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

Quote of the Week:

Sometimes the best thing for you is that which is the most tasty.

Thanks, Meghan, for this nugget:

Labels: advertising, advice

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12.10.2008

Six marketing ideas for a recession

Now that the recession is "official", why not use it as an excuse to tighten things up?

Not tighten your belt, necessarily, but tighten up the way you use your marketing? What serves you well in a recession will serve you well when times are good, too. So, to that end, I bring you:

Six marketing ideas for use in a recession (and when things bounce back):

The amuse-bouche.

Give your clients a little something extra, that you enjoy doing and also benefits them.

Nontraditional uses of traditional marketing pathways

Forget about the coupon in direct mail. What about a "secret word" that brings your customers a discount or access to special services...that only "select" people receive via your permission-based email blasts...or getting your clients involved in an online dialog that benefits all of them (on your site, of course)...none of these suggestions are groundbreaking, but think about how much they cost, compared to traditional direct mail, etc....

Redefine what "essential" is, in relation to marketing and brand expressions

What's more important: meeting someone face-to-face, or sending ten people a direct mail piece talking about your services? Getting new clients, or strengthening ties with existing ones? Or both? Having that nice rounded die-cut corner on your letterhead, or spending that extra $250 on overhead for an informational seminar for your clients?

Now is the time to think hard about what you really need, and why you are using the marketing strategy you currently employ.

Less is more, and now's your chance to prove it

Do you really need a fax machine? Need a fax number on your business card? When was the last time you actually sent a fax versus an e-mail? Use cost-trimming as an excuse to streamline your communication pathways, clearing out the chaff of old technology and ways of thinking and replacing them with methods and channels that are relevant to your audience.

An opportunity to enter new markets or new marketing channels

How about an iPhone app that pushes relevant info to your target market? Outdoor advertising to get someone's attention focused on your issue? Permission-based e-mail campaigns to build brand impressions? If you haven't thought about these options, now is a good time to do so. Why? Because approaching people from another angle allows you to catch them off guard, and hopefully even give them information or motivation that they really need in order to get your company in their life.

Redefine your brand

Why not? If things are really going down the tubes, take a hard look at your existing brand. Is it reflective of your organization, your product, and your culture? Does it address the relationship between your organization and the public at this moment? What about in five years? Time and money spent refining your brand right now, when things are down, will get paid back in spades down the road, as other organizations play catch-up.

What are some ideas you have? Let's hear about them in the comments!

photo by jtloweryphotography

Labels: advertising, advice, b2b, b2c, branding, clients, creativity, design, graphic design, marketing, nonprofits, process, productivity, small business, web design

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12.09.2008

When are enough revisions enough?

The short answer is: when either your budget is exhausted, or your are satisfied that it's perfect, whichever comes first.

Why a set number of revisions in an agreement?

Some graphic design and web design clients may have trouble respecting your revision cycle. That's why designers have a set number of revision cycles for conceptual development and typographical edits built into their agreements. But it's up to the designer to keep the lines of communication open to make sure the client knows they are approaching the edge of the cliff that is The End Of The Revision Cycle.

What Happens if you don't tell them they have run out of time?

If you don't let a client know that they are nearing the end of the revision cycle, expect to pick up the tab of your client's extra revisions; it's unprofessional to let them keep revising and revising and then expect them to pick up the tab on a bunch of AAs without giving them fair warning. Additionally, it will help to keep the client's process tighter; if they know they only have a set number of shots at refining a concept down to razor-sharp accurate expression, then they WILL pay better attention. Trust me.

The end goal: a great design that does its job

In the end, the most important thing is making sure that the design clearly articulates the vision set forth by the objectives set forth by you and the client in the design brief. Keeping the lines of communication open, and having respect on both sides for each others' time and effort will go a long way to making this happen.

Labels: advertising, advice, branding, design, graphic design, performance, web design

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12.08.2008

Great Graphic Design makes everything better

One thing I remind people about all the time: everything anyone has ever made has been designed by someone. Great graphic design makes products, companies, and ideas more accessible by more people. Bad graphic design just makes products, companies, and ideas more opaque.

What differentiates the good from the bad? Lots of things. Focus. Brand integration. Accessibility. Grokability.

Paying someone $150, or $400, to design a logo will almost always result in bad design. Does that mean the designer who made it is not a good designer? Not necessarily. What it does mean is they aren't taking the time to find out what the essence of that brand should be. The same thing goes for paying a similar amount to design a website. Or a brochure. Even if you think about that money in terms of an hourly rate, rather than the value the design has for you (which is really how you should look at it), what does $150 translate to, in hours? I'll tell you: very, very little.

Would you trust a lawyer to draft the articles of incorporation for your business for $50? Would you let a $400 doctor operate on your heart?

Labels: advertising, advice, aiga, b2b, b2c, branding, graphic design, illustration, information graphics, interface, licensing, logo, marketing, nonprofits, packaging, process, ROI, seo, typography, visual information, web design, work

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12.03.2008

Who is copywriting over at Microsoft?

