Five J Design Blog

We love Christmas yes we do, we love Christmas how 'bout you? Learn about our Founder and CEO, Jake's favorite Christmas recipes, decorating and when he and his family open Christmas presents by reading more in our Christmas Q&A.

I was recently asked to do a interview with KELO, a local new station, about entrepreneurship and risk taking. I jumped at the opportunity. Everyday we face risk, but I don’t think we recognize the risks we should be paying the most attention to. Every time time you decide to drive somewhere you are taking a risk of getting in a wreck or having your car break down. Anytime you answer a “caller unknown” call you could end up talking to someone trying to scam you. Anytime you eat a gas station hot dog risk is there! I know some of these seem silly or the chances of something bad happening are slim, but I think it helps us recognize the risk that is around us every day.

Everyone wants a functional, beautiful website that takes their visitors breath away!

"Wow look at that! Did you see that graphic, amazing! ohhh ahhhh!"

As a designer we love "oohhhs" and "ahhs" with our designs. As marketers, if we really boil down what this website should be doing, we might need to rethink the "ohhs' for a more to-the-point message that ends up with results. Results being new business directly from your website.

Starting a business? Awesome! Have you considered your logo and the over-all company brand yet? Nope? It's okay! We're here to help. We love designing logos and company branding packages. Most of the time our clients don't know where to start. We've created dozens of logos and brands and have 5 easy steps to get you on the road to a great new logo or company rebrand. 

 Have you ever pulled up a web site that made you want to pull your hair out? Or that web site that is a never-ending maze of pages and you can never seem to get back to where you came from? Maybe you can't even find a simple phone number or an address? We've all been on that web site. It sucks, it's bad for you as a visitor, but it's so much worse for the business. Your website is most often a customer's first impression of your business, and if it is a nightmare you're going to lose leads... forever! Well maybe not forever...

Have you noticed your website ranking slip on Google? Is your website not showing up like it use to? Has the competition passed you up? It's okay, take a breath, you can fix this. 

When building a website one might get stuck on the question, what's better? template web design or custom web design?  That really depends a quite a few things! There are certainly pros and cons for each solution. This article is written with some ideas and questions to ask yourself when you get to this point. 

Photo Credit: Jerry7171 / Flickr

Sioux Falls is starting to make quite the name for itself -- not only is it topping out on national websites, see Sioux Falls is #4 on best places to find a job, more and more businesses and people are taking notice of what Sioux Falls has to offer, and those people are looking to make Sioux Falls thier home. So how do you turn those new people into customers? Your Website.

5j Design had a blast at the 2015 Sioux Falls Marathon & Half Marathon. We ran a motivation and water station with Red Door church and cheered on literally hundreds of half-marathoners!  
It was really fun to be part of this great event and support the runners accomplishing this amazing goal!