The Curator Company blog

Website Refresh

After 18 months, the old website was in need of a little spring cleaning. But rather than completely re-build the site from scratch I felt a small refresh might just do the trick (in the short term). Starting with the online shop I decided to go with big cartel as a shopping cart – which means when purchasing online you can choose multiple combinations of colour as well as replacement strips. Replacement strips have been a regular request and at last they’re now available in the shop, although I’m now working on the photography and packaging for the strips.

While tinkering around with this I also felt the home page was in need of a refresh to bring it into line with the last 12 months of change.

Over the last year the photocurator brand has evolved into more of a photography brand (a good direction, I think) through constant updates to packaging and marketing material and I now felt this needed to be brought into the site.

The next addition will be in about a week when video will be shot and added to the site to be used as a way to answer questions – it’s amazing how many times the same questions are asked and I thought the best way to answer them would be with video – both online and offline at design shows and markets.

Will be in touch again soon with more updates!

Huw

Thanks for the nice feedback

Ever since August last year when I started the Curator Company and launched our first product, the photocurator, I have had some great feedback from people I have met or customers who have bought them – either at markets, retail or online.

I haven’t mentioned them in the past but with the goodwill surrounding Christmas I really I can’t let the love go by without saying thanks! So here goes..

Thank you Design Boom – you were there right at the beginning when we launched (talk about being on the cutting edge of design!) – link to article

Thanks Babyology for the nice write up earlier this year, haven’t seen so much traffic – link to article

Thank you Quit your day job (great name for a blog btw) – link to article

Thank you Apartment Therapy – link to article

Thanks for the mention at misskish – yes that Melbourne market is madness (and I also got a shuky laptop bag!)

Thanks Design Vagabond – you were also there at the beginning and must have a keen eye for good design link to article

Thanks to Megan at Interior Blogging

Thanks Im not unfaithful

Thanks Benjamin!

Thanks Mel:Hot or Not

If you have written a nice post about the photocurator, then please feel free to drop me a line I would love to read your throughts! You can contact me here

Melbourne Design Market Xmas 09

The last market of the year and it went off with a bang. As usual (this is the 3rd Melb Design Market I have attended) everything starts quietly, almost disconcertingly quiet… then without warning, Melbourne’s happy, design hungry marketeers come flooding in. I love the pace of the Melbourne Design Market, so many people and everyone is so excited by what they see – it’s very exciting and inspiring.

Thanks again to Steve for helping out, he has been working the stall/booth at every event this year (apart from when he got swine flu at Design Made Trade). I can now start to focus on the long list of things that need to be done before next year’s Life in Style Trade Show in February 2010 (which luckily is just around the corner so no need to travel).

I will be sending out a little newsletter to update all those about our new discounts for those wanting to buy in bulk. There is the larger mount to get onto again, along with a couple more products I have been working on in the lab.

I’m starting to enjoy using social media more too – twitter has been great, I need to look into my stale Facebook page and Flickr photos. There is also this web site… after a year of questions and answers from everyone I am hoping to start using video more and to commission a photographer to get my product shots up to a higher quality. So much to do and with no events on for the next few months maybe I can get some of these things done!

Interior Blogging

Thanks to Megan @ Interior Blogging for the nice mention on her site ‘Interior Blogging’

Incoming

A pleasant surprise this morning as I discovered Apartment Therapy have written an article about the photo curator mounts. Hi to all the new visitors from Apartment Therapy, if you have any questions please drop me a line!

Exhausted but ready to go

Well after 3 weeks of making photowall mounts, filing off the edges, sticking adhesive and making up packs – I can now say that I have posted out all of the packs that were ordered at the Young Blood Market 08.

After receiving quotes from a couple of manufacturers I now need to step it up and look at how I can increase production to meet the growing demand.

There are still a few things that also need my attention – such as adding more content to the website and sorting out shipping and distribution… better get onto it!

Thanks again!

Huw

Adwords

More tinkering on the website has led me down the road of google adwords. I thought I would give it a try to see how it works.

Well, to start with I can say it is a lot of fun, some might even say addictive. You can spend as much or as little as you want and present ads of many variations targeted at different locations. Once you have some stats – using google’s Analytics – you can start tweaking the copy and targeting to see how this effects the click through rates and impressions viewed. Currently my CTR is pretty low, so I might need to hone my copy writing skills!

Website updates

Have recently been making minor changes to the website by removing all mention of curator:photo and replacing it with photowall. I have also added a email newsletter form using letterman. I installed it about a year ago but only now that I have started looking at promoting the website and the photowall mounts have I seen a need to break it out. So far so good, with a couple of people signed up. As soon as I have some news I can let people know about it!