celebrate the power and diversity of design

BRIXWORK {real estate}

Our own Realtor Website Management System
Visit Website

Feel Fabulous Mobile Spa

Logo & Branding / Cards / Stationary
Labels & Stickers / Web Design

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Diacarbon Energy Inc.

Logo & Branding / Cards / Envelopes
Web Design / Web Animation

Visit Website

RhondaSherwood.com

Logo & Branding (NOT the ScotiaMcLeod Logo)
Web Design / Wordpress Blog Integration

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Alta Pacific Mortages & Investments

Logo & Branding / Business Cards
Booklets & Brochures / Email Newsletter

Website Coming Soon!

The name of the game: communicating with design. What does this mean to you?

It's about making an impact. It's about getting the message across. It's about following trends & setting new standards at the same time. It's about flow, gusto & charm, with a hint of genius.

Designing businesses since 2005, we have achieved some amazing milestones and we aim to achieve more in the coming years.


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Sonika Studios Inc. Vancouver Web Design, Branding, Print Design 2012-04-26T22:12:09Z http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/feed/atom/ WordPress Jeff Kee http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[Removing Netfirms as our domain registration provider, endorsing Namecheap.com]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=533 2012-04-26T22:12:09Z 2012-04-09T20:58:47Z read more]]]> ——————————
Update – sonikastudios.com, sonika.ca, synchronous.ca has all been moved to Namecheap.com! Loving the easy user interface without a million sales pitches for things we’ll never need, nor sell to our own customers!
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For years we recommended Netfirms as our recommended domain registrar, but those days are over. Over the months (or years) we’ve noticed Netfirms is continuously “changing” their domain registration process in attempt to sell more hosting accounts among other upgrades which are totally unnecessary – it’s gotten as annoying as a Jehovah’s witness knocking on my door every other day.

Hidden Charges by Netfirms!

Today I tried to register a new domain for a client. Since we at Sonika have our own private dedicated server, we never need our clients to purchase their own web hosting – we host it, bill it, and manage it. All I needed was a $8 domain. Quickly, because I forgot to uncheck an item that they squeeze in forcefully, it became a $15 shopping cart with some option added. When I went “back” to modify my cart, the promo price for the 1st year had disappeared and the domain it self was up to $11 from $8, plus that added bullsh*t item (whatever it was).

A 5 minute registration turned into a 1 hour struggle for a refund from Netfirms

Few months ago I sent an email to Netfirms in order to explain that their new upsell attempts, while valiant, are actually causing a lot harm as the registration process is so painful, and the secretly added charges that show up upon checkout are as devious as that of Canadian cell phone carriers. I don’t think they took me seriously.

This email was provoked because I had sent one of my new clients to go register a new domain – and at some point, even though he didn’t intend to, he had added a whole year’s hosting package. Then we had to deal with calling them, getting a refund etc. It was a complete waste of an hour. This was one of many incidents. The way the registration at Netfirms works is that you have to diligently uncheck all the small checkmarks that pop on automatically in order to avoid extra charges. It’s sort of like having to tell your waiter, “No I do NOT want a bottle of wine added to my dinner by default and be charged for it, thank you!” How ridiculous is that? Normally it’s the other way around.

The New Kid in Town – Namecheap.com

We now recommend Namecheap over Netfirms for domain registration

Instead I decided to try www.namecheap.com – a company I’ve heard lots of recently – Wow, what a difference. There was no up-sell, and the WHOIS privacy option was free, unlike Netfirms, which charges close to $3 for it. The process was quick. No surprise charges, no back-and-forth to drop items that were added to my cart against my will. I didn’t have to look carefully to see what else came checked on by default in attempt to charge me more cash than I intend to spend. What i clicked was what I got. The only way to add more charges to my credit card was for me to proactively click on new services to be added on top. This was a great and simple experience. So instead of spending 20 minutes registering a domain, and another 20 minutes struggling for a refund for something I did not intend to keep in my cart with Netfirms, I took 5 minutes to get a new domain, and 10 minutes to write this post – and then 5 minutes will be spent on tweeting it out through @jeffkee, @sonikastudios & @brixwork to let everybody know of our position switch.

Better customer service wins; sleazy sales practices fail, and in this case, Netfirms failed us greatly. It’s too bad – they did have one of the easiest back-end platforms for managing your domain’s nameservers, contact info etc. Much better than webnames.ca – they get my vote for one of the worst domain admin panels ever, so I guess Netfirms isn’t at a total loss.. yet. I wonder if they will make a change in their registration process to make it less of a cash grub and more of an easy & friendly process to recover their reputation. It seems we’re not the only ones fed up with it.

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Jeff Kee http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[Vancouver’s Financial Advisor & Planner, Rhonda Sherwood]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=527 2012-02-21T06:58:23Z 2012-02-21T06:58:23Z read more]]]> We would like to once again showcase one of our most loyal clients, Rhonda Sherwood (www.rhondasherwood.com) as we made some updates to her website in the recent weeks to improve the site content as well as search engine rankings.

