By MacNessa, on January 14th, 2010%
I have heard that when you work for a large design agency or ad agency, that your role as a designer tends to be more clearly defined. They have copywriters and editors and a plethora of other job roles to cover an advertising concept, leaving the design part to you, as the graphic designer.
However, when you work for yourself you tend to be more open to taking on a much broader view, especially during the time when you are trying to win new clientele and taking on the smaller enterprise market. It can be quite a challenge stretching yourself to come up with the catchy headline, the witty tagline, when it’s a product that you are unfamiliar with.
Well then, just like Helen Hunt did as Darcy Maguire in “What Women Want” starring alongside Mel Gibson at the fictitious agency Sloane Curtis, when she handed her execs a bunch of products and told them to test them out in order to be able to better brainstorm ideas.
What if your client is a local spa, and they’ve retained you as their advertising designer of choice, and they come to you with their new offering, which involves a facial, a manicure and pedicure, followed by an earth shatteringly brilliant colon cleanse?
Then they invite you try the package in order to better understand and brainstorm their ad campaign.
What do you do?
By MacNessa, on August 2nd, 2009%
One of my favourite websites at the moment, is Smashing Magazine. They are part techie, part designer, and just about everything they talk about I find absolutely fascinating, and very inspirational.
Today they did a post about the Bauhaus school of thought.
It took me RIGHT back to high school art class when I first studied the movement.
I felt the rush of excitement and pure pleasure at seeing some of the designs in front of me again. The image is clickable if you’d like to go and read it for yourself. They also talk about Kandinsky, Klee and a few other painters you may be familiar with if you’re an arto like myself.
It was a great reminder to me to always look to the masters when needing inspiration, refreshment and motivation. One should always seek advice and guidance from ‘those in the know’.
If you want to buy a new car, consult an expert, watch Top Gear, read a motoring magazine. If you want to lose weight, see a doctor, read a fat burner review or take a pill.
Consult those in the know.
It’s a good lesson.
By MacNessa, on July 9th, 2009%
This Flyer Design project has certainly been very interesting, and has made me feel like I’m really continuously learning from the process. One can become set in ones ways and ones own tastes very quickly, and yet, it can be so liberating at the same time, with advertising design, to just LET GO and let the design take you where it wants to take you. You end up trying things you would have been hesitant try before, and then, better yet, end up really pleased with the results!
When designing flyers, you have to remember the purpose of the flyer and keep it central to your design process. It is after all advertising design, and it’s purpose is to increase the business of the person that you are designing the flyer for.
Here are the two most recent samples, that were shown to this client, I’ve since received feedback, and know where we will be going with the final piece, but since I don’t want anyone to miss out on ‘the graphic design process’, I’m going to show you all the pieces in order, until I finish the last one, and post it here in it’s complete form.
If you want to view this project from it’s outset, follow these links for Phase One, and Phase Two to view the flyers as they’ve gone through the process.
From here, we’ve taken a more direct view of the still images (from the clients portfolio of work) and put them into shiny metallic buttons. This is in keeping with the clients desire for a sleek/chrome and rich texture. It’s helped to unify the images as a whole, and yet, make them stand out at the same time.
This second version below, we removed the large call to action (call bejamin, matthew or thembisa) and played around with the font sizing slightly. Less being more in this case. We also added some more images from the clients portfolio in order to make a final selection for the final draft.
See below:
I’m due to send out one more proof on this, to the client, then I’m off to the shops to get a heart pendant necklace by the time I’m back later, it should be feedback time and the production of final draft. Designs for advertising and marketing purposes must ultimately lead to increased business for the client, so it has to be absolutely perfect, as with any other graphic design project. If it’s the first thing a potential new client sees, then it had better grab their attention, be clear about what the business offers, and have enough clear information to warrant futher investigation by the potential client.
I will be posting the final draft as soon as it has client approval, and then moving onto my next project which is a logo design for an equine shiatsu therapist – which is going to be super, super exciting!
By MacNessa, on June 29th, 2009%
This post is a direct follow up to this post about flyer design, so that you can follow the development of the flyers’ design as a work in progress.
Feedback from the original design was that the fonts were not working. The adjustments to the brief indicated that the preferred development style for the client should reflect a chrome/metal/sexy vibe against a backdrop of plush, gentlemans club type texture. For awhile I mulled over these two concepts, and wondered how to bring them together. It was hard to move past the immediate images that sprang to mind with the theme gentlmans club, and I had to try hard to clear my mind of all the cigar smoke, wood panelling and worn leather wingback chairs imagery that kept wafting to the forefront of my consciousness.
As is usally the case with my design style, I find it best to just jump right in and start designing, and then let the design take me where it wants to go.
I then save my images in various stages of completion, go back to an earlier saved version and then take the design in another direction. In this case, I repeated the action a second time, ending up with three samples to present to the client. This client is on the other side of the planet – so naturally the designs were sent by email.
