For those of you who are still scurrying to get your entries finished and entered, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you that the competition will be closing in 15 DAYS! Don’t wait till the last minute to get your entries finished!

In case you don’t remember, you can read all the details of the competition here.

To get you thinking in the right direction, here are a few more sample Identity Packages you should check out! I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Happy Creating!

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I’ve been a bit under the weather the past couple of days so I’m gonna take this opportunity to do a little "sponsoring" and offer a shout out to Adobe. If you still haven’t made up your mind whether or not you need to take the plunge and  upgrade to CS4, you might as well bite the bullet and go for it!

At the ministry where I spend my days we JUST upgraded to CS3 about 6 months ago, but I plan to have my girls go ahead with the smaller version jump to CS4 as soon as possible. We have to face it, Adobe OWNS desktop publishing. As designers, if we want to stay "in-the-know" we are going to have to stay as up-to-date as possible!

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I was recently asked to create an event logo for a Youth Conference that will be occurring in July of 2009. The collateral materials for the event will be limited to postcards, posters, brochures and web/tv spots. With all that in mind I was faced with quite a dilemma.

Knowing that ALL strong logo development that will endure over time should be created in a vector format for scaling purposes, such as Illustrator, I had a decision to make.  The direction I was getting from the client seemed to nullify that as an option.

The client was incredibly creative himself and could see what he wanted in his mind. That often makes my job a little more difficult, but I was feeling up to the challenge.

Some of the visual effects he were wanting could not be accomplished in Illustrator. At least not with the time constraints I was facing on the project. Instead, I took the plunge and created the logo in Photoshop. Though it went against everything I stand for the logo turned out pretty sweet, and most importantly the client loved it!

The logo itself will enable me to "knock it out of the park" on the other materials as the event approaches. I can’t wait to get the ball rolling!

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I just wanted to take the opportunity to send a shout out and remind everyone that the Student Identity Design Competiton will be coming to a close on December 1, 2008. That leaves you approximately 4 weeks to get your submissions created/uploaded and sent.

Due to the nature of this type of competition, I do want to mention that there will be category winners for specific pieces in the package. These categories include:

• Logo Development
• Use of Color
• Graphic Theme
• Creative Content
• Stationary Design

Each category will contain awards of Excellence, Distinction and Merit.
 

I have also had a few questions regarding whether or not an entrant may enter multiple design packets. The answer: Absolutely! As long as the individual design packages contain all the necessary pieces, contestants are allowed to enter as many packages as they wish.

If you have any other questions or need to contact me do so here and I will respond to your questions. You may also email me if you prefer.
 

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Among some of the most creative and impressive marketing moves of all time, chances are you will hear tales of early Starbucks. While trying to increase brand awareness, they hired people to drive around with a Starbucks cup glued to the top of their car just above the driver’s door where it would be found if the driver had inadvertently sat it down while getting into the car.

Brilliant? Not yet, it gets better. As other drivers and those considerate enough to marvel at how he had gotten this far, and motion or speak to him regarding the cup, they were given a coupon for a free coffee at their local Starbucks. Now, it’s brilliant. Not only did it raise brand awareness but also drove new potential customers to the store who had the potential of being turned into loyal customers.

Recently I read a similiar story of brilliant marketing in Deliver magazine. After reading the article, I searched for a more information on Prospera Credit Union, what I found was a small chain in Wisconsin that I thought were behind the marketing expenditure. Fortunately a reader (see the comment below) was kind enough to let me know that the Credit Unioin that was actually responsible for this marketing is actually a much larger bank with 21 branches actually in Canada.

Whether large or small, the company was still faced with a problem. They were assigned the task of making their new equity shares sound exciting. How can this be accomplished?

See for yourself!

As Deliver put it, few things say freezing your taxes like a freezer pack.  In case you can’t read the text, in addition to the the logo of the credit union, the pack boasts, "Paying taxes is a big headache. That’s why we’re freezing them for 10 years."

Was the campaign successful? You better believe it. In a short 7 weeks they had surpassed their revenue goal!

