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Jess Perna Studio
Posts:10
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| 09/29/2007 11:24 PM |
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| This site is supposed to inspire art buyers who are hopefully business people needing art. They are not are more down to earth crowd. The title is Jamuse free your creative talent. Well, this is about selling what the creative talent creates. It sounds like an art school not a customer service oriented site. Also, If you browse showroom it is only showing one page and then drops dead on the spot. |
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Sean
Posts:20
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| 10/01/2007 12:48 AM |
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Judy,
Thanks for the comments. I find the display of the creative talent in all of its varieties very inspiring. We had a different tag line for a while - Inspire - Connect - Collaborate. Seemed appropriate in that it describes a little more of the depth of the community...Until one day we were working with some of our creative friends. We realized that the function of the tag line is nice, but the inspiration for our vision wasn't contained. Our passion as founders is based on a long history of working primarily in the creative world of advertising...as well as the nerdy world of technology. It always seemed to us the the businesses who advertised were frustrated with absolutlely everything about the creative and advertising process. Clients like Dodge and American express would seek us out to find better ways to find and connect with the life of their business - customers. It just wasn't working for them and it always left us with a feeling that there has to be a better way.
jamuse, we hope, is a start at that better way. The phrase, "Free your creative talent" has really hit a nerve with me. Not as a fancy slogan, but as a statement of vision. The creative process is the foundation of every invention, advertisement, business idea, etc...Part of the creative process is inspiration. We hope you can inspire others, who will inspire others and on and on...Kind of like that Movie, Pay it forward...
...but more than that, we are very good at finding ways to alleiviate/automate tasks that have to be done, but can hinder the process and time of creation. In this immediate case, jamuse, we talked to over 11,000 businesses and talked with thousands of creatives. The number one thing they told us was they are frustrated with things that should be simple: Sharing files, securing their work, communicating in a consistant way with their clients, getting approvals on work, managing years of creative work, and finding new work. We done our best to find ways to make these things easier for those who make a living on the creative process...and I for one am excited to sit back and listen if we've hit the mark, or if there is still a better way. Freeing your creative talent is about inspiration, but its also about getting rid of stress and making things easier so you have time to be creative... :-)
Sorry for the long winded response, but I find your passion for your work or Jess's work inspiring. We'll do everything we can to make things better and we appreciate your input. We've only allowed a handful of selected advisors in at this point. We'll add a handful more each week for a while. You are right that there are a few bugs like the page thing in the showroom. We'll have most of these fixes this week and start looking to add many more features that I can't tell you about yet, over the next several months.
Still listening...Let us know if you need anything.:whistling: |
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Rob Wilson, Founder
Posts:62
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| 10/02/2007 3:22 PM |
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| jamuse is a creative community to help inspire, connect and collaborate. So the subtitle free your creative talent works for me. |
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n/er/g communications
Posts:24
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| 10/07/2007 11:15 AM |
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I think you guys/gals are doing yourselves a huge disservice with the current "Free your creative talent" tagline.
IMHO, the tag-line is not representative of business need it intends to serve. Furthermore, i think it could potentially be over-looked by the types of "buyers" Jess mentioned.
To quote Top Commercials from above,
"we talked to over 11,000 businesses and talked with thousands of creatives. The number one thing they told us was they are frustrated with things that should be simple: Sharing files, securing their work, communicating in a consistant way with their clients, getting approvals on work, managing years of creative work, and finding new work."
By the numbers in that statement alone, it appears the majority of the feedback received was from a creative solutions "seeker/buyer". While i know it can be tough when you're in "it", try and take a step back and look at the big picture. Does the tag "Free your creative talent" speak to those 11,000 plus businesses? AND, what does it say to the creative provider? Again IMHO, as a full-service communications firm seeking talent & producing creative works, this doesn't say much to me.
Now of course there could be visionary/mission goals that I am missing. However, given the research you have done, and the focus on the MuseWorx feature, i would suggest communicating with a the tag-line that focuses on the aimed simplicity of JaMuse. Example would be: JaMuse, Simplify the Creative Process (or something similiar). You could even say JaMuse, Simplifying the Creative Process", yada yada yada.
just my .02 |
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n/er/g communications
Posts:24
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| 10/07/2007 11:54 AM |
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for the record, that tag-line idea was just off the top of my head. If you're interested in digging a little deeper, i'd be happy to help brainstorm.
