During a week of falling yellow leaves, this week’s palette recalls a day at the crag in early summer. Look at those bright green leaves!
Eryn climbing at a local spot.
Climb On
Posts Tagged ‘ideas’
Color Palette from the Shadows
This week’s color palette is inspired by a photo I took while taking an unexpected detour on Monday.
© Eryn Willard
I know that the weather was crisp and leaves were blowing around the street while I shot this. However, the resulting color palette is surprisingly refreshing.
Gated
“Dog Found” – A Simple Communication Tactic
Both the Studio 22 office and my home are in a small rural town in the hills of Central Maryland. Aside from our news channels, you’d never guess that we’re only an hour north of DC, and an hour west of Baltimore. Things move at a slower pace here – and that’s just how we like it.
One recent day while running errands, I passed a sign near the road. It was a small, hand written one on a stick that read: DOG FOUND. It had an arrow on it, pointing down a side road to a single house.
All the way back to the office, I smiled, reveling in the powerful simplicity of the communication. As a “professional communicator” my first reaction was: YEAH, AND? So often, we (and our clients) feel the need to include ever more details in advertisements or marketing pieces, fearing that the audience will lose interest or fail to get the facts. In reality, too many details can muddle the point and stifle the call to action. (You’ve heard us creative-types talk about needing more white space? This is really what we mean.)
So after I got over my initial reaction of wanting more details, I realized there were several reasons why this simple sign was an effective piece of advertising:
- It identified the target audience: 1 dog = 1 owner. The sign-maker knew that they didn’t have to provide more details about the found dog. The owner missing his dog would know where to go.
- Well-crafted visuals: The dog finders knew that people would be passing by this sign at 30 mph – not enough time to read and absorb more than a few words. They used their allotted space (8.5 x 11″) as effectively as possible with bold, black, capital letters.
- Strong call to action: The call to action on this piece was actually a symbol – the arrow pointing down the side road. (Side note: Symbols are powerful communication tools! Think hieroglyphics, road signs and…LOGOS.) The creator saved valuable real estate on the sign by using a single mark that says: THIS WAY, LONELY DOG OWNER. YOU CAN CLAIM YOUR PUP AT THE ONLY HOUSE ON THIS ROAD.
Similar to DOG FOUND, here's a sample I snapped in town that follows suit.
Next time you’re crafting a new communications piece for your brand, try applying the DOG FOUND tactic. It’s not necessary to give all of the information, all at once. The idea is to engage your target audience so that they want to seek out more details from you and learn about your brand. Be strategic as you begin building a relationship with them.
Creative Visualization and the Design Process
I’ve been re-reading a book by Shakti Gawain called Creative Visualization. It was written in 1978 and published under Bantam’s New Age umbrella. Contrary to what most might think of new age material, it’s not all woo-woo and fairy dust. The principles of the book are basic – just out of most peoples’ everyday frame of thinking. The purpose of Creative Visualization is “to make positive ideas and concepts a reality”.
When I first read this book several years ago, it was difficult for me to put some of the methods to practice, since I can’t sit still long enough to get into a meditative state. (Which is why I would visualize before falling asleep.) Gawain’s Creative Visualization suggests following four steps: 1) setting a goal; 2) creating a mental picture of it; 3) focusing on it often; and 4) giving the goal/idea positive energy. You’ve heard of the Law of Attraction, right?
When I started reading through the book again last week, it dawned on me that since my first experience with it, I’ve been unconsciously applying this method to my design process. Each one of the four basic steps correlates with creating a client piece. Let me explain:
- Set a Goal: Meet with the client to determine project parameters and specifics and establish the desired outcome for the piece, i.e. build brand awareness, increase web traffic, etc.
- Create a Mental Image: I begin brainstorming solutions and sketching pieces of the thoughts I’m having about the project. I imagine what the outcome will be – what size, color palette, and shape it may have; how the intended audience will react to it.
- Focus On It Often: Brainstorming can happen anywhere, any time – on a hike, eating dinner, even in the shower. I’m always percolating on solutions. Allowing ample time (usually a week or so) in the schedule for this process always yields the best results.
- Give It Positive Energy: Doing the front-end work of brainstorming, visualizing and contemplating builds a really great creative flow for me that allows me to charge ahead with executing designs in digital form. Finally giving the idea life is one of the best parts of my job.
This technique can be applied to any challenge, and it works. Can you apply Creative Visualization to a challenge you’re facing?
Mother Nature, Art Director
So, I missed out this weekend. My friend (and colleague) Ryan organized a short backpack trip along the Appalachian Trail and I didn’t go. And to rub it in, he sent me this photo from the camp site:
Photo courtesy Ryan Smith Photography
But instead of feeling down about missing out, I created this color palette instead. Called “Time to Camp” and based on the colors in the photo above, we’ll hopefully get to use it in an upcoming project soon.
Time to Camp
Design Thinking: Klymit’s Inertia X Frame
It hasn’t hit the streets yet, but come November, we’ll be looking to buy Klymit’s new Inertia X Frame camp pad. The company used body mapping to eliminate areas of a standard pad where the user’s body didn’t touch. Less material = less waste and a lighter load in your pack. We love the design thinking on this one!
Photo © Klymit
When Things Get Hectic
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!
4 Years Old and All Grown Up
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.
Visual Diversion
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.
The Color of 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.
Posts
- How To Help Reps Help You – Part 4
- How To Help Reps Help You – Part 3
- How to Help Reps Help You – Part 2
- How To Help Reps Help You – Part 1
- 2 Space-Saving Solutions that Support Your Brand at Retail
- 3 Ways to Get More Mileage from Your Trade Show Booth
- POP Signage with QR Codes & Mobile – Done Right
- Live Action Branding
- What’s Your Brand Archetype?
- Appealing to Emotion – A Winning Strategy
