DESIGN INDUSTRY NEWS

I recently walked past a billboard sporting an advertisement for a law firm. It screamed: “2900 lawyers. 43 countries.” It then displayed the name of the firm.

All I could think of was: “Wow. Who cares?”

If I wanted personalised service, this definitely was not the firm for me. Admittedly, I’m probably not their target market. No doubt, their message is best suited to global clients who want access to their firm’s lawyers in Abu Dhabi, Bogota and Piraeus. Fair enough.

However, I see this mistake being made by small business owners, most of whom are not appealing to a global audience. For example, I recently heard a coach introduce herself at a networking event with: “I’m a life coach, and am part of a network of 1100 coaches around the world.” This proud statement was also prominently displayed on her business card and website.

Well, you know what? If I want a life coach, I probably want one that I’m going to build a relationship with. Life coaching is an intimate relationship where you talk about your personal goals, dreams and challenges. Chances are that I’m never going to want to speak to any of the other life coaches in this extensive network.

This life coach may have been better off stating something like: “I’m a life coach, and I help people who are in a rut to achieve their goals and feel happier about their lives.” If she has a niche market, she might even say: “I’m a life coach and I help mothers who are returning to work get the job they want without feeling guilty about leaving their family at home.”

Whether you are speaking to someone or writing material for your website or brochures, the key is to clearly understand who you want to appeal to. In fact, this is the step that most people leave out. But it’s a vital factor in ensuring that your communication is on target. So what should you do?

1. Clearly define your reader

You need to be clear on who your reader is. To do this, ask yourself who your target customer is. Please don’t say that you want to appeal to everyone and that you want everyone to buy your product/services. Taking the ‘spray and pray’ approach is nowhere near as effective as a ‘sniper’ strategy. If you identify your target, you’ll hit them.

Take the time to determine whether your target customer is male or female, their age, income level, interests, geographic location and any other kind of demographic data that can help you picture who they are.

2. Give your target customer a name

You read that correctly. Give your target customer a name and visualise who they are. When you are writing marketing material, picture that person and write directly to them.

If you have products/services that appeal to different demographic groups, that’s ok. Simply use different customer profiles.

For example, I run the Sydney Writers’ Centre in Milsons Point. When I’m writing marketing material for our magazine writing course, I’m writing to ‘Sarah’, who is 35. She’s likely to have experienced a professional career in the corporate world, either currently, or she may have recently taken some time out to have kids.

However, when I write marketing material for our seminar on how to write a business book, I’m picturing Michael, 45, an entrepreneur who is likely to be a consultant or speaker. He wants to write a book to showcase his expertise.

3. What do your customers really want?

You need to take the time to think about your customers’ hopes, fears, objections and goals – and write your material accordingly.

Often, we are too preoccupied with telling our customers about how fabulous our products/services are that we are not addressing what they really want to know. Imagine the main questions or concerns that your customers are likely to raise and address these issues in the material you are writing. Otherwise, your potential customer is left with unanswered questions, leaving them frustrated. Not only that, you then end up with time-consuming phone or email queries to answer.

4. Features versus benefits

I see so many websites that list the features of a product/service and not the benefits. This drives me nuts. Remember when iPods first came on to the scene? An MP3 player was a new concept to many people. But Apple nailed it by focusing on the benefits, not the features. It could have highlighted the specifications of the iPod like this: “128-Kbps AAC encoding; in 256-Kbps AAC format, song capacity is up to 10,000 songs; actual capacity varies by encoding method and bit rate.”

Such a simple message – but so powerful. Instead, it focused on the benefits to the consumer: “10,000 songs in your pocket”.

What can you do to create more powerful messages to your target customers?

Written by Valerie Khoo, Managing Director of the Sydney Writers’ Centre and Ambassador for the Best Australian Blog Awards.

WE SPECIALISE IN DESIGN, PRINT AND WEB SOLUTIONS. EMAIL US TODAY! WE CAN HELP YOU WITH THE RIGHT STRATEGY AND ACCESS TO THE RIGHT PROJECT TEAM

False economy is a silent killer!

In an attempt to keep costs down, many smaller business operators often scrimp on important assets. And a professional logo or “corporate ID” is a regular casualty of such frugality.

Unfortunately though, it’s also something of a false economy. Because your savings on scrimping on a professional logo are nothing compared to the business you are losing due to a poor professional image and the additional costs of having to re-print stationary or re-build a site because of the inferior image your business is suffering as compared to the competition.

Logos are yet another indicator of the professionalism of your business. And if the logo is either poorly executed or non-existent, it reduces your business to a “backyarder” or worse, amateur.

A critical weapon in your promotional armoury

Brand logos are to promotion what computers are to IT.  A fundamental that just can’t be taken for granted or overlooked.

