I think my love of color began with my first “big” box of Crayola crayons (the 64 count box with the sharpener in the back). I still remember the excitement of getting this box of color and the wonderful smell of the wax. This love has remained constant throughout my life; painting was my passion in college and I think it was the colors that drew me in. Today, it’s design that allows me to experiment with color—whether it’s a website in RGB or a printed piece in CYMK, the colors are key.

I’m intrigued by the emotions that colors can impart. Color can convey an unlimited range of meanings and the impact of design can be greatly altered by the simple change of color. It is not the colors themselves that have meaning; it’s our culture that provides the meaning and context. Red can mean anger or urgency in the West, while it is a symbol of prosperity in Eastern countries such as China, where red is worn at weddings and doors are often painted red.

Below is a table of meanings typically assigned to colors:

This information can easily be used to influence your audience.

• Red: used to create urgency and impulse purchases
• Green: use to relax and calm
• Blue: use to create trust, as in financial institutions and banks
• Navy Blue: implies lower cost – use when selling to the price-sensitive
• Royal Blue: implies urgency – use when selling to impulse buyers
• Pink: romantic, selling to women and girls
• Yellow: attention grabbing – used in windows and displays
• Orange: energizing – used to elicit action as in impulse buying
• Purple: wealth – use to imply exclusivity
• Black: power – luxury selling and aggressive products

McDonald’s is a perfect example of an effective use of color:

Red=Fast, Yellow=Hunger … Fast Food

Armed with this information, I sample colors from many sources: photos, websites, advertisements… anywhere really. Here are some of the techniques I use to sample colors:

Photoshop’s Eyedropper Tool

The eyedropper tool allows you to sample colors within Photoshop, but it can also be extended to anywhere on your screen. Here’s how: Select the Eyedropper tool. Click and hold down the mouse button inside an open Photoshop document. With the mouse button held down, drag the eyedropper tool outside the Photoshop document to sample color from anywhere on your screen.

Photoshop Eyedropper

Firefox Extension

I often like to grab colors from a website. The Firefox extension called ColorZilla adds a little eyedropper to the bottom left corner of your browser window. Click the eyedropper to activate and mouse around a webpage picking colors. The icon changes to represent the current color. You can then click to “lock” that color. The color values appear in the bottom of the browser window. Click the down arrow to the right of the eyedropper to present options for saving the color values.

Firefox's ColorZilla

ColorZilla Figure 2

ColorZilla Figure 3

Mac Software Utility

In the Utility folder of the Applications folder is an application called the DigitalColor Meter. Simply choose what format you want to see the colors in (hex codes and RGB values are available) and just move your mouse over your screen. You will see a zoomed in section of the area you are sampling, a color swatch, and the color values. [For Windows users there is a free tool called ColorPic.]

Mac Software Utility

In the Utility folder of the Applications folder is an application called the DigitalColor Meter. Simply choose what format you want to see the colors in (hex codes and RGB values are available) and just move your mouse over your screen. You will see a zoomed in section of the area you are sampling, a color swatch, and the color values. [For Windows users there is a free tool called ColorPic.]

Mac Software Utility

I’m sure there are many other utilities and applications out there—I’d love to hear what you’re using. Share your favorite color inspiration sources. Here are a few of mine:

Web-hosted applications for generating color themes:

Color Scheme Designer

Adobe Kuler

Creative community where people create and share colors, palettes and patterns and discuss trends:

ColourLovers

Don’t forget to look to the fashion industry as an important influence on color trends:

Pantone

Fashion TrendSetter

We’re delighted to announce the launch of the 2012 Workshop @ Macy’s website, which we first launched last year for the 2011 session.  The new site features a refreshed design, incorporation of videos, and a photo gallery featuring shots from the inaugural Workshop, compelling new content, and tighter integration with social media.

This innovative, comprehensive retail vendor development program provides up and coming minority and women-owned retail companies with the tools they need to perform and sustain growth in the competitive retail field.

