My academic career did not begin at NAIT, but rather at the University of Alberta. At the time of my early acceptance into the Faculty of Science, my plan was to complete a bachelor’s degree and then apply for graduate studies in Physiotherapy. After declaring a major in Psychology, a change to Earth & Atmospheric Science, and three years of undergraduate studies, I found myself questioning my career trajectory and motivation to continue with my studies.

The DMIT program at NAIT was one that piqued my interest. It was an ideal blend of courses that catered towards my interests in visual design and science/technology. In the spring of 2011, after deciding to leave the U of A, I applied for admission to the DMIT program. Two years later, I have graduated from NAIT and am part of the team at TopDraw!

Being new to the web industry, my learning curve has drastically increased, especially since completing my program. I welcome all of the opportunities that come my way to learn from others who have more experience than myself, as well as to learn new tools, workflows, and programming languages. Beginning my career in the web industry has put into perspective how much I have yet to learn and will continue to learn as I work with others, and am exposed to tools and technologies that I have not worked with before.

Some wisdom that has served me well is: It is okay to be uncertain of your academic or occupational career path. It is okay to change your mind about what you want to do or should be doing as an academic or life career. Worry more about finding success in something that you are passionate about.

Learning does not end with the completion of formal education; it begins with a career.

Peter at work on one of our most recent projects.

The post New Dev on the Block appeared first on Top Draw.

Recently Top Draw web designer, Wendy Yeung, created an infographic to be used as a quick fact sheet regarding the impact that the local JA Northern Alberta and Northwest Territories office has made on young individuals. As illustrated by the infographic, JA Northern Alberta & NWT delivered programs to over 20,000 students in 2013 and is striving to achieve their goal of reaching 40,000 students by 2016, with added help from quality volunteers and financial support from our Alberta business community.

Click here to make a difference in the lives of students through JA!

Speaking of financial support, Top Draw has recently sponsored the JA Alberta Business Hall of Fame and are thrilled to report that, for the first time ever, the event broke the one million dollar mark! Congratulations and many thanks to the JA team: Jay Ball, Javier Salazar, Janice Moore, Kathryn McCutcheon, Cristina Jarvis, Mary Shaker, and Clinton Senkow, for their hard work and dedication.

This year’s annual Junior Achievement Alberta Business Hall of Fame event, planned by Erin Rayner and Allison Rayner of EdMarketing, was well organized, entertaining, and memorable. We had the honor of having our infographic included in the program, which was provided to over 1,400 attendees and industry professionals. Check out the infographic to see a snapshot of the impact that JA makes.

Our very own Ken Jurina, President & CEO of Top Draw, has been a proud supporter and sponsor of JA for seven years. “JA sparks the entrepreneurial spirit in our youth and helps to build leaders in our community for tomorrow. This organization plays a crucial early role in students’ lives to help them determine if the business/entrepreneurial path is right for them.” Ken is honored to have the opportunity to contribute and provide support to this well-defined, admirable organization.

The post Entrepreneurialism Sparked in Youth by Junior Achievement appeared first on Top Draw.

During the awards banquet, each campaign proposal, including the documents and graphics, is displayed. Dinner is served, then awards are presented. Awards include Best Overall Campaign, Best Presentation, The Big Idea, Excellence in Brand Management, Best Direct Marketing Piece and Visual Excellence. Each award is sponsored and presented to the winners by representatives of companies in the industry.

Top Draw has been involved with the NAIT Promotional Campaign Planning Awards Banquet for over five years and has sponsored the Visual Excellence award for the last five years. During the 2013 awards banquet, I graciously accepted this award, presented by Ken Jurina. The irony? Not only am I now employed at Top Draw, but Ken also won this same award when he completed this course at NAIT.

NAIT’s Promotional Campaign Planning course allows students to create and complete campaign proposals for actual clients, which prepares them for real world situations. This course, as well as the awards banquet, also offers students the opportunity to improve their public speaking skills and meet influential industry professionals. Overall, this course has been a challenging, exciting, rewarding experience, and I thank NAIT for providing individuals with this exceptional opportunity.

The post NAIT Promotional Campaign Planning Awards Banquet appeared first on Top Draw.

Art on the Block, celebrating its 15th anniversary, is the AGA’s largest fundraiser of the year. It’s an evening of mingling, entertainment and gourmet goodies that offers guests the opportunity to own an incredible piece of art by a recognized Canadian artist. Proceeds from this social mixer and auction support the AGA’s youth education programs and exhibitions.