Here are the three working samples currently:
I changed the background image texture, to this one, which was supplied by the client, and introduced a molten metal/chrome type globule at the top. The still images were removed from the original flyer sample in favour of this simplified version.
The second sample looked like so:
The metal globule from the above sample, was transformed into a frame, to neaten the overall look and feel. The logo and company name were placed top centre, to make it the focal point of the flyer, and coupled with the spotlight effect (black radial gradient applied to the background ‘red carpet’ texture added to the focal point.
The last sample was a departure from the above two (it’s usually good practice to just go with it, at least once, because you never know where you’re creativity will take you sometimes, and it’s often in a new, fresh direction which may or may not pay off).
Here I revisited the still image concept (taken from one of the clients corporate videos). Using the most captivating of the three images the client supplied, I echoed the blue orbs of the still, by introducing faded red bokeh type orbs over the texture, which iteself was played down by applying a black background, and lowering the opacity of the texture.
The red orbs are meant to recall the blurry look of lights in the distance. A pure chrome finish was applied to the contact details and as a frame backing to the still image.
Still awaiting client feedback on this one.
By MacNessa, on June 19th, 2009%
I have been working on an exciting project for a video production company. They’re an exciting up and coming (and in fact already award winning) company of young and excellent directors and producers who produce everything from corporate videos to music videos and short/full length motion pictures.
You can visit their website by clicking on the first draft of the marketing and promotional flyer that I’m designing for them below. They’re definitely a company to keep an eye on. I’m really enjoying the project too, as it’s developing my design style beyond the ordinary.
If you do visit their website, then please tell ‘em I sent ‘cha okay?
By MacNessa, on June 10th, 2009%
Another area in which one finds graphic design, is pharmaceuticals! It’s an area of advertising design (okay, theoretically it’s packaging design). It is an area of the market that I find absolutely fascinating. I mean, when it comes to paediatric medicines one has to be careful so as to make the packaging attractive, and child-related, without making it SO attractive to children that they are reaching for the medicines like candy.
Just this morning I was reading a liporexall review, and it occurred to me…with the plethora of diet pills available on the market today – if faced with a client looking to market their new diet product, how do we, as graphic designers make it memorable, attractive and eye-catching – and of course totally unique?
*That* is a good question to ponder, while I tackle the 24 simultaneous projects that I have going right now!
Man I love this business!
By MacNessa, on June 5th, 2009%
Until I started graphic design, I really did not understand the incredible scope and broad applications that graphic design touches.
It literally touches nearly every single part of our lives.
Not just advertising, and corporate ID which are the more mainstream, well known applications, but what about the exciting world of product packaging, or television, or well, don’t even get me started on the internet, it really is a world of opportunity!
Yesterday I opened a new bag of disposable diapers and upon seeing the Elmo and Sesame Street cast of characters as an update to the more regular Winnie The Pooh variety, it dawned on me just how big a field of application, the world of graphic design has.
You can work practically *anywhere* and in any industry. So there should always be jobs for graphic designers, and just about everywhere around the globe.
How exciting!
By MacNessa, on May 8th, 2009%
Yes, it’s all about the branding these days!
I saw two atrocious examples of branding today, while I was in the car, on the hour long school run in the morning. The first was sign writing on a car, which read, “Personal Branding Specialists” and the letters were all squonky (“Squonky” of course is a word specific to the graphic design world, meaning something akin to, say, Craptastic, or the opposite of ‘straight’), and the squonky lettering was followed by a random logo, which was completely indiscernable, and worse, repeated three times, in various hues. It was totally an advert, which said, Whatever you do, don’t waste your money on these people!
The second example of bad branding, was an banner advertisement, at a traffic light, for a printing shop. One of the first things on their poster that they were advertising, was banners. This may have been the worst banner I’ve seen in months. The text, logo, and image were *all* over the place, and then some random graphic, of a cat, with enlarged eyeballs bang in the middle of the banner.
What the *heck* for? What does the cat have to do with anything? It’s not even as though they were offering some kind of special, which would go a small way towards explaining the cats enlarged eyeballs. But nothing. Yikes. Remind me to not use their services. Ever.
So what do you do, when it comes to branding?
You use your brain.
You consult with a professional.
When you need graphic design, you hire a graphic designer, you don’t hire a plumber. Of course if you need a plumber, don’t go hiring a lawyer. Use-your-brain.
Here’s an example of super cute, and functional branding.
Yes I’m talking about custom tote bags! These should be on every corporate and small business shopping list. They can be used as give aways to clients, gifts for staff, but either way, *everybody* can use one. With the war on plastic shopping bags being won, and the environment standing to benefit from this everybody should be toting around their gear in these.
That makes good branding sense.
|
This Blog Gives Link Juice
|
