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National Pickle Week Kicks Off!

May 15-24 is designated as International Pickle Week, though the days add up to 10 instead of the traditional seven. Maybe that’s because pickles are so darn flavorful, that they can be fully experienced in just one short week! International Pickle Week was first celebrated in 1948, but pickles date back so far that no one can say for sure when they first appeared. The estimate for the origin of cucumbers in vinegar dates back more than 4,000 years. The fact that Pickle Week is an international celebration may be due to the variety of cultures that endorse the tasty treat. From the days of Cleopatra to now, the pickle has been a treat for the ages.

Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, not only drafted the Declaration of Independence, he was a pickle lover as well. “On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally’s cellar.” At DBD+A we favor the spunky Dill Pickle, but we’ll settle for a Bread & Butter if no Dills are available.

Cascade AIDS Project Raffle

We just completed this quick pro-bono design project for the Cascade AIDS Project’s (CAP) Annual Art Evening and Auction. The 9×6 full-color postcard details the Raffle drawings and will be handed-out to all attendees.

Favorite Wordpress Plugins

OK, so you know that we love Wordpress for building new websites, and one of the reasons we do is that it is so extendable and customizable. There are literally thousands of plugins available for Wordpress that add functionality or change the look-and-feel of your site, but which ones are our favorites? Click here for our Top 10 short list!

Read more about the cost benefits of using Wordpress as your CMS solution.

Happy Earth Day 2010

We love promoting our wonderful clients’ businesses and products to our friends and potential customers. Especially when they’re doing great things for the environment! Today is Earth Day, so we’re happily calling your attention to a few of our clients who are doing positive, earth-friendly things with their businesses…

Wilfs Restaurant at historic Union Station uses locally-grown and sourced organic ingredients for their classic menu offerings with a modern twist. They also feature locally-grown and organic jazz music most nights of the week. And, proceeds from select menu items in April benefit Oregon’s SOLV!

Peter Champ is a Portland Real Estate Broker who specializes in green building and renovations. He is a trade ally of Energy Trust of Oregon and a certified Earth Advantage Broker.

JD Madison Home Furnishings showcases many furniture lines that are manufactured from recycled and reclaimed wood, and other renewable sources.

Their sister company, Madison Millinger Extraordinary Rugs features an incredible collection of wool rugs (the original green product!) in their Pearl District showroom. All of their beautiful rugs use only natural dyes and are certified child labor-free by RugMark.

Our newest client, Muffinhead (website coming soon) creates one-of-a-kind dog coats that are as stylish as they are sustainable — all made from recycled people clothes!

You don’t have to be a green business to work with DBD+A – contact us today and see how we can help your company grow, and maybe get a little greener in the process.

Is Wordpress a CMS? Yep.

A recent article in PC World, WordPress Guns for Web Content Management Duties posed the question, is Wordpress finally at a technological level to be a qualified as a CMS (Content Management System)?

“There’s a debate raging within Twitter about whether traditional blogging platform WordPress is also a CMS,” wrote Tony Byrne in a blog post. Byrne is the founder of the CMS analyst firm The Real Story Group, formerly called CMS Watch. “Our take: many organizations are using WordPress as a CMS. That makes it a CMS.”

Our response is the same. For smaller websites, Wordpress gives you all the control and all the muscle you really need to build a fully-functioning modern website. And if there’s a particular tool you need that’s not included, you can usually find it as a plugin from the Wordpress Website. In fact, there are now over 9,000 plugins available that let you add calendars, custom contact forms, slide shows, e-commerce, expert SEO and more!

And, all of this power comes with a price-tag that is usually significantly less than building a website in Drupal, Dreamweaver, or Expression Engine. In fact, cost is one of the big benefits for smaller businesses. Why use a jack-hammer to build a site, when a small hand-held hammer will do quite nicely?

For WNET, using WordPress cut the cost of setting up a television Web site, from an estimated average of US$25,000 to $40,000 down to $5,000 to $10,000, according to a white paper posted by WNET and digital design firm Tierra Innovation, which helped with the implementation.

Ready to have your new website built quick and cost-efficiently in Wordpress? You can contact us today (via our Contact Form plug-in) or learn more here.

Logo for Fierce Coaches

Feroce Coaching is a team of Life and Career Coaches who offers themselves to their clients as “Guides for Fierce Living”. Feroce translates as fierce or ferocious, so we created this logo of a lion with a flaming mane to show that spirit to its fullest. Their new website (coming soon) has a safari theme, which is a nice metaphor for exploring the inner mind and discovering personal dreams, and it dovetails nicely with their new logo, too.

Happy Holidaze

All of us here at DBD+A are wishing you and yours a fantabulous holiday, and a very happy and fulfilling New Year! Let’s work together to make 2010 the best one ever!

DBD+A Site Wins Smackdown!

OK, we actually won the Showcase Showdown–the inaugural site design contest from Woo Themes, not an actual smackdown. But our site did receive 80% of the total votes! Just think what we could do for your website’s design… Really, think about it. Here’s what some of the responder’s had to say about our site’s design:

“I’m going to have to go with DBDA. It’s simple, clean, and current.”

“DBDA, hands-down winner.”

“DBDA for me. It’s fresh. The copy and images stand out (especially the dog) and really grab your attention. The white background keeps it crisp. You’ve only got a short amount of time to grab and keep people’s interest and DBDA got through to me asap.”

“DBDA Studio is my choice! Awesome!”

“Definitely DBDA. Looks superb. Any chance of sharing how DBDA did the animation?”

“I like it a lot because it’s clean and minimal. Especially for the type of business that they are promoting. Our firm does the same type work and I have definitely learned a few things from a quick visit to their site.”

Find us on Facebook

Now you can keep in touch with us on the social networking sensation thats sweeping the nation.

Welcoming New Partners

OK, we’re actually welcoming some new clients, but we prefer to think of them as partners. You see, for the time that we are strategizing and planning how to best to sell your business, service or product, we are doing it like we are on-staff, not as an outside consultant. We love to learn the ins-and-outs of your business and take a personal interest in solving your marketing challenges. Here are some new partners we’re working with now

• Jacobs Heating and Cooling*
• vmhCare*
• V Journal
• McKee Garden Design

*with Herman Consulting