Category: Posture Interactive

A Branding Jumpstart for Luzerne County Head Start

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We’d like to introduce you to our friends at Luzerne County Head Start.

Nearly 6 months ago we participated in “Cropped“, a creative competition hosted by the American Advertising Federation of NEPA that helps non-profits receive new or updated branding through 3 fast-paced rounds of competition between local marketing companies. Luzerne County Head Start (LCHS) was chosen as last year’s featured non-profit, so they presented their list of marketing needs at the competition in November. Each of the teams had to create a logo, tagline, and campaign strategy in 20-minute segments while using only markers, crayons and craft paper. After each segment, a team was eliminated (“cropped” out) by a panel of judges until there was only one team left. The winning team then worked with the non-profit to complete the suite of marketing materials they proposed during the competition at no cost to the nonprofit.

After some creative crayon drawings, brain-busting brainstorming, and witty word-play, Posture ascended through the rounds and won the competition. The best part? We got to work closely with the wonderful Head Start team and we were even invited to visit their location in Wilkes-Barre to help make pancakes and eat breakfast with the kids.

Head Start promotes the school readiness of young children from low-income families through agencies in their local community. Head Start and Early Head Start programs support the comprehensive development of children from birth to age 5, in centers, child care partner locations, and in their own homes. This includes a wealth of information of resources for new or soon-to-be new parents.

Even with such a fantastic wide-spread mission, LCHS still needed a hand with their marketing to help garner the support of more community resources and funding. They actually have a wait list for children to get in because there are many families who can benefit greatly from these programs, but Head Start only has so many open seats for children in the area with their current resources. So in addition to developing a new refreshed logo and a tagline that better expresses the mission of Head Start, we also created a campaign strategy to get the word out.

After seeing how excited Lynn and the team were to use their new marketing materials, we knew we were hooked on Head Start and we couldn’t stop there. The team approached us about giving their website a much-needed overhaul, and we gladly whipped up a proposal for what we know will be a great new chapter for Luzerne County Head Start. Stay tuned for great things to come for our friends at LCHS!

React Training

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Training 4 Development giving Posture’s development team the “low down”

This past week we put the development in professional development! Our dev team completed an intense week-long training that sharpened their coding skills in React, Redux, and Typescript. Web design and development are constantly changing so it’s important to stay on top of the trade’s trends. We’re constantly trying to find new ways to improve our brand’s strategies and help them improve, so we’re glad we got to learn some new tricks from Training 4 Development.

Staying creative in the New Year

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Some people are gifted with the innate ability to come up with brilliant ideas and innovative solutions effortlessly. The rest of us, however, are forced to work with the complexly (and sometimes clunky) mechanical minds we’ve been given. They grind along well enough if we oil them frequently, but it’s easy to get behind on mental maintenance. Creativity requires vigilance and lots of self-care. It’s almost like taking care of your car but deserves a little more thought. 

Here are our tips for keeping your creative mechanics sharp and running well:

1. Preventative maintenance

Keeping cognitive creation at it’s prime requires preventative maintenance like a cars oil change. Instead of chugging the nearest 5W-30 caffeine, make sure you’re paying attention to how well your engines running, and be sure to take measures accordingly. If you’re feeling drained, don’t push yourself more than necessary.

2. Refuel often

A good day’s work of creative output comes from a lifetime of creative input. Your creativity is based on your lifetime of experiences that have led up to this moment. So keep living your life and feeding your creative side. Make sure you are participating in something you are passionate at least once a day.

3. Rotate your tires regularly

If you’re constantly wearing on the same old tricks you’ve always used, you’ll get worn down. You need a new perspective from time to time, and that requires some time and effort. Whether that’s throwing a new

4. Just get in the car, damnit.

Half the battle is showing up, getting your pen on the page. Chuck Close put it best by saying “Inspiration Is for Amateurs—The Rest of Us Just Show Up and Get to Work.” Most of the time while we’re simply waiting for something to spark our creativity, we could instead be putting effort into creating using what we already have in front of us. Sure, you’ll have some days where you’re fired up and roaring to create, but other days you’ll have to make do with what you can get.

5. Drive with confidence

When you’re out on the road, there are a bazillion other things you could focus on, but it takes a bit of focus and self-confidence to really hone in on driving your creativity to the finish line.

You can do it, now get out there and drive!

 

Party on…and keep the Arts Alive

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I knew pretty early in life that I would pursue a career in something related to visual art. Whether it was drawing banners or building crafts as a kid, I was always pretty artsy-fartsy. I identified and thrived in this area because I was exposed to it and given the opportunity in school and at home to be as artistic as I could.  I was lucky. Not every kid has those opportunities.