...apparently someone who writes business plans, or business positioning briefs. Does the internet really care Microsoft was "Founded in 1975"? And why the vague language about what MSFT does? Apparently, this mystery company, (founded in 1975) "help(s) people and businesses realize their full potential." WOW! I am so totally going out and buying a Microsoft or whatever it is they sell. I need full potential NOW!

Please, "Microsoft", for your next Facebook ad please hire a real copywriter, and maybe use a graphic that tells us a little more (does Microsoft sell inflatable plastic dolls? What are these things, LEGOs?)

Labels: advertising, writing

posted at 4:58 PM Leave your comments here: 1 comments

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9.20.2008

Visual Editing

A large part of a graphic designer's job (or anyone who traffics in visual information) is to curate the visual elements that are brought to the project table so that they are useful and understandable to the viewer. One such effort I am currently undertaking is the creation of thumbnail images for a photographer's website (not just any photographer, but the great photographer Andrew Bale, whose site we're retooling already has some beautiful work).

The current navigation scheme for moving throughout Andy's bodies of work uses an empty and full visual metaphor to show you what images you've visited, and which ones you haven't. It looks a bit like this:

The dark gray square shows the image you're looking at. The white squares are ones you've seen already. The blank ones are yet to be seen.

The new navigation uses snippets from each image as a representation of the whole image, so people can anticipate (or have their curiosity piqued). There are some good reasons not to use thumbnail crops (people want to see the whole image), but the advantages (you get the essence of an image, and can use it for navigation in a smaller area) are greater than the disadvantages--at least for this application.

In the case of this site, we're using a thumbnail image that is 64 pixels square. Andy's images are usually not square, so a crop is inevitable under this rule.

The issue here becomes what 64 pixels in a given image will evoke the larger whole, and that's where my job moves from being a production monkey to something that requires an understanding of the aesthetics, intent, and forms inherent in each image.

Take, for example, this image:

This is the same image you see above. I've rendered it here at the new enlargement size, which as you can see is a lot larger than the current view. Another improvement in the site that takes advantage of the growth in computer screen real estate since the initial site was developed.

So, what portion of this image evokes the whole? The blurry gondolas? The lamp on the right edge of the frame? The dark water below? Well, it's open for debate, surely, which is one thing I love about this job, but here's what I selected:

I think the darker mooring pole on the right, combined with the lighter one (in motion, slightly) to its left, along with the misty air and hazy building in the background, these elements evoke the whole of the image to me.

It's also mysterious enough that is makes you want to see more. It's a little call to action, without even having to use the words "click me!"

Visual editing doesn't just apply to photographs. Any time you consider using a visual element like a logo, color bar, or illustration, you have to "curate" its placement on the page, making sure it works in harmony with the other elements (text, page proportion, browser capabilities, paper stock, etc.) you are using. It's, simply put, the essence of any design problem.

Labels: advertising, creativity, graphic design, photography, visual information

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8.25.2008

Travel Posters for Intra-solar system Tours

Steve Thomas in Minnesota has created some fanciful travel posters for many lovely tourist hot-spots of the future, right here in our own solar system. They borrow from the styles of travel posters from the '20s through the '50s, and are a lot of fun. Check them out, and buy one, if you like one.

Labels: advertising, graphic design, illustration

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8.18.2008

Damn right your dad drank it

Check out the excellent period-appropriate typography, color palette, and imagery used in Canadian Club's latest print ad:

The colors are pulled straight from the main image, and the type is dead-on for what you would see in a Mid-'60s ad. Even the copy style is stylistically correct. The only thing that probably should be in there, that isn't, are periods at the ends of the title and subtitle copy blocks; I have seen a lot of those in the older print ads, and they aren't as in vogue these days.


Here's a detail:

via 5 Blogs Before Lunch.

Labels: advertising, graphic design, typography

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8.04.2008

Poster/Exhibition Display Design for the Colorado State Fair

Here's some recent work done for the folks at the Clear Creek Watershed Foundation and the state of Colorado's Division of Reclamation, Mining, & Safety, promoting the 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold in Colorado, slated for 2009:




It's an 8 foot-tall display, about three feet wide, and is designed to generate interest and drive people to the anniversary event's website. it will be seen by over 60,000 people down at the Colorado State Fair this year, in the Natural Resources Hall. We had a lot of fun researching the typographical history of posters created in the 1860s, which informed the mixed use of typefaces as well as sizing, layout, and spacing. The type is from Adobe, sourced from their nicely-cut set of woodtype families. The illustration was previously commissioned by the anniversary committee, and the paper texture was sourced from flickr's vast creative commons-licensed trove--an invaluable resource for any cash-strapped client (although I would argue that you usually get what you pay for).

Labels: advertising, display, graphic design

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Another great billboard for Denver Water

I was out at Lamar's Donuts getting some tasties for the family early Saturday morning, and saw this going up in the parking lot:




I once again tip my hat to Suckle Advertising for the excellent work on this campaign.

Labels: advertising

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7.29.2008

New Brand Logos Reflect Shift at G.M.

