providing graphic design, branding, photography and marketing expertise to denver and the world

Quote of the Week:

Even God wants the Old Facebook Back:

From a Facebook Haggadah, by Carl Elkin. Check out the whole thing!


via hgm's twitterstream

Labels: humor, information graphics, interface, social networking, usability

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3.30.2009

Nice dental practice business card

This is a great design for a dental practice's business card. Removing the insert also removes the "cavity" in the die-cut tooth:

Print pieces like this aren't as cheap as the "normal" business card, but the impact is about a thousand times better. If a dentist pulled one of these out and handed it to you, would you forget who they were? Doubtful. Totally worth the additional production cost if you want to make an impact.

via Kottke

Labels: branding, graphic design

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Breaking News: Underpants Gnomes on twitter

I just proved that you can gain followers either by repeatedly mentioning "real estate SEO" on Twitter, or....um, "underpants gnomes".

That being said, I'm a little disappointed that there is no twitterer out there with the handle "underpantsgnomes". Shame on you, internet. Shame on you.

If you're reading this, well, then, I suppose I would encourage you to follow me on twitter as well.

Labels: advice, social networking, underpants gnomes

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3.23.2009

Meanwhile, Facebook comes one step closer to becoming the BOB of the 2000s...

A recent Valleywag article tells us that the CEO of Facebook knows everyone hates the new redesign. He just doesn't care. Why? From the article:

A tipster tells us that Zuckerberg sent an email to Facebook staff reacting to criticism of the changes: "He said something like 'the most disruptive companies don't listen to their customers.'" Another tipster who has seen the email says Zuckerberg implied that companies were "stupid" for "listening to their customers."

Ah. I see. So, you piss off the people who are using your product; the ones who evangelize to their friends and relatives about how they Just Have To Use It, and expect them to keep bringing business to their door?

This model takes the idea of off-the-wall innovation--the kind driven by people with a vision of their own who won't listen to naysayers--a step farther than companies like Google and Apple did, and who got this approach right. The point isn't to not listen to naysayers, or not to listen to your customers; the point is to have a clear vision of what you want your product to do / be / inspire, and always keep that vision in the forefront of everything you do. It doesn't mean "don't listen".


Facebook should concentrate on its Facebook-ness, and not try to ape Twitter. Yes, Twitter has had something like a 1370% increase in new users in the last year (or month, for all I know) but that doesn't make it come even close to Facebook's reach. Remember, all Microsoft did when they tried to "apple-up" their OS was to create "Bob". Remember that? It was their attempt to put a friendly face on the nastier, more left-brained bits of their operating system interface. And it failed. Miserably. Even Bill Gates admitted that it wasn't working out. We can only hope that the folks at Facebook come to such a realization sooner rather than later, lest they alienate everyone, and not just obsessive social networking geeks.

Labels: interface, social networking

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3.22.2009

Twitter is a brand-builder, not an advertising medium

Twitter's great at getting people inside your brand's brain. But really puts people off if all you do is tweet on about your latest software release or product. Every. Time. You. Post.

Case in point for brand-building: John Cleese. is he harping on about his latest project? Nooooo. He's bringing us more into the world of Cleese. Which is scary, funny, and sometimes seemingly pointless. But any way you look at it, it definitely builds his personal brand. Here's a screenshot of his stream that shows he's got Twitter's number, and knows how to use it for teh funnay. Remember that tweets are arranged from freshest to oldest, with the older posts at the bottom. Read from the bottom up on this:

Not an international man of comedic genius? Doesn't matter. You could be a spring manufacturer. Or lawyer. Twitter gives you a chance to relate to your audience from something other than the head-on, standard direction. It's not for hitting people over the head with your marketing message hammer. It's more for elbowing them in the ribs as you talk about something not-quite-but-possibly-a-little related to what you spend most of your time on. Give it a try.