Since Art on the Block is an annual event, we invested the time to develop a framework that would serve the AGA for years to come. The site is built in WordPress and features an online gallery to showcase the artists and their work. The content management system makes it easy to edit content and add images; and if and when organizers would like to update the design, changing the site “theme” will give this online marketing tool an entirely fresh face. We also enjoyed the coding challenge of the card-flipping functionality, a fun component that adds interactivity to the site. Our hats off to DDB, another event sponsor, who came up with the artwork for this animated card feature!

Check out the website, and if you’re free this Friday, buy your tickets online for AGA’s social mixer of the season!

The post Art on the Block is Fast Approaching appeared first on Top Draw.

No business or person is perfect. Even if you’ve done a good job avoiding trouble and staying on the straight and narrow, sometimes trouble comes looking for you. From an online perspective, negative comments, reviews or posts about your company or products can show up in several ways.

1. Within search results for your brand. In the case of a weak online brand, I’ve even seen negative results outranking the brand website. That’s going to be terrible for reputation, because most people treat Google’s results as law, and a negative result on a search for your brand can look awful.
2. Showing up in Google’s search suggest. If enough users search for a particular keyphrase, Google may suggest it to users before they even finish typing. Having a negative result associated with your brand name can do tremendous damage.
3. Reviews on third party reviews websites. A negative review on a Yelp, Google Places, or other page is significantly less damaging than the two situations above, but is still something that you should address.

When it comes to brand, either business or personal, there are a few different options to consider.

Reputation Management: The Nuclear Option – Sue the B*****ds

I have this option first, because it should be eliminated as an option first. Is the comment/post/review illegal, violent or threatening? Is it untrue, hearsay, or outrageously false? Most comments or reviews, despite the insistence of the business owner, aren’t. Just because a comment is exaggerated or one sided doesn’t necessarily mean you can sue someone for making it.

If it is outright illegal or threatening, contact police. If it’s a clear-cut case of outrageous slander, talk to a lawyer. They’ll subpoena the website to tie the comment/post/whatever to an IP address, which can hopefully be tied to a person. Then you’ll have your opportunity to spend lots of money on legal fees.

Reputation Management: The Direct Approach – Take it Offline

When things go South, you’ve got an opportunity to show that although your company isn’t perfect, you care about your customers and you care about your company. If you watch a practiced company respond to bad comments on Twitter, it’s a thing of beauty. They connect with the complainant quickly, they say they’re there to help, and they take it offline. That’s important for two big reasons:

1. It’s no longer public. What if the complainant was clearly wrong about their initial statement? If it’s in a public arena, their pride is at stake and they may not own up to it anyways.
2. Most social media platforms suck for troubleshooting. Phone, in-person, online chat – almost anything short of a carrier pigeon is better suited to a dialog and conversation about something that’s gone wrong and needs to be resolved.

On third party sites, you need to make a decision whether you’re going to engage or not. If the complaint is fresh, a quick response can work wonders for both the complainant and your image. If it’s years old, it may be best to just leave it alone. That decision is up to you as the business representative.

Reputation Management: What you should have been doing anyways - Building Profile and Content

The two scenarios I gave at the top of this post are really exacerbated by a company with little to no activity online. If your 5 year old flash website and a post about how one of your customers doesn’t like you are the only two things that Google can find out about your company, they’re going to show up.

If a customer complained online about Coca Cola, it stands very little chance of starting either of those scenarios. That’s because there’s so much good out there, that it’s hard for the bad to compete. This is the kind of thing you should have been doing anyway and will prevent minor issues from spiraling out of control. You’re probably already doing good for your company, but you may not be making that information available. You should:

1. Have a decent website.
   • Add a blog to that website and blog on it.
   • Comment and engage with other blogs in your space. Keep in mind that the internet remembers the comments you make; and try not to use sarcasm or snark in your online communications because they’re easily misunderstood.
2. Have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a Google+ page, a LinkedIn Company page, and any other social media platforms that make sense.
   • Use them!
   • Link to those profiles from your website.
3. Have listings on non-social media sites too like BBB, Yellow Pages, Chamber of Commerce, business groups that you’re a member of, and other local or industry-specific business directories.
4. Write articles for other websites under your business or personal name.

If this is too much work or not your forte, hire a PR company.

Don’t react, build your brand online now

If there’s one thing to take away from this article, it’s that a well connected, well liked brand stands a much better chance of weathering an online PR problem than a poorly known or slightly disliked company. Which is your company, and how well prepared will you be when your PR storm comes?

The post Protecting Your Brand Online appeared first on Top Draw.

The Lingo

Screenshot: Create an image that captures exactly what is shown on your computer screen at that moment.

