On its Flickr account, Yelp has posted graphics you can add to your company’s website, newsletters, business cards and other marketing materials. There are different versions of the Yelp logo as well as “Find us on Yelp” icons. A Yelp button could be used to link your website visitors to your Yelp presence.

The other new service is a widget using Yelp’s API that allows your business to post its Yelp reviews directly on your website. The reviews appear in a badge that displays either a sampling of reviews or your average star rating.

Yelp definitely has its fans and foes. On the one hand, you have everyday people critiquing smaller businesses, therefore providing free advertising for those who might not have much of a promotions budget. On the other, those same amateur critics can post scathing, one-star reviews of a business, therefore causing others to shy away from patronizing it – even if those reviews aren’t necessarily representative of the business.

Then there are the claims against Yelp about its business tactics. According to NBC Bay Area:

“[S]ome business owners have accused the company of brutal sales tactics – some say extortion – to coerce businesses to advertise alongside reviews. The company will add negative reviews and remove positive ones if businesses don’t spend $300 or more to advertise on the site, some business owners say.”

What do you think?

Is Yelp a useful marketing tool for your business?

How does your business capitalize on its Yelp presence, if at all?

Will you try out the new tools?

Do you respond to negative reviews, and if so, how?

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Here are resources to get you started.

Naldz Graphics has 45 Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials, including how to design a Christmas-themed website and greeting card; how to create a Christmas tree, ornaments and a Santa Claus hat; and how to make entire wintry scenes with snowflakes, falling snow and snowmen. There’s even a tutorial for how to create text with snow effects and a pretty girl in a Santa suit.

Have a photograph in which you want to make the holiday lights really pop? The MCP Actions Blog has a tutorial for how to enhance those lights using Photoshop. An image like this would look great on your company’s holiday card!

Phases Design Studio has 25 Photoshop and Illustrator brush sets to create snowflakes, pine trees, ornaments, glitter, ribbons, cookies, a Nativity scene, wreaths and penguins. Yes, penguins = winter.

GraphicRiver has holiday vector illustrations by Kai Loon that include candy canes, bells, a Star of David, snowmen, elves, presents and holly.

The Graphic Design Blog reminds you to dress up your own blog and desktop, so it has 25 Christmas icon sets, including mistletoe, stars, reindeer, a gingerbread man, gift tags, stockings, snow globes and a sleigh.

Kaboose has Kwanzaa clip art, and BillyBear4Kids.com has Kwanzaa icons.

Finally, I wasn’t a fan of any of the Festivus tutorials I came across. If anyone wants to clue us in on how to design a Festivus pole, please do!

Still in a “Bah, humbug” mood? Make yourself a holiday mix to boost your spirits!

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Businesses handing out free calendars to their customers is a long-standing tradition. Loyal clients come to expect the calendar year after year, and new ones are just excited to get something for free. A calendar makes for good marketing because it is displayed year-round, usually in an eye-catching, high-traffic manner – in a kitchen, on a desk or near a telephone.

Creating a calendar is pretty simple – templates are readily available. So all you really need to do is select your images for each month. Be sure your contact information is visible on every page, including your website and phone number! You can even add value to the calendar by including stickers and coupons.

Random fact: According to Wikipedia, the sale of physical calendars is restricted in some countries and given as a monopoly to universities and national academies – just another reason to take advantage of your freedom to create your own!

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

The widespread availability of free and paid stock images online introduces this same problem into the graphic design world.  If you look around at other people’s postcards, newsletters and websites, you tend to see very safe, banal choices of imagery that don’t add much to the promotion.

When selecting a photograph or illustration, it’s important to think like an art director and get creative about choosing the most unique, effective stock imagery for the project. A great photograph or illustration can anchor an entire marketing campaign or promotion. Sometimes the artwork can even be a source of inspiration for the piece’s copy and design or format.

As a guide toward finding more interesting and effective image selections, consider the three questions below:

What do I search for?
Many stock image sites operate with a search engine. To get the most out of your search, you must go beyond the first few obvious search phrases that pop into your head. For instance, if you are looking for an image for a financial consultant’s postcard, avoid searching phrases such as “money,” “profit” and “investing.” Instead, think about the biggest benefits or goals of the consultant’s service. If he or she aims to make customers feel safe and secure in their wealth management, then you may want to try searching for “happy family,” “house” and “home,” which are images that illustrate the benefits or results of the consultant’s services.

