One is the over use of italics. Italic type is the words you should see emphasized as this. Can you see the difference? When italics are used on a word it makes the word stand . . . → Read More: Graphic Peeves]]> There are some things that are done in the name of Graphic Design that should never see the light of day.

One is the over use of italics. Italic type is the words you should see emphasized as this. Can you see the difference? When italics are used on a word it makes the word stand out from the rest of the sentence. If I write . . . I went to the store . . . it has a certain flatness to it. But if I write . . . I went to the store . . . the emphasis is on the word went, as opposed to I ran to the store or I came back from the store.

And if I write . . . I went to the store . . . the italicized type gives the emphasis to the word store, as opposed to I went to the market or the zoo or to class.

Italics can be used as captions to pictures or photos. This sets them aside from the rest of copy on, say, a book or magazine or catalog page.

And Italics used in all capital letters is just ugly and difficult to read.

That leads me to . . . script and/or type that looks hand written. There are many lovely and graceful script fonts available these days. So many have lovely flourishes and what are called Gylphs. These are alternate letters that can be substituted for some letters in SOME fonts. Graphic Designers (like me) love to use some of these fonts but they need to be used correctly. In fact, I use Zapfino with glyphs for my own logo.

There are two signs I have seen lately. One is for a contractor who had done some lovely concrete stamping on a new walkway installed in front of an adorable house near where I live. He placed a sign near the street to advertise that his company had done this very nice work. However, I still do not know the name of this contractor in spite of the fact that I have driven by this sign seven or eight times to date. Because you cannot read the name. It is done in a heavy script with equally heavy outlines. Plural. Outlines. In similar colors to the font. A grey font with a blue outline with another blue outline . . . in a script that may be difficult to read if it were simply done.

What a waste. Who could read it if it is on a piece of paper or a website? Standing still! But when an automobile is going by at 30 miles an hour with traffic . . . it is not clear. I repeat, what a waste.

The second is on my own church’s new sign which graces the front of the church property. It is a beautifully designed sign with rich greens and golds. But when approached from the north you can barely see it. The trees overhead create such a shadow that it is totally unreadable. At night it is somewhat better because it is lit by electric lights. At the bottom of the sign is a phrase that is very memorable. It reads “Visitors Expected”. That inviting phrase is wasted for two reasons. One is that it is in a script that has the letters too close together and too slanted. You cannot read it as you drive by and any visitor would never know that they are “expected”. Plus there is not enough contrast between the text and the background. The black against white we used to have on the previous sign was readable. This gold against green has not enough contrast to support that decorative font.

When I lived on Cape Cod there was a mailbox that I passed when I drove down Route 6A, one of this country’s most beautiful roadways. I still do not know the name of the people that live there because their name was written in all capital letters in a very ornate script. Which can you read better?

Another spot on The Cape is near where Route 28 goes over the Bass River Bridge from Yarmouth into Dennis. While the natives read it all the time, I have seen numerous tourists miss that sign only to have to go over the bridge and turn around. Why? Because it “directs” them to To The Beaches. But it is spelled thusly . . .  

If they put the narrow sign in the same spot with the words set like this . . .

the tourists would see it before going through the intersection and make it to the beach with no problem. Stacking letters is done often and can work if the word is short like STOP or GAS or EATS. Anything over five letters should be rethought so the mind can interpret what is being spelled faster. And not just for readability but for pure aesthetics!

Looking at the examples here, you can see the readability of the ones on the left. Not all that much readability on the right due to two things; the length of the words AND the chosen font.

Well, that’s my soapbox for today.

Later, Dudes (as my son Patrick used to say).

I asked each member of the group to pick one out of two or three choices I gave each. For instance, I asked our real estate member to chose . . . → Read More: From Little Acorns Great Ideas Can Flow]]> My Ten Minute presentation for my BNI group was this week. This was the most difficult one I have done. And I have nobody to blame but myself.

I asked each member of the group to pick one out of two or three choices I gave each. For instance, I asked our real estate member to chose between Doors or Windows. The member who creates window designs for homes was asked to choose between hanging from the top or coming up from the bottom. The insurance broker was asked to choose between playing it safe and taking a risk.

There are 24 members in my group right now and we all do different things. I thought it might be interesting to ask each to give me a category that somewhat pertained to their field of expertise. Am I insane?

With all the suggestions I got the following categories:
The number 3
Colors; Lime Green, Periwinkle Blue and Kelly Green
Budget
Plaid
Country
Wood
Hang from the top
Cluttered
Savory
Windows
Open
Feathered
In Line
Planned
New and
Take a Risk.