Also, i personally liked your original tag of : inspire. connect. collaborate. In both my companies (nerg communications & brandfarm) i use the tags: engage. inspire. evangelize (which used to be exceed). To me this defines what my agency(s) aim to deliver our clients through various integrated marketing communication campaigns.
In your example, i think it helps sum up the sites vision (although i think there could be some room for tweaking--shocking i know :D).
-Alex |
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David Fritsche, Founder
Posts:239
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| 10/08/2007 2:10 AM |
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Thanks Alex. I appreciate the perspective. We're about automation as a company. jamuse is automation for creative's. We hope to find the better way to make their job easier, better, to help them be even more creative. If we listen and apply the lessons we learn here, we have an opportunity to be revolutionary in this industry. I'm sure like many out there, many of the 11,000+ we worked with for over a decade were the GM's and Amex's and about every ad agency in the country. One lesson we learned was that their creative wasn't any better than most out there...they just had the trappings to make it seem better and the mustle to execute it better. With jamuse, we hope to open new ideas for both.
Thoughtful input like your helps. Keep it up. |
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Jess Perna Studio
Posts:10
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| 10/08/2007 12:56 PM |
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| My feeling about being part of the advisory board is that Jamuse founders want "yes" not advice. You all want applause not advice since you are just defensive and not advice takers. Also, the orange and green logo could not be uglier. Why did you not hire one of the creative talented people with a sense of color. The name is bad and the color is unattractive. I give up. |
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David Fritsche, Founder
Posts:239
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| 10/08/2007 2:31 PM |
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Judy,
It's not a matter of not listening, but of being passionate and truly listening on this subject. From your comments, I know you are all about selling Jess's work. We are more about Freeing Jess to be more creative with his time and also giving him a worldwide audience to showcase his creativity. I take it you are not the artist, but finding ways only to sell and this may not be the best fit unless there is some value in sharing, managing and protecting Jess's work and finding ways to communicate is community with others.
On the name and logo - It's not an exaggeration that we had over 300 names, a hundred logos, colors all over the map and over 300 tag lines from our friends in various creative agencies and independent...all to create what you see today. Thousands of people viewed and voted, then we made some decisions. That's not to say that everyone likes it...including you, but we not only like it...we LOVE it... and the attitude it inspires - However, we still listen to people like Alex and have to weigh the opinion with our own and our friends around the world.
On the site over the last two weeks, we have made significant changes based on users comments. The File Sharing is way better, the thumbnails are changed, over a dozen other look and feel changes and several minor bugs have been changed, all based on user input...some of it yours. To say we do not listen is the opposite of our attitude and practice.
If you stick around, I know you'll see more examples of listening and implementing user suggested changes. If not, I wish you well.
David |
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Jess Perna Studio
Posts:10
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| 10/08/2007 3:18 PM |
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| I have been selling Jess' art for 20 years with thousands of sales. I know what works with clients. He doesn't have to have another job to live on. He draws 7 days a week. Not many artists can say that. |
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Jess Perna Studio
Posts:10
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| 10/08/2007 3:45 PM |
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| I figured out why I am upset. I had hopes that since you spent so much time developing this site that it would be visually beautiful, with a good solid name for selling art. Instead the logo was created by someone who is color blind and the name is silly I do not believe will encourage art buyers which is supposed to be the point. Artists struggle because they don't get good guidance for selling their work. You can be creative and self-indulgent but customers buy what they need not what artist necessarily feel like creating. They don't teach that in art schools, but they should. |
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n/er/g communications
Posts:24
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| 10/08/2007 10:38 PM |
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David:
Thanks for the response.
Not to belabor the topic at hand but, I am curious what the term 'automate’ means to you? In my book, automate (in it's simplest definition) means to make something automatic. Thus simplifying a process or a number of processes that require interaction.
In the Web 2.0 landscape, businesses don’t have the luxury of ambiguous marketing messages. Audiences looking to use/buy a web based product/solution simply don’t care enough to try and decipher a businesses clever thoughts. They want what they want. And they want it now. To be successful, web 2.0 businesses either need to engage the them immediately, or risk losing them to the next search result, ADD, or more critical pressing task.