Research shows the arts offer benefits far beyond creativity — they increase productivity and focus, they boost confidence, teach problem-solving and so much more. Regardless of their benefits, budgets and curriculums in our public schools make it difficult for our children to be exposed to visual and performing art.

So when our team started thinking about what local organizations we wanted to support this holiday season it was only natural that I thought of something that has had an impact on me personally.  I’ve had the pleasure of working hand in hand with Arts in Education NEPA, a partnership organization of The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and NEIU 19. Their mission is to advocates for arts education in schools and communities. They administer quality learning experiences in the performing and visual arts.

 

The most widely known AIE NEPA program, Arts Alive, is celebrating their 26th year this summer. Arts Alive pairs professional working artists and students in grades K-12 for four intensive weeks each summer. And the outcome is nothing short of remarkable.  They create a safe space where no one feels like an outsider and anything is possible. Students self-esteem skyrockets and the boost in confidence trickles through all of their studies improving their grades and attitudes with lifelong lessons they will take with them throughout the year.

What’s even more remarkable is the effect these programs have on children with more serious needs. I’ve personally met autistic children who entered the program as a nonverbal student and have found their voice through Arts Alive… literally and figuratively.

 

Support of AIE NEPA provides scholarships and transportation to students that otherwise wouldn’t have access to quality educational art programs.

 

Show your support for the arts and build a virtual gingerbread house for AIE NEPA!

Join the Posture House Party now through December 31st and share your house on social media with #PostureHouseParty to vote for AIE NEPA as the winner of our grand prize — a cash donation plus design and digital support totaling $5,000!

Start building here.

Dip your toes into Our Pocono Waters with Posture’s House Party

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Our Pocono Waters is dedicated to protecting the exceptional value streams of the Pocono area. What’s an exceptional value stream? I’m glad you asked. An exceptional value stream is a classification given to streams that have the cleanest and highest quality of water. In the Pocono’s region, we have over 80% of the state’s exceptional value streams, and a lot of the streams are threatened by bad environmental practices. Our Pocono Waters wants to help protect these streams.

Our Pocono Waters is also important to me personally too. I grew up out in the woods messing around, falling in streams, building forts. Now, I spend a lot of my free time outside fishing or hiking around these same beautiful streams and outdoor spaces.

They’re a source of endless inspiration and relief when nothing else suffices. You really can’t beat standing in the middle of a stream with a fly rod in your hand. It’s a magical feeling hearing and feeling the stream flow around you. When you’re out there like that, you start to get a sense of how important a small stream can be to the local environment and the people around it. Pristine beauty like the streams of the Poconos need to be protected for generations ahead of us to experience. I’d hate to think of a future where kids couldn’t spend their time alongside a babbling brook. If you want to learn more about their organization visit ourpoconowaters.org

 

Our Pocono Waters Logo
Support the protection of a local resource by
building a house for Our Pocono Waters 

Join the Posture House Party now through December 31st and share your house on social media
using #posturehouseparty to vote for Our Pocono Waters
as the winner of our grand prize — a cash donation plus design and digital support totaling $5,000!

Start building here.

We’re having a party… and you’re invited!

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The Posture elves have been busy working on something really fun for this holiday season — we’re having a house party, and you’re invited! No need for a covered dish or party clothes, you can join in the fun right from your couch if you like.

The Posture House Party is an interactive gingerbread house building extravaganza!

 

We’re asking our friends, families, clients and the community to build their own digital gingerbread house and share their holiday creation on social media.  But what’s even better is each house built will be a vote for one of our favorite non-profits. The organization with the most houses shared in their honor will be awarded a cash prize and a boatload of our time for their design, web, and digital content needs — all totaling $5,000!

 

The Posture team put our heads together to identify the causes we care about most —  as a result, we’re thrilled to be partnering with Arts in Education Northeast Pensylvania, Blue Chip Farm, Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, The United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties, and Our Pocono Waters.

 

We’ll be partying on until December 31st and we’ll announce our winner in the new year!

What are you waiting for? Start building at PostureHouseParty.com

Brain Picking: What’s Inspiring the Posture Crew in October?

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As a chill comes blowing in the door, and our Posture orange begins to look a little more decorative, we’re getting pumped for the Halloween season with some inspiration from far away places. Give a little look-see, maybe something will catch your eye.

