Around the Office is a weekly group blog that shows what the OnlineFriendly.biz team and Kobayashi Online have found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week.
This was a busy award week with the Web Marketing Association awarding its WebAwards for excellence in website development. Kobayashi Online won a coveted WebAward for designing Word11.com, the website for Toronto’s first 24-hour blogging festival. We’d also like to congratulate our friends at OPTIMUS | SBR and Grace Marketing which were recognized for optimussbr.com. We’d like to thank the WEA for the recognition, and applaud all the other WebAward nominees and winners who continue to expand the horizons of Web design.We’ve been noticing more clients writing reviews on our Google Places page, and excited about what’s being said about us. Toronto interior design company Shaw-Pezzo said, “The tech area is one that we are hopeless in but with Brent and his wonderful team we can rely on them, so that we can do the things that we do best.” What really impressed us is that they were so determined to do a review that they stuck with a submission process that they found difficult. We think this type of testimonial is invaluable for any business. Thanks Shaw-Pezzo!
Eva saw Greenpeace’s new “White is the New Green” ads in South Africa as an example of how design can have a real-world impact. These ads show shanty towns with white roofs that show the shapes of adorable arctic animals. The images are designed to encourage South Africans to paint their roofs in reflective white to conserve energy and lower local temperature. Cooler cities mean even cooler poles, according to Greenpeace, helping preserve the natural habitats of polar animals that may seem a world away.
Some bloggers point out that those living in poor rural villages are less able to make changes like painting their roofs white, than more wealthy city dwellers. However, the shanty towns may, in fact, be more effective in spreading this message, given that reports show that the poor are most affected most by climate change.