The 2011 Workshop was a tremendous success, exceeding expectations on all fronts; the first lines from program graduates are expected to hit Macy’s stores in 2012.  Macy’s is accepting applications for the Spring 2012 Workshop through January 22nd, and is expecting even greater results this year.  Take a few minutes and check out the relaunched site!

The Washington Post conducted a similar experiment in Washington, D.C. They asked Joshua Bell, one of the finest violinists in the world, to stand in a commuter train station during morning rush hour and play.  People travel hundreds of miles and pay hundreds of dollars to hear him, and yet when he stood there playing in public, virtually no one stopped to listen.  Yes, really—check it out for yourself!

So why did the two experiments have such different results?  I think the biggest difference is that the piano staircase didn’t require the participants to stop and watch or listen to something–they were able to do it in the normal course of what they were doing anyway, whereas they had to stop to listen to Joshua Bell. (Personally, I would stop in the path of an oncoming train to hear Joshua Bell, but…that’s just me.)

The point is that making an experience easy for a user isn’t enough. It needs to be engaging, but that engagement can’t slow them down in the completion of a task—so please, don’t interrupt me when I’m ordering shoes online (from macys.com of course) to ask me to take a poll, or play a game, or whatever.  You can do those things, and you probably should—but like everything else, they have their time and place.  One more reason why user experience planning is so important.

One thing that intrigues me is how useful I’ve found my iPad. As much as I (or maybe I mean my kids) enjoy Angry Birds, I’m getting real work done with my iPad the majority of the time I’m using it.  I drafted this blog post with PlainText (free ad-supported version; $4.99 to remove ads). It’s a simple, stripped-down text editor built to interface with your Dropbox online file storage account. Drafting my post with PlainText means I can write in the iPad, and the work is being automatically saved to my Dropbox, making it available to me wherever I have Internet access – my desktop at home, the office, or my iPhone, or wherever I had some time to write and review and edit.

Here's a screen shot from PlainText, which I used to draft this blog post.

For a quicker and slightly more traditional method of capturing ideas and jotting down notes, Penultimate ($1.99) for the iPad is my go-to. This note-taking app that presents a paper notebook look and feel for writing with your finger or stylus (stylus all the way, for me). Other than letting you erase, it’s exactly like using a pen on paper. I’ve tried other notes apps that add a lot more functionality like copy/paste and vector shape editing, but I’ve come back to Penultimate every time for its directness and “realness.” You might ask “what’s wrong with using a real notebook?” I resisted this urge at first because I’ve always kept notebooks and sketchbooks, but it’s just too easy with the iPad. It’s almost always with me, I can convert the pages I write and doodle on to images or PDFs that I can send to colleagues, and if I’ve taken 23 pages of notes in a two hour meeting, I can email it to myself as a digital backup.

My go-to app for taking notes on the iPad. Plus, I like the name.

But enough about writing, I’m a designer, not an author! I’ll be the first to admit that sketching out ideas on the iPad isn’t always the most intuitive thing to do. There are plenty of times that I grab the pencil and sketchbook and that’s that. But I have found that working out visual ideas on the screen, especially with Adobe Ideas (free; $.99 to add layer functionality), can add a new dimension to my design process that bridges the gap between paper and screen. With the stylus, I can sketch out a page layout, web interface or logo with a similar amount of informality to a sketchbook, but I can work with qualities like transparent layers and photos and varying colors and line widths. It can all come together so quickly, and it adds a new dimension to how I think through a visual solution. I find myself considering things like the most efficient production of a Photoshop mockup of a web page during the sketching phase by interacting with elements that can move and change with a tap. This isn’t always the right approach for me, but sometimes it’s a tremendously powerful way to work through an idea and end up with a direct path to the refined design the client sees.

I use this for working out digital ideas on-screen.

