Just over 6 months ago, we took a new identity as ColorLabs & Company and we introduced Lemuel, our cool mascot, for the first time. We also hinted of upcoming style changes on the storefront. Finally, after some successful and unsuccessful ventures in the past 6 months, the redesign is finished.

The site you see before you today is a result of the past three months of work and loads of bugs and error resolving. The following is just a quick overview of everything that has changed.

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In the age of the customer providing a great customer experience is vital in today’s online world, even more with the presence of social media. Social media bring transparency to many business functions and customer service is often the main highlight. When an unhappy customer write a complain on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, it is out there for everyone to see.

ColorLabs & Company is a small, bootstrap company and we try to give the best result we can get out of our tight budget. One thing that we always keep in mind is never to bite off more than you can chew.

We make small changes along the road to service improvement, rather than starting again from scratch and making huge investments in a ‘big bang’ approach. This way we can achieve improvement without being heavily focused and distracted from other aspects in our business, such as WordPress theme development.

On this article I am going to share with you what happens behind the curtain, what ColorLabs do in term of support management. All for the sake of keeping customers and prospects happy when they seek help.

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We all have had those days. The days when the minute hand of the clock seems to running so fast and you can’t seem to stay on task. And when you do start work, it seems to be a struggle to come up with anything that has quality.

Being in the WordPress theme development business where creativity is one of main selling point, I can’t count how many hours of life have been spent in front of a computer screen looking for inspiration but the result is still not good enough.

Although rarely, there are also the days when inspiration hits us and we can create a lot of high impact work in a short span of time, when we feel we can do anything and go anywhere for awhile.

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It has been our understanding since we started out ColorLabs that good project management is the key to delivering projects on time and within budget. ColorLabs core team and collaborative designers are located in different cities, so managing all of our daily activities and tasks can be quite challenging. We need an online collaboration tool to make sure all projects are implemented smoothly and successfully. We discovered Basecamp and never turn away ever since.

Why Basecamp?

A typical WordPress theme development involves a product development manager, a collaborative designer, a developer, and at least three beta testers, so there is potentially a huge amount of communication needed.

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If you’re a developer looking to get ahead in your field you then the only way is to never stop learning. Whether you’re working for a company, a freelance, or a hobbyist hacker, web developers must continually update their skills. The web technology changes in the blink of an eye and it’s one of the most beautiful things about it. These changes and improvements can be overwhelming if you don’t start to do something to catch up.

A top web developer is supposed to keep updated with any updates and developments that occur in web development as an industry. This in other words is to say that they should be highly flexible, adapting to any changes that occur. There has never been a successful web developer who feels he know enough and just stop learning at some point.

In this post, I will share some methods that ColorLabs developers use to enhance their WordPress skills and keep theirself updated with best practices and techniques in today’s coding. They involve everything from keeping up on what’s landing on browsers, following resources and references, to meeting other people with the same profession.

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You already know that here at ColorLabs, we love to give you chances to win awesome prizes. Take for instance the 1 year hosting from Site5 prize we posted about 3 months back.

We are planning to run more batches of contests and sweepstakes in 2012, but before that we would like to know what you want. Most people like free stuff, but it would be great if we offer you, our audience,  something you actually want and will use.

So here is the big question: What prize do you want to win from us next?

We’ve set up a poll on our Facebook with some options we think you might like, so please answer there. Since the purpose is to find out what you really want and need we left the poll open-ended, so you can offer your own suggestions and add new options to the poll.

Don’t hesitate to tell us on the poll, because you know we’ll do our best to make it happen!

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Online shopping figures indicate a steady increase in shoppers who want to purchase via the Internet. It is hard to ignore the huge increase in Internet shopping which led TV reviews as important business news over the holiday season. Based on the highly competitive business environment that is now the Internet, it is more important than ever to have a user-friendly site that presents a professional image to prospective customers. With the competition just one click away, it makes good business sense to utilize ColorLabs to purchase the perfect, affordable online presence.

ColorLabs provides themes compatible with WordPress. This is good news for WordPress clients who desire the many positive benefits of using WordPress, but who still want a site tailored to a specific business enterprise. Image is crucial for competing in a crowded marketplace. If the only contact a customer has with your business is via the Internet, the site that you use will determine whether that customer seriously considers doing business with you, or clicks away to a competitors site.

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Hi, all! It’s been an exciting time for ColorLabs & Company.

Our old office has been great but we’ve grown so much this year to the point that it just can’t hold us any longer. We want something of our own. Something that reflects the kind of company we are. So after months of planning and construction, we finally moved to a new office on Monday and we named it the Lab of Color.

