Short-form Video’s Time To Shine

02/07/2014 | admin

Short video is taking over the online world. It’s both beautiful and grim.

Everyday, online video is getting easier to access, and even easier to create. Because of apps like Vine and Instagram, videos are becoming one of the main reasons people even log onto the Internet. According to AdAge, over 40 million people are on Vine, while 150 million plus are on Instagram. That’s a lot of users.

Twitter and Facebook own Vine and Instagram respectively, and people are leaving the text-based social media for their quicker video counterparts. Pop culture has even seen these apps’ relevance. Trends, memes, slang, and even social groups have appeared from this medium. It’s truly marking its place in history, but why?

It’s because short video is both the fastest and the most alluring way to convey a message. If you manage to entertain your audience while telling them about your service or product, you’ve got a memorable and potentially viral advertisement on your hands. Major brands have been doing this for months now, be it the stop-motion animation of Dunkin Donuts’ paper flower or Trident Gum’s chewing-face close-ups!

That is where the beauty of accessibility to online video lies. Any person can make any video about anything. In fact, it is so easy that you could accidentally hit the record button while pulling your phone out of your pocket and make a short viral hit. It makes video accessible.

On the flip side though—it’s ruining our attention spans and giving us an unhealthy addiction to Internet’s speed. We’re becoming so accustomed to this short format, that anything over 30 seconds almost seems too long. People are clicking out of longer videos on YouTube, closing web pages that take too long to load, and going insane over buffering streaming content.
It’s hard to decide whether Vine and Instagram are helpful ways to communicate, or detrimental to our already short attention spans. Time will tell, as the number of users of these appsare predicted to grow even more in 2014.

Throwback Thursday – Holidays!

12/12/2013 | admin

MOS Creative loves the holidays! Here’s a bunch of videos we’ve made in the past with a dash of holiday magic. Enjoy these throwback vids!

Motion Graphics: Melding Graphic Design with Animation!

11/11/2013 | admin

Animation, it makes your marketing seem alive, vibrant and vivacious! There are many kinds and styles of animation ranging from stop-motion to cgi. But motion graphics convey a certain feeling. They’re as quick and informational as they are beautifully designed and animated.

Motion graphics are a great way to advertise yourself because of the simplistic, often minimalistic visuals. Here’s an example of our work that we’ve done:

Don’t forget to participate in the contest mentioned in the video! You’ve seen this style of animation everywhere; Motion Graphic is used frequently to this date. Most commercials, online tutorials, website ads, and more utilize this method. One of the best things about this style is it’s relatively quick to make, especially compared to a fully animated cartoon. With that being said, remember our animation post from before? With youtube being the 3^rd most popular site on the web, it’s a good idea to get something on it to spread the word about your product/service/company! 200 million potential eyes on you? Sounds like a deal to me!

Remember, animation is able to do whatever you want, and is 100% editable. Motion graphics is no different! So perfecting an animated video for you is just one of the many things we at MOS Creative are proud to do for you. We’re graphic designers and animators. We see a production from conception to completion, all in-house! Pretty versatile if you ask me! Give us a shout and see what we’re about.

Let’s captivate your audience together. We want to help you stand OUT! (We’re awesome at it!)

Here’s 3 quick reasons why Motion Graphics might be perfect for you and your business:

1. Quicker turnaround than most methods of animation.
We can and want to do a Disney-esque animation for you! But you may not want to wait that long for a final product. We understand, you’ve got weeks, not years. Well, motion graphics doesn’t need to take so long to create! We can have a beautiful finished product to you, lickety-split!

2. It conveys your message in a simple, user-friendly manner.
One of the most useful aspects of Motion Graphics is the fact that it lays out everything in a visually-stimulating manner, while keeping it simple. It’s usually accompanied with a voiceover to help convey your message. Though just because most motion graphics are often minimalist, it doesn’t mean we can’t get crazy with it. Animation is limitless, and we LOVE challenges!

3. Infographics, the still version of Motion Graphics.
Infographics are a great way to explain yourself. They’re all the rage these days, and motion graphics are very similar! Essentially, motion graphics are the moving version of infographics! Both are visually enthralling, but Motion Graphics gives us a little bit of awesome added to the mix. Contact us for both!

Our jam is that we love helping you stand out. That’s just what we do, and we’re happy to do it for you. Get a hold of us and let’s see how we can set your motion graphics into… motion.

-The MOS Creative team.

PS: Check out our blog! Also, sorry for saying “jam”. It was dorky, but needed to be done.

Throwback Thursday: Bumblejunk!

10/24/2013 | admin

We work on many projects here at MOS Creative. Do you have too much clutter? Need it removed? Well, we know just the guys who will help you out with that. This week, we want to highlight one of our favorites: Bumblejunk Junk Removal!

We’ve created many things for these guys. Here, we’ve got businesscards, yard signs, postcards, a vehicle wrap, and even an animation that ran on television!

We did all the work in-house, utilizing one of our designers, John as the voice. Tony then animated it all together. This was super fun.

The businesscards were a fun project as well. Here’s the front:

And here’s the back:

We love how well the light blue and the bright, vibrant yellow play off of each other.

While the Bumblejunk guys are out at a house, removing junk as they do, they place a nice sign in the lawn.

Bright, happy, and hard to miss!