In many ways, professional logos are more important to small businesses than their larger counterparts because smaller businesses aren’t as well known as their bigger brothers and sisters, so have to work harder to convince customers to do business with them.

And when it comes to your online presence, a good logo becomes even more important.

Good web designers look to logos to influence website colour schemes and other visual elements. This approach helps to give your website a distinctive, cohesive appearance and provides an immediate sense of knowing you have come to the right website.

Poor logo = poor website

On the other hand, poor or non existent logos fail to provide this crucial starting point for the web designer.  The result is a “generic” looking website that does nothing to enhance the image or credibility of your business – just when you need it most.

It’s not rocket science to understand that when it comes to choosing between two businesses similar in every other respect, it’s the one with the professional image, and in turn website, that will win the business.

It just imbibes a greater sense of professionalism and in turn trustworthiness – critical in the faceless digital world.

Follow the example of leaders

By way of illustration, have a look at the websites of major banks ANZ and Commonwealth Bank.

Both of these organisations understand the importance of brand recognition and presentation. Note how the colours and style of the logo tends to drive the look of the entire website. The entire presentation flows out of the corporate ID.

On the other hand, businesses with a poor quality logo will offer websites that look indistinct and unconvincing. I’m not going to single out these businesses but you will have come across them in your travels.

While smaller businesses clearly don’t have the kind of budgets large banks expend on their branding, the point remains: A professional logo, in the hands of a professional designer, will provide design cues from which to assemble a professional website design.

It’s a promotional asset well worth investing in.

WE SPECIALISE IN DESIGN, PRINT AND WEB SOLUTIONS. EMAIL US TODAY! WE CAN HELP YOU WITH THE RIGHT STRATEGY AND ACCESS TO THE RIGHT PROJECT TEAM

It’s all good and well to run at top speed in an ever increasing attempt at doing as much as possible for our clients but often what we don’t do is explain how we achieve certain effects that blur the line between hand made and digital.

The following tutorial describes how some of these effects are achieved. We are posting this so that clients can have a better understanding of the process involved in creating unique art and visuals that communicate your message with feeling.

Using Illustrator and Photoshop techniques to achieve painterly effects is quick and easy, but when you make textures out of real paint you can achieve an authentic look & feel that you just don’t get when you do everything digitally. And a benefit to working with real paint is the ‘happy accidents’ that show up along the way. Plus it’s fun to step away from the computer and get your hands dirty every now & then, right?

There’s probably a zillion ways to make your own textures. This tutorial will just show you one easy way, but don’t let that stop you from experimenting! Try out different paints, surfaces, and mediums. Find something that works for you. The possibilities are endless.

1. Plan it out

For this tutorial we’re going to be painting with black acrylic paint on masonite boards with an acrylic Gesso base. You’ll also want an assortment of brushes to achieve various effects in your painted textures.

It’s a huge help to plan out your textures beforehand. Are you going to make a series of background splats? Or a specific shape for a future illustration? Knowing what you need will take away some of the guesswork later, and you’ll make the most out of your efforts.

2. Make your base

Get some Gesso on your board. Use a brush and spread it around. Choose a brush that will allow you to achieve the sort of texture you want. Stiff and coarse brushes will give a deep scratchy texture effect, while smooth brushes lend themselves to slight and subtle texture. The shape of the liquid Gesso as it dries will determine the texture that shows through later, so get close and take a good look at the Gesso surface before you decide it’s ready to dry. You can even put more Gesso on after it’s dry, to achieve a multi-layered texture.

3. Paint it

For paint, we’re using black acrylic paint to achieve maximum contrast on our painting surface. When we scan the painting later we’ll want to have a clear distinction between the white of your board and the black of your painted objects.

There’s no rules to applying the paint. You can use various brushes and apply the paint either wet or dry. With your brushes you can splat and smudge it around, scrape and smear, anything that will get lots of texture to show through. But you can also apply the paint in other ways. Try using a sponge or piece of cardboard and see what sort of effects you can achieve. The only thing you need to keep in mind is that you want lots of high contrast texture around the edges of your shapes.

4. Scan your painting

When scanning, it’s a good idea to keep it in greyscale and adjust the brightness and contrast so that your whites are white, and your blacks are black. Later on you can adjust the levels to minimize the amount of grey on your canvas in Photoshop.

The resolution you scan at is important. When you trace your texture the scanned resolution will determine the amount of detail in your vector textures. Scans with very high resolution will have very high detail levels, which can be a bad thing in vectors because your textures may have lots of unnecessary points and shapes. Generally keeping your scanned objects at a resolution of about 2000x2000 should give you enough detail to achieve lots of texture while being efficient.