Crop: Cut out just the piece of an image you want to use from a larger image.

Resolution: Relates to the amount of detail (in pixels) a photo has. Your digital SLR will take photos that can be 5124 pixels wide and 3456 pixels tall. For web use, even 600 pixels wide can be pretty big.

Resizing: Changing the resolution of the image. Usually, you resize from a large image to a smaller one. If you go from small to big, it won’t look very good.

Aspect Ratio: Image shape, expressed by width X height. Old TVs are 4×3 aspect while new TVs are 16×9 (shorter and longer). Web images often have to have a wide aspect ratio because otherwise they push too much stuff lower down on the page.

Irfanview

Irfanview is completely free and available for download from www.irfanview.com. I think it matches up really well to most of the tasks you need to do when getting images ready for the web including:

• Taking screenshots
• Cropping
• Resizing
• Very limited image editing
• Saving in a file format that doesn’t need a lot of space

Download and install Irfanview. Select Download from the left navigation menu. Choose the first download option (from CNET). It gives you a clean straightforward interface with one large green “Download Now” button. Run through the download process as directed. Then open the program and you’re ready to go.

Follow the instructions below to learn the basics or watch this video.

Taking Screenshots

1. To take a screenshot in Irfanview, press ‘C’ for Capture or go to Options->Capture. This brings up the screen capture dialog.
2. Most of the initial options are fine, but if you use a dual monitor setup, you may want to have it just capture the active monitor so that the resulting image isn’t so big and unwieldy.
3. Take note of the hot key in the top right of the capture dialog box (Ctrl+F11). That’s the key combination that you have to hit to get Irfanview to capture your screen. By the way, when you have option #2 below selected (Capture area), and you use the Hot key, Irfanview will capture your entire desktop. If you want just your current open window selected, use option #3. Play with the Capture area options to familiarize yourself with the differences in screen capture.

Once you hit the hot key (Ctrl + F11 in this case), the screenshot will pop up, ready to be edited.

Cropping

Cropping helps to better show the parts of the image that you want to show and remove the stuff that’s not important. It can also help you hit a target aspect ratio. Cropping in Irfanview is easy.

1. With the image open, click and drag your mouse across the image to select the portion of the image you want.
2. Once you’re happy with your selection, hit ‘CTRL-Y’ or Edit->Crop Selection.
3. As you select, the new resolution and aspect ratio are shown in the titlebar. This can help you wiggle out that perfect aspect ratio or resolution.

Resizing

The most common task for preparing images for web use is resizing. Many platforms, like WordPress, will allow for image editing right on the platform, but it’s typically slow. It also doesn’t help when you’re uploading hundreds of 5MB files from your camera. Resizing for the web usually knocks the file size down to something a lot more reasonable.

To resize:

1. open your image, and then hit ‘CTRL-R’ or Image->Resize/Resample. This opens the resize dialog box.

Importantly, this process maintains aspect ratio by default. Keep this box checked, because it’ll save you from squishing the photo in ways that you probably didn’t intend. When I resize, I usually edit just the Width box. If you don’t know what size to go with, here are some fast and loose rules:

• Thumbnail size: 100 pixels wide
• Image in a WordPress post: usually around 600 pixels wide as a maximum, depending on your design
• Banner image: Check your banner image specs, you want to hit this number exactly if possible.
• High quality image that people can click on and see a full screen version: anything around 1200 pixels wide is usually good enough.
• Image to email mom: 800 pixels wide is plenty of detail for mom, but go 1000 if you think she might want to print it and put it on the refrigerator.

2. Once you’ve hit OK, you’ll see that your image has been resized. You now have have 2 options:

• Save over the original file. I don’t really recommend this, because there’s no way of going back to the original file.
• Save as a new file. I usually save my images in a new folder and rename them to something descriptive. To save as a new file, hit ‘S’ or go to File->Save As. You only need to set the file location once, Irfanview will remember the folder for the next photo that you edit and save as. I usually choose the “JPG” file format since its so frequently used, and because it makes the file size reasonable and can be opened by most any program. You only need to set the file type once.