A traditional source for starting an idea and, often, helping to finish it, is stock photography and illustration. Getty Images’ excellent iPad app (free) provides a well-organized interface to search their vast collection. Saving an image comp to begin sketching with in layers in Adobe Ideas has been a great idea-starter for me, just as it can be on the desktop with all the “big” software. Sometimes the immediacy and simplicity of working with these elements with a touch and a stylus makes all the difference in how I approach a new idea. It might just be as simple as the fact that it’s merely different – it’s not a pencil or a mouse or a big monitor – but I’ll take all the options I can get to keep finding fresh, creative solutions.

Stock Photography Search Tool from Getty Images

Two months ago, my list of favorite/most-used apps would have looked a little different. Two months from now, it may be a whole new list. But to me, that’s what’s great about these things. I can make this device useful for just about whatever it is I need to accomplish with all the “digital stuff.” At home, I use the iPad and iPhone to control a Mac Mini connected to the tv for music and movies, my kids grab the iPad as soon as I get home to play games, and it’s essentially an infinite clearing house for ideas that help me do my job. Once you start finding the apps that help you do the things you enjoy doing, and it’s so easy to have that outlet within reach, it’s tough to ignore.

There’re plenty more apps that I enjoy besides what’s listed, and I know everybody has their own favorites for their own situations. I’d love to hear what’s keeping everyone else occupied/productive/distracted on their own devices, so let us know in the comments!

The fresh, new, focused look includes information on how potential vendors and suppliers can connect with Macy’s and rich content for prospective employees, including an overview of Macy’s involvement in communities across the country, information on sponsorships, and honors and recognition the company has received (there’s quite a bit!).

A new marketing library features current and past advertising images from diversity campaigns.  We’re excited about this great new resource and its great potential to help Macy’s realize its goals in diversity leadership!  Check it out at http://www.macysdiversityleadership.com.

In 2008, we received a call from a past colleague to help market a non-profit she was passionate about. As President of the Board of Directors for the United Coalition for Animals (UCAN), she recognized the organization’s need to form a relationship with a company that could help elevate the nonprofit to the next level and reached out to us to help.

The opportunity aligned itself perfectly with one of Sanger & Eby’s, and my own, core values: giving back. The Sanger & Eby and UCAN relationship started out very simple – providing pro-bono graphic design support for the organization. I was allowed ample time to create brochures, newsletters and other necessary print pieces that would be used to educate people about UCAN’s mission – ending pet overpopulation and animal euthanasia through responsible pet care and spay/neuter surgeries.

With each piece I created I continued my own education, quickly learning why an organization like UCAN is so necessary. To explain things in the simplest way possible, there are too many pets and too few homes. For every person born each day in the United States, seven kittens and puppies are born* – more than we could ever hope to find homes for. A decline in pet overpopulation will lead to a decline in animal abuse and neglect. It will lead to a decrease economic strain by decreasing the amount of tax dollars spent yearly to round up, care for or euthanize these animals. And it will help increase our abilities to properly care for our own pets and our area’s homeless animals. Pet overpopulation and the resulting euthanasia of these healthy animals will remain with us unless the cause is consistently addressed. Since 2001, UCAN has worked to address that problem through its nonprofit spay neuter clinic and pet health programs.

Over the last two and a half years, that simple relationship of a company lending its expertise to a great cause has grown into so much more. I currently serve on the Board of Directors and as a member of the Marketing and Fundraising committees. I have been able to give my time and talents to an incredibly important cause. I have grown through education and through the people I have had an opportunity to meet. My life has been shaped by my experience with UCAN and I am left with an imprint, a paw print, because I have been able to give back to my community through my career at Sanger & Eby.

*Facts from SpayUSA

Sanger & Eby created and developed the new website for the Festival. The goal was to create a site that captured the style and feel of R&B, jazz, hip-hop, soul along with this year’s theme of Rhythm and U. The new site is filled with information about the upcoming artists, lodging, dining and a complete history of the the sights and sounds of previous festivals, allowing the audience to revisit their favorite artists performances from years past.