The Lab of Color is located in Flamboyant Square – Seasons Bulding, Jalan Sukajadi 232 Bandung. The new space will give us a little bit more space to have a proper meeting and conference room and a kitchenette. We spend a lot of our time in the office, so we want to make it nice and cozy.

If you’re interested in our move, then I’ve included a few photos of the new office below.

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ColorLabs & Company manage the business with 10 people and 7 collaborative designers who are scattered in various cities on the Java Island, Indonesia: Bandung, Jakarta and Surabaya. Some had only met face-to-face a handful of times. Some haven’t even met.

So on November 12, ColorLabs & Company enjoyed The ColorLabs Day 2011, our first company meetup, at the home base of our HQ, Bandung, Indonesia. It was a big event for us because for the first time ever, all team members are in one place! Since a number of the team now work virtually, it was an opportunity for the team to get together, and in some cases meet new members for the first time.

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We are about to take a very important step toward the future. And we need your support. Hopefully you have noticed our shiny new logo at the top of this site. If you saw it first on our Twitter or Facebook page then you must have realized by now that we have another new comer other than our new logo.

We are happy to present to you our new graphic identity: a new logo, also meet our new mascot, Lemuel (I’ve been staring at him for a few weeks now and he has totally grown on me)!

Lemuel is a WordPress expert guy. He likes to experiment on WordPress stuff and sometimes does crazy things. Not all his experiments turn out awesome, but he understands that it’s important to constantly learn and learn and learn.

In the very near future you’ll be seeing Lemuel as he helps us with even more activities. Keep an eye out for this little fella because whenever you see him, you’ll know something very special is coming.

The Story Behind

We changed our official name from ColorLabs to ColorLabs & Company. Our new name gives us a new identity and better reflects the products and solutions we bring to the themes market and our future positioning in the WordPress community. But it’s more than just a name change. Our rebranding to ColorLabs & Company reflects in the way we think and talk about our company and how we connect with our customers.

As the first step of our rebranding process, our team decided a while back to bring a fresh new look to the brand itself, hence the new logo, given the old was in need of a refresh to suit our future positioning. Most designers will tell you that any branding should start with the logo. From the logo will come the evolution of the website, in terms of colours used and style.

Then we decided to put a face to our brand and add a wee bit of ‘fun’ element that can bring a positive mood instantly. By having a mascot that is easily recognizable then people are going to be able to quickly associate the character with us. He will bring another dimension to our brand and offer you another reason to like us and engage with us. Lemuel will also give you something to remember us by.

Why are we doing it?

We want ColorLabs to be a place for designers and developers to grow and increase their popularities and build their images (and careers) in the WordPress community in Indonesia and worldwide. We needed a name that was in sync with the key values that we want. That’s why we are rebranding our name into ColorLabs & Company.

We want to stress and point out to everyone that we’re not alone in this and that all design and development credits should go into their respective designers and developers (more enhance upgrade on this matter very soon). Therefore, we are “ColorLabs” and we keep good “company” (designers, developers, partners, etc): ColorLabs & Company.

More changes to come

So that’s the direction we’re going in. A new name, logo and mascot are only a part of many things we’re actively doing to renew our commitment to the future.

Onwards and embrace the new name, logo and mascot!

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WordPress is the preferred platform for the majority of bloggers, most online marketers and a growing number of businesses. Every day, people are buying premium WordPress themes and many sites owners, just like you, are making money with affiliate marketing. How would you like to make money by letting them know about ColorLabs WordPress themes? If you’re an online blogger, web designer/developer, or website owner looking to generate income and help take WordPress to a higher level by promoting high quality WordPress themes that are trusted by thousands of users, then ColorLabs affiliate program is perfect for you. We put together a nifty affiliate program that will allow you to do just that.

We’re going to make it easy. When you join ColorLabs (purchase a theme from us), you’re automatically enrolled in the affiliate program, so you can participate if you’d like. If you are not a member of ColorLabs, you will still be able to sign up to the affiliate program. So if you really don’t need the themes, but you’d like to make some extra money by referring others who do, you’ll be able to do so.

How the ColorLabs Affiliate Program Works

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Installing a WordPress theme is not as complicated as many people think it is. The thing that tends to confuse people is that there are two different methods you can use when trying to figure out how to install WordPress theme: 1) Direct upload via WordPress admin panel, and 2) Using an FTP Client. If you are lazy like me you will want to let WordPress do all the work for you. So now I will show you how to install WordPress theme through WordPress admin panel.

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