Wow. I certainly did ask for it, didn’t I? BUT I came up with a design of a poster. 18″ X 34″, it is divided in thirds and has the three colors (2 greens and a blue) as well as a plaid over those colors that is in greens, blues and yellow.

Then I chose the concept of TREES since that went with the country choice and the wood choice.

Hanging from the top of this poster is the word TREES in a bold serif font in purple. There is a green script font of the same word super-imposed over the bold purple text.

At the base of this poster is a weathered piece of wood paneling with some blue paint peeling off of it.

Then I found some clip art (I’m on a Budget here) which I tweaked and colored in the three main colors. Then I decided to pull out a characteristic of each tree; pine cone and needles for the Pine tree, acorns for the Oak and leaves for the Aspen.

Next to the pine cone is a pink teapot. This symbolizes the Pine Needle Tea that I researched. It is savory not sweet.

Then a bit of text with a lovely poem by Ralph Waldon Emerson (about pine trees, of course).

Next came the graphic of a window with a bit of verse from Thomas Carlyle about the mighty oak and acorns. And that window opens and a bunch of acorns come falling from the tree.

Then a box with a photo of an Aspen leaf gets landed on by the Twitter Bird (remember, I am still on a budget). But that bird is feathered, right?

Then an image of a torn sheet from a well used notebook has a poem on it by Hunter Thompson. The Poster is almost complete. But I needed to add in something to show the “Taking a Risk” aspect.

In the upper left hand corner is a large quote stating the entire theme of this endeavor . . . “Do not be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.”

That pretty much sums up the entire reason for this exercise. I wanted to show how a designer can take very divergent instructions, ideas, concepts, input . . . whatever . . . and make it into something interesting that can communicate, that has a concept and that is colorful and fun.

I hope I did that.

I am working on so many different things right now. I have a publication for Cape Cod Community College that needs to be done by the first week . . . → Read More: Apologies all around]]> I am sorry for not posting more often to this blog. I love to write and get feedback. But too many times work and life get in the way.

I am working on so many different things right now. I have a publication for Cape Cod Community College that needs to be done by the first week of August.

The Healthy Living Magazine fall edition is on course. I design and art direct this publication almost entirely by myself. Candidta Mamet, the publisher and editor, is great to work with and has more energy than the Energizer Bunny.

I just finished up a series of oversize postcards for Kurt Dwyer Painting in Quincy, MA. That was fun because they like color and fun concepts and quality. (Right down my alley!)

I am in the process of designing a brochure/folder for Angel Hagerty of In/Design. She is a wonderful interior designer based in Marshfield, MA. Creating for another creative person is both fun and intimidating. But I know she will like my ideas.

Plus, I am in the process of redesigning my own logo and website.

So that’s why I have neglected my blogging for a while. I promise to do better at it and as some of these projects progress, I will tell all.

It also gave me the freedom to choose my . . . → Read More: Where would I be if I hadn’t decided to freelance?]]> Years ago I decided I wanted the freedom of working for myself. For one thing, I had started teaching at a local art school and I really enjoyed the interaction with the students, the spark that it gave my own work and the whole atmosphere of a college.

It also gave me the freedom to choose my own clients. At one point, when I was working for a very large direct mail agency, I had been given an account that was very prestigious. It was not simply a local or even regional account. It wasn’t even simply a national account. Instead, it was international. But the company we were doing the work for was in a legal battle over something that had been done in (and to) a third world country. I had to sit back and think about whether or not I was willing to do work for a cooperation that acted in ways that were in conflict with what I, myself, believed.

I had made up my mind to speak with my creative director and tell him that I wished to be taken off the account. This could have meant any of a number of things. I could have been given another account. They could have told me to work on it or else. Or I could have been fired.

The last one made me stop . . . but only for a moment. I went in to speak with the CD and he told me it was taken out of my hands. The client had decided to settle their lawsuit with whomever it was that was taking them to court because of the issue I was concerned about. So I needn’t have worried so much about it. But it did bring me to a revelation about myself.

When I decided to become a freelancer, that account from years before came to mind. I wanted to be able to do work for companies and corporations that I respected. Ones that had a conscience and were a fair dealers in the world of commerce. To date, I have been successful in doing just that.

I have had the privilege of working for corporations, nonprofit agencies and small to mid sized companies that are fair to employees, respect our environment and lend a helping hand to the less fortunate among us. What else could a graphic designer wish for? Money goes a long way but not nearly as long a way as integrity.

It seems that one of my colleagues was complaining to our printer that his logo he had gotten from HP looked vastly different when printed on press . . . → Read More: What does PMS mean?]]> I was at a Christmas party this week and some of us started talking shop. (I know, shouldn’t do that in a social setting. But these were all business colleagues.)