The residential postcards were also a treat to make:

As we see in this postcard, there’s a Bumblejunk vehicle driving around. Here’s our vehicle wrap design!

We had a ton of fun creating this. Give Bumblejunk a call today!

-The MOS Creative Team

Check out our blog!

Behind the Scenes: Foodem.com

10/16/2013 | admin

We here at MOS Creative have done many projects, and here’s one of our recent ones, an animation for Foodem.com!

Our animator, Tony, cranked away at this animation. Here are some sketches of the chef character:

None of these made the cut

As you can see, our winning chef was born here! Tony then took this design, and made a full body. Then, the phonemes, or mouth motions had to be made. Here is a sketch sheet of the “happy” phonemes used in the animation:

These were all scanned in and drawn over in Adobe Flash. The animation was then completed with this full motion puppet!

This is just one of the animations we’ve made. We here at MOS Creative are capable of many different styles of animation/film/video and any other motion graphics projects you’d ever want! Remember our slogan: “We help YOU Stand out!” and that we do.

-The MOS Creative Team

check our our other blog, at moscreative.tumblr.com!

Adwords for Local Businesses: How to use Extensions and the new Google Maps for better conversion rates.

06/05/2013 | admin

Google Adwords has a couple of functions we are highlighting called Local Extensions as well as the new Adwords for Google Maps which are going to be great for local businesses looking to cut through.

As the Google ad says, “Who is looking for a mechanic in your town? Someone Googling for a mechanic in your town.” (Or something to that effect.).

This sets the premise for how Adwords can help a local business. With somewhere between 80% and 90% of searches for products starting online, it’s important for small businesses to be where their customers are looking.

The days of direct mailers, Val-Pak and Yellow Pages advertising are fast fading and local businesses are moving online where their customers are looking for them.

The basics of Adwords are pretty simple, if you are in Columbia, Maryland and someone searches “Columbia Pest Control” in Google an ad of yours will show up with people’s results. One nice thing, unlike most other forms of advertising is that you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad It’s a very measurable form of advertising which only hits people who are looking for you.

With that basic understanding, there are a couple of important functions which can really push traffic and conversions (Sales!) which are worth taking a closer look at.

Local Extensions::

If you take a look at a search in your field you will probably notice a lot of national companies and people you may not have heard of. Your customers will see that too. Now what you can do to set yourself apart is set up something called a local extension. It looks like this:

Local Extensions show searchers where you are.

Basically what it does is for someone who is near you and searching, it will display you businesses contact info to show them that you are local and nearby, therefore letting you cut through some of the noise and get them to call in or come to your location with minimal clicking around and effort.

Google Maps:

An exciting new feature coming to Google maps is that Adwords will soon be able to be displayed on Google Maps.
To clarify, one of the ways people search is that they go to Google Maps and type in “Sushi Restaurant” and see what locations pop up on the map around them.
It would look something like this:

Current Google maps, a bit cluttered, no ads.

Now, the news here is that Google just announced some changes that will take the results from that, to this:

Much cleaner, with prominent Adwords.

As you can see, the new interface is much cleaner with a lot less information. What is visible, most importantly to this post is that Adword ad for Sakura Sushi.

So now when your customers are looking for a Sushi place through their maps, you can once again cut through the noise and get your message in front of them so that you are the place they call to make a reservation, or to come in for a meal.

There are many ways to take advantage of the power of Adwords, these are just a few of our favorites for local business.

If you are a local business trying to get a leg up in your area, give us a call, we’d love to help out. Leave a comment below with any questions or comments and we’ll respond as quickly as possible.

You can check out our website at www.MOSCreative.com.

Joel

Do Grades Matter After College?

03/29/2013 | admin

Discussing if your GPA matters or not when interviewing for jobs is a sensitive subject that receives a lot of (dare I say) heated discussion. In my humble opinion, at the end of the day, your GPA should not hold a great amount of weight when applying for a job or internship, and here’s why:

If an applicant has a 4.0 GPA, that’s great. However, in the world of marketing and public relations, will the GPA still matter if the applicant doesn’t know how to effectively communicate ideas and show that they think outside the box?

While interviewing for various internships throughout the years, I’ve never been asked about my GPA. I’m not trying to advise any readers to slack off now — it’s always important to work hard in school. (Your grades will decide if you graduate or not!) However, if you’re planning on applying to jobs right after college, it would be helpful not to stress too much about your GPA. In other words, your GPA will not be the single deciding factor when applying for jobs.

What will determine it? The ideas you have to offer, and your willingness to pull through with them! Creativity, relevant experience, networking and time management are also important. Speaking skills are also helpful.

Another crucial skill today is writing. With today’s technology that lets us rapidly communicate in short bursts of information, the emphasis to thoroughly express one’s thoughts has deteriorated. I believe employers are looking for the few people who can creatively and effectively communicate ideas through writing.

What else matters besides GPA? Does GPA have more importance than I make it out to be?

Happy Movember! No-Shave November – Day 1

11/01/2011 | AllyLevin

It’s the rich tradition that men all over the world have been propagating for generations since 1999. This annual, month-long event entails the growing of mustaches during the month of November.

First celebrated by a group of men in Australia, the festivities and reports of facial hair have spread nearly worldwide.

Charitable organizations have also evolved around Movember’s significance, helping to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues, including prostate cancer and depression.
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