This Week with Taylor & Gordon

Booking in shows now we have a roadmap

Car problems

OBS – Open Broadcaster Software – https://obsproject.com

Create a better quality zoom video

Add sources, like a webcam, or an image

OBS allows you to size the camera image and show multiple angles

Perfect when I am performing close up magic, while keeping the connection with the audience

Screenshare without needing the host to give you that ability

Many add-ons available – https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/categories/obs-studio-plugins.6/

Move is one of my favourites – https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/move-transition.913/

Add lower thirds with your name and company details

Create personalised holding screens if you have to step out for a moment

Automation using Alfred (Mac only) – https://www.alfredapp.com

Track the usage of our Sodastream – not as silly as it sounds

Learning skills to be used in more important projects like Zoho

Proposify – Proposal creation software – https://www.proposify.com

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

The booklets have arrived

A new motorised standing desk

Changing the height regularly is good for your health

Helps to give you a boost of energy and allows you to stretch your muscles

Arrived in two separate deliveries on the same day

The extra desk depth helps with the hand position when typing

Standing for meetings is better for the voice

Having your camera at eye height gives the most flattering image

Mood-boards – helps to understand a look and feel for a project

Colours, style, texture, typefaces, font-weights, other designs as a reference and many other things that help with the way a website or design will end up

As a customer, create your own mood-board to present to your designer

It all helps to get the result you are looking for

Collaboard – https://www.collaboard.app

Let us know if you have a suggestion for a future topic

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Collaborating on Side Projects

Talking to people on Cafecito – https://www.meetcafecito.com – [edit – no Longer running]

Getting another view on things

Strengths and weaknesses

Bringing in others with different styles and concepts

Every design is based on an existing design

Solopreneurs only have a limited amount of time to earn

Bringing in help with the skills needed can allow you to grow

Promotional Booklets – Freebie Upsells

Amazing Card Tricks customised booklet for Pip Kennedy

Folded by the printing company – saves time in the long run and is a much better fold

Given away or sold as an upsell

Top tip – give away something that would be interesting for your target customer

Giving away pens appeal to people who like free stuff, not necessarily someone who will become a customer

Giving away information for free positions you as the expert

Use for lead generation

A famous plumbing story

Small bottles of sealant given away in hotels!

Give away needs to have value to the user

Very low cost, high perceived value

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Looking at side projects

Making it once, and selling many times

Passive income for service focussed businesses

New projects may require customer support, which is on-going

Research is important to make sure there is a need for your product

Product / Brand name – make sure it fits your style and mission statement

Should you go for a very specific name like ToysRUs or a generic name like Apple

First impressions count

What do existing brands bring to mind like Nike, Amazon and Apple

Make sure that the name looks right when viewed

Graphics on the side of a Starbucks van gave a very bad impression

Make sure the name doesn’t mean something very different in other languages

Investing in your company

Talent and skills as well as assets

One way to justify increasing your prices

Road map for social media for when performances can start up again

Investing on upgrading equipment to give a better service

Learn how to use the new equipment to get the best out of them

Buy quality equipment to allow you to resell on if you need to

Higher quality keep their resell value

Visit the website: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Another interesting week

Designing posters for local theatre companies

Missing theatre shows

Sending out quotes

Branding Guidelines

How your branding assets can be used

Company colours, typefaces, look and feel

The rulebook to keep your image on brand

Online Booking Assistant – OBA – https://www.onlinebookingassistant.com

Helping you to close the sale using email with automated customised chasers and follow ups

The shorter the form, the more people will fill it in

Adding points of contact with useful information

Perfect for people in the entertainment industry

Find out more by visiting the website

Free 30-day trial available

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Putting the room back together after decorating

Having a clear-out

Inbox Zero – is it even possible?

Keeping your email inbox clear by archiving to Evernote or dealing with

Leaving emails unread to deal with, didn’t work for me

Came down from 1000 unread emails to 50 !!