It seems that one of my colleagues was complaining to our printer that his logo he had gotten from HP looked vastly different when printed on press from what he saw on screen and was able to see when printed from his desktop printer, which was an HP by the way.

A two color job has to be printed in mixed inks, like ones from Pantone or Toyo. The ink manufacturer or the printers themselves actually mix varying colors to achieve one that matches what the client wants. This is why designers and printers use PMS. It stands for (no, not pre-menstrual syndrome) Pantone Matching System. The key word here is “matching”. The Pantone system is the one used the most in the US.

When I, as a designer, tell the printer I want to use GREEN #385, I know that the green I am going to see is warm and not too blue. Or if I ask for PMS #299 it will be a true blue, not a green or purple blue. Because they have had the color mixed to MATCH the color I want. It’s consistent and it works.

Each time I want something printed it will be THAT true blue because I specify that number which is a match to what I did before. And I know I cannot get that with a desktop printer . . . only when it goes on press. I have learned, when speaking to clients, to specifically say Press vs. Printer so they do not get confused thinking I mean their desktop printer.

It is a restriction that exists and designers and printers need to work with it, not simply around it.

Please understand that this is for two, sometimes three, color printing. The process is quite different when printing in Full Color. That is really a misnomer since it is not full color . . . it just looks like it. Someone way back in time came up with a unique way to fool the eye into thinking it is seeing full color by simply making dots for yellow, blue, red and black. The term CMYK comes from that. C=Cyan, a rather bright blue green or turquoise. M= magenta, a bright cool red similar to a hot pink. Y=yellow. And the K=black. (Don’t ask me why. I said, don’t ask me!)

When you see a printed page that has a lovely full color photo or artwork, you aren’t really seeing full color. You are seeing all those dots I just mentioned. Really good commercial printers can manipulate the dots so that an image has a bluish cast or is far warmer than the original piece of art. But . . . I digress.

Printing is a very cool media. It will be here for a while but many people  are using electronic devices now that have no need for printing. I will address that in another post.

I sent out a professionally designed direct mail piece that . . . → Read More: Varying Kinds of Clients]]> When I first started freelancing I already had over fifteen years of experience working in the field of Graphic Design. I had worked for ad agencies and design studios throughout the Boston area. So I felt confident in being able to go it on my own.

I sent out a professionally designed direct mail piece that had my business card inserted into the piece. In all my enthusiasm I sent out about 100 of these mailers.

Dumb move! I probably wasted about 90 of them. After doing all that research to make up my list of targeted companies, I forgot that now it was just ME. No support people. No production professionals with flying fingers and the know-how to track a piece. I was used to sending out thousands of pieces at a time. One hundred shouldn’t be a problem. Except that I was the one that had to follow up. I hadn’t the time, energy or experience to do more than ten at a time.

Now, I was fortunate in that I received responses from three companies (after I called them and asked if they received my material, of course) to come in and speak with them about work. I don’t know how many of you know but a 2% response is incredible in the direct response business. This meant that I had a 3% response! Sheer luck, believe me.

One of my first clients was a manufacturing company that made film and chemicals for reproduction of printed items. I did all manner of collateral materials for them. Brochures. Posters. Direct mail pieces, large and small. Booklets. And what they were used to doing; product sheets.

I can still remember the time that I suggested they think outside the box with regards to these product sheets.

They had been creating (I use the term loosely) one product sheet per piece of equipment. These sheets looked nothing alike. You would never even have guessed that they were from the same company.

Each piece of equipment had been highlighted and photographed in much the same manner as the rest. But they were varying sizes. The smaller one was basically used on top of a desk or table. Another had an optional stand so it could be placed next to a desk or table. And yet another was large enough to require it’s own room. But when the photos had been taken they stood all by themselves and unless you carefully read the product sheet you would never realize that they were really different.

I suggested we redo the photography. We had the machinery in an “environment” . . . to give scale and a certain amount of ambiance. I hired models to stand next to or act like they were actually working the machines.

We had models hands using the control panels (again, scale and the human factor). Showing how easy it was to replace something. Illustrating the ease of operation.

Now the reader could see, in connection with a man or woman of average height and weight, the size of each individual piece of equipment.

This seems like a no-brainer to many of us but when a company is doing marketing pieces on their own, they just want to get it done. That is not the best way but it may be the easiest. However, it is definitely not the most effective.

Quality photos matter (not ones taken with a cell phone). Correct colors matter (not baby blues and pinks where a rich blue or maroon might give a feeling of strength).
Readability of the chosen font for text is important. How often have you seen a piece or an ad where the font is wild and funky but you cannot read it? Or it is in such a light color gray and so small that it is wasted . . . again, because it is unreadable.