To help put this in perspective consider this:
Imagine you’re a salesperson or business looking for a panacea to manage tedious (but important) sales process tasks such as quotes, lead generation and CRM. During your quest you arrive at solution site A & B, both targeted to address your challenge. On solution site “A” you find a hip web 2.0 business name with the tag-line “Free your inner salesmanship”. On solution site “B” you find an equally hip 2.0 name with tag-line “More Sales, Less Work”. Realizing both are going to require an investment of your time to judge compatibility against your need, where would you start first? The site who’s positioning statement is ambiguous & philosophical? Or the site who’s statement is direct and aimed to help you Accomplish more with less?
For me, solution “B” would get my time. And solution “A” would now be nothing more than a click-through statistic.
It’s unfortunate, but that is todays reality.
Assuming that jamuse’s real goal is to help creatives & creative buyers automate & collaborate the creative process (as reflected above in your reply), then why not aim to address this in all of the brands touch-points?
Additionally, by saying “Free your creativity” assumes that my creativity is trapped or held back. However, as a truly “creative” person, my creativity is ALWAYS running free. And while certain business processes may delay the time from idea to execution, they in no way hold me back from discovering other new ideas and concepts.
Take it for what it’s worth.
Best
Alex from n/er/g |
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Amy Seagram
Posts:3
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| 10/10/2007 8:59 PM |
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| This is a site for creative people therefore it has a creative name and subtitle... I'm surprised at some of the comments. It's not just a site for selling work and is aimed at the usefulness of it to artists as well.
My only issue with the logo and subtitle is the use of overlaying the letters in an overprint format. I always think the designer set up the trapping wrong. Rainforest Cafe does the same thing with their logo and I actually wrote to them and told them that they made a mistake and how to fix it, haha silly me that's the way it is supposed to look.
It does work much better on this logo though, gives it a fun french energy to it. |
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_sobule design
Posts:41
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| 10/11/2007 9:26 PM |
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Hello all,
I agree with a lot of the sentiment from the previous posters. While I applaud the effort and time that has gone into Jamuse I wonder if perhaps the positioning is slightly *off*. As a new user (and advisory member) landing on the site it's a little unclear as to what was going on. Is this a portfolio site? A myspace for creatives? A facebook for creatives? A temp-agency? All sites have a bit of a learning curve but jamuse may demand slightly more time to bear into.
Further to that, if selling — or at least connecting buyers, clients, supporters, patrons — to the creative talent on the site a much clearer and more straight-forward navigation system should be implemented. What happens to the buyer who lands here looking for an illustrator or photographer? Do they have to search for photography and then take it from there? While us creatives are a pretty enterprising bunch and can quickly learn whacky navigational models or ergonomics it might take longer (or even put off) potential buyers/clients/etc.
Just the inclusion of a 'sort by' or some categorisation could really help avoid potential confusion — when users set up their profiles there's the option to check which fields and disciplines apply to them, this information could be used to sort portfolios quickly.
We hire freelancers from Aquent on occasion and I find their portfolio display setup to be pretty good — www.aquent.com
On the plus side is the pretty slick deployment of the images and information and pretty good load times. |
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David Fritsche, Founder
Posts:239
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| 10/13/2007 2:03 AM |
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| just thought you'd like to know that a new home page is on the way to make sure we are communicating the value to the creaive community. Many of the advisory board members have been involved in its design. Should be here sometime next week thanks to al of your comments. |
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n/er/g communications
Posts:24
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| 10/14/2007 1:07 AM |
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Amy - I agree with you. This is a creative site geared towards the creative community. However, IMPO, a brands supporting communications should be in line with the businesses vision and mission statement. All i am simply saying is, to me, the shoe doesn't necessarily fit the foot. Obviously, the creative decision lies with those responsible for the direction of the site. If they believe this is the direction to take, than it is what is.
That said, in a simple SWOT analysis, i view the current tag-line as one of JaMuses weaknesses just begging future competition to exploit. I guess my theory was taking a closer look at it now would go a long way in the future.
When it comes to the name, I personally like JaMuse. I think it's quirky and interesting enough to grab your attention. Same holds true with the actual logo mark. While it's not necessarily MY taste, i think it works well.
Sobule -
I couldn't have said it better myself.