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of A-Way-To-Go

Posture’s Favorite Trippy Virtual Reality Experience: A Way to Go
 Here Online(best-accessed from a computer)

A Way to Go is a walk in the woods. It is an astonishing interactive experience, a restless panorama, a mixture of hand-made animation, 360˚ video capture, music and dreaming and code; but mostly it is a walk in the woods, c’mon. Created by Vincent Morisset, Philippe Lambert, Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit & Caroline Robert (AATOAA). Produced by the NFB & France TV.

 

 

alkaline trio is this thing cursed album cover

Doug’s Album: Alkaline Trio’s “Is This Thing Cursed?”
Here on Spotify

The new alkaline trio album may be one of their strongest releases in about 10 years, I’m loving it so much. They have spooky lyrics so that counts right?

 

 

The Greatest Showman

Photo Courtesy of TSG Entertainment

Joey’s Movie: The Greatest Showman
 Find it on Amazon

A fantastical retelling of P.T. Barnum’s story from rags to riches. The musical adaptation creates a wonderful world of carnival inspired songs with a heartfelt message.

 

 

shape of water movie cover
Photo Courtesy of TSG Entertainment

Kat’s Movie: The Shape of Water

 Here on Amazon

This week I’m inspired by “The Shape of Water”  I just saw that movie this weekend and there are just so many things that are hauntingly beautiful about it. The grimy scenes set in 1950’s Baltimore along with the vintage music compliment each other perfectly. Parts of it are actually very reminiscent of the Bioshock games. Also, it IS described as part love story, part monster movie so……kinda on Halloween theme there?

 

 

Zach’s TV Show: Castle Rock
 Here on Hulu

Castle Rock is an odd TV Show on Hulu about a small town that is supposedly haunted. The series is actually based on several of Stephen King’s novels like ‘Kujo,” and ‘The Body,’ more aptly know by its film adaptation: ‘Stand By Me.’ The town’s inhabitants struggle with their history and a boy who appears out of the jail’s basement. Through a series of mind-boggling time jumps and odd bits of storytelling, you’re left with a mystery to solve. 

 

Want to learn more about Posture Team? Check out our About Us page.

 

SEO: The Internet’s Dewey Decimal System

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SEO: The Internet’s Dewey Decimal System

 

Posture Interactive SEO library
In the Google-plex universe of the internet terms like SEO, API, and algorithm are thrown around, but what does it all mean and why is that important to you as a customer?

Internet jargon is all the rage nowadays, but it’s shrouded in mysterious overtones. In the Google-plex universe of the internet terms like SEO, API, and algorithm are thrown around, but what does it all mean and why is that important to you as a customer? First, it should be noted what SEO stands for: Search Engine Optimization.Put simply: SEO is  the underlying system that helps search engines create relevant results on websites like Google.com. Even that sounds vague and very intangible, though. It becomes a lot easier to understand when you think about it in terms of physical objects.

So let’s imagine the whole internet is in a library, and all the books within the library are the websites that inhabit them. These books have images, text, and tons of info within them that are managed by the Dewey Decimal System. When you look for a book at a library, the librarian can look up the book on their computer or uses the Dewey Decimal System, which is a system created to organize books by their subject. When it comes to the internet,  you have Search Engines like Google or Bing instead of a librarian. Rather than using numbers to find your website, like the Dewey Decimal System, these search engines use metadata. Metadata is the information that defines what kind of topics are within websites. Meta is a Greek derived term meaning “beside” or “alongside.” So its all the data that naturally appears alongside a website as its developed that gives it content

All of this content has to be logged and indexed in search engines like a book would if it were to show up in the dewey decimal system.

…its all the data that naturally appears alongside a website as its developed that gives it content

Best practices these days consist of someone combing through and editing the metadata to correctly inform the Search Engines what all the content is, or the search engine will define it however it sees fit (or sometimes not a all). So it’s important to have someone go through and make sure the content throughout the website is correctly formatted to communicate with the Search Engine effectively to show relevant results for the customer.

You might be thinking: why do I need someone else to do that for me? First, you might need to edit direct HTML in the websites code. It’s not impossible, but can sometimes be risky, frustrating, and time consuming. Someone who is intimately involved with websites can do this more quickly and efficiently. Secondly, there are ethical guidelines for the internet’s metadata. Back when Google started out, you could simply trick the search engine into  bringing your results up first by jamming a bunch of keywords into your metadata (known now as black hat SEO and VERY much frowned upon). This meant your end user might get unrelated results because someone packed their website with poor quality metadata.

Google is a little bit more complicated now, and uses an algorithm that actually tries to get around these SEO tricks that manipulate the search engines. Google actually encourages people to report improper use of SEO, so its important to keep your metadata ethical and full of truthful and quality information.

Have any questions or need help with your SEO, drop us a line: Contact Posture

Brain Picking: What’s Inspiring the Posture Crew in August?