Advanced Users – Batch Processing

Is this your first time using Irfanview? Go back and try using it for a while. Batch processing is very powerful, but can be a bit tricky if you haven’t developed best practices and some familiarity with what you want. Personally, I use batch processing to resize and rename large numbers of photos (10+). To batch process some photos, open the folder of photos you want to process and edit one of the images in Irfanview. Press ‘B’ or go to File->Batch Conversion/Rename. This pops up the batch conversion dialog box. Most of these settings stick, so don’t be intimidated by the many steps below. Assuming you want to rename and resize like I do,

1. Select “Batch Conversion – Rename result files”
2. Check the “use advanced options” box.
3. Go into “Advanced”
   • Select “RESIZE”. Here you have an option on how you want to resize your photos. If some have landscape like aspect ratios while others are portrait, you might want to choose the “Set the long side to” resize option so that they’re resized equally. If you’re resizing for web and only care about width, choose the “Set one or both sides to” and set your desired width.
   • Make sure the “Don’t enlarge smaller images” option is selected.
   • Hit “OK” to exit the advanced menu
4. Set your rename pattern. I often use a descriptive phrase, followed by ### to automatically number the photos.
5. Select the output folder. Don’t use the same one your original photos are coming from.
6. Add the photos you want to batch process. I usually hit “add all” at this point, because I want to add all the photos from the directory.
7. Hit “Start Batch”
8. Check your results to see if the images came out the way you wanted.

Conclusion

Like writing for the web, image editing is a skill that can be developed. While it may take you more time than you’d like to edit your first few images, you’ll get faster and more accurate as you go along. Memorize the hot keys I’ve mentioned above and your speed of use for Irfanview will skyrocket. Keep in mind that Irfanview is not a replacement for Lightroom or Photoshop, but it is very fast and simple to do basic image editing tasks.

The post Editing Images for the Web with Irfanview appeared first on Top Draw.

You might be surprised.

In the old format, I had 20-some campaigns targeting specific cities and showing ads only on mobile devices, using the click-to-call telephone extension. This was working great for me.

In the new format, you can no longer tell Google to show your ad on a mobile phone and nothing else, your only option is to spend a greater or lesser percentage of your budget on mobile (note: you can’t tell it to spend less on desktops or tablets either, that would be too easy).

Workaround

(less than perfect, better than nothing)

This workaround will vary in effectiveness, depending on the market you’re targeting.

Basically you need to use max CPC and mobile bid adjustment to make your bid only viable on mobile devices.

You can only adjust your mobile bid by up to +300%, so you want to set your campaign’s max CPC to a low enough bid that it won’t get many (or any) clicks,  but high enough that, if multiplied my 3, it reaches your desired max CPC for your mobile ads.

Let’s say you want to spend up to $15 on a click from a mobile device (and of course you don’t want any clicks from desktops). You’d set your campaign’s max CPC to $5. With any luck this will be too small of a bid to get any real action on desktops/tablets.

Now when you adjust your mobile bid to +300%, it will bid up to $15 for a click on mobile devices only.

Like I said, not perfect… but better than nothing.

Maybe bid adjustment for desktops and tablets is right around the corner and Google is just trying to keep us on our toes. But hopefully in the meantime this workaround does the trick.

The post Targeting Only Mobile Devices with AdWords Enhanced Campaigns appeared first on Top Draw.

You’d think this would be a no-brainer to figure out but I decided to use google-fu to double-check that I was handling the inserted link correctly. I was a bit surprised by what I found – advice on how to disable mobile device telephone links!

I’m not in favour of disabling functionality for the sake of a bit of styling. But, if that’s what you really want to do, then this is the bit of code many sources on the Internet will advise you to use:

<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no" />

Not satisfied with this solution, I wanted to take a peek at the source code of my page to see exactly how mobile devices changed my code. Guess what?

That basic functionality – viewing the source code of a page – is not native to Safari on an iPad or iPhone! Lucky for me somebody made a workaround: How to view source on an iPad or iPhone.

This method worked like a charm! The injected code wrapped my telephone number with an anchor tag and the ‘url’ was ‘tel:(555) 555-5555′.

<a href="tel:(555) 555-5555">(555) 555-5555</a>

From there, it was a simple matter of targeting and re-styling the anchor tag to look consistent with the design.

For those unfamiliar, you can target the link either through its parent elements or by using:

a[href^="tel:"] { }

instead of:

a { }

However, further investigation revealed there are different patterns of phone number that will translate differently depending on your mobile device OS. This site has a good list of the patterns used to make default phone links. It also shows which OS will ‘magically’ create links out of the phone number text.

Next time you run across a telephone link where you didn’t put one, you’ll know how to handle it!

The post Styling Mobile Telephone Number Links appeared first on Top Draw.

It’s extremely satisfying to work with a company from its early years and watch them grow and prosper. When we first met the partners of LJ Welding Automation in 2006, shortly after they purchased the company, 99% of their customers were based in Alberta. They now export to over 35 countries around the world! This accomplishment recently won this welding equipment manufacturer a prestigious Alberta Export Award at the 2013 event in Calgary…and we just wanted to say congratulations!

