Posts Tagged ‘ideas’
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 January 21, 2010
This month marks our fourth birthday — what can seem like an eternity in small business years. In fact, it’s flown by for us! Time does fly when you’re having fun, and we’re fortunate to be working with clients today that have been with us since the beginning as well as many new ones.
A lot happened at Studio 22 HQ in 2009.
- Leaving the bustle (and expensive parking) of the city, we moved the office to a rural town where mid-day hikes are a reality.
- We gained a Traffic Manager, Sue Mathias, to help our schedule run more smoothly and to serve our clients better.
- Our work was published in a book about green design and also earned awards for sustainability reports, annual reports, brochures, and retail merchandising.
- Adding a Copywriter, Carolyn Maddock, expanded our service offerings to get clients’ content into fighting shape.
- We overhauled our own website design, development and content — and got to see what it’s like to be the client on the latter two!
- And last but not least, we welcomed Brit Shoaf to the team as our new designer, increasing our ability to crank out the good stuff!
We’ve set new intentions for 2010 around the words
GIVE
PASSION
and
FORWARD
Stay tuned as we set out on the journey to fulfill them.
Tags: ideas, news
Posted in inspiration, news, update
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 May 18, 2009
“Mimosa,” a “warm, engaging yellow” is the Pantone Color Institute’s choice for 2009′s color of the year.
Image courtesy Pantone.com
Not only is the institute endorsing the color as a great choice for print as well as men’s and women’s apparel, but the color is also available from Pantone’s line of eco-friendly interior paint.
“The color yellow exemplifies the warmth and nurturing quality of the sun, properties we as humans are naturally drawn to for reassurance,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, as quoted on Pantone’s site.
OIWC‘s logo uses a very similar color for their sun icon – imagine! As their Graphics & Materials Manager (I’m also a member), I am currently updating the group’s logo and identity package. Interesting to apply the color qualities above to the mission of the organization: “…equip, educate and support women in the outdoor industries to recognize their professional goals.”
While we’re not fans of using exact complements on the color wheel to create clients’ color palettes, deep blue-green and rusty orange would look hot (excuse the pun) with “Mimosa.” Stay tuned. Maybe we’ll be able to work the color of the year into an upcoming piece.
Tags: design, fun stuff, ideas
Posted in color, identity, logo, pantone
Posted by Eryn on January 12, 2009
This Ad Council ad caught my eye on a local shopping center wall.
I thought it to be so simple, yet very effective. Design is not always about using all of your tricks in one piece. Allowing a strong call to action to remain the focal point in the layout can be the best option. The thought process that goes into concepting a layout like this is just as intense as a graphic-heavy design.
I grew up seeing Ad Council ads on TV and billboards. Who can forget Smokey Bear? I didn’t want to leave him out of this post. His ads have gotten a great facelift.
Tags: design, ideas, sustainability
Posted in advertising, eco-friendly, environment, sustainability
Posted by Eryn on November 13, 2008
This past Monday, the Sustainable Business Network of Washington hosted a lecture given by the founder of a new performance clothing company called Atayne. They are based here in the D.C. area and are giving their company a great foundation.
A sustainable business, Atayne is creating their sport tops out of…well, trash. They are sourcing recycled polyester (from plastic bottles) and activated carbon (from coconut shells) for the fabric to make their clothing. They also have a take-back program to recycle retired garments, and sponsor running events where they collect trash and recycleables (not necessarily for their garments!).
Some interesting tidbits we took away from the presentation:
- 25% of all chemicals are used by the textile industry.
- There is an 85% chance that a garment will end up in a landfill within 1 year.
- 80% of environmental impact comes from an item’s use.
- 50% of all clothing is polyester.
It was refreshing not only to listen to a company talk about starting up and the challenges they are facing to maintain their vision, but to learn about a performance apparel company that’s based in the D.C. area!
Tags: ideas, sustainability
Posted in apparel, corporate citizenship, eco-friendly, environment, manufacturing, outdoor, sustainability
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