Vancouver Financial Advisor, Rhonda Sherwood

Vancouver Financial Advisor, Rhonda Sherwood

We added several new service pages to Rhonda’s Site:

We have more changes to come next week, including an overhaul of the index page, adding an introductory video, and more. For all your financial advisory & planning needs, please visit www.RhondaSherwood.com – she’s actually a very intelligent and sharp financial advisor who can meet your goals. She works with portfolios of $100,000+ and can help you with all of the above services and beyond.
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Jeff Kee http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[Real Estate Website Development using BRIXWORK {real estate}]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=521 2012-02-23T00:56:01Z 2012-02-21T03:01:46Z read more]]]> Sonika Studios Inc. has been serving Vancouver and other North American cities (Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, L.A., San Francisco) for over 6 years now with some innovative and beautiful design & marketing work, and it’s been a great journey that gave us a lot to learn, a lot of joy, and a lot of accomplishments.

Real Estate Website Design & Development with MLS® Reciprocity Integration

BRIXWORK {real estate} offers the best Realtor websites

With the years of experience, we have developed BRIXWORK {real estate} (originally called the Regale Suite for Realtors, back in the days), and we are now entering the market aggressively with the product. So far we have only been accepting new clients based on referrals as we grew & developed our system, and now we are ready to expand our market further and service more customers throughout the Lower Mainland and Vancouver (and of couse, we have our new US customers too, another market we are going after).

We have had some great developments over the past few months:

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Joao Pagnoncelli http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[A Modern & Trendy Website for Vancouver Realtors]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=470 2011-09-20T18:06:22Z 2011-06-24T21:22:32Z read more]]]> We have just launched the new website for the realtors Dan Goluboff and Charlie Cameron: www.dangoluboff.ca

Dan & Charlie's new Website

For Dan and Charlie’s website we used our own personalized Brixwork software, designed specially for the Real-Estate market. You can take a look at it on http://www.brixwork.com/realtors/.

Realtors need websites where potencial clients can find what they are looking for, with speed and beauty.

Key features:

  • clean layout, easy navigation, clean fonts
  • automatic Twitter feed integration
  • Facebook fan page integration
  • Facebook like button integration on all listings & blog posts for exposure
  • embedded Google Maps & Streetview for properties

Full WordPress Integration

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Joao Pagnoncelli http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[A Clean & Organized Website for Stonepay Construction]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=442 2011-08-19T21:06:26Z 2011-06-20T18:24:37Z read more]]]> This week we are featuring the release of the Stonepay Construction website.

Since 1970, Stonepay has offered construction & management services. Their work has been done in 13 countries, and covers Residential homes, Commercial buildings and Expatriate housing.

A glimpse of the Stonepay's home page

As always, we strive to provide our clients with a high-end, state of the art website with the latest technologies on the market.

We created a fully customized website for Stonepay, aiming for a well-structured site, with easy-to-find and organized content. We have replaced their old flash website with a new modern website that meets the industrial standards.

(note.: Sonika Studios did not do the branding and logo design for this company)

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Joao Pagnoncelli http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[Environmental-Friendly solutions for Diacarbon Energy Inc.]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=384 2011-09-20T18:02:07Z 2011-05-26T21:59:29Z read more]]]> Two weeks ago we featured the Diacarbon business cards. This week we are excited to showcase the latest products developed for Diacarbon.

 

Diacarbon's bamboo USB Flashdrive

We are featuring the USB Flash drives. Instead of using paper for company presentations, we decided to go with a more sustainable alternative by keeping the material in electronic format on USB drives for their clients.

Covered with bamboo, the drive has all the information clients need. It includes a video explaining the basic information about the company as well as PDFs, which can also be printed, and links for their website, facebook and twitter pages.

Pop-Up Screen

 

 

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Jeff Kee http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[Canucks on a Shark Hunt]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=426 2011-05-13T23:46:18Z 2011-05-13T09:32:02Z read more]]]> The only known predator to the Great White Shark is the Orca Whale (aka Killer Whale), which also happens to be the mascot of the Vancouver Canucks! When San Jose barely cleared Detroit with a 3-2 victory in game 7, the Western Conference Finals took its form.

We decided to have some fun with this here at Sonika Studios Inc. Perhaps this leans more on a gruesome side, but it’s Canadian hockey with plenty of hits, blood & testosterone.

Orca Hunts a White Shark

 

 

The Original Shot of the Shark

We started with a photo of a shark splashing out of the water. These rather menacing creatures have razor-sharp teeth that can rip you apart. Sharks can keep growing new teeth as they lose them, unlike humans, where we only get two sets of teeth throughout our lives (if you dont’ count the veneers).

Did you know that shark bodies do not have any bones? They are made entirely of cartilage! Also, their organs are not attached internally (being underwater relieves a lot of the gravitational force that would otherwise pull the organs downwards).

