I know I'm not the only one with spring fever.

Mild weather, blossoming trees, outdoor festivals, Cadbury Creme Eggs and softball/Frisbee/kickball leagues are just a few of the things I look forward to this time of year.

Spring sport leagues are extremely popular in the DC metropolitan area. Weekday evenings and weekend afternoons, you'll find the National Mall absolutely mobbed with coworkers and friends slinging bats and hucking Frisbees.

The competition is fierce, but there are two things that matter even more than your skills on the field. 

1. Your skills at happy hour.

2. Your T-shirt design.

Washington DC is known for its bright, young professionals. We're witty, we're punny, and we take our trivia nights VERY seriously. For this reason, sport leagues put a lot of time and thought into their team name and logo.

The pressure to be creative is on.

If your personal team doesn't have a graphic designer on its roster, our design team at Sonic Promos would love to help you create a great shirt.

Many thanks to our clients for allowing us to share their fun designs.

Pink tee by Melissa Amano at melissa.amano@gmail.com.

In Austin, March has one focus. And I'm not talking about the Zilker Park Kite Festival.

The city comes alive thanks to a little event called SXSW. 

South by Southwest is a company that plans and executes trade shows, conferences and other events. Their current lineup of events includes SXSW Music, SXSW Interactive, SXSW Film, SXSWedu and SXSWeco. All except SXSWeco occur in the spring. 

The very first festival, held in 1987, focused on music at a time when Austin musicians were still relatively isolated from the rest of the world. For years, the eclectic music scene in Austin had stirred interest in businesses on both coasts, and SXSW gave them an excuse to visit.

The festival was an immediate success and as time passed, it gathered more and more attention. SXSW now has offices in Ireland, Germany, Australia and Japan who help bring international talent to Austin. In 1994, the company added a film and interactive component in response to growing industries in tech, film and web. Combined, SXSW Music, Film and Interactive now pull in more than 48,000 registrants each March.

At an event this big, how can you possibly hope to stand out? It takes a little creativity and a lot of planning. 

In late January, Jamie began working with the Pappas Group to develop promotional materials for client .CO's 2012 SXSW presence. Using .CO as an example, let's discuss some important elements of trade show strategy.

1. Have a plan and clearly state your objectives. Participating in a trade show can be a substantial investment of time, money and labor. That's why it's so important to establish a plan and identify clear metrics of success. How else will you know if it's a worthwhile investment, year after year?

By the end of January, Pappas and .CO had a detailed plan with three clear objectives. 1) Develop a .CO branded experience that extends the idea of engaging starters and .CO owners to build understanding of and loyalty to the .CO brand. 2) Communicate what .CO is and who the .CO brand is. 3) Connect with the SWSWi audience, an audience that is packed with starters.

2. Know your audience. For those of you who read Reddit, I'll summarize this point with one sentence: Don't be a Woody Harrelson. You know what I mean. 

Learn as much as you can about the kind of people who will be attending the show. What are their interests? Their needs? How do they receive and digest information, and how can you grab their attention?

At SXSW 2012, .CO will focus on interacting with startups and influencers. These individuals are "thirsty for knowledge, creative, intelligent, engaged and open to learning about new ideas and innovations. They want to be in on or at least know the next big thing."

3. Start interacting with your audience before the show even begins. Pre-show outreach is a critical step that many marketing professionals overlook when planning their trade show strategy. Trade shows are not necessarily a good environment for first impressions, especially ones that only last a day or two. Surrounded by noise and chatter, it can be difficult for you to make a lasting connection with your prospects.

Exhibitors can generally request a mailing list of registered attendees to help them prepare. Identify a few contacts with whom you really want to connect, and treat them like your VIPs. Invite them to join you for a meal, send them a prep kit or provide an incentive for visiting your booth. 

Pre-show marketing was a big part of .CO's SXSW strategy. Knowing that many of their startups will be traveling to Austin by bus, .CO sent custom whiteboards, stencils and notebooks to various departure points for attendees to enjoy on the ride and all week long.

.CO has also been connecting with their community via social media for weeks now. Using the hashtag #startuplife, they've created a buzz around their presence at SXSW.

4. Make it meaningful. When selecting promotional materials for a trade show, focus on items that are practical and meaningful for your target audience. 

