Posted by Karl | Posted in General, Tips | Posted on 28-04-2010
Managing the marketing and creative process is essential and for many, it is a headache. It doesn’t have to be and in this post we conclude our hints and advice for managing a project successfully, through to completion and beyond.
Sketches Work
Always do a rough draft of what you think the finished piece ought to look like. Usually it is the most appropriate version and with refinement ends up as the finished product. Once you have drawn up initial drafts, leave them for a couple of days and come back to them – this gives you a good perspective on the proposal and you can focus on the design rather than the content.
Don’t underestimate the power of a rough visual or draft for everyone involved.
Work with Your Print Partner
When you are working with a commercial print partner, use them as a design and advice resource. There is probably very little you are attempting that they haven’t tried a dozen times or more in the past. They are a great knowledge resource so use them.
Edit and Review
Editing is known as the butcher’s trade but it is vital – editing will improve the finished product by simplifying and clarifying the message as well as avoiding embarrassing mistakes. By getting others to review the work-in-progress, you can assess how effective the project is going to be in the real-world when it comes time for it to be unleashed on the target audience.
Use the Professionals
If you are unable to string a sentence together – hire a writer. If you have no idea on color or layouts – hire a designer. If you cannot come up with high quality photographs – hire a photographer. The bottom line is that if you find it difficult to work as a writer, editor, photographer, designer then you need help and short-changing on a professional-looking, finished product can undermine your entire effort.
Posted by Karl | Posted in General, Tips | Posted on 22-04-2010
The longest project is the one you don’t get started, and frequently where to begin is a problem. Knowing where to start is a boon, so here we’re going to cover some structure to provide over the creative process and which will help you manage the whole process while keeping it on track to help your business.
It doesn’t matter whether you are creating a marketing brochure or a humble flyer, the principles are all the same, however you will need more of these basics applied when you deal with more complicated or larger projects.
The Marketing Blueprint
Establish a blueprint and then stick to it – this is your guide through the desert, so while you may exercise flexibility, you also should be careful that everyone is sticking to the plan too. A blueprint helps you be effective, stick to budget and be able to measure the results against your benchmark standards.
Review Examples
Find examples of work which has already been done, either by you or by someone else, especially competitors. Look at how this has been approached in the past and what has worked and what has not. Distil the best from this and apply it to the project at hand.
Think Benefits Not Features
Benefits are succinct and to the point – they show a customer or prospect how your product or service will satisfy their needs. They personalize the proposal to the client. Features on the other hand, simply list what the product is and that is a waste of space – ask yourself when the last time was when you read the specifications pages of a piece of electronic equipment such as your home TV? Never! You bought the TV because it looked good and the advertizing told you it had the biggest, brightest, most channels, lightest, eco-friendly, thinnest feature “which meant that” you loved it because it solved a problem you had or catered for your particular need.
This post is continued in Part Two
Posted by Karl | Posted in Printing, Tips | Posted on 19-04-2010
Customer newsletters are one way of keeping yourself connected to your customers and prospects. Good newsletters inform and educate and bring interesting information and opportunities to the reader. Just as there are good newsletters there are bad ones, so take a look at these fast tips to ensure you create the former and not the latter.
Be Relevant, Be Meaningful
We touched on this briefly; to be interesting you need to be relevant and give meaningful information. Readers will follow what you have to say, but to be sure you are not simply sending tomorrow’s trash complement the promotional, sales orientated aspects of the newsletter with practical tips and advice or Q&A’s.
Use Templates
You don’t have to re-invent the wheel and there is no need to have journalistic or editorial experience. There are plenty of newsletter templates already designed and freely available for you to use – save time and energy, not to mention money, and select a template for you to populate with your content.
Write for Your Audience
Address the reader directly – we know you can’t call them by their name, but you can refer to them as “You” or “Your”, avoid using “Their’s” or “Them” because you are talking about someone else and be ruthless with using “I” or “Us” because you are now just talking about yourself. You can also include items which the audience can use such as calendars of trade events or deadlines, coupons and special pricing promotions as well as including your contact information in a handy format.
Use Your Customers
Everyone likes to see their names and faces in print, and your newsletter is no exception. Use your existing customers as case studies in your newsletter so they see how you solved their problems – this is a great testimonial for your business.
Posted by Karl | Posted in Graphics | Posted on 11-04-2010
Graphic design is the art of visual communication, using both imagery and words. Graphic designers use these two elements in a variety of media including print, television, web, packaging, advertizing and a long list of others. Probably the only medium within which graphic design is not utilized is radio!
Common design elements include photographs, type (font), illustrations, shapes, different colors and texture. By combining these design elements, a graphic designer will produce the finished design, however they are frequently assisted in the design process by powerful tools, usually in the form of software programs such as Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.
Shapes are at the root of design and have been historically from cave paintings to ancient writing to the modern period. Shapes define layouts, make patterns and are fundamental to the other elements created on the viewed page. Lines are used to draw the eye and mind’s attention to specific parts of the design, to define the parameter or area of the design, or as a separator of different page content. Lines can be straight or curved, but they do not need to be drawn necessarily – a line can be implied by the design, for instance typed text following a curved path.
Color is a very important element in graphic design because it impacts upon viewer’s perception and it is changeable depending on the context within which it is viewed. Color is also a factor which resonates emotionally with the viewer – there are warm colors, e.g. orange, and cold colors, e.g. light blue. Type refers to the fonts used in text, but also size, color, alignment and spacing which all affect how the text is rendered and how it impacts within the overall design.
Images, including photographs are also powerful design elements because they can bring a design to life and as the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words!”
Posted by Karl | Posted in Color | Posted on 05-04-2010
Any consideration of color is difficult to convey with mere words because color is ephemeral and there are several different forms. There are three color forms which designers consider the most important and it is useful for you, wither as someone looking at designing material for yourself or when working with a designer, to understand what is happening here.
Visual Color
Visual color is what you are seeing – your own perception of color in your brain given a certain situation. The color we see may depend upon lighting or the specific context which is applied and we then experience. Visual color is a form of the physical color, the environment and how our brains work.
Physical Color
This is the “actual” color in fact – perhaps what a physicist would term “color”. It is determined by the reflective properties of the material involved as all colors are derived from the reflected light which shines upon it. If all color was reflected from the object it would appear as white – a color is formed by some wavelengths of white light not being reflected but being absorbed by the object, and the color which results is made up of the components of the white light which are not absorbed but are reflected.
Conceptual Color
This is an abstract concept of color – it what we use when we describe a color as opposed perceiving it or having a physical sample. Examples of conceptual color may be when we use a color word, e.g. blue, or a description, e.g. dark green or even a specific color classification, e.g. the # value for a color from the Pantone system.
