Showing posts with label colors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colors. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Renter Decor Ideas & Our Top FAQ Questions

It always comes around to that time of the year, as a renter, when you need to move to a new space. If you’re anything like me, I get bored with a space if I’m there for too long. So now I’m preparing to move to a new space at the beginning of September and I’m starting to make my list of designs that will fill my naked walls. As a renter, you’re typically not allowed to paint your walls, unless you have an amazingly laid back landlord. Unfortunately I don’t, so the wall decals are PERFECT for my space. I can add my personality to my home without the hassle of painting or banging nails crookedly into my wall for the one picture I have to hang.

There are a few things to keep in mind when deciding on your designs.
Size: This is one of the most common questions I receive as a CSR, “How does the sizing work with your designs and how do I know what the right size would be?”. Let me tell you one thing, I wish I could tell every customer what design would look amazing over their queen sized, four post bed, but unfortunately I haven’t acquired that skill yet. I’m still trying to work on it though.
All of our designs are measured in overall size. So, we take the overall length of a design by the overall height of a design. All of our designs are measured in inches as to keep the confusion as minimal as possible. I know it is a difficult process to measure out your space and picture the right size. Here’s my little secret to perfect measurements as to avoid the boyfriend holding my measuring tape up, with tired arms, as I stand back and contemplate the sizing.
First, I acquire my measuring tape and a role of painters tape. You will still need an “assistant”, but I promise their task won’t take up too much time and won’t leave them with aching arms. Next, get the size of the design you’re thinking of purchasing. Measure out the size on the space where you’ll place the design and have your “assistant” mark its measurements with a pieces of painters tape. Now both you and your “assistant” can stand back and get an ideal of how large or small the design will be.

Texture: This is another common question that I hear daily, “I have a (insert texture here), will your decal stick to my wall?”. Currently I have the same issue. The walls in my new living room are covered in that lovely, I say this with deep sarcasm, wood paneling. Now don’t get me wrong, some people can work the wood paneling but I just can’t seem to do it with my taste. I love modern designs and can’t seem to figure out a way to make the wood paneling modern. I won’t let the paneling defeat me! I’ve contemplated this for several days and have decided to hang large canvases on the wall with a mixed media design. I’m going to place some of my favorite vinyl designs on the canvas and add a bit of paint around them as a background color. Before doing so, I need to know if our designs will adhere to that type of surface. Luckily, we offer working samples just for that reason. When on our website, you can order a working sample. Please allow a few days for these to be processed since unfortunately my worker gnomes are currently on strike and only I am processing them. All of our working samples will arrive via USPS in a white envelope. Once the sample arrives, you will apply it just like you would any of our designs. We offer this service free of charge to all of our customers since it would be so annoying to be excited for that perfect design and when it finally arrives, it won’t stick to your surface. If you ever, EVER have any doubt just pick up the phone and call me. I’ve tested many surfaces and I’ll be able to give you plenty of insight.

Color: This one is very simple, well if you order color samples it is. We offer one set of six color samples as a free service to our customers. These will arrive on a postcard via USPS. Again, please remember that the worker gnomes are still on strike. You can use these samples to decide on which color will look perfect with your Sherwin Williams (insert color HERE). That has to be one of my favorite questions of all time and is another skill that I’m working on. “What color would look good with my Sherwin Williams Grim Blue?” Now, keep in mind that I have no clue what that color looks like. When you call and ask me that question I will go online and look up the color to try and give you my best opinion, but the color online may look completely different then how it looks on your wall. The lighting in your house is also another factor, but I will NEVER turn you away. Plus, this always helps me shop for paint colors if I ever need them in the future. So what I’m trying to say here is, ordering the color samples is the best way to know for sure what color to choose. You can hold the card up to your Sherwin Williams Milky Cream and know exactly how the vinyl will look against the wall.






That’s all I have for our bloggers today. If you have any questions, or would like to discuss anything I talked about, my worker gnomes and I will be happy to answer your questions.




~Anastasia, Production Manager and Chief Customer Handler

Monday, September 21, 2009

Rethinking Our Website



Where there’s a website, there’s a way to improve it. We’ve been thinking about our website a lot lately, and we’re slowly realizing that we need some significant overhaul. The designs are difficult to find, the shopping cart options aren’t standardized, and shipping options and discounts are cumbersome. On the other hand, it has a great look and feel to the design that really resonates with our customers.


We’re looking at updating the the custom quote options, which will let customers really get a chance to play with their design, font choices, and colors up front. We want that to be a seamless transition to either purchase directly without intervention. We also want to keep the ability to transfer the work in progress to the next step where one of our designers can make it truly special with a mix of fonts, colors, embellishments, layout options, and everything else they do to make the custom quotes a work of art.


Here’s hoping this redesign is a positive experience. Generally when you get creative types and technology types together they can’t seem to communicate. You end up with visually stimulating designs that don’t have the features or functionality that is actually something someone can use. Maybe that business degree in computer information systems will come in handy–not that I’m ever planning on admitting that it was worth it to suffer through statistics!

Friday, August 7, 2009

New Colors Are Coming!

The nagging, whining, and constant cajoling has finally paid off! Hot off the presses (or cutters, in our case) are 14 new colors from our supplier, Oracal. We haven’t seen them yet, but we anticipate a sage green, an olive, a teal, persimmon, a few more flavors of pink/magenta and more. We’ll get them available just as soon as they arrive, so keep watch on the color sample page for the latest update. 62 colors–Whew!


So for those that really can’t find the perfect color in the mix of 62 choices, we have the ability to cut most of the designs in a ‘reverse weed’ order. What this means to the design perfectionist (and you know you are!) is that you can use the design as the perfect single use stencil for a precise color match. Of course the beauty of the vinyl medium is that it is quicker and easier than paint, but the reverse technique is prefect for that hand painted look.

WD914Dance.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Site Updates!

We’ve recently changed hosting providers. While that doesn’t sound very exciting, it has given us a few features that we hope are a big hit with everybody. We’ve got a new Quote Request Form for customers to get started on a personal masterpiece. We’ve also got a fun Font Previewer for 25 of our more popular fonts.

We made requesting sample colors easier than ever with a Color Request Form, now updated with all 48 of the available Oracal 631 colors. Choices, choices, choices!



While we’re excited about the changes to the website, we’re also still running into a few hurdles in the change over, namely we’re having difficulty replying to email. Seriously, Outlook is not playing nice with our new hosting provider—any great IT techs out there with a knack for taming Outlook, let me know! I pay in vinyl!

Cheers!
Morgan