Labels: advice, social networking, twitter

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3.18.2009

Our (future) studio featured at Shedworking

Alex at Shedworking has taken note of the studio that architect Liz Biondi is planning for the backyard. Once built, it will house the Notchcode Studio, allowing for expansion of the practice, if needed, and provide a calmer arena in which to create. There are a lot of advantages of a garden studio, most notably being able to watch my kids run around the backyard, and the smell of herbs and flowers wafting into the studio from the plots around the space. We also plan on making it energy-efficient with passive and (if the price works out) active solar, and using green construction materials when possible.

Alex will be posting about our experience in planning, building, and eventually inhabiting the studio on his blog and in his forthcoming book on shedworking (or as we sometimes call it in the US, "telecommuting", "working from home", or "not having to drive two hours to and from work every day." Stay tuned to his blog for updates.

Labels: architecture, blogs, small business, work

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3.16.2009

Sign atop the really scary mesa switchback road near Valley of the Gods Road, Utah.

Sign atop the really scary mesa switchback road near Valley of the Gods Road, Utah.
Originally uploaded by bucknam

Typographers: check out the myriad ways your craft is utilized, abused, and adored via the bumper-sticker genre.

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3.13.2009

Today's photo: neighborhood typography

7020
Originally uploaded by bucknam

Found this a few years ago while out walking the dog. I love how it looks, especially on the metal.

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3.12.2009

Five years

I can't believe it's been five years since they came into the world. Happy birthday, girls! Imaginary ponies and baby tigers for everyone!

Labels: birthday

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Always keep the diamond in your mind

Today's is a scan of a series of readymade cards I did back in high school. Guess the philosopher and win a prize (no peeking at the comments in the set).

Here's one of 52. Check 'em all out here.

Labels: creativity, flickr, readymade

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3.11.2009

Register before March 14th to save on registration for the NTEN conference

Interrupting my busy week for some important news:

Save a hundred bucks if you register on or before the 13th for the 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference. If you are involved in/with non-profits, and have ANY interest in using technology (like, say, the internet) to reach out to nonprofit stakeholders, it's worth it to go.

Plus, it's in San Francisco this year. Not bad!

Labels: nonprofits

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Using another organization's good-brand-will to make yours seem better

Is it just me, or does this logo:

Look a lot like this logo:

????

The top logo is the visual mark for a new Starbucks campaign called "Shared Planet". The bottom logo belongs to the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, I can see that they're not identical, but they are similar enough that If I was the EPA and had a bone to pick with Starbucks for some other reason (say they were also deforesting West Virginia mountaintops as part of some nefarious plan to eliminate the domestic coffee production market---which they aren't) I'd sure look into how to sue them for infringement.

But even if it's not technically (or legally) infringing, does it do any good for Starbucks to come so close to the EPA's brand? In this case, it certainly does. The Shared Planet campaign is all about environmental responsibility, so any goodwill created by the brand image of the EPA would certainly help Shared Planet, if it happens to rub off on the viewer's mind that way. I would also ask: "what if a close association with an organization put off potential buyers who, while admiring of Starbuck's environmental and ethical efforts, want Starbucks to be Starbucks, and the EPA to be the EPA?"

Here's another way of looking at the two:

Labels: branding, bug

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3.10.2009

Three marketing in a recession posts from the recent past

This caught my eye, courtesy of Sandra Sims, and it made me want to package up three of my most recent posts on marketing in a recession for those of you who doubt it's a great time to pay close attention to how you market yourself, and what you can do to get ahead of the curve right now:

• Keeping your clients in a recession with the amuse-bouche



• Remembering the basics, like excellent customer service



• and finally, Six marketing ideas for use in a recession

Also, as promised, more from my image-bank, as well, while I grind down my stack of work for the week:

Labels: advice, marketing, nonprofits, ROI

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3.09.2009

It's a busy week.