Simply Brilliant!

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Today I’m going to step away from our normal line of articles and participate in Blog Action Day 2008. Today, October 15th, bloggers from around the world are uniting to share their hearts on a common subject: Poverty. Each blogger, will talk about this subject from the perspective of their field.

As designers, how does poverty effect us? Or do we have the opportunity to affect change ourselves? One of the hardest things for me is knowing how to price my work. Too many times, I’ve seen clients get taken to the cleaners by a designer or developer who convince them that they must spend thousands of dollars to get top quality work. Often this venture leaves the client broke with no real success to show for it.

As a freelancer and now a business owner, it’s the desire of my heart to provide top quality work to those that can’t afford to go and hire a big design firm or ad agency in LA and NYC. What I offer them instead is cutting edge design and access to all the knowledge that I’ve acquired over the years for an affordable price.

When I sit and meet with a new client, I find myself drawn in by their stories of struggle, success and triumph. These small businesses, ministries and individuals are often seeking an alternative to the big business world they see at work. Due to budget constraints and their commitment to "starting small", they are unable to compete with the big dogs at these bigger companies.

This is where I provide a solution. I can help the smaller, struggling businesses that are in need of good design for a cheap budget.

How do I do it?

1. Start small. I explain up front that the rates and information I am giving them are directly proportional to the size and demand of their small establishment. By doing this, I allow a sliding room, so that as their ministry grows, my fees too, can grow with them. By doing this, I establish a connection with the client, they know that I want them to succeed!

2. Show them reality. I have a list of "standard" prices that I charge. Which is true and fair, and I do stick to them with larger companies that I work for. But when I’m working for Joe Schmoe in Backwoods, OK, I print out my price list and then mark through the regular prices and give them their price based on the information that they have provided.

3. Judge the personality. One of the hardest things to do, is perceive whether a client will be easy to work with or difficult. I have been burned by this only once. I agreed to do a rush job for a lady that was creating a book as a gift. She was a very sweet lady and I had worked with her daughter before so I thought I would be safe. Unfortunately I didn’t count on another friend of hers being involved in the process. After rushing to complete the job, pulling an all-nighter and practically giving it away for nothing–the project became a nightmare. After the initial proofing was finished, I was asked to continue making changes, in fact one day alone, I received over 35 emails from that individual with minor tweaks and changes. In the end, I finally was forced to draw the line and severe the relationship and end the project.

As designers we have the opportunity to spread a little goodwill and sunshine to those that can’t afford our services but know they have a need for good design. Remember that each person you help will plant seed that you can reap later!

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Following up an earlier article where we discussed some magazine layout principles, let’s take a look at continuity in design.

Design continuity for a specialized marketing piece, specifically one that only makes an appearance quarterly or annually is incredibly important. Because the piece will only be in the viewers hand a few times a year, it’s important to make a visual impact that the reader can easily remember.

How is this accomplished? When creating such a piece, it’s important to keep some "theme" of consistency throughout the magazine. The theme will usually consist of similar graphic elements that appear on each spread, every page or at regular intervals within.

Here is a great example of how this is applied in a semi-annual magazine for the Alumni of the Communications Department at ORU. Knowing the advisor/designer personally I can clearly see her thought process as she carries the visual theme throughout the magazine.

Notice the "recording" lines around the dominant photo. These are repeated symbolically on the opposing page that begins the profile article. Later on, as we continue through the magazine, we again see the same elements repeat. The story is different and even the layout is different but the theme is the same.

To keep the magazine fresh and changing, we don’t want to simply repeat the exact same layout over and over. Between these main stories the magazine is filled with shorter articles, sidebars and photos. But once we come back to such a spread, there is an immediate visual connection to what we’ve already seen.

Ways this can be accomplished:

1. Repeat. Simply pull a previously used element such as a drop cap, a rule line, background graphics, etc.

2. Duplicate a photo effect. Add crop marks, frames, distress or elegant filter effects to dominate photos to create a unified effect.