How do I find a unique image?
If you’ve found your concept first and are looking for an image that evokes the concept, stay away from the obvious choices. To show “partnership” images with handshakes or two people with arms interlocked are two examples of boring ideas that have been done before. Think about unique instances where two things work together, such as a nature shot showing a symbiotic relationship like that of a plover bird cleaning a crocodile’s teeth. Or you can take a more symbolic graphic design approach to showing “partnership” by finding an image of an interlocking chain or puzzle pieces that you can use as design elements, repeated throughout the promotion, to represent the idea.

What if the image isn’t perfect?
Sometimes you download an image that really resonates with the theme or concept of your promotion, but when you place it on the promotion, it looks flat or like it’s missing something. That’s where photo software comes in. With many of the free and paid stock image sites out there, you have permission to manipulate the image however you want. Switching it from color to black and white or sepia tone is one trick for instantly changing the way your image looks. Don’t settle for an image as-is, when you can retouch, recontextualize and revamp an image using Photoshop and similar software.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Coloring skin and body in Photoshop and how to mimic the natural play of light upon the body.

How to create a professional Twitter background – a quick-and-easy tutorial for customizing your Twitter page.

Remember how fun watercolors used to be?  You can recreate a watercolor effect with Photoshop!

Pop art a la Lichtenstein – really cool stuff for the poppy designer!

Very, very cool Photoshop tutorial on how to transform a woman’s photograph into an eerie doll face and more.

How to design a website using the 960 Grid System, an oft-employed web design technique that looks great. This tutorial includes a free 960 GS download so you can quickly deploy an original 960 design.

A tutorial that covers how to make a DVD cover with Photoshop.  The techniques used here could also be applied to movie posters.

Dioramas are cool, especially when you combine several images and blur/focus PS techniques to highlight your subject.

Want to master the Photoshop warp tool?  This tutorial shows you the way…

Paint splashed over the face of a photographic subject – nice. What’s really neat is that this liquid Photoshop technique can be used in many, many design applications.

Yet another awesome website design tutorial.  This has a clean Web 2.0 feel that many designers like to emulate.

A very unique and creative – yet clean and easy-to-follow – website design.  The techniques employed here are invaluable.

Learn how to use the Photoshop mask tool to create this model effect from a photo.

When the outer glow blending option doesn’t quite cut it – use these tips to achieve an outstanding glow emanating from your subjects.

Super cool fallen angel tutorial that shows you how to blend a woman and a bird on a textured background.

What are your favorite Photoshop techniques?

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

And although breaking norms almost always gets attention, it that doesn’t necessarily mean that people will want to make a purchase.

To boot, the term “creepy” is subjective, so it’s hard to say how one person will respond versus another. Still, there are ads that most people would deem creepy, and these are the ads I’m referring to. A Google search for creepy ads reveals dozens of websites listing (many of the same) creepy ads — but they’re vintage creepy ads and some are only creepy in modern context.

Vintage ads espousing the virtues of cigarette smoking seem creepy now that the dangers of the activity are known, but when they were originally released society did not understand these dangers and therefore the ads would not have been creepy (the same goes for ads touting Lysol for … ahem … women’s health care).

I do not think that MOST advertisements are intentionally creepy, because marketers do not want creepiness associated with their products. The infamous “demon girl white bread/jelly/cellophane” advertisement could have been intentionally creepy to earn elongated looks, but I doubt that this connotation would have served the brand well overall.

Some advertisements can benefit from inherent creepiness — horror film posters, for example, or advertisements that vilify the competition. It’s expected. But the unexpected creepy ad … does it work?

It’s also worth mentioning that we might find certain ads to be creepy because we’re told that they’re creepy. If you were told that an ad was goofy, funny or amazing before you looked at it, would that influence how you felt about it?

Your homework: visit some of the following links to see some ads that have been deemed creepy. Ask yourself whether you think they’re creepy because you’re told they’re creepy, or if they truly give you the creeps. Or, maybe you don’t find them creepy at all. Let me know. You be the judge: Do creepy ads work?

Creepy ads link #1

Creepy ads link #2

Creepy ads link #3

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