Archive for the ‘tips’ Category
Posted by Eryn on April 5, 2010
While your business’ website surely has more tasteful content than what you’d find in the tabloids at the checkout line, there is something to be learned from their covers.
Magazine covers aren’t meant to tell the whole story, they’re meant to pique your interest enough that you part with $4.99 to read the contents.
When planning out your website – particularly the home page – take some cues from the magazines:
- Pay attention to hierarchy and organize the most important information in places of prominence. They eye moves from the upper left corner of the screen to the lower right (one reason the company logo is in the top left corner on most sites). This visual path will help you configure your page.
- Use punchy lines of text with small blurbs that link to the interior content pages of your site.
- Keep as much information on the home page “above the fold” as possible (okay, this is newspaper-speak, but still works here). In other words, you don’t want to lose any critical bits off of the bottom of the screen.
- Above all, keep the home page layout simple – engaging, but simple. A magazine cover can’t hold all of its interior content, and neither can your home page!
Please, take one: I just wrote a short article called “5 Things Your Small Business Website Needs to Engage Your Customers“.
Tags: design, diy
Posted in tips, web site
Posted by Eryn on February 16, 2010
It’s Tuesday, and with Tuesday comes a different set of stresses than with Monday. If you’re an entrepreneur – or manager of any sort – Tuesday is the day when the rest of the week comes into focus, and you realize how much crap stuff you have to accomplish before the weekend arrives.
Among your to-do’s are marketing tasks (hopefully) that will keep your customers rolling in. Activities like:
- monthly/quarterly mailings
- attending events or trade shows
- updating your company website and blog
- creating a seasonal product catalog
- making presentations/sales calls
- sending email newsletters
- advertising
When things get busy, we (yes, even us designers) tend to procrastinate marketing our businesses in order to get through the rest of our tasks. However, even when things are hectic, you should still be focused on promoting your business.
Making a calendar at the beginning of each year that outlines your marketing efforts helps you stay on track, while also helping you budget for any design and printing costs. This can be done quarterly as well, to the same effect (my preferred method), and allows you to be more nimble with your decisions.
By planning your marketing efforts in advance, you can reap some cost savings by:
- ganging up your print jobs for mailings (saves resources, too!)
- having a general brand overview piece on hand to send to prospects and take to meetings
- resizing one design for multiple trade show booth layouts
- qualifying for discounts from your mail house for scheduled catalog mailings
- creating a single branded email newsletter template that is ready for monthly content
- having a standard advertisement design that can resized and sent to publications on the fly
- not paying rush charges when you’re behind the 8-ball!
Tags: ideas, marketing, working
Posted in marketing, tips
Posted by Eryn on September 23, 2009
By now, most of us are familiar with word clouds. Right? Okay, maybe not, but there is a site on the web where you can create and customize your own in a few minutes. It’s called Wordle and you should check it out. I played around with text from our home page today for a mid-afternoon visual break and some inspiration.
Here are a few favorites:
Imagine using this to come up with word combinations for product names; or entering your brainstorming notes to see new combinations of phrases for a marketing campaign; or for creating a tagline. Anything that helps you look at something from a new perspective can give you a creative charge.
Tags: design, fun stuff, ideas
Posted in creativity, inspiration, short and sweet, tips, words
Posted by Eryn on July 20, 2009
We are a proud member of the Designers Accord. The following guidelines were inspired by a recent Designers Accord gathering where maintaining sustainable design practices in an (ugh) ailing economy was the topic of discussion. For the record, Studio 22′s stance is that these actions are “baked in” to our process.
1. Analyze what is in your control, such as paper selection, bindings, or packaging/containment method. Make choices as part of the design exploration process.
2. Make it as easy as possible to disassemble the piece (if bound or packaged) for recycling at the end of its life cycle.
3. Estimate quantities based on past usage of similar projects as closely as possible so that you don’t over-produce. Even if you recycle your leftovers, it’s still waste.
4. Cut back on unnecessary wordiness in your text to reduce page count – not only does this help save on production costs, it saves paper and reduces postage expenses.
5. Evaluate how your audience will use your communications piece. Do they want to read an 8-page product brochure, or would they rather have a line sheet with highlights? Making it convenient for the end user can result in reduced materials consumption.
Tags: design, sustainability
Posted in CSR, corporate citizenship, eco-friendly, environment, green, paper, sustainability, tips
Posted by Eryn on June 10, 2009
Even graphic designers themselves fall prey! I know it every time I’m drawn to purchasing something I most likely don’t need. Take, for example, the following…
Orange seltzer is not an item I would normally buy on a grocery trip. But don’t you know, this one, from Boylan Bottling Co. practically jumped off of the shelf at me. I’m a sucker for well-done retro-style anything, so in the cart it went. I thought, ‘Even if I don’t drink it, I would still like to stare at the package.’ (The seltzer’s actually quite tasty, living up to its great packaging and label, and their website kicks ass, too.)
Boylan’s packaging (for all of their products) supports their brand story. Just by looking at their packaging, one can tell the company has a deep history and a sense of fun. Their designer distilled their story into a visual representation of their brand.
On the same trip, I also grabbed some Twist Sponge Cloths. Did I need them? Probably not, but their packaging and presentation was just so nice that I didn’t want to leave without them. (Of course, I use them all the time now since I’m trying to break the paper towel addiction in my house.)
A consumer knows when they look at Twist’s line of products on the shelf that the brand is about making a mundane activity more enjoyable while also conserving resources.