To me, the focus of the site appears to be extremely confusing. My questions were the same as yours. Is this a portfolio site? A Creative Community? Or a tool for client collaboration. Realizing that the answer seems to be yes to all those questions, the sites structure should definitely address those individually. This initial confusion,is part of what fueled my push for simplifying the tag line.
I am glad to see that some home page revisions are on the way. Hopefully they will address these key areas. |
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Amy Seagram
Posts:3
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| 10/14/2007 11:58 AM |
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I too have found the navigation or better yet my understanding of the site's capabilities a bit challenging at times. I viewed the site as a place for creative minds to connect and work with existing clients, not so much an area to market your work like portfolios.com, my mistake.
As for naviagation, I think it would help to have the above line (just above Quick Reply) "Forums > All jaMusers > Advisory Board > Jamuse and the subtitle - wrong focus" on all pages to help with the usability or just a better idea of how the site is set up which can also aid in establishing what the function of the site is. I'll be interested in seeing how the front page is being redeveloped as I am involved in another site within the travel industry that is going through some of the same growing pains. We have decided to add a few short points on the home/landing page explaining what the site is about and a choice of or all of four inital groups to join, how to do it, and then the option to join more groups within those or all of them if desired.
As for the tagline, I was seeing this through a creative sense only. With business in mind, I can see n/er/g's point although I also see it as a way of following the same old formula. Innovation has the ability to reshape the way things are seen and there's no better place to do that than within a creative community. That being said, if this site's main focus will be a place to sell work, then yes I think the tagline needs to exemplify that. |
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n/er/g communications
Posts:24
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| 10/14/2007 9:15 PM |
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Amy -
You will most certainly never get an argument from me about innovation. And I am with you on taking the jamuse opportunity to do something different. I just don't think, in this specific example, that their tag-line is the proper forum for that kind of expression.
As far as the site's main focus goes, I am not sure any of us truly know what that is. Like you, it was explained to me as a destination to showcase your work AND act as a better mouse trap for collaborating on projects. However, those two elements seemed to be some what lost in shuffle. This is one of the reason i think i am so adamant about using a tag-line that better describes the purpose. I mean given the current confusion of the site, i guess i was just hoping for some part of jamuse to have clarity.
Also, From what i understand there was a different tag-line being used that touched on the core elements of the site. It was something to the effect of "inspire-connect-collaborate". To me, this was a much better route than the choice of "free your creative talent.
I any event, i look forward to the growth of this community. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, they will release a new beta version of the site that will clear up all of my jafusion!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on my posts. The more we, as a community, share our thoughts and ideas, the easier it will be for the jamuse guys/gals to get their site rock'n.
Enjoy,
Alex |
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n/er/g communications
Posts:24
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| 10/14/2007 9:20 PM |
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| Hmmmm. "Most certainly never"? Talk about a poor way to communicate my thoughts. It's also very close to being a quadruple-negative. My apologies for being subjected to that. :D |
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Aaron Lea
Posts:4
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| 10/15/2007 12:16 AM |
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I think we're all getting a bit trivial here, but I'll throw my hat into the ring. I think many have a different perspective of what Jamuse really is. This is partly due to the fact that it was never really clear on the main page.
I see painters viewing it as a vehicle to sell their original work, while designers see it as a project manager, while agencies may see it as a way for group collaborative work on a large project.
I for one never really looked at Jamuse as a way of attracting new clients or trying to sell anything. For me, I see it as a tool for proofing work, communicating and delivering files to the client.
As far as the look of the site, while I'm not crazy about the logo color, I think having a simplified interface devoid of a lot of color is important so that it doesn't compete with your own work when it is on displaye It keeps from anything clashing or overriding the sense. For when presenting Museworks to the client side, it would be nice if one could brand the interface with their own studio's identity, with perhaps a tag somewhere that says "Powered by Jamuse".
-A |
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_sobule design
Posts:41
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| 10/15/2007 7:49 AM |
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Pixascope,
I *think* jamuse is a mix of all the things you've mentioned plus those mentioned by the rest of the gang, above. Maybe the ambiguity is something of a blessing in disguise? It allows everyone to stretch and pull its meaning to suit their own needs.....
Very smart idea — making Museworks brand-able. Something like Lightroom in its ability to add one's own logo and slightly alter the GUI to suit would be a great idea. |
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