Design

By:Ajla Bedzetovic on 1/30/2023

A well positioned company is not afraid of their competition. You understand what makes you unique in the market.

By:Jason Clark on 10/28/2022

What is a Brand Concept? Brand Strategy Series Using the parlance of our time, Ben’s right. At its simplest understanding, the Brand Concept is your vibe.

By:Jason Clark on 5/26/2022

A well positioned company is not afraid of their competition. You understand what makes you unique in the market.

By:Nick Wunderlin on 11/19/2021

Welcome to the final installment of our Email @ 50 series. In this last article, Email @ 50 contributors review what they learned from writing this series and look ahead to the future of email.

By:Morgan Plappert on 8/6/2021

I remember when I first started out as a designer (professionally), having to play Photoshop Tetris with cut up image blocks to piece together a full email layout. As a UX designer, we are taught that nothing is more important than usability and utility … and let’s just say, nothing puts those things to the test quite like Photoshop Tetris. Thankfully we have more sensible solutions now, but email design still comes with its added constraints and limitations. Luckily, I’ve had enough time and practice to be able to share a bit of knowledge, tips & tricks with you fine folks. So, let’s cut it up.

By: Mitch Wiesen on 5/17/2021

Why you should budget for typefaces in your next creative project.

By: Ashley Trommler on 2/4/2021

A quick guide for giving constructive feedback.

By:Jason Clark on 1/5/2021

OBS Studio is an open-source, live streaming application that allows you to integrate graphics, videos, multiple camera sources, text, and more into its viewport, and more importantly, use that viewport as a webcam source.

By:Ben Wilson on 11/12/2020

A retrospective of VIA's ever-changing approach and constant commitment to partnership.

By:Ben Wilson on 10/16/2020

Often an agency will advise their client that a rebrand or a "refresh" of their current brand is in order. But why? It's an expensive, potentially disruptive journey that contains many unforeseeable obstacles.

By: Ashley Trommler on 9/15/2020

Associate Creative Director Ashley Trommler provides you a structured look at how you can design templates that work for your clients, but keep the brand intact.

By: Mitch Wiesen on 9/1/2020

I’ve always been drawn to the warm, friendly way film captures reality. I found my first analog camera, a Canon AE-1, sitting on a blanket at a flea market at age 14, and I was enamored.

By:Morgan Plappert on 8/5/2020

"User Experience" it's more than just a buzz word. Let me tell you why ...

By: Ashley Trommler on 7/14/2020

Behind every successful brand sits a strong set of guidelines.

By:Morgan Plappert on 7/14/2020

Prototyping demonstrates ideas, and baking prototyping into your workflow can begin to shift the way you think and approach design problems as a whole.

By:Morgan Plappert on 2/24/2020

The pros and cons, ins and outs of the top prototyping tools out on the market right now.

By: Mitch Wiesen on 2/11/2020

8 Hand Letterers You Should Follow, Like, Yesterday

By:Morgan Plappert on 1/31/2020

Let's take a look at the much debated concept of "the fold" from a user experience, design and strategy perspective.

By: Ashley Trommler on 12/13/2019

What inspires me? This is a loaded question with so many possible answers. For the sake of a professional blog entry for my workplace, let’s take this route: Good Branding.

By: Mitch Wiesen on 9/27/2019

This year we've gone off the grid, broken the rules, and all-around gotten a little more playful.

By: Emilee Dover on 7/10/2019

Establishing trust with your users is a lot like dating. If you're wanting to make a lasting connection, you must climb up the trust pyramid.

By: Ann Wood on 7/5/2019

Some big take-aways on the importance of design systems

By:Morgan Plappert on 7/1/2019

Sometimes it's hard to put things into words. Cue micro-interactions...

By:Nick Stewart on 6/12/2019

Although SVG morphing is awesome, it's sometimes difficult to do. Thanks to MorphSVG and GreenSock, SVG morphing can be a much smoother process!

By:Jason Clark on 5/6/2019

For our creative team, design doesn't stop when they leave the office. They've got some pretty awesome side projects going on that we feel are worth showing off.

By:Morgan Plappert on 4/26/2019

Curiosity enables creativity. Creativity enables innovation.

By:Jason Clark on 4/22/2019

What's in a name? Quite a bit, actually. Deciding on a name for your new business can be daunting, so here are a few things to consider when you're searching for a name that best suits your brand.

By:Jason Clark on 3/15/2019

Every year, we create a holiday gift to send out to our clients and close partners. Our gift this year was truly a team effort, and we were able to push out some of our best work through collaboration.

By:Nick Stewart on 2/18/2019

You really shouldn't animate box-shadows if you don't have to. However, it can be done, and here's how.

By:Ben Wilson on 2/11/2019

Want to have a smoother, more productive workday? If you apply these core principles of UX design to your tasks and interactions, your wish will be granted.

