, she was always covered in flour and com ing to the US, she knew she wanted to share the love and history of these traditional breads with a new audience.

Delicias Salvadoreñas is committed to using the highest quality ingredients, to hand-making the products of her home coun try and to allow people to come to know and love the rich tradition of El Salvadoran breads and pastries.

Learn more about La Cocina:

La Cocina is a ground-breaking business incubator designed to reduce the obstacles that often prevent low-income food entrepreneurs from creating successful and sustainable small businesses.

By providing affordable, shared, commercial kitchen space, an array of industry-specific technical assistance and services, and access to market opportunities, La Cocina works with entrepreneurs as they launch, grow, and formalize successful food businesses.

We focus primarily on women from culturally diverse communities and immigrant communities. Our vision is that our program participants will become economically self-sufficient and contribute to a vibrant and diverse economy doing what they love to do.

For more information: http://www.lacocinasf.org/

After 4 years our trusty website will soon be replaced.

We have been working covertly in our secret design lair on our new website to be released this summer.

Now you can get a taste of where we are going. The new site will be all standards based code and will be updated with WebEngine Studios' CMS that we roll out with our clients' sites.

Don't worry, for those that love the current site we will have it always available, just like we still have our original 2004 website still up.

Get ready for color. Get ready for fun!

When we print, we always choose to print "green". What is green printing you ask?

When we choose a printer we want to know they are using paper from FSC-certified sources and vegetable-based inks.

Read the Grist.com article where Bryan Mazzarello was interviewed about his green printing choices.

Check out our favorite printer:

Greenerprinter.com

Are you like me and sometimes forget to tweet, or you are good at tweeting but forget you have a blog? Why not have your blog post get picked up my your twitter account and save yourself some time?

To celebrate the new chapter in our company history, we are rolling out new branding. As of today we will be using an updated logo design, tagline and a whole new color palette.

The new logo is more simplified and bold and works well placed in a solid color on a white field or a pattern design. We created 4 patterns that we will roll out with our future website and business cards. Each pattern will represent our personality and personal design style.

Old tagline: Multimedia and design for the little guys.

New tagline: Cultivating creative ideas & hand-crafted design

We are happy to announce the launching of a new website for local, family, Bay Area real estate company, MB Realty, Inc. This brother power duo is not new business. Being the fourth generation in Bay Area real estate, Matt and Mike of MB Realty understand the complexities of the local real estate market.

They originally came to Mazzarello Media and Arts to help them develop the look and feel of the company, but as business grew so did their needs. This website offers quite a different feel to most cluttered real estate sites. Let's be honest the real estate world is not known for ground breaking design, so we knew the door was wide open to bring a fresh look to the industry. Reflecting the open and honest hands on service of the Bay Area brothers, we wanted to keep the site clean and open.

Don't be fooled though. This site is powerful. With a custom backend the brothers have entire control over the content of their site from the front page intro text to the contact page photo this Content Management System does it all. Not only that but we integrated a custom listing tool that allows MB Realty to add, delete and sort property listings and add property photos as well. Special thanks goes to Aaron Barker of Tap Consulting for his fantastic CMS.

Take a look at the site: www.mb-rg.com

We just created a Mazzarello Media and Arts Facebook page. Now you can join as a fan!

Last week, like many in this economy, we were hit with a big blow, learning that several of our big planned projects fell through due to the lack of funding from our clients. However this week we got a whole new boost from some of our long term clients. Some of the stimulating projects I am sure you will hear more about are: