The Full Noise
Blenhiem Graphic Design and Website Designers
Karen recently designed this poster to promote a Charity Disco here in Blenheim, to benefit our Local Plunket (Facebook).
As Parents ourselves, we are huge fans of the advice and support Plunket provides to Parents. Particularly in the early, ‘wholly crap we have a baby, now what’ days.
With that said, we’re proud to present what will be a hilarious night of fun and dancing at Drylands Restaurant with DJ Glenn Kirby of Marlborough Light Entertainment.
Today I felt like a little online magazine research.
I was met with beautifully creative layouts and the option of flipping through the pages online or downloading (which was quick). What does this mean for the publishing industry as we know it? A slow and tragically unremarkable death as the masses all jump on the iPad bandwagon and plug themselves in?
Actually I hope not.
While browsing magazines online can make the pastime more accessible, for me, nothing can really beat the experience of turning the printed page. A print geek, I’ll admit, I love the smell, the paper (sorry trees) and the break from a computer screen.
That said… here’s one online magazine I rather liked. (PDF download)
Image by Fontshop
A Graphic Designer can take your business to the next level. Slick, well designed promotional materials speak volumes to your clients and prospects about your professionalism and quality of service (or products).
Your relationship with your graphic designer and the quality of your communications, can make all the difference to the final result.
Here are 7 tips to get the best possible work from your designer:
When you are paying for an advertisement in a newspaper or magazine, what is the goal of the ad? To sell something? To position your business in the market? The end design will have a different feel and calls to action depending on the goal.
If you don’t know the goal of a given promotion, STOP. Don’t bother asking your designer to come up with anything until you know what you want it for.
A design targeted at 18 year old mountain bikers is going to look different to one aimed at 40 year old mothers. That is pretty obvious, but important.
Are you wanting to inspire, educate or shock your audience? Great graphic design elicits an emotional reaction from the viewer, and different groups are going to react differently to colours and imagery.
The old cliche, ‘If everyone is an audience, then no-one is your audience’, holds true. You are better to be loved by some and hated by others rather than ignored by all.
Stop here for a minute. I don’t mean you should turn up with the design already done. But it can help a designer greatly to give some examples of work you like. Or even better, some of your current promotional materials as this helps with continuity within your brand.
“I’ll know it when I see it” doesn’t help.
There is nothing worse for a designer to work hard on some concepts and you all of a sudden realise that they are nothing like what you had in mind – tell them what you have in mind from the start and discuss it with your Graphic designer.
Do some research of design you like online (even from different industries). Ask yourself how adventurous are you willing to be to stand out from the crowd?
Each job will be different, but most will at least need these in some form or another.
It’s a great idea to keep all of your resources and marketing materials in one folder on your computer, so you always know where they are. Once you have an ongoing relationship with a designer, they will likely keep these on file as well, but it pays to keep your own copies, just in case.
Tomorrow is not reasonable.
Allow for time to review and critique the designers concepts as they supply them to you. Constructive feedback is critical to get the end result that you want.
With an important job such as a company logo, that will be the face of the company for potentially years in the future, allow time for discussion and back and forth changes.
If the design isn’t going in a direction you are happy with, let your designer know as early as possible. Throwing out a couple of hours work is a lot easier than an entire days effort. And cheaper, as the final cost is based on creative time spent.
If you don’t care about it, your designer can tell and you won’t get the best results.
It is hard to put in 100% effort for someone that isn’t going to appreciate it.
Sell your business to your designer, tell them where you are going and what you are going to acheive. Get them excited about your business and they’ll do their best to get you there.
Oh, and do all of the steps above…
What a Graphic Designer does… is make things look cool… but more than that, they aim to relate the work to the target audience through colour, images and text. They are trying to tell a story of your business or offer and entice the viewer to engage with it.
The more work you do with a designer, the better they will understand you, your business and your goals.
Do you have any burning questions about working with a Graphic Designer?
I had the privilege of being introduced to them as they were on the hunt for a Graphic Designer to improve on their previous wedding photography brochure.
This couple blew me away with their work. Still a young company, Khan Photography are steadily gaining a good reputation that is well deserved. Nazeef and Rachael carefully refine each image to achieve the best possible results for their clients. Their attention to detail in this way is what I think makes them so good at what they do.
Nazeef and Rachael were keen to see the size of the existing brochure and it’s content reduced, so to create an attractive DLE card to replace it, became the brief.
What we came up with was a clean and simple design, which showcased their stunning work. The change in direction was subtle enough to support their current branding but offered a smart, fresh and contemporary result.
If you or anyone you know is getting married soon, we would defineately recomend checking out more of Khan Photography’s beautiful images. You won’t be disappointed!
Design in print is one thing. But the design OF YOUR PRINT is another thing altogether. AND well worth taking a look at exploring.
Within the realms of paper finishes and print finishes there is a whole new element to design and the influence it can have over the completed job.
A designer can and should consider the end product when developing a concept. This means more than taking into account the most appropriate paper stock. It means thinking about how a myriad of other tricks and techniques (within the budget) can be used in tandem with the graphics to meet the brief.
Our son was given an organic cotton toy that was packaged in a special brown shoe box, printed in natural ink colours and die-cut at the side to expose the logo. Everything about the packaging screamed “natural!” to me and even though it had a matt finish and was predominately brown (think paper bag), the overall impression was one of absolute quality and that the product was worth treasuring.
A simple business card doesn’t have to be on clean white stock like everyone elses’ UNLESS this supports how your business is positioned. Sometimes a different finish, such as an emboss or metallic for example, can set your business apart from others as well as saying more about your brand.