From the New York Times article by Eric Pfanner:

The new Vauxhall badge shows the brand's longtime mascot, a griffin, in a bigger, bolder way, zooming in on its upper body. The mythical beast, which joins the head and wings of an eagle to the body of a lion, appears more three-dimensional; previous versions of the griffin were flat.

The Opel logo, a stylized lightning bolt, also gets more depth in the redesign, though the general shape is unchanged.

With these updates, General Motors joins other automakers, including Volvo, Fiat, Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz, that have recently refreshed or redesigned their logos, seeking an edge in a difficult market.

Here are the new visual expressions:

Labels: advertising, branding

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7.28.2008

What We're Reading Online

I thought I'd share some of the content that is informing our work, seeping into our consciousness, and making us smile.

The Big Picture. This visual blog takes advantage of the fact today's monitors allow us to see big images onscreen. Each Big Picture post presents several images with a common theme. It's a wonderful bit of online photojournalism, and a big inspiration. Some recent favorites: photos from the Tour de France, Xenophobia in South Africa, and Images of Jupiter.

The Denver Egotist. This anonymous blog shows and tells various design/agency projects coming out of the Denver area. it's occasionally juvenile and snarky, but lately has been growing up into something more than a space for ranting, trollbaiting commentators. They bring some interesting design and campaign news to our notice, and for that we'll overlook the occasional misfire.

Logo Design Love. It's all about the visual identity here. Good posts on good logos, bad logos, and occasionally similar logos.

Cool Infographics. A well-executed infographic is better than a good-looking piece of design. And it's more than art. It's a visual expression of hard data or process that makes the viewer come to a more complete understanding of that data or process.

In that same vein, there's Subtraction, the blog of nytimes.com's design director, Khoi Vinh. As the person responsible for guiding the interactive visualization of the New York Times's content, Mr. Vinh has a lot to shoulder, and he does it well. Not only does he have some great talent backing him up at nytimes.com, but his personal expressions of visual information design show he's the captain of the ship there, as well.

The Design Observer. This design blog is edited by three of the biggies in the design world: Michael Bierut, William Drenttel, and Jessica Helfand; and lists contributors that anyone who has picked up an AIGA annual in the last ten years would know by their designs, if not by name. Ms. Helfand's nostalgic post on the good old days of press rooms filled with make-readys made me remember my earlier days, and made me a little wistful for zipatone and rubylith, too.

So, there's your reading list for today, young blog-reader. Enjoy!

Labels: advertising, creativity, denver egotist, design, information graphics, photography, print, printing, writing

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7.02.2008

But does it talk with a saucy British accent?

The Denver Egotist brought to my attention a fun set of ads for Volkswagen's european market, and I wanted to spread the love:



More importantly, I found a YouTube video that is even better. It is explained probably only by the massive popularity of David Hasselhoff in Germany. My favorite part is that the driver is so obviously into the music. Watch and enjoy.

Labels: advertising, print, TV

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6.09.2008

Great PSA for Cyclist Awareness from the UK

Check it out:



tap o' the brakes to the folks riding a bike from Alaska to Chilé.

Labels: advertising, cycling, PSA, TV

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6.05.2008

I know advertisers want to capture eyeballs, but _really_.

I'm going to talk like a cranky old man for a minute.

As someone who designs Flash ads for clients all the time, I know there is a lot of pressure on advertisers to get people in the door, past just the passive viewing (or ignoring) of an online ad. Many strategies have been tried throughout the years. Pop-up windows have almost completely gone away, as users install pop-up blockers (or just disable them, as you can in FIrefox and Safari). And then there are the annoying, spasmodic animations within ads (remember the dancing baby? And the latest odd hula-hooplike gyrating man or woman jiggling with glee at getting a low home mortgage rate?) And then there is the occasional ad that plays sound without your permission (although most publishers' ad guidelines forbid this).

Perhaps the most interesting one seen recently is the two-space integrated ad, pioneered by Apple on the New York Times website: it featured a banner above the main editorial content, with a double-wide skyscraper banner to the right of the editorial content...and the animations reacted to each other, effectively integrating the structure of the whole page into part of the layout for the ad.

The important feature of this ad is that it didn't interfere with editorial content. Nothing was obscured, and the sound had to be manually turned on.

So you can imagine my surprise (or disappointment, rather) when I saw this ad for Radio Shack on the Times' site:



See the packet of electronics breaking out of the banner? Well, I was too slow on the Command-Shift-4 to capture the full magnitude of the intrusion, but jsut prior to that, it had actually obscured the little chart below it and to the left, as well as the sidebar info to the right. It was hard to miss, true, and it did make me remember Radio Shack. But not exactly in a good way. More in the "I hate your annoying flash ads, Radio Shack" sort of way.

Now, the TImes' advertising board had to approve this ad, too, so the blame doesn't lie just with the advertiser. I've seen this technique used at the Rocky Mountain News as well, but on their site the ad covered nearly the entire top half of the viewable content. Not cool.

If I want an immersive dialogue with an advertiser, tease me within the boundaries of the ad space. If it's compelling enough, I'll Click To Play anytime. Otherwise, respect the reason why people are viewing the page in the first place: for the content.

Now get off of my lawn!

Labels: advertising, flash, interface

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