Flagging emails worked well for one of us

Mailtags plugin is worth a look – https://smallcubed.com

Filing emails in a folder structure allows them to be found when needed

Giving feedback suggestions

The problem – client says be creative – but within very strict guides

Difficult to understand what needs changing and what the client wants

A clear process for giving feedback can help

Client frustration when they don’t see what they want

Best accessory for Everynote…

Fujitsu Scansnap ix500 – allows for scanning of a document, double-sided, which is then OCR’d and uploaded to a new Evernote note

Scans letters, drawings, sketches, whatever you need – Makes life really easy

https://www.fujitsu.com/uk/products/computing/peripheral/scanners/scansnap/ix500/

We are now on Spotify – check us out here: https://open.spotify.com/show/78Z99IfnyI00SOcspfNX5B

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Sleeping downstairs

Upgrading zoom meetings

Redecorating the whole room

Lesson learnt: Getting a pro in will normally get you a better result

Experience counts for a lot

Evernote – https://evernote.com

Paperless office

Getting your digital filing organised

Free / Basic version available

Use for audio recordings as well

Alternatives available – such as Notion

News: Last Pass is changing – https://www.lastpass.com

Free version is going to limit you to one platform access in March

https://www.theverge.com/22285499/password-manager-lastpass-free-bitwarden-zoho

Free alternative – https://www.bitwarden.com

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Very long lockdown hair

Communication Platform Discord – https://discord.com

Communities of people with specific interests

Some people didn’t want to sign up to Facebook or Slack

Taylor uses it for web development

Channels for different topics

Voice Chat & Screen Chat

Discord Servers are the main topic, with sub-channels

Originally a gaming platform. Integrates with Steam and Spotify

The core system is free to use. There are “boost” extras which cost a monthly or annual fee

New website launched – long time coming

https://www.pipkennedy.co.uk

Gordon’s adult magician performing stage name

Over 1 year in the planning

Needing to be done for many years

The original was limited by the technology available

Lockdown was the catalyst to making this a priority

We used Oxygen to build this site, and it took a while for Gordon to build as it was a new builder for him

Testing on hundreds of devices is just not possible so tweaks are always needed

After putting it live, added image compressor, pre-loading pages, CDN, sitemaps

Had some comments back after posting the link on Facebook

Entertainer friend said it didn’t have enough “Pizazz” although for the target market I was also told it was perfect – very corporate and professional

Please take a look and leave your comments below

Take away is to get feedback and look at it in context.

Make sure you respect the views of the people giving the feedback, and whether they are your target audience

Also – don’t be precious on your work, have an open mind and be prepared to change things and ideas if there are good reasons to do so.

May need to split test the site – but we need traffic first which isn’t going to happen during lockdown

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

We rebuilt the entire website

https://season-3.thisweekwith.co.uk

Moved from Divi to Oxygen

Reasons for the rebuild:

We didn’t know how long we would be doing This Week With, so didn’t really plan for the future

Being able to search for content was impossible

The design was a pre-designed template

Decided to build a custom design

Looked on Pinterest and Dribbble for inspiration

Mocked it up on Figma as a collaborative process

Created three-page designs – home page, archive page (all episodes) and the individual page (single episode)

Built with Oxygen Builder

Convert all data from old site to new site:

Change all episode names to new format S2E38

Changed all show notes from a list to paragraphs

Converted all m4a audio episodes to mp3 format for the new site audio player

Link up all the new audio files to the correct episode

Changed every episode image to show the season, as well as the youtube episode thumbnail images

Then went through and linked up all the new graphics everywhere

Edited all youtube videos by removing the countdown timer

Updated the image of Gordon everywhere, so the cut out was much better

New techniques and skills learnt

Now you can:

Search for content, filter episodes by length, season or date using Ajax (immediate updates without reloading the page)

You can then sort by Latest, Oldest, Longest and Shortest episodes

Tooltips show you what an icon is for

Easter eggs (hidden surprises) in the website (watch episode for full details)

Compare with the old website: Home Page – All Episodes – Individual Episode

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook

Working late at night

Getting work done without distractions

Taylor had an interview with college alumni

Gordon is on the radio with his magic – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb7pEEdbdk0

New Episode naming S2E37

Crowdfunding

Kickstarter – http://kickstarter.com

Indigogo – https://www.indiegogo.com

Great way to get your projects funded ahead of time

Tiers offering different rewards

Only if the target is reached, does the project get funded

Do your due diligence before buying as you can lose your money

You can also get a bargain

Collaborating with another developer

Offering ideas and sharing with the community

Prefer to find solutions to problems over creating tutorials

Website CSS mobile phone with interactive content inside – all using code

Watch the tutorial – https://permaslug.com/device-mockups-in-oxygen-builder/

Quiver – great for code snippets – similar to Notion or Evernote – https://happenapps.com

Drayson Design Website – https://www.draysondesign.com

Facebook: https://www.thisweekwith.co.uk/facebook