So what’s the point of this grocery shopping recap? The point is:
Thoughtful label/package design (and this includes hang-tags and boxes, too) promotes your already-great product.
Would I have tried the orange seltzer had it not been for the Boylan’s package? No.
Would I have thought that Twist’s European sponge cloth was the solution to my dirty kitchen counters? Nope.
When launching your brand, don’t blow it by rushing through the planning and design process for your support materials. Hire a design firm that will take the time to understand your brand and it’s story before crafting solutions.
Tags: branding, marketing
Posted in branding, hang-tag, marketing, packaging, retail, sales tools, tips
Posted by Eryn on May 7, 2009
What should you do during “recessionary times?” Both.
As stated on Twitter earlier this week (find us @studio_22), consumers 18-34 will be driving green trends in the next decade. We also said that when you promote your products to this group, you should do so in a sustainable way.
If you’re a brand that can demonstrate a genuine commitment to responsible practices, tell consumers your sustainability story. Do it authentically. Brands can gain a competitive edge when they engage consumers on issues that they care about. Do it on a hang-tag. Do it in your catalog. Do it on your website. The person buying your product or service will feel good about making the purchase because it supports a belief that they subscribe to. You’ll provide added value – an important quality at the moment.
Now, about those sustainable communications…those hang-tags, brochures, catalogs, reports. There’s more to a sustainable marketing piece than slapping some ink on 30% recycled content paper. We won’t bore you with substrates here, but care must be taken with the imagery and text, colors, sizing, and ink used in producing your communications. Even the firm you choose to work with has an impact on the footprint of your printed materials. Embracing this concept on the back end will push you even further ahead of the competition in the eyes of your customers.
Tags: branding, sustainability
Posted in CSR, bottom line, carbon footprint, catalog, corporate citizenship, eco-friendly, environment, manufacturing, marketing, outdoor, short and sweet, sustainability, tips
Posted by Eryn on September 29, 2008
As Steve McKee said on Business Week’s Small Business website this summer, “Marketing is muscle, not fat. Be careful about cutting it.”
Don’t risk losing market share to your competitors in a downturn. This is a time when a slow — but steady — marketing presence can help you come out on top when things turn around.
Can’t justify the cost of a full-page ad series? Cut the size to a half-page. Not sure if you should print the full-sized catalog you planned…and mail it? Reduce the page count or change the dimensions. The point is to maintain your presence.
Your clients and customers still need what your company provides, even during economic lows. If your competitors are cutting their marketing budgets, you can gain some of their market share by being the more visible company to your prospective clients.
Tags: ideas, marketing
Posted in advertising, marketing, short and sweet, tips
Posted by Eryn on August 13, 2008
Did a recent office move render your letterhead unusable? Is your letterhead simply unnecessary because you send office correspondence electronically?
Give your letterhead new life with these ideas:
- Have a print shop cut the sheets in half, flip them over and glue one end to create scratch pads.*
- Print on the reverse side of the sheets for inter-office paperwork.
- Ask a print shop or copy shop to trim the contact information from the sheets to create unique note paper that you can use for handwritten correspondence to clients, pairing it with colored envelopes.*
- Donate it to a school’s art department to use for sketch paper or paper-maché.
- Shred it (envelopes, too) and use it as packing material to protect fragile items during shipping.*
- At the very least, recycle what you don’t use!
*These can look especially cool if your letterhead design is graphic-heavy.
Tags: ideas, sustainability
Posted in eco-friendly, environment, paper, tips
Posted by Eryn on June 11, 2008
Call us behind the times, but we recently discovered Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles website. There, the apparel manufacturing company tells the story of specific products’ marks on the environment. The highly interactive site is not only well designed, but truly informative.
“We believe that to avoid complacency, we must constantly examine our internal processes to improve upon the positive and mitigate the negative,” said Casey Sheahan, president and CEO of Patagonia. “The Footprint Chronicles allows us to do this publicly — sort of learning out loud.”
Site users are also able to leave comments relating to each product detail. Pretty brave on Patagonia’s part!
Not every person or company can be perfect, but we can all implement strategies to reduce our impact. Could you do this in some way with your business?
Tags: branding, ideas, sustainability
Posted in CSR, corporate citizenship, eco-friendly, environment, manufacturing, marketing, outdoor, sustainability, tips
Posted by Eryn on October 9, 2007
Recent headlines have said:
“Gen Y Shoppers Drawn To Greener Marketers,”
“Retailers Push Packagers To Think ‘Green’,”
“Good workplaces bring about focused, energetic employees,”
and “Virgin Mobile to Green Up Product Packaging.”
So, the question is…how can your business cater to the growing demand for more sustainable products and services? A few ideas, just for starters:
FOR THOSE PRODUCING PRODUCTS
- Create smaller packaging using recycled (optimal) or renewable, and recyclable material.
- Audit your supply chain. (Did you know that 80% of Honda’s North American suppliers are green certified?)
- “Climate cool” your shipping. Check out the Climate Neutral Network for information.
FOR THOSE PROVIDING SERVICES
- Turn off your equipment when you leave the office each evening; and put it in a sleep or power-down mode when not in use for more than 10 minutes.
- Offset your carbon emissions for all business travel — whether road or air.
- Choose a green design firm (who will specify sustainable options for your promotional pieces) to help you market your services!
FOR BOTH
- Offer green benefits packages to employees.
- Allow time off for volunteer activities.
- Allow employees to telecommute 1 or more days per week.
Tags: ideas, sustainability
Posted in CSR, article, carbon offsetting, corporate citizenship, eco-friendly, packaging, paper, sustainability, tips