5. Trace your scan

Bring your scan into Illustrator, and pull up the Live Trace “Tracing Options” screen. From here you can adjust the “threshold” slider to decide how bold your textures will be. You should also keep the “Path Fitting” as low as possible, and keep your “Minimum Area” low as well. This will allow you to get lots of detail in your textured objects. Just watch the “Paths” info section and keep this number as low as possible, and adjust the options to make it look the way you want. I find that settings like the screenshot below are just perfect for a scan this size.

Once you’re happy with your settings, click “Trace”. Then “Expand” your traced object and group your new traced textures into individual objects.

6. Get to work!

That’s it! You’re now ready to start on some great illustrations using your new custom painted texture objects. You can combine textures to make new shapes. You can layer them to achieve deep and complex colour fields. You can even turn some of your scanned brush marks into custom brushes to use as you illustrate.

The danger here is to only do this process once, then rely on these same textures over and over again. It’s important to not overuse your new textures. Make the most out of them, then make some new ones. You’ll find that the more you do, the better they’ll look, and you’ll have new ideas after each batch. Keep things fresh for yourself and your art will follow suit.

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Your business brand is the story and image of your business – a story that consumers share and engage with. It is the personality, if you like, of you or your business and it distinguishes you and positions you in the market even though you may be offering similar products or services as others. A good example of this is the difference between Coca Cola and Pepsi. Each brand tells a different story and both have loyal customers based upon their experience with the products.

In the real world, as consumers we base our continued support of a product or service upon our experience. Branding in this sense is both rational and emotive. We will rationally determine the value of a product to us and connect with the story of the product emotionally. Nike very successfully tapped into the emotive response of those who wanted to succeed with ‘just do it’.

Branding online for new businesses is all about creating a profile for you and your business, which builds trust with a particular segment of the market. Becoming the trusted authority in your area of expertise then having your online following share information about you is the equivalent of real time word of mouth marketing.

To brand yourself here are some things to consider:

1. Be clear about your products and services and what you are offering.
2. Distinguish yourself from competitors by positioning yourself within your niche market and highlighting the strength of how you are different to competitors. This determines why people should purchase from you.
3. Develop your online communication via your website and social media sites to establish you as the trusted authority for your niche.
4. Ensure that the visual images you present to the world, complement the image you want to portray and will appeal to your market.
5. If you were establishing a business in the real world, you would choose a location most convenient for your target market. Do the same online. Find out where your niche market is online, and position yourself there with messages appropriate for that market.
6. Ensure your branding includes a logo which is present on all your online communications such as email.

As the battle for customers intensifies daily online, a strong brand is invaluable. Take the time to research, define, and build your brand as this is your promise to your customer. Your brand is a foundational piece in your marketing strategy and an essential part of your online profile.

WE SPECIALISE IN DESIGN, PRINT AND WEB SOLUTIONS. EMAIL US TODAY TO HELP YOU WITH THE RIGHT STRATEGY AND ACCESS TO THE RIGHT PROJECT TEAM

In doing some research on the future trends of e-commerce in Australia, it came as no surprise to learn that the use of e-commerce by businesses and, more recently, households is steadily on the rise.

Survey data from the Australian Digital Economy E-commerce Trends and Statistics Report* suggests that Australian households are increasingly engaging in online purchasing – both domestically and internationally – but still lag some way behind their US and UK counterparts. Some reports even say that Australia is teetering on the brink of an online shopping explosion.

So you need to ask yourself – as a business, how well are you placed to take advantage of it?

The online spend directed towards international purchases varied between 3%-50% of the total spend in 2010, with overall estimates of online spending by households at 3%. Meanwhile, in early 2011 about 25% of mobile users were shopping online, with eBay reporting that an item is bought from a mobile every 15 seconds. The online economy is booming for some online markets with revenues increasing by up to 40% during 2010.

There’s no doubt that businesses of all sizes can greatly benefit from revenue growth and productivity increases with an online presence, but there still seems to be a reluctance by the majority to fully embrace it. There is still a widespread lack of understanding of these benefits and concerns about the cost of set up and ongoing maintenance.

With the widespread use of social networking sites and consumers getting information, advice and recommendations through their networks, Australian consumers stand to gain great savings from online purchasing. It’s never been quicker or easier to search for product information and access a wider range of information, bigger product choices and lower prices.

Rapid growth will see barriers to online retailing (or “e-tailing”) diminish over time for many businesses and consumers. With an increasing number of businesses offering support to retailers to set up an online presence, it will soon become a no brainer.

Consumers are already enjoying mobile internet and making purchases on their Smartphones. Local retailers stand to gain increases in revenue with an online presence and will suffer if not able to meet the competition from offshore producers. There is therefore an important and continuing role to be played to support local businesses to adapt.

WE SPECIALISE IN DESIGN, PRINT AND WEB SOLUTIONS. EMAIL US TODAY TO HELP YOU WITH THE RIGHT STRATEGY AND ACCESS TO THE RIGHT PROJECT TEAM.