Each and every promotional piece that .CO developed for SXSW serves a purpose and reinforces their overall strategy. In addition to the whiteboards, stencils and notebooks, .CO created stadium cups for their evening cocktail event, branded bandannas to be used as photo booth props, and chopsticks for a noodle bowl lunch (an upscale twist on the startup staple of Ramen noodles).

5. Think ahead and anticipate needs. Upon hearing that a few rain showers and thunderstorms are expected to hit Austin mid-week, .CO ordered a couple hundred bright orange umbrellas. If the sky opens up, .CO employees will stay warm and dry, while simultaneously drawing a ton of attention to their colorful brand. Austinites love orange.

If you'll be in Austin next week, for work or play, be sure to check out this SXsurvival guide from local ad agency GSD&M. You'll find helpful tips for everything from food to venues to parties. 

If you pop over to LinkedIn today, you will probably see an article floating around titled "5 Reasons You Need to Meet in Person" by René Shimada Siegel.

Since I've been working for Sonic remotely from Austin, TX for several months now, this article immediately caught my eye. I spend at least two months out of the year in the Washington Metropolitan area meeting with clients, and René's points remind me why these visits are so critical.

Source: freedigitalphotos.net

Reposted from Inc.com:5 Reasons You Need to Meet in Person

My clients are just like yours: They want to Skype, email and text. But here's why you still need face time.

I love new technologies that allow me communicate with others more freely and quickly. But as a business owner, I try to remember customers want to work with someone they can relate to, not just buy from

Numbers 2, 3 and 5 resonate particularly loudly for me. My favorite part about meeting in person is the ease with which you can talk about non work-related topics. When conversation deviates from the task at hand, I don't view it as a negative. Rather, I see it as an opportunity to truly connect with the person sitting across from me. I like learning about your pets, your children, your taste in books. It only makes me more eager to work with you again and again.

Point 5, "learn where the action is", is especially important given that our goal at Sonic Promos it to learn your brand, your taste and your style, and to make appropriate product recommendations. Being able to meet in person and absorb the environment around me is critical to producing creative ideas.

What are your thoughts on this article? Do you make it a priority to meet with clients and vendors in person?

A friend recently emailed me pictures of some really creative inventions. I think a few of them would make awesome promotional items. Maybe someday!

Everyone knows the cream is the best part.

This gadget gives my favorite pizza cutter a run for its money.

This is so genius. I mean, telling the story of your injury to every inquiring stranger gets old really fast. Save your breath and print a pictograph of the incident on the sling.

Perfect for eating lunch at your desk. Though I admit I get a certain amount of pleasure blasting crumbs out of my keyboard with compressed air.

Fact. There can never be too many USB ports on a computer. I don't think this exact item is currently available for branding, but there are several unique USB hubs already on the promotional product market.

Ugh, how did I not think of this myself??

I think this is a neat idea, but I don't really see how it adds all that much value. I mean, is it so hard to read the measurements on the side of the glass? I guess it would come in handy for baking, when it's extremely important to be exact.

Have you seen any neat products lately? Tell us about them!

Source: http://randompicdumps.com/index.php/misc/21-innovative-inventions/ 

Source: http://i.imgur.com/m3g6p.jpg

Have you ever had an idea that looks great on paper, but suffers in execution? That can happen a lot in the world of promotional products. 

You see, a lot of common decoration techniques (screen print, pad print, silk screen) are not especially friendly to sketches or hand drawn artwork. 99% of the time, manufacturers require vectored artwork for custom branded items.

Not sure what 'vectored' means? Check out our art guidelines for an explanation.
If creative inspiration only struck while working in Adobe Illustrator, the vectored art requirement would be no trouble at all. But, as we all know, that's never the case.

A great design idea can come to mind at any time. More often than not, the only material at hand is a receipt or a napkin, hence the expression, "a napkin sketch". How do you go about getting that sketch onto a T-shirt, bandanna, car magnet, banner or mug?

That's where we come in. 
Our graphic design team is here to turn your ideas into reality. We know exactly how artwork needs to be prepared for a flawless product, and we'll make sure it's done correctly. Even when supplied with just a rough sketch, we are able to adapt the design to print-friendly vectored artwork.

We're here to make sure your designs look great on paper and everything else.