Web Design, Wilmington, NC - Akira Media Designs

Facebook Contest Rules

We all know that more “likes” on Facebook means better value for our Facebook business pages. In the never ending quest for more likes, it’s tempting to run a contest, but before you do, you need to know that Facebook has a few rules for such things. Some are obvious (“you are responsible for the […]

Long Hours Can Be Deadly

In Japan they even have a word for it; Karōshi (過労死) which means “death from overwork”, but now research is showing that working long hours can mean a shorter life. So, go home on time today, alright? link: Fast Co. Design – Working Long Hours Could Kill You Photo Credit: Flickr Commons – National Media Museum

New Web Site Launched: I Love NY Pizza – Wilmington, NC

You can really have no idea how excited I am to announce this one. We have launched the web site for a place I have loved for *years*; I Love NY Pizza in Downtown Wilmington. We played off the old and new designs for their iconic menu and came up with a web design that’s A) […]

Lobby Card Design

We saw this great lobby advertisement for the new Muppets Most Wanted movie. I thought it was a genius idea. Lots of people take photos of themselves goofing around with these posters, so Disney took advantage and designed this one so you could walk in and actually join the characters in the picture. Pretty cool […]

Icepocalypse2014

Duke Energy Outage Map Just under forty THOUSAND of us are without power here in Southeastern North Carolina with the bulk of that here in New Hanover County. It’s 2013. We can buy shoes in our underwear from the comfort of our own homes, but a day or two of ice will still bring […]

QR Code Guerrilla Marketing Downtown Wilmington

Ran downtown this morning to take some photos for a client and spotted this little gem stuck to some magazine dispensers. Feeling bold? Scan and see where it goes. I did.

Sometimes, Design is Weird

An artifact from the Reagan administration. The 80’s were an odd time.

Seth Godin: Why Small Businesses Fail | Inc.com

“It’s the small, the weird, and the eager that will make or break you.” via Seth Godin: Why Small Businesses Fail | Inc.com This isn’t a new riff for Seth. He’s stated as much before. Find your niche, delight the geeks and you’ll find success. My question is, do you agree? It’s not the easier path, […]

I haven’t professed my love of Japanese package design for a while now.

I haven’t professed my love of Japanese package design for a while now. via Instagram :: December 30, 2013 at 10:38AM

Mobile apps for quick creativity on the go

I’ve discovered a lot of fun apps over the past year that allow anyone to quickly take a photo and tweak it subtly or twist it into something that barely resembles the original. I’ve had a lot of fun with most of them and have even used some of the images in professional web design […]

Shot more video this morning – thankfully in a language I’m more fluent in.

Shot more video this morning – thankfully in a language I’m more fluent in than Spanish. This project is keeping me pretty busy through the end of this year. via Instagram :: December 21, 2013 at 10:02PM

Sadly, this was just a box. Side note: 70’s package design rocked!

Spotted this little gem of 70’s package design at the Habitat ReStore on Market Street.

Before the Storm

Before the Storm – PT’s Fountain Dr. @ ~11:15AM. Good burgers. Local. What more could you want? (Not my clients, but I wish they were!) via Instagram :: December 17, 2013 at 11:36AM

Small Business Saturday

Today is Small Business Saturday, an initiative Started by American Express in 2010 to support local business after the big box gorging that is Black Friday. There’s no better place to shop local than Downtown Wilmington and Downtown Wilmington, Inc. has a handy little map with local businesses you can support.

It’s better to look good than to feel good

Photographer Peter Hurley shows us how to look awesome in a photo.

Graffiti at Hanover Center

So, I don’t normally condone graffiti, but this one made us all smile.

ThinkUp

ThinkUp is a open source social media analytics tool used by the Obama administration to manage their twitter feed. Installation is fairly simple ( no more difficult than WordPress ) and they guide you through configuration steps for Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and Foursquare. I’ve created a little test install on my own server and […]

Bryson City takes to YouTube to say that they’re still open.

[youtube.com/watch?v=29Am1m9hzMk] Bryson City, NC has taken to YouTube to let everyone know that they’re open for business even tho the government isn’t. I’m not going to harp on the production value here. Instead I’m going to point out that this is something anyone could do with their smartphone. I might even go so far as […]

Twitter on the Ferry

Spotted on the Ocracoke-Hatteras ferry over the weekend. Twitter is a given if you want to push information out these days. The problem isn’t channels. We’ve got plenty of those. The challenges are 1) choosing the right one(s), 2) letting people know you’re there, and 3) generating interesting & useful content.

General News

Perhaps you’ve noticed that things look a little different around here. If so, you have a very sharp eye.