This was my first project after I came on at Sanger & Eby as a designer. It was fitting for me that it was a music related site, as music plays a very important part in my life and I have past experience designing and building sites for musicians and artists. Finding music new and old is something I enjoy greatly and to be able to be a part of this project was very fulfilling. This genre is something I’m not all familiar with, so it gave me a great opportunity to add new artists (at least to me!), like Charlie Wilson, to my iPod as well as give me a chance to explore a new design style.

After the initial meeting with the Macy’s team, viewing the poster art for the festival, and watching a few of the performances from years past I felt I had a good grasp on what style they were looking for to capture the essence of the music and festival weekend. By using bright colors, some of the artwork from the festival poster and a “street art” typeface, we were able to give the festival website a fresh look and feel that highlights the important information for the user.

You can visit the new site by following this link:
http://www.macysmusicfestival.com/

So came the challenge from our client, who wanted to generate excitement and interest as well as to substantially cut costs for a major printed piece. If we could make the primary experience online engaging enough, we’d need significantly fewer copies of the actual book printed—and that could save tens of thousands of dollars. Plus, it would be fun.

The catch was that we still wanted the online experience of the text-heavy content to be like the experience of the printed piece, without traditional navigation or long, scrolling text—but still with a good, intuitive user experience. Our client used the visual of an animated page turn to describe what she was looking for, though she knew that wasn’t the right solve. I agreed—combining the weaknesses of one medium with the weaknesses of another doesn’t leave much hope for a good user experience.

So there we are. Well. I love a challenge.

Knowing I had to fit the experience into what’s comfortable for the user to look at on the screen, I started working through the options while I visualized how the end result should look and flow. Putting the book online isn’t a clean transition from print—it’s more like a presentation than a website. I initially thought about Flash, but I wanted an easily searchable, truly accessible experience. So how could we get the dynamic qualities of Flash combined with the user-friendly qualities of HTML and CSS?

I walked through my thinking with my programming partner on this project, Aaron. He suggested jQuery as a solve. If you’re not familiar with it (I wasn’t), it’s a cross-browser JavaScript library that streamlines interactions between JavaScript and HTML, and provides the capability to do what we were trying to achieve with this experience. A quick check with the client’s IT group confirmed it would not only run in their environment, but was actually their preferred solution. Sold!

Aaron built a prototype to test the idea, which was a big win. It confirmed the idea would work as we envisioned it, and brought it to life for the client. The solution allows the user to focus on a single page while still having awareness of the other pages in the document—similar to a book, but without the added tools and navigation of a standard web implementation. The navigation mechanism is clearly visible and moves with the user, creating the illusion of the eye moving to focus on a different part of the document (think of a newspaper with multiple articles artfully arranged on a single large-format page and you’ve got the idea).

Adding value to the solution, it’s also easily searchable and indexable by search engines, and meets accessibility standards—a growing requirement for online content as well as a passion area of mine. Accessibility is not only key for an equitable user experience—it’s a growing legal concern. Developing sites and online experiences to be accessible just makes sense, for the business as well as from the human perspective.

So how did it work? Really well. Our client was able to share the information, provide an excellent user experience with great search visibility, and dramatically reduce her printing costs—final savings are in the tens of thousands of dollars. We’ll post an update on more results as they develop. Stay tuned.

We are thrilled to share our nomination with the other worthy finalists, and while we’re looking forward to finding out who won, we are truly honored to be nominated.

At the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conference in June, the ad campaign developed for Macy’s won an award for best overall employer ad in the NACE journals.

The macyscollege.com website ranked in Universum’s top 50 best college recruiting websites.  (Universum is an international corporation that surveys 300,000 students and 80,000 professionals and provides Ideal Employer ™ research, full-service media portfolios and strategic consulting services.)