By:Jason Clark on 1/11/2019

A new designer discusses the exciting process of designing a website UI for the first time. If you're new to design, this one's for you!

By:Jason Clark on 1/2/2019

Historically, icons and images were the most effective way to communicate to the masses, but times are changing. We go over the good, the bad, and the ugly of icons.

By:Morgan Plappert on 11/2/2018

Applied with intention, animation can enhance your eCommerce UI by making it fun and memorable and drawing the user where you’d like them to go. Applied haphazardly, however, UI animations can be intrusive and annoying to a user.

By:Morgan Plappert on 11/1/2018

Stockton Mortgage Corporation (SMC), founded in 2001 by David Stockton, is a full-service, independent mortgage bank headquartered in Kentucky.

By:Ben Wilson on 8/3/2018

We love working with non-profits (like Kentucky Refugee Ministries, KentuckianaWorks, and Fund for the Arts to name a few) so when our new friends the Louisville Leopard Percussionists (LLP) came knocking, we leapt at the opportunity. In July 2018, we launched a refreshed louisvilleleopardpercussionists.com.

By:Morgan Plappert on 7/31/2018

“I nailed it!” But did you really though?

By: Natalie Miller on 6/20/2018

Adobe After Effects and CSS Keyframes might seem like different worlds, but learning both can help your team bridge a big communication gap.

By: Ann Wood on 5/23/2018

A walk through of an animation process that can bring shapes to life.

By:Nick Stewart on 4/25/2018

Recently we launched Face Paint Peggy, a simple HTML/Javascript game that showcases the power of creating mobile games with web technology. The game is available on Android and iOS for free.

By:Jason Clark on 2/22/2018

Every year we challenge ourselves to design a gift for our friends, something we’ve never done before. It’s always a fun challenge, and we’ve got some really awesome stuff out there in the world because of it.

By: Ann Wood on 12/5/2017

Looking for the unexpected amongst the ordinary is a fun way to break up our work day.

By:Ben Wilson on 10/20/2017

In collaboration with Mayor Greg Fischer‘s office, and Louisville Metro Government, we presented a talk on how we use strategic thinking to craft content for the web. For the Metro communications professionals we spoke with, the challenge is using the sandbox that is louisvilleky.gov to effectively communicate with the people that they serve.

By: Emilee Dover on 9/27/2017

The notion of there being a box around an experience might be archaic, but there is still something about first impressions.

By:Morgan Plappert on 9/13/2017

Hand over that half-empty glass and let us show you a few examples of how to turn possible frustration into opportunity.

By:Nick Stewart on 8/9/2017

With the help of our excellent illustrator Pat, we will soon be releasing Face Paint Peggy, an HTML Canvas game for Android mobile phones. The object of the game is to catch “drops” that are of a certain color, progressing through levels where drops move faster and more drops are on the playing field.

By: Corinne Resch on 2/23/2017

VOILÀ: A Compilation of VIA Studio's Best Breakfasts, Desserts, and Drinks

By: Kelly Scheurich on 1/17/2017

An experience in flexing art direction muscles and "using your words."

By: Joel Eckert on 1/11/2017

Sometimes when you work with images, it can be hard to know when to put something down and move on.

By: Emilee Dover on 1/9/2017

Our design team did a pretty corny thing and discussed our resolutions and favorite moments of 2016. Here are some of our focuses for the next year.

By:Jason Clark on 12/7/2016

Our newest campaign is an homage to our history and impact as an agency The message of our new campaign “Brace for Impact”, the theme of the newest VIA Studio campaign, is built around the “big bang” that happened around the time we were founded: the Internet. No one knew it at the time, but every industry changed irreversibly as the internet took hold, ours most importantly.

By: Mark Biek on 11/17/2016

Search is hard Look, sometimes it’s enough to slap Google Custom Search onto a website and call it a day. For simple content sites where you just need the basics, that can be the easiest way to go about it.

By: Natalie Miller on 11/8/2016

Here at VIA we all dig each other (right guys?), but sometimes working across departments can be a challenge. Like Liam Neeson we all have a very particular set of skills; at times, blending very different skill sets can be a challenge, but when done right it is sure to pay off.

By:Jason Clark on 11/2/2016

This year VIA Studio celebrates 20 years in business as a digital agency. That's right, we were born in 1996.

By: Joel Eckert on 9/20/2016

The Canon 5D Mark IV has built in wireless... but will the wireless behave as you expected?

By: Joel Eckert on 9/7/2016

Utilizing the orientation of your mobile device as a control mechanism for a string of images can be pretty awesome.

By: Pat Sheehan on 6/14/2016

“If I recall correctly, I had made a little game demo where there was a character (dude on a horse) that you could move around. Shawn saw this and was like let’s turn this into something, so he started on the graphics and I started on the game engine.” – Nick Stewart And that is how ”Escape from Project Hell” began.

