-InSync- Party RiverBoat syncronicity III

While they were trying to build up their sim to get it ready for the Grand Opening suddenly they came up with a new idea. If we would be able to make a Missisippi Steamboat ........................ Well certain things you shouldn't ask Fred. And one of the things is: Could you make ...............? He was right on the project. He digged up some photo's of his own. Went on the web and before I even could blink half of the boat was already builded. All he could add was: I need good textures!!!! Sometimes you cannot stop him, not even me. So he dragged me to photoshop to bake all the textures and we did it again.

Da Vinci Isle is so generous not to make it a one piece. So we will be able to resell it and you will be able to make it yours too. 

Come and see the Party RiverBoat inworld and follow this ................................

It will be sold at XStreet and if you  want to check out the Idylls and the beautifull Da Vinci Isle that will be possible too just follow the link .................................

Marketing Tutorial: Answers!

As we just started to sell our buildings and graphic-designs I cannot say that we are doing bad. We have had several jobs lately. Did a lot of marketing and I really think it is working out very well. Today I stumbbeled on a great blog (handed over by some-one to be honost)VirtualBusiness.com. I started to read imediatly. It's clear it's very easily written and I think it has some great idea's. Point is that it makes you think on how you can improve your business. It makes you review your own actions.

Lets' try to review our business within the blog-items:

** Be Unique**

As in our case I do think that we are selling a unique product. Our buildings are very different from others. We want them to look like if you can find them in RL too. We try to improve and get better with every building!!!! We only add features that are neicesary to the houses. Some of them are quite without any because it was just like that. others have more gadgets because they need those. I think we are quite Unique at SL.

**Be Intuitive**

I so love the sentence Todd used: "Keep essential instructions brief - People don’t read instructions. Therefore the large majority of your product’s features should either be 1) easy to figure out or 2) optional and does not get in the way."

Blah Blah is the worst you can get in SL. That is why we have a short note in our products. You need to know how you can set the teleporter, you need to know how you can reset some scripts and you need to know who to call if there is anything wrong. Our Notes Are Brief!!! nothing more, nothing less.

As for now we aren't selling a big amount. So if we get a request or a question we are almost imediatly able to get out there and help the people. Eventhough I was quite stunned about the fact that you can have your IM-s to your mail forwarded and that they doesn't get capped by that..................................

**Create Strong Emotions**

Well that's a hard one to talk about. I can honostly say that I am insecure about that. Our Logo Perfectly matches the things we want to say. We are working together InSync: Fred Builds and together we make the textures for it. But to be honost I am still trying to figure out how I can get a kindof one great look for our designs. But with the product it is hard to get an outstanding view. 

** Create Long Lasting Value**

I don't think our houses should get any updates. There will simply be new other and more strange ones to find out about. SL isn't really the place to get long value items I think. people are more into getting the newest and the coolest gadgets. so it will be more a matter of suprising them with new and improved items ......................

As I have been thinking about this all i have decided to make a customers survey to ask what people really think of out product, services. i will let you know how that worked out if I get some of them back ..................

Grand Opening Da Vinci Isle

As From Saturday Feb 14th Da Vinci Isle has opened. -Insync- was able to make their gift and freebie for it. They wanted to have a cigarbox with their logo, to handout cigars. This sounds like a rather easy thing to make. If it wasn't that Frederic has high standards. First the cigars had to be wearable. So they needed to look like real. He made them look real!!

As I provided the textures he made the darn things look great. They have ash coming from the tip. They glow up and the smoke is InSync with that. They look wonderfull. It made us also aware of some new scripting and even I tried to figure out how it works and eventually we did it together.

Next to all of this we had to make the box very low prim of course because every SL-er knows that it has to look great but it has to be low prim too.

Be sure you often visit da Vinci isle because their events change all the time!!!!!

-InSync- Logo: Cafe at Da Vinci Isle

Da Vinci Isle has opened as from today. As known it has a big affliation with art. Besides giving RL and SL artist the opportunity to have exhibitions there are more ways to come in contact with art. As from now the Bookworm Cafe will have as they call it in Paris 'Café de Theatre' you will be able to sit together and have the chance to hear poetry in all it's beauty.

-InSync- created the logo. we tried to give the cafe it's own look but stayed with the Da Vinci Isle-feeling. 

Marketing Tutorial: How To get Your name Branded in SL

I am in no way a marketing guru. What I am about to write here is just something I am trying at the moment. These comments or idea's are in no way a must but I think it is working very well for us at the moment so that is why I wanted to share it with you.

As we are building big things we would need a big space to sell our things. So we still don't have that. most of the houses we have builded we live in. so through IM people could see it. that isn't ideal but we are for now not sure it will be of any use to buy a plot to get our houses on. 

If we get something new I use the following steps to get it known out there.

* First is off course the packaging and listing in XStreet. I try to use a simular way to make all the selling photo's we get onto Xstreet aswell.

*As it is out there I make a post at the What is New @ blog. this is a great way to get out your new made items.

*Then I add it to our own blog aswell. with links all over the place of course.

