Reflections Printing

I recently spotted a billboard which has a message which encapsulates a great concept – (see, I have included a picture below.)  The idea is your printing, advertising, etc. really needs to work hard to amplify your success – that is it’s job. (Sometimes graphic designers forget this, it is easy as an artist to get caught up in creating “artsy stuff”.  That is all very well, but pretty pictures may not sell your product!)

A business owner won’t always hire the prettiest applicant for the job (tempting as it may be) he hires the one that is qualified to get the job done. It might be helpful to evaluate your marketing materials from time to time the same way you would your employees.  Ask yourself some of these questions:

1.  Is my employee past her prime? (Are my materials up to date and fresh looking, or do they look old fashioned and boring?)

2.  Is my employee trained to do their task most efficiently. (Do you have the right content presented in a way that is easy to absorb by your customer?)

3.  What is the history of this employee? (Have they been successful in the past, if not – why?, if so – why?)

4.  Does this employee present the image I want to project for my company? (See, looks do factor in here to some degree!)

5.  What kind of feedback have I received about this employee from my customers – how can he improve? (You may want to ask your clients directly for feedback  – what is memorable? what stands out? A fresh perspective can be very valuable, especially if it comes directly from your target market.)

Depending on how you have answered these questions you might have to “fire” your current printing/marketing/advertising materials if they are not performing to your expectations, or perhaps you only need to freshen them up and revise – just make sure they are pulling their weight and doing their job.

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Now let’s talk a little about contrast. Flyers, and posters are especially designed to catch your eye from a distance.  They are usually posted up in a window or on a bulletin board.  Someone is walking by, they glance at it for only a fraction of a second, if we have done our graphic design job well, what they see will interest them and then they will come for a closer look.  The more contrast you have between your text and graphics and your background, the better your chances of capturing their interest.

Your best contrast is going to be black on white or white on black, of course.  Let’s take another look at our “scary” poster.  I wanted the all text at the top to be readable from as far away as possible, so I made the very top text white, but I wanted the “Horrors” to be in red.  Instead of just using red by itself and losing some of my contrast, I put a white outline behind the red which makes it “pop,” or gives it extra contrast, (see the example below on the left.) Notice, I did not try to make the whole poster readable from a distance, I am putting my money on the word “Horrors” as a hook to pull someone over to find out more, that is where the emphasis is.  The rest of the text is smaller because I want “Horrors” to be like a magnet for the eye – I don’t want the rest of my text to compete with it.

A tip for photocopying – I see a fair amount of flyers which have been photocopied black on red paper.  While red is a good color to stand out, it doesn’t give you very good contrast with black.  Try using a bright pink or other lighter fluorescent color instead – that will work better.

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The next two things to think about as you design your flyer are simplicity and composition. If you don’t address these issues correctly you will lose your potential client’s interest immediately, or you will never get it in the first place.   Subconsciously people’s eyes avoid copy that is busy and/or overwhelming, they don’t even realize it they just block it out, and you’ve lost your chance before you even started.

Simplicity involves the “KISS” rule.  Keep It Simple Stupid, (which my good friend digitalmarketingdiva covered in her recent blog in regard to digital marketing here.)

Think carefully about what you need to say and trim your copy down to the bare essentials – you are not trying to tell your whole story here, you are just giving enough of the facts to get them to contact you or attend your event.  PLEASE, I BEG YOU, resist the idea to put in more than one piece of clip art or use more than two different fonts.  This is a common mistake inexperienced designers make.  It seems more “designerish” to use lots of different elements – don’t do it.  One large piece of art is much preferred over several small. I would generally avoid borders also, they tend to close things in and make them look cramped.  (Think of how you feel when you walk in a house with vaulted ceilings, as opposed to low ceilings, see?)

People read from top to bottom and left to right.  Decide what is most important and put that at the top and make it bigger.  Decide what is next important and put that next.  Then put your artwork in.  Whatever is left to say, try to make smaller and put it at the bottom.  This composition is just a general rule of thumb, and you can play around with variations.

Small print is okay, if you can capture their initial interest it is more likely people will become intrigued and will look for more information.  Usually you will put this at the bottom.  Here (left) is a good example of a great simple poster.  It is eye catching and has some white space (breathing room).  On the right is a good example of a bad example.  Too busy, too many pictures, too many fonts, and poor composition.

Which one catches your eye?

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If you really want a great flyer of course you should hire a professional (that would be me!) but you can create great designs on your own if you follow a few simple guidelines which I would be delighted to share with you.  This will be outlined in several posts as there are several points to remember when you are designing a flyer or poster.  (The difference between what we are calling a flyer versus a poster is size, flyers tend to be 8.5″ x 11″ posters are larger.)

The first thing I consider when designing a poster for my client is who is my client trying to attract?  Who is their target market?  I ask them and listen carefully to their response.  A great example is the Halloween flyer for a haunted house featured in my last post.  This client already had some artwork , which she shared with me and it was very nicely done (see example) but, who goes to haunted houses…?  Teenagers that’s who.  Teenagers want to be really SCARED, so to get their attention and entice them to come to the haunted house, the artwork chosen needed to be scary.

So, I went to istockphoto.com (a great resource for stock photos) and typed in “scary.”  Instantly a variety of images came up for me to choose from.  I wanted something eye-catching and horror based, but not bloody or in poor taste.  Several pages in I found the pictured artwork – aha perfect!  This photo is scary, but probably wouldn’t put off other potential customers who aren’t teenagers (like adults, or younger kids) because even though we are aiming at teenagers, we also want as broad appeal as possible.