I won't be posting much, peeps. I have a huge workload this week, which is good for me, but bad for you (or perhaps good for you, depending on how much you cringe when you see another post from me come down the feed-pipes). I plan on being back here next week to come up for air. If you have some interesting tidbits, send them over to me so I can be distracted once in a while!

In lieu of posting thoughts, I'll be posting some of my favorite images shot over the last few years by myself. Not much of the photography with a capital P, but moreeveryday images. Here's one from last year's Passover seder:

Labels: flickr, photography, work

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3.06.2009

Web Interfaces: Not just about the hockey stick, people.

I love the variety of purpose-driven interfaces that you can leverage to deliver info on the web successfully:

This, and a heck of a lot more, here.

Labels: information graphics, interface, usability, web design

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3.05.2009

Web design vs. Print Design: What delivers better value?

A lot of marketers deride print marketing as a holdover from the 20th century, a time when horse-driven buggies ruled the roads and you could still see cigarette ads on television. Of course, print still has its place in the marketing pantheon, despite those who drank the web-2.0 kool-aid and won't listen to another, more moderated, point of view.

As Anne Holland says:

Print materials used to be the first outreach step for many companies. You would do a mailer to raise interest. Nowadays, especially with the new US postage hike, print is sometimes too expensive for pure prospecting.

The Web has become more of a prospecting tool, and print is what you send to those candidates who have leapt through the first qualification hoop. If you view your print campaigns that way, what does it mean to the type of voice and materials included?

The model still works the other way: if your audience is less on the net than others say, you've built up a large postal address database, but have only started collecting e-mail addresses over the last couple of years), print can still drive people to your online points of contact. To tie into Holland's point above, it's more important to be more picky with who you mail to, since expenses are higher.

One strategy that comes to mind is sending out a regular mailing (different pieces every few weeks) to those who haven't signed up for e-mail updates; drive them to sign up. This brings your future cost of contact down for that segment. For those who are on your e-mail list, send out special pieces, less frequently, that include an incentive to buy online. I did a version of this at an earlier company, and it paid big dividends with new customers and how they responded to later, more targeted, campaigns.

And it goes without saying that each audience and each campaign should have its own landing page, so you can more easily measure your conversion rates for each piece and each audience segment. After all, the only difference between a real marketing effort and throwing money into a black hole is measurement of results!

Make it as easy as possible for the consumer to self-select into a segment, so you can be more efficient in your marketing. Once you get them into the silo they want to be in, you can direct your efforts very precisely, both in print and online. That saves you money on the marketing side, and increases your customer's loyalty to the segment they're in.

Labels: advertising, marketing, print

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3.04.2009

The Joys of the Roughen Filter

Need a delicate tracery of intersecting random strings? Get thee to illustrator, use the step and repeat tool, and play around with the Roughen filter:

Labels: illustration, patterns

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How designers charge

I've been asked by a number of new clients and friends how graphic designers charge for their services. Here's how I do it:

I prefer to charge on a per-project basis, estimating a fee that accurately reflects the value that the client will get out of both the intellectual property I create, and the physical/virtual expressions of that property. For example, if asked to create a direct mail brochure for a nonprofit client's annual giving campaign, the intellectual property includes:

• the research and investigation into their audience, marketplace (competition), and goals,


• the concept of the piece, including marketing direction and consultation,


• copywriting and visual hooks or elements unique to the piece, which integrate their branding and overall marketing strategy,

There's more, but those are the basics.

The expressions, of course, would be:

• the graphic design based on the approved concept,


• revisions to the design based on feedback from the client, focus groups, stakeholders, etc (although most of this feedback should be handled in the conceptual phase, it sometimes leaks over into the design phase),


• production of the approved design layout for printing, coding for e-mail or web, etc.


• overseeing fulfillment with vendors (printers, web hosts, programmers, etc.)