By: Johanna Boone on 2/15/2016

The start of a brand new year brings a brand new service… With the addition of CG craftsman Joel Eckert to our team, we’re excited to add CG (aka computer-generated-images) to our line of creative specialties. What that means for VIA and for you, is additional expertise in 3D modeling, imagery, animation, and storytelling.

By: Josie Flynn on 7/28/2015

Balancing user & brand needs to create the ideal mobile experience.

By: Josie Flynn on 4/2/2015

Empowering writers to create rich, informative journalism.

By: Josie Flynn on 2/23/2015

When building the new viastudio.com, we pushed ourselves to explore ways to integrate a variety of content. We didn’t want to be held to a template.

By: Shawn Coots on 6/17/2014

A story in which VIA Studio decides to stop chasing waterfalls, thus altering their process yet again!

By: Emilee Dover on 4/15/2014

In our office, we always make it a priority to be in the know about goings-on in our city. Whether it’s a rumored roadside attraction or a new hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint, we are ready to explore.

By:Jason Clark on 12/31/2013

Hi! Glad you found us. I bet things look different since the last time you were here.

By: Shawn Coots on 12/8/2013

Recently, I had the privilege of touring the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort. Have I mentioned how much I love my job?

By: Brandon Clay on 9/18/2013

Choosing the right web designer is a tough task, we’ll be the first to tell you that. There is a lot to consider: their style, expertise, past clients, ability to handle workload, speed of delivery.

By: Brandon Clay on 8/27/2013

In our field of web design and marketing, we focus on helping companies to articulate the image they see for their brand through their graphics, logo, promotional materials, and all else that displays a message. We focus on the branding of companies but personal branding is just as important.

By:Jason Clark on 7/16/2013

Mark your calendars. On July 24, I will be giving a lunchtime discussion for the American Advertising Association Louisville Chapter.

By: Leslie Daly on 6/10/2013

We were abiding in our conference room last Thursday, holding a kickoff meeting that paved the way for a new Lebowski Fest website. The fest originated in Louisville, and we actually share an employee.

By:Jason Clark on 4/15/2013

The Horizon Interactive Awards, a leading international interactive media awards competition, announced the 2012 award winners to highlight this year’s “best of the best” in interactive media production. Thanks to the amazing team here at VIA Studio, we managed to win 7 awards this year in the competition.

By:Jason Clark on 1/17/2013

Today we’re happy to reveal our logo design for Chef Edward Lee‘s new restaurant MilkWood at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The design team here at VIA Studio has been working hard for the past few weeks to develop the identity, and I’m personally very proud of the work we’ve done.

By: Emilee Dover on 11/6/2012

In our continuing partnership with Kentucky Youth Advocates, we decided to donate some branding design work to their event, the Step Up for Kids Conference. This event provides education and information to a variety of audiences from lawmakers to business owners about the ways they can help children in Kentucky grow up safe, healthy and ready to succeed.

By:Jason Clark on 10/18/2012

As a geek, I’m extremely fond of trying out new apps and purchasing weird stuff online. More and more I’m confused and annoyed by the process of clicking things that I have no choice but to click.

By:Jason Clark on 3/12/2012

Some of the VIA Studio team is currently at SXSW Interactive. It’s been an inspiring few days, with one more left to go.

By:Jason Clark on 12/15/2011

Today we are happy to announce the unveiling of our logo design for New2Lou. We’ve been working with the organization for awhile now on their Brand Strategy, Identity, and Web Design.

By: Kim Clark on 12/12/2011

Once again, VIA has garnered the approval of their peers. Friday 12/09/11 the Louisville Graphic Design Association held its annual 100’s Show, awarding VIA with 3 Bronze awards in the Graphic Design, Interactive Media and Print Design categories.

By: Shawn Coots on 10/10/2011

After reading Jason's series of articles regarding Marketing for Mobile, I thought I'd add to the discussion. My favorite web geek topic as of late is Responsive Web Design. It allows you to create a mobile-ready version of your website, without needing to build separate content. With a large portion of the world now browsing the web via smart phones and post-pc tablets, it's almost a no-brainer to offer mobile viewing experiences.

By: Amber Glisson on 8/5/2011

I’ve always thought that web design and wayfinding are congruous. Directing a user to easily navigate through a physical structure or the mesh of pages in your website often calls for similar tactics.

By:Jason Clark on 11/5/2010

These 7 tips to taking better travel photography can help you capture more than just moments in time.

By:Jason Clark on 10/26/2009

It was bad enough when Starbucks introduced their "VIA" coffee, but this one hits even closer to home.

By:Jason Clark on 6/9/2009

Resonant Vibes is an online music store selling mp3 and wave files. Built into the site are advanced social networking features that allow DJs and music producers to upload and share their music.

By:Jason Clark on 1/30/2009

I’ve always been a fan of Sprite’s branding and graphic design. They do a good job with the light, crisp, airy feel.