Next I chose a nice bold Halloween font (see more about that in my last post).  I decided I wanted to emphasize the word “horror” so I made that word larger and red (I also stretched the font and made it longer which is one of my favorite tricks for emphasis.)

Here we have a sample of progress so far, what do you think?  Will this poster do it’s job?

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Do you love fonts?  I do. I really, really do.  I have hundreds, maybe thousands to choose from in my font file.  There are lots of wonderfully creative free fonts available on the internet.  I was searching today for a font to use in a poster I was designing for a haunted house.  I can across some great ones that I thought I would share with you.  The first is called “Zombie” it can be downloaded free here. The finished poster shown here was designed with the Zombie font. (www.dafont.com)

Another one is called “Monster Party” it can be downloaded free here. This font is not letters per se – it consists of black line art of various monsters, mostly from the movies – like Jack Nicholas from “The Shining”.  The picture here shows a few.  These would be perfect to use if you need to design an inexpensive Halloween flyer, because this kind of artwork is excellent for photocopying.

And last,  www.sinisterfonts.com has some really fantastic scary and gothic fonts, in fact, the whole page is a little scary!  You can get some free horror style wallpaper here too if you want to customize your computer screen for Halloween.

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Have you ever heard the expression “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, its a duck?”

It has taken me longer in my life to learn that lesson that it probably should have.  That applies to my business life as well.  It is very important to listen closely when your intuition tells you something.

Recently, I had a client for printing and graphic design, that I just had a bad feeling about.  However, I talked myself out of doing anything about it, after all, it was just a “feeling” and, I told myself, maybe he is just not my kind of person, doesn’t mean he isn’t a good person, just not my style.  Which is not all that bad of a rationalization really, because I don’t think you should base you actions ONLY on intuition – just listen carefully and act accordingly.  What I should have done was taken some reasonable steps to protect myself – which I could have done.  Instead I talked myself out of doing anything, because deep down, I really want to believe that everybody is nice, keeps their promises, pays their bills and if I treat them with integrity, they in turn will treat me the same way.

Alas, I have found to my very great disappointment that this is not true.  This particular lesson cost me $1600 and a lot of frustration – ouch!  I will be more careful in the future.

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Why don’t they make more movies like this?  There was no car chase, no removal of heads or other body parts with accompanying copious blood flow, no evil plot to destroy the world (Well, I do have to admit a couple of lobsters did meet their maker).  I absolutely loved it.

Why?  Okay.  First of all, I love butter, I mean, I really really do.  Both heroines of this movie love butter.  That is almost enough reason alone for me to love this movie – but there’s more.  This movie is about two women who had a dream, set a goal, and followed through despite difficulties, set-backs and naysayers.  They each also had people – actually these people were MEN (can you believe that!), actually these people were their husbands (seriously!) who supported them, encouraged them, and rejoiced with them as they each reached their goal and found even more success than their wildest dreams.

I left this based on true events movie feeling not only entertained, but uplifted. I just wish there were more movies available to see like this. Okay, it was kinda a chick flick but I have seen enough car chases to last me 10 lifetimes.

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(The title of this entry comes from the unforgettable 1984 movie “Ghostbusters,” which maybe a few of you out there are old enough – like me – to remember.)

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of being present at an event which was the culmination of several years of very hard work and dedication; the ceremonial ribbon cutting of the brand new facility in Ivins, Utah, The Ivins Animal Shelter. This effort was the brainchild of two beloved clients and friends of mine, Linda Elwell and Lesley Mendenhall, who dreamed one day in 2004 of a “No Kill” shelter in Southern Utah, rolled up their sleeves, and got to work and a kill shelter became a “No Kill” shelter where animals began being saved and placed in loving homes or placed in facilities which best handled their special needs. The building they had for the shelter itself, however, was old and inadequate to meet the burgeoning needs of the homeless, frightened, sick or injured pets which desperately needed a safe haven.

Linda Elwell, is a tiny woman with an enormous heart for not only homeless pets, but also for her family, sick or crisis stricken neighbors, and seemingly anyone who crosses her path that needs a helping hand. I have had the opportunity to see first hand the much dedication Linda brings to each project as she has graciously chosen to include me in many of them over the past several years as their printer and graphic artist. I first met Linda in 2002 when I worked with her on designing invitations and an auction book for a fund raiser for a young mother with cancer. Over the past several years I have worked with her in a similar capacity on flood relief efforts, honoring returning veterans and their families, honoring particular individuals who have served outstandingly in the Ivins community, and fund raising for a teenager stricken with cancer, just to name a few, but, The Friends of Ivins Animal Shelter, has always been Linda’s “pet” project. (Pun absolutely intended!) I was involved from close to the beginning, with my first project being designing a logo for the shelter, then over time, brochures, invitations, posters, etc. Consequently, I have seen the countless hours Linda has dedicated to fund raising for the shelter, lobbying at council meetings, organizing volunteers and networking with other animal rescue groups.

On July 24th, 2009 through Linda’s efforts, and many, many other volunteers and donors too numerous to mention here, the dream of a brand new building equipped with everything needed to best accommodate the needs of homeless pets officially became a reality. The Friends of Ivins Animal Shelter is a wonderful example of what vision, dedication and community effort can produce. It has been an absolute inspiration to me to see it unfold over time, with as it’s crowning touch, this wonderful new facility staffed with committed volunteers who will make a tremendous difference in the health, safety, and quality of life in the animals entrusted to their care.

If you are interested in volunteering or making a donation to the Friends of Ivins Animal Shelter, please click here for more information:

http://tinyurl.com/friendsofivins

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