Partially, there is an hourly rate component embedded in here. As any small business owner knows, you have a certain hourly wage your workers (including yourself) must generate in order to make the business profitable. $x per hour for y man-hours a year minus expenses (including salaries, taxes, etc.) roughly equals your profitability. So you can't not have an hourly rate as some portion of the equation, at least from a pragmatic standpoint. Hourly rates are also an important part of out-of-scope work elements (say, you decide to add a micro-website on top of the previously-negotiated brochure project). Those rates can serve the practical function of covering your firm's time, while also acting as a bit of a warning to clients to try and get all the work covered in the original project, so as to avoid extra charges.

The hourly rate isn't the only factor in a project's cost, of course, because we are talking about the value that the finished work has to the client. If a client is only using this piece for a one-year campaign, it's not as valuable as something they will use over and over (like, say, a brand identity). Therefore, it will cost less than a more long-lived product, even if the work takes the same amount of time and effort to produce. Many of the books on the subject show a percentage calculation for this sort of value (or other values, such as turning over all the source files, or re-using a design that was only licensed for one-time use). The value is really the important thing to stress, both for designers and their clients, because it frames the product of a designer's work in the right way. Like architects, lawyers, scientists, and other professionals who generate intellectual property which is then applied in the "real world" around us, the value in a designer's output isn't in the mechanics of creation; it lies instead in the application of creative and analytical thinking to a particular problem, which results in a practical solution.

So with this overarching concept of charging based on value, it's important to note exactly what the client gets, in-hand, at the end of the process. Contrary to what most people assume, it's not the actual product of all that work; rather, it's the right to use that intellectual property in a certain way. It's a license.

That license may be limited by time or quantity, or geography (one year, 5,000 brochures, only in North America); or it may be completely unlimited. In the design world, it's usually an exclusive license, as a designer is making something that's "purpose-built"--made for a very specific application such as a capital campaign, or fundraiser, or season ticket brochure. A programmer may specify the license is non-exclusive, since more than one person may be using, say, their video game.

By specifying the scope of a license, the value can accurately be assessed, and the client doesn't pay more than the worth of the designer's work for the use the client needs. Why buy the bridge, when you just want to walk over it once?

This aspect--licensing--can flummox even business professionals who otherwise comprehend much more complex concepts. Many people assume that design work is more like carpentry: they ask you to build it, and take possession of it. This is a concept known as "work for hire", and many others (illustrators, photographers, graphic designers) have detailed why it's a bad idea, so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say that work for hire practices ultimately stifle creativity and can generate unwelcome issues for both the creator and the party commissioning the work. Both leading professional graphic arts organizations, the Graphic Artists' Guild explicitly opposes work for hire, and the AIGA also seems to concur (albeit without the vitriol or explicitness of the GAG).

So who sets prices? Ultimately, the market does. There's a reason multinational corporations pay millions of dollars for a brand identity: it's worth it. Likewise, there's a reason local businesses pay a certain amount for a new website: it's worth it. The great thing for businesses is they aren't forced to pay a certain amount for a service. Someone shopping the design market for, say, a website, will find a range of fees offered from different firms for the same thing. They would also see a range of capabilities, creative outlooks, and strategies for production and implementation from these firms. But there will be a range, and that range is determined by what those firms have independently determined a given project, with certain specifications, is worth to that type of client at that time. While there are guidelines (based on surveys made nationwide), they don't determine a given firm's rate for a project any more than market pressures in their area do.

It's also important to note that as I alluded to above, price is just one variable to consider when shopping a project around for a designer. Businesses and designers need to have compatible viewpoints on strategy, approach, attitude, working methods, and other things, to really have a successful outcome. I've found that if an organization is shopping exclusively on price, they will get what they pay for, and not get what they really want, or really need.

I should also note that the basic principles I mention here are used by most of the reputable professionals in the field. People just starting out, students looking for a little extra money for tuition--they may charge differently. I'm certainly not saying everyone should apply these principles, but I am saying lots of us do, which is why I've outlined them here.