That brings me to knowing who your audience is. I made the mistake once of doing an ad for a bank where they wanted to remind older adults to save in one of their special programs. The copy writer on that account was and older gentleman and he called me into his office one day. “Please,” he begged me, “would you not use Avant Garde type for these ads?” “Hmmph”, I thought, “who is he to tell me how to design?”

Well, what he was commenting on was this particular font has very sharp points on the As, Vs, Ws and so on. As an older adult he had trouble seeing those points. Plus the Os and small As were very round and they tended to crash into the other letters too much and made the words seem to vibrate. To make matters worse I had designed this ad to have a black background with white type. Oh, it looked really cool. But the target market would not be able to read it clearly and therefor our client’s money would have been wasted. Another lesson learned.

Well, I do go on, don’t I? I will try again to regale you with my past exploits. See ya!

But I soon learned that direct response advertising was one of the most respected areas of advertising. A company spends a lot of money doing advertising. In . . . → Read More: Growing in the business!]]> As I grew in my business I went to work for a direct marketing agency. I was leery of going to work for an agency that did (shhh) junk mail.

But I soon learned that direct response advertising was one of the most respected areas of advertising. A company spends a lot of money doing advertising. In general ads, they place an ad in a publication or on radio or tv shows and then have to wait for a long time before they find out if the ad did any good with regards to response. And sometimes they never find out. That’s because there is no way to track that what people saw and listened to was the direct result to their buying or using a service. Are you seeing a correlation here?

With Direct Response Advertising, be it print (newspapers, magazines) or broadcast (radio and TV) or direct mail or email, there is definitely a way to track if one medium is working better than another.

Many advertisers will opt for a piece that has a coupon on it so when a prospective client sends in the coupon they can tell exactly where it came from (think; codes). They can tell “directly” whether the ads worked better or the mail piece. That’s where the phrase Direct Response comes from, not from the fact that an advertiser sends it directly to someone. It makes not a hill of beans if the piece is sent OUT . . . only is it is responded TO.

So what does a Graphic Designer do for direct response? It is the duty of the designer to work with the text, often created by a writer who specializes in direct response writing, and make it look fresh, original, enticing, funny, fun, lively and/or dramatic. A good concept works far better than simply a pretty piece.

What’s a concept?

Say a company is trying to sell telephone services to customers throughout a certain region. The client wants the consumer to buy three way calling, call forwarding, you know . . . the gamut of services.

One could make a direct response piece that states these items in a column of text and give descriptions of what each service does. It would be informative . . . but boring.

That same information could tell a story. Perhaps it could focus on a family that needs help in communicating via phone. Mom and dad work long hours and need to reach their kids via cell phone with either calls or text messages.

But Granny O’Neil, who lives in the next county, needs to be checked on now and again. She isn’t comfortable using a cell phone. The buttons are too small for her to see clearly and she has trouble holding the small device against her ear. A traditional phone works better for her. But Mom wants the kids to be able to speak with their grandmother. Mom’s at work. The daughter is at an after school event. With three way calling they can all three speak at the same time.

Now, again, this is a nice story but how does a designer use their expertise artistically to enhance something and make it attractive? Start with the idea of the “family” and do some creative thinking about how that family would look.

Can you make them into cartoons? How about some illustrations that are computer drawn? Or create a photo shoot with a real family or with actors/models. There are agencies out there that provide actors as models. It’s great because you can explain to them what the type of person is they will be portraying and they get “into character” immediately. There are even some agencies that deal with semi-pro models; people like retirees, young moms or college students that need to make some extra money.

Then there is a color scheme. Do you want it to look relaxing? Blues. Soft greens. How about energizing? Then pick contrasts like deep blue and bright red. Or yellow with purple. Black and white, with a good amount of it being the black.

A “color scheme” does not necessarily mean that only those colors chosen are used. But they are predominant in any piece.

If you know that the piece you are being asked to design is only the first of many to come, you can actually pre-pick color schemes so that when the next job comes around for you to design, you already have colors that go together. Rarely is a client ready to give you all information for a series of designs right from the start.

But they may wish to have each piece, be they brochures, web pages, packaging, or even stationery packages be a suite of publications. This means that they want each individual piece in a marketing effort to look like they belong together. So when coming up with design ideas, try to have the concepts be flexible enough to accommodate color variances, images that will be treated artistically in similar ways and type choices that can stand the test of time.

Don’t have the time, energy or wherewithal to do all that?

Hire a professional designer. It’s what we do all the time and we are good at it.