*I also have a Flickr-Account. I post photo's about our buildings our sellings and about fun thins aswell. But Flickr has a very big Second Life community. So there are hundreds of groups out there. They give you the opportunity to join and to add photo's. That makes it possible to join specific groups that can give you specific customers and lovers of what you make. In this case I joined groups like SL-Steampunk community, builders and photographers groups.

*Next to that I joined some blogs of people that arein SL too and who are bloggin about specific subjects. For exsample the New Babbage community.

*I always wandered a lot around the SL forums. There is a big community behind that. It gives you so much opportunities. To see whatever others do, what they make, what they want to learn and most of it want to share with you. it is a great way to exhibit your items there as well to find people that could need your knowledge or help.

All that you want to do is to get  to be known. that people will ask you for help. that people want to do business with you. Untill now we did most of our jobs through people we already knew. But as we are expanding more poeple will know us and will be able to find us. we are in the lucky position that we have had very nice assignments untill now. But most important thing off all is that we are doing this because we like to do it. It is our passion, it runs through our vains ................. we are -InSync-

-Opening Soon- Da Vinci Isle

-Insync- has done some major jobs for the brand new sim: Da Vinci Island. They will be having their grand-opening on 14 February 2009. Da Vinci Isle is an exhibition and events center. Keywords are: exhibition centre, displaying of art (inworld aswell as 1stlife) paintings, artists and of course there will be possibility to buy the art too. 

One of the first assignments was to get their logo out. We created a logo with the feel of art, of Da Vinci Isle and to make give it a clean look aswell.

You can find Da Vinci Isle here.

Da Vinci Isle is very close related to Vitruvius, the are journal for the metaverse!

Design Tutorial: Logo's and Fonts

Logo making is a passion of me. I haven’t really had classes for it but I can say that I have learned a lot in the past. I am self-made. That does not mean that designing is just a matter of ‘good’ taste or an Eye for this kind of things.

There are important rules eventhough there is a lot to say about taste.

As the blogtitle implicaties in this part of the tutorial I want to say something about fonts.

There are several typefaces in fonts:

Each of them says something about their styles. This is important to know because it can give you a clue about the style that the customer wants to bring over to the client.

Genuinly we use Roman Typefaces and they can be devided in several subfaces.

Serif Typefaces are named for the features at the ends of their strokes. Times Roman, Garamond are very common examples of serif. They give a very classic, traditional and formal look to your design.

Sans Serif typefaces are relatively new in the historie of typografy. Well known and popular are Arial, Helvetica and Futura. They give designs a very modern and clean look.

Script Typefaces simulate handwriting. They are mostly not used to do enorm amounts of body tekst. They can be used for logo’s or invitations. Script typefaces can be hard to read so that is surely something you need to focus on if you want to use one of these. Often they look very elegant and feminine.

These are the main typefaces but there are many more. Like ornamentals wich contain only decorative or symbols as characters. In monospaced typefaces all of the characters have the same width. They are used when excact spacing is required. An example of this is Courier.

You will have to consider all the typefaces when you want to make a logo. It will be of importante to know what typeface will give what implication to your design. In other words like a grunge typeface won’t work for a lawyer-logo.

The logo needs to look as one, as something well overthought and a good logo can be ruined by a wrong font!

-InSync- Habitats By J&B Logo

Habitats by J&B, wich are Jade Eiren and Bubster Box, have decided that they wanted to sell their Habitats in SL. The provided logo -InSync - made had to give an idea of what they sell.

So what do they sell?? Habitats are spaces that provide a fairytale of its own. They are founded on a DomeShape and inside of that they created a  habitat. This way you can have your mermaid-lagoon, your fairytale-forrest or your winter wonderland at every place you are able to rez it. They will each come in 2 sizes..40x40 and 22x22besides that they included gadgets like mermaid AO's, skates and many things more. 

The Logo gives an idea of the habitatshape and the feeling of what's inside of it. 

Please check them out at their new store:

Habitats by J&B at Dublin

-InSync- BagEndLike

Our way of building is kindof weird.  I came along when he was building the Haunted House. so when it was finished we needed something new to work on. I wanted to give an idea and I searched the web and came up with the SteamPunk TreeHouse. when we got that boxed and out on Xstreet it was Frederic's turn for an idea again. We both like the book and movies with 'The Lord of The Rings' saga's. and after some idea's Frederic had his inspiration with the Bag End houses that are at Hobbiton, the place were both Frodo and Bilbo Baggins live. Of course we just took the idea and turned into our own fantasy. And as we were building and texturising the flood of idea's started and we were barely be able to stop it. The house is build around a big main tree. It's roots are part of the big living area. Sun is shining through the sweet wooden windows and brighten up the floor in it's lovely pattern. This house gives you the feeling like that you are part of mother nature. You are surrounded by rocks and plants. The big terrace at the upperfloor is imbedded and enclosed and makes you feel secure. The box comes with the main rock-green-texture so you can add some of it to the house surroundings. It is easy rezzable with the Faux-Rez. As you probably are reading this we are already making our next project wich will be fun again .................................................

Come and see BagEndLike just follow this link ..................................

 Look at XStreetSL for more pictures you also can purchase the BagEndLike there aswell all other -InSync- products .......................