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Throughout the week things get hectic. There are plenty of deadlines to meet and new projects to start. Keeping ourselves creatively fueled is one of the hardest, and most important aspects of any job in the creative industry. Work pulls from your creative inkwell, and you have to make sure to keep it filled. Let’s take a look at what Posture’s team has been using to keep themselves inspired and creatively active.

Photo courtesy of Pixar

Posture’s Fav Film of the Summer: Pixar’s Coco
 Here on Netflix

Pixar’s recent movie is about a boy whose family forbids music in their household. The story follows him and his dog as they trek through otherworldly dimensions to get permission from deceased family so that he can play music again. Pixar weaves a carefully constructed story with beautifully rendered characters, worlds, and creatures to give the viewer an immersive glimpse into other cultures and the age-old themes of family and tradition. All of that is great and all, but we really loved it cause it gave us a good cry, and who doesn’t need one of those once in awhile?

Doug’s Book: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Here on Amazon

A San Fran ex-techy can’t find a job and ends up taking a night shift as a bookclerk. There seem to be some secrets to his mysterious boss and his strange bookstore.

 

Mat’s Album: How to Destroy Angels
 Find it on Spotify

It’s Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails + his wife, and she is a West Indian singer. It’s really cool.

 

 

Photo Courtesy of Netflix

Kat’s TV Show: GLOW Season 2
 Here on Netflix

I’m really getting into the second season of Netflix’s series “Glow” this week. The bright colors on both the clothing and in neon combined with the larger-than-life hairstyles and classic 80’s tunes definitely engulfs you in nostalgia. But I’m also pulling a lot of inspiration from the nostalgia, playing with some brighter color palettes and enjoying some great throwback jams while at work. I may have been born at the tail-end of the 80’s, but I still friggin’ love them. <3

 

 

Zach’s Book: The Stand by Steven King
 Here on Amazon

I love creepy movies and books, and this one sets a high bar that a ton of other series take from. It’s your classic end-of-the-world situation: the government accidentally releases a “superflu” that quickly devastates a majority of the world. As the book progresses, groups form and need to compete for survival. The twist is Stephen King’s unique character creation and development. You find yourself sympathizing with them when you least expect it.

Want to learn more about Posture Team? Check out our About Us page.

Intern Spotlight: Emily Rudolph

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Posture is happy to have so many wonderful interns come through our doors. We also are really glad when they return to intern with us several times so we can help them grow and watch them progress through their school careers. We’d like to introduce you to our intern and graphic design student at Kutztown University, Emily Rudolph.Emily in the office


Where are you from?

 

Born and Raised in Scranton, PA.

 

What inspired you to study Graphic Design?

 

I wanted to go into art with some kind of structure that has a goal in mind, and less of a vague idea.

 

What’s the best thing so far about going to school in Kutztown

 

I like that their design program covers tons of subjects like Interactive, Branding, and Illustration. There are some old professors and some young ones, the mix is helpful and you have more choices when it comes to classes to take.

 

What is the most interesting project/client you’ve worked on at Posture Interactive?

 

Working with the Everhart Musuem brand. It was the first thing that felt serious, because it was entirely in my hands. It wasn’t just a project anymore. Also, I got to work with all parts of it the mailers, the logo, EVERYTHING. Now I get to see it launch too. It’s nice seeing the museum, I saw as a little girl, getting an upgrade.

 

What is the biggest piece of advice or working skill you’ll take with you from your intern experience here?

 

Multitasking for sure. Prioritizing and setting important time aside for specific tasks and being able to juggle tasks. In school things are so much more open ended for your timeframe, but here you have to get things in on time and budget the time right so you can keep on schedule.

 

What would you tell fellow students who haven’t had an internship yet?

 

Do it. Go get yourself an internship, you need all the experience you get and while your in school its all low stakes on your part. You get to take a lot away from it and you don’t have to be afraid of messing up. Messing up is part of the process. The businesses usually understand you’re a student.

 

What is your ideal design project (logo, package design, print, web design…)?

 

We did a magazine in school, start to finish, and I loved the editorial parts and formatting everything. That would probably be it.

 

Illustrator, InDesign, or Photoshop?

 

Illustrator, that’s what we learn the most.

 

Cats or dogs?

 

Dogs, I would be reincarnated as a lab.

 

Is Manning’s Ice Cream the best ice cream around or what?

 

I don’t get ice cream, if I do: Chocolate fudge brownie is good, but only on occasion.

 

True of false: Mat lives in the back closet and sleeps under his desk.

 

Not these days much. If someone told me that was true, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Hello!