An orca snatching a seal off the coast

Next up is a photo of an orca snatching a seal. Orcas can sneak up to a seal resting near the shore (seals generally do not swim too far out, as they do primarily live above water breathing in air) and chomp down on one. Orcas are also more commonly known as killer whales. These magnificent (and potentially deadly) creatures are also the mascots of the Vancouver Canucks.

With these two photos as ingredients, we just needed a few photoshop brushes from our friends at Brusheezy.com to simulate some water splashes & blood splatters!

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Joao Pagnoncelli http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[Green Cards for a Green Energy Company]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=368 2011-08-19T20:56:08Z 2011-05-11T17:12:12Z read more]]]> Carbon Neutral Biochar from Biomass

Biochar produced by Diacarbon (@ the DC Labs)

About Diacarbon Energy Inc.

This week we are featuring Diacarbon Energy Inc. business cards. Diacarbon Energy Inc. is a local green energy company that brings biomass solutions for true carbon neutrality.

Diacarbon is located in Vancouver, BC. Their goal is to produce renewable fuels from biomass, to provide waste solutions for pulp and paper, forest, and agriculture industries, and to make available portable biomass refinery technology.

About the Business Cards

Diacarbon Business Cards

We have used cleaner and environmentally friendly material In these cards by choosing 100% recycled paper stock (Sundance Felt 100lbs Cover Stock). The paper stock and the printing facility are FSC Certified. To minimize environmental impact we used no varnish or coating; the paper alone proved a great finish and feel.

Choosing the colours carefully, we managed to minimize the number of print plates and ink used in the cards. Moreover, the printing location was less than 7 kilometres away from the Diacarbon headquarters (and less than 3 kilometres from the Sonika Studios Inc. office), making this an even greener choice. Our clients (and we) believe in walking the talk, not just talking the walk!

We are also producing presentation folders and bamboo-cased USB flashdrives for Diacarbon. Check this page again soon for an update on these items.

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Joao Pagnoncelli http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[Trifold Brochures for Alta Pacific]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=348 2011-08-19T20:42:50Z 2011-05-04T23:02:17Z read more]]]> We are proud to feature our work for Alta Pacific Mortgage & Investments, for whom we have provided creative solutions–helping them develop their brand, website and print media. Here are a few examples.

Trifold Folder/Brochure with Document Pocket

 

The folder includes a pocket for holding contracts and paperwork and has a complete explanation of their services and advantages for their clients.

Alta Pacific's Business Card

The Business Card is a key item for communication; the business card portrays the first impression of the image and identity of the company. A poorly communicative and unapealing business card will not encourage potential clients to get more information about the company. For Alta Pacific we created a clean and direct business card, using their main colours–blue and white.

Alta Pacific has just moved to a new address:

306 Water Street
Suite 1, Vancouver, BC, BC V6B 1B6
phone: (778) 328-7401

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Jeff Kee http://www.sonikastudios.com <![CDATA[Used Apple Computers For Sale]]> http://www.sonikastudios.com/blog/?p=330 2011-03-16T01:58:12Z 2011-03-16T01:35:33Z read more]]]> Thanks to your continuous support & business, we have undergone another equipment upgrade this year, to purchase a 15.4″ Macbook Pro from the brand new line that was released just a few weeks ago. We hope to serve you with better speed, efficiency & mobility with the newest addition to our fleet.

That being said, we will now be clearing out our previous computers at a great price, so here they are:

iMac (Summer 2009)

We are selling the larger 24" model

Asking $1150 – includes iMac, full size keyboard w/ keypad, under warranty until summer 2012.

This unit has a 3 year extended warranty purchased through Futureshop, so it’s good until summer of 2012. The unit was very gently used – sitting on my desktop, basically, with no drinks or food near it whatsoever. The technical specs of this model can be found at this Apple webpage containing the model info. This model is the first 24″ model (MB418LL/A) with a Dual Core 2.66 gHz CPU. The RAM is stock at 4G, and the HDD is an astonishing 640Gbs! Great price for a unit in great condition & under warranty!

Macbook Pro (Winter 2007)

Macbook Pro from 2007 is still in good shape

 

Asking $600 – includes a near-new charger, original installation DVD, Snow Leopard Upgrade DVD.

This is a sturdy aluminum cased Macbook Pro from a while ago, with a RAM upgrade from the conventional 2G to 3G. I had a 2 year warranty, which covered the replacement of the optical drive, the HDD, the battery charger, and recently, under the recall of the nVidia video cards, had the video card replaced (only in February, so it’s fresh!). Also this year (2011) I put a brand new authentic Apple battery in.

Well maintained, with many new parts! The technical specs can be found at this Apple webpage with the model info. The model in question is the first model (MA895LL/A).

 

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Website Design by... well, us. It's part of what we do.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore,
is not an act but a habit.”
- Aristotle