3. Mirror. To mirror a spread simply re-arrange the elements in your layout to appear as if they would if you literally printed it out and held it up to a mirror. (If you can’t visualize the effect–print it out!) This is what has been done in the above example.

4. Reflect. What would your layout look like if reflected upside down? Please realize we’re not referring to the text or headline, but rather the arrangement of the elements on the page. If your dominant photo is a square on the bottom left, another layout within the piece could have it placed in the top left instead.

5. Rotate. If your original design is solid, you can rotate your layout of elements in a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion to retain the ‘feel’ of the other spreads.

Keeping these tricks in mind with assist you in creating a unified magazine piece.  To download the entire magazine to see the visual impact of repeating elements click here.

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Everybody, myself included, talks about what to DO with your logo. Perhaps we are leaving out the most important part: What NOT to DO. 

While I would love to share some examples, I’ll refrain, so as to not call anyone out. But when you are assessing your current logo or deciding if you need one, keep the following DON’Ts in mind as well!

DON’T try to add too many details. One of the worst things you can do is try to combine to many elements into the same logo. Working in a lot of ministries and Christian environments I see this occur way to often. So many times the client want to incorporate all the "standard" Christian icons. They want a sword and a dove and a cross and an open Bible. Rather than conveying the heart of the ministry, this often conveys confusion, chaos and screams "amateur".

DON’t use a photograph as a logo.  In it’s truest sense, a logo is smply a "tease" of what the company is about. Think about some of the best brands out there. A logo can be something as simple as a wordmark, meaning words or letters arranged specifically. Let’s look at Coca Cola. Their logo isn’t a coke bottle. Their logo is simply the words.  As more and more brands are on the market it might prove difficult to create a logo that is solely a wordmark that will stand alone. If that is the case, the addition of a vector symbol, icon or simple graphic may be the best way to close the deal.

DON’T use a rasterized format like .PSD.  Logos should be simple and created as vectors to ensure their ability to scale up or down as needed.  To be a flexible element that you can sink your money into, a logo should be fully scaleable and able to reside in a variety of formats and pieces. To achieve this, good logos are created as vector images.

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Adobe’s done it again. Introducing a new suite of software that will be available in late October, the company has raised the bar for graphic design, web development and production creatives.

Is it all hype?

Collecting resources and opinions from a variety of designers and production professionals, the overall opinion seems to be positive. As designers we may dig our heels in for a while hoping to avoid the $600 upgrade fee, but in the end we know that we will have to adjust and move with the times or we will be limiting ourselves and our work flow with others.

The new edition of Photoshop is not without some new and promising features. Just to barely scan the surface, here are few to get you started:

• New configuration settings for the Burn and Dodge tool make more realistic looking changes, in contrast to the previously washed-out or over-exposed results that were so common with novices using the tool in the past.
• New "adjustments" dialog to quickly access effects and enhancements that were previously housed in various menus.
• New "real edge" features which take into account things like fur and hair
• For photographers there is a new depth-of-field feature that assists with short focus issues.

For the suite as a whole, Adobe is proud of their new level of cross-compatibility with more media, web and mobile integration. Interestingly enough, thats a subject I had trouble finding "actual" specifications on.

One thing I do know, as a designer I will be forced to take the plunge and buy the upgrade once it’s released. And truth be told, I’m pretty excited about it regardless of the price!

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If you were to ask me which of the Adobe products was the hardest to learn, I’d have to answer Illlustrator. If you asked me which of the Adobe products I’ve had the most fun with, I’d have to say Illustrator!

That may be in part to the freedom that Illustrator gives you to be a "real" artist. I can sit down with my Wacom Tablet and just draw naturally. I love it.

Creating stunning illustrations, though time consuming is tons of fun. My favorite trick? I love to use illustrator for text that I want to blow up. I create my text box, choose type>create outlines and now I have a vector version of my text that can be blown out of proportion or used in tandem with other programs to create awesome posters and really fun effects.

When I was first learning Illustrator I came across a remarkable book by Scott Kelby, Illustrator Killer Tips. He’s actually recently put this book on sale. It’s a remarkable resource. Start having fun!

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