Global exposure

We are also thrilled that Top Draw was given the opportunity to develop an optimized website for the company right out of the gate. Ryan Holt, COO and Partner of LJ Welding, acknowledges our work, saying, “While we believe the quality of our products and service has built our success, the online marketing and search engine optimization work that Top Draw did in those first years literally opened our doors to a world of opportunity. Our revenue has also increased 1000% over the past 6 years, thanks in part to the global exposure that our website has given us.”

A winning combination

In fact, looking at the analytics reports for the last year, an impressive 40% of visitors to LJ’s website are from outside Canada and the United States. The website brings in leads and their sales team seals the deals. Innovative, quality products and an effective internet marketing tool have proven to be a winning combination for this Edmonton-based business!

Read the article featuring LJ Welding in the April edition of Alberta Venture Magazine.

The post Congratulations to LJ Welding – Alberta Export Award Winner appeared first on Top Draw.

This article sums up a recent interview with Rita Sly, Managing Director, Mass Market for ATB Investor Services about her experience working with Top Draw and creating MasterPlan.

Q) ATB’s online advice site is more than a website. How would you describe what the project evolved into?

A) We’ve created an interactive tool that not only allows, but encourages Albertans to create a financial plan, learn the basics of investing, and receive customized recommendations based on their current situation and future goals. Special considerations were needed for security, confidentiality, and advanced calculations and programming.

Q) What basic problem was ATB trying to solve?

A) During our initial research and focus group phase, I distinctly remember the comments of a well-educated, professional young woman: “If I had something like this, I would feel smart enough to talk to an advisor.” Many Albertans know they should—and want to—plan and invest for their future, but they have no idea where to start. Our goal was to adopt technology into a non-intimidating advisory role.

From our organization perspective, our goals were to:

• build a sustainable model that would stand the test of time,
• improve the quality and reach of our advice, and
• help improve the efficiencies of our advisors and decrease the cost of our delivery model.

When investors can start the conversation with Albertans who are “educated and enlightened,” our advisors can offer more complex advice. In essence, we wanted a tool that would cover the basics, so we can take them through the next steps.

Q) What was the inspiration for the project?

A) We realized that delivering customized quality advice for such a complicated subject was a challenge. Yet there had to be something that we could emulate as a model. That turned out to be tax software, an easy-to-use, bulletproof tool that makes preparing tax returns brilliantly simple for do-it-yourselfers. That was the concept we worked toward: a simple, self-guided, do-it-yourself online tool.

Q) What steps were taken before putting the pen to paper?

A) At ATB, we’re very good at studying “the best,” analyzing and improving upon components that already work well. Over the course of three weeks, we used “mastery immersion,” a process in which we recorded, watched, and analyzed the advisory process. The planning tool advisors currently use when working with clients was the framework of all the questions, timing, and components that would need to be included in the interface.

Q) When did Top Draw come in and what was their role?

A) Top Draw was hired to transition the planning tool from paper into an online experience. Based on a comprehensive Requirements Document, this process involved coming up with the interface, templates and information architecture, then applying graphic elements that would welcome and draw participants into the process.

Extensive calculations were also a significant part of the equation, along with all the programming and coding needed to make the piece interactive. One of the biggest challenges from a design perspective was making the site engaging so that participants would invest 20 minutes of their time working through the site and the process. We understand how lofty of an expectation that is!

Q) What results have you gathered from the pilot?

A) We are still analyzing the data and will be very thorough in this process; however, we know that 50% of visitors spent the time required to complete the process. It’s dangerous to try to prove you were right, so we will be very diligent in our assessment. But we were, to be honest, pleasantly surprised by this number. It validates that Albertans want to have a plan. We will take what we learned and refine our approach even more to make it better.

Q) What impressed you about working with Top Draw?

Their recommendations were exceptional in terms of design, layout and navigation. Top Draw’s commitment to the project, in terms of timelines and deliverables, was also outstanding.

A) The unique perspectives and skills that each member brought to the table. They understood how to reach people in spite of large amounts of information, how to entice them to stay and engage with the interface. Their recommendations were exceptional in terms of design, layout and navigation. In fact, we actually find the structure and functionality of the account opening page so much easier than the tried and true process we use now! They turned a massive questionnaire into an easy to digest process.

Top Draw’s commitment to the project, in terms of timelines and deliverables, was also outstanding. We both learned a lot through the process and look forward to continuing to collaborate as we work toward the full launch.

The post Innovative Investment Advice Site Coming to Life in Alberta appeared first on Top Draw.