One thing that I encourage clients and agencies to do is to take advantage of all the print techniques that are available. Too many times, whether it be because they are in a rush or it just slips their minds, designers and creative directors opt for more typical printing methods: four-color process on the standard house sheet. Maybe using a spot color if the project warrants it. Read the rest of this entry »

American Apparel. Mac. Crate & Barrel. Target. The list of brands represented with the typeface Helvetica goes on and on. And on.

I recently saw the documentary “Helvetica”, written and directed by the filmmaker Gary Hustwit. The feature-length film uses the famous, yet controversial typeface to tell a comprehensive story about typography and visual culture over the last fifty years. Read the rest of this entry »

All the talk of lead nurturing is pretty exciting. Who doesn’t want to increase their sales by recycling leads that aren’t qualified right now? There is just one big hitch—you can’t nurture people you don’t know.
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It’s a common goal of marketers to start projects with research. (Well, most people want to, but they seldom do it. That’s a topic for another time). The idea is that, armed with some measurements of the audience’s attitudes, needs, and so on, we will have a better chance at structuring a successful solution. It’s assumed that the hard work will be in interpreting and using this data, and almost no one thinks about the data itself. You need to be sure to ask is the data is even accurate.
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Graphic designers know them well: the professionals needing a corporate identity yesterday and thinking that it should cost less than a dinner for two. In response, there is no shortage of web sites meeting this demand with next day “custom logo designs” for the low, low price of $99. But purchasing a preexisting logo template from an online logo factory is a big mistake. Investing in a quality logo is just good business. Here are three reasons why: Read the rest of this entry »

I went to the Masters Golf Tournament this week in Augusta, GA. I could go on and on about the tournament itself, but I’ll just talk about branding for the purposes of this blog. We can talk golf in another blog elsewhere. Read the rest of this entry »

A merger acquisition is fraught with all kinds of difficulties, from operations to HR, to finance. There’s lots to figure out, even about how to do delivery. Not until all of this is taken care of do people usually begin to think about marketing, and then eventually, branding. I’d like to suggest that it should be done the other way around. Branding should come first. And then worry about your marketing, your advertising, your finance, operations and HR. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you own the compelling content on your web site? One of the key things that you want to make sure of when developing a site is that the most interesting information on your site lives on your site. That is, don’t have lots of links from your site to other sites. Chances are that you’ll never get them back to your site once they leave.
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Last time, we covered 2 main reasons that communications fails in execution. This time, we will wrap up the series with discussion of 2 more reasons.
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I recently overheard a conversation between neighbors chatting about a local mechanic’s shop. The people were complaining about how this particular local mechanic tried to upsell them on additional services and charged them $100 just to turn off their engine light without even fixing the issue. It seems that this mechanic is known in the area for this type of “customer service”. Read the rest of this entry »