Hopefully this has been informative. I'd love to answer your specific questions about the pricing process, (and bid on a project, if you have one in mind!). Just e-mail me or leave your questions in the comments.

Labels: advice, b2b, b2c, graphic design, licensing, process, work, work for hire

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Los Angeles Times features shedworking

I'm currently planning a backyard studio for my design practice. With three kids at home, all under the age of five, it's nice to stay close and watch them grow up. My good friend Liz Biondi at Tamzin Architecture has finished the plans, and now i just need to get off my duff and get a soil engineering report, request a variance for the back and side yard setback (the studio will be in the back corner of our lot), and then (ugh) pay for materials and labor to build the thing. Once it's done, it will be EXCELLENT> Until then, I just drool over other peoples' cool "sheds" (as they are known in the UK.

As Alex in his shedworking blog posts:

An excellent slideshow of home offices in the Los Angeles Times features the marvellous garden office belonging to Santa Monica architect Jesse Bornstein (photos: Mark Boster), pictured above and below. As the LA Times says:

'Forget great rooms, walk-in closets and spa-like bathrooms. The home office has become the new staple of the American home.'

The rest of the slideshow is well worth a browse too.

(Via Shedworking and Homeworking.)

Labels: architecture, work

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3.03.2009

The official Recovery and Reinvestment Act project logo

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has a logo, which will appear on all projects funded by the Act:

It's nice, I suppose. One interesting thing I noticed is the upper left borders of the two stars that intersect with the blue background border (in the upper left quadrant of the logo) aren't there. These two stars look like they've opened up, blossomed, perhaps, into the white space of the circular inner border.

Another nit-picky thing: the "RECOVERY.ORG" typography is very small. If you're using it at the size you see on this screen, it's about 14 points in size (nice use of old standby Trade Gothic, BTW. Is there a subliminal message to be had there, in the use of a typeface whose name reflects commerce?). When this mark is used in smaller sizes, the type is going to become illegible. I could see this happening when the ARRA money is being used along with other funding for a large project, and promotional roadside signs, posters, and web banners have to fit a lot of logos into a small space (they become, in PR parlance, "bugs".)

The little reverse swiss cross that forms the center of the big gear in the lower right quadrant of the mark...it alludes to the health plan reform, perhaps, as being integral to the recovery?

[3/3/09 22:24] UPDATE: This emblem, along with one specific to transportation projects, was designed by MODE in Chicago. Um, if you don't know by now, they did the Obama "O". (I can't wait for a Denverite to be President: more branding work for us Queen City designers...).

Other comments? Post them below!

image via abc news

by the way: looks like the folks over at recovery.gov are using Numbers for their charting:

Labels: branding, bug, design, graphic design, illustration, information graphics, politics, typography, usability

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3.02.2009

Top 3 % in blogs: that is us, people.

I don't want to make too much of it, since there are still a couple million blogs ahead of this one, but a recent analysis of our blog at Notchcode shows it ranking in the top 3.58% of all blogs, everywhere. And the notchcode.com site? Despite it's antiquated layout and design (we put it up in 2002 and haven't refreshed it since, being busy with work, and all) it has a respectable Google PageRank of 4 (same as a number of "hipper" agency sites in town) and with over 3,000 inbound links and a bunch of other stats, it's in the top 10% of all sites, according to Alexa.

A lot of this probably has to do with the longevity of the site. It's been up and running for nearly ten years, (although similar sites with longer uptime have been ranked lower), and we've got a lot of traffic and referrers pointing our way. Plus--hopefully--we're actually serving up some useful content to everyone.

Not that this makes us complacent. We'll be completely redoing the site this year, with a nicer UI and easy to use CMS tool, get a little SEO-fu integrated into the site, and make things generally more interesting. But it is nice to know we're still being seen and heard, despite (what the trolls say) our "lame" site. We plan on hitting the top 1% in blogs and top 5% in sites, so watch out.

Labels: blogs, seo, web design

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