Brand Weaving: PayPal Calculator

Many small businesses utilize PayPal for receiving money for items sold. The most obvious hurdle businesses will no longer have to contend with, is having to calculate to exact fees changed by PayPal.

PayPal Fee Calculator offers a quick and painless way to calculate the actual amount your company will receive from a client. Currently there are no fees for this service, simply land on the page and input the dollar amount charged to your client.

You'll see in no-time what a useful tool this can be for your business. Try it out yourself!

Brand Weaving: Narrow Your Focus!

The basic definition of the word focus is: a central point, as of attraction, attention or activity. Narrowing the focus of the product or service your company provides, makes your brand stronger. If your business offers a service, deliver it quicker or cheaper. If you sell a product, make it more efficient, user-friendly, easier to return.

Narrowing the focus of your business provides an intimate look at the uniqueness of what you supply. What prestige is to Mercedes, safety is to Volvo…What 'Eat it. Anytime.' is to Jack-in-the-Box, 'Eat Fresh.' is to Subway.

There will ALWAYS be competition, but when you narrow your focus, you give distinction to your company and can build a stronger brand identity

Creative Weaving: Creating a Wood-Grain Effect in Photoshop

Creating this effect is simple and has multiple uses in design. The colors used today are ones that will produce a lighter wood effect. You may choose any colors you like to let your creativity run wild.




1. Set up your document size (for this tutorial 300 x 500px is fine).

2. Set both a "foreground" (25,43,76,3) and "background" (32,56,98,17) color. Then fill your canvas with your "foreground" color.
















3. Under "filter" select "noise >> add noise". You can choose to adjust these settings depending on specific needs for your project (we are using 7.16%, gaussian and monochromatic settings). Click ok.


4. Under "filter" select "blur >> motion blur". Change the "angle" to 90º and adjust the "distance" to 15 pixels. Click ok.


5. Under "filter" select "artistic >> poster edges". Adjust the settings to achieve the desired woodgrain look. Here we have chosen "edge thickness: 1" - "edge intensity: 0" - "posterization: 6". Click ok.

Your project should resemble a perfect wood finish. However wood-grain is almost never perfect. So let's run one additional filter to make this project look naturally imperfect!




6. Under "filter" select "liquify". Have fun toggling between the "forward warp tool" and the "twirl clockwise tool" to achieve the realistic wood effect. Click ok.












We hope you had fun completing this project with us. For more information on how we can achieve Creative Weaving for you or your organization, contact us today!

Brand Weaving: Commit to Stick

When developing your small business brand identity avoid wavering in your strategic approach.

Once these things are in place, commit and stick with them:

• Logo design - once your audience has viewed your logo changing it too soon can leave an 'amatuerish' impression

• Print/Web ads - budget your ad placements for more than a few weeks. It will take some time to grab the attention of your audience

• Tagline - use it everywhere (ads, letterhead, website, etc.). A great tagline makes you memorable

Remember when starting a new business it can take a year to develop a solid brand identity so commit to stick.