Posts tagged business process management
Flyer Design: For a Video Production Company: Phase Three
Jul 9th
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!
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Flyer Design: For a Video Production Company: Phase Two
Jun 29th
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.
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5 Easy Ways to Save Money on Business Overheads
May 26th
1. Recycle Paper
Yes, you heard right! You can recycle paper RIGHT there in your office.
It doesn’t matter whether it is your home office or a large corporate environment, there is always a way to reuse paper.
No, I am not suggesting that you load up all the shredded bits of paper and invest in paper presses for the basement (although there is a large market for fancy recycled paper – and you could probably EARN some money from doing that, and employ a few more people in the process), but I am talking about reusing accidental printouts, or achive stuff that can be ‘thrown out’ otherwise.
How many times haven’t you printed something out, only to discover that you either forgot to proof read properly, or run spell check, or it printed out only in 2 colors instead of 4 because some idiot did not replace the toner properly – anyway – instead of just throwing it away (and yes if I ever see you simply crumple that sucker up and toss it in the trash, I WILL be having words with you). You can easily take this paper and use the other side of it for the following:
- scrap paper for your desk (your choice whether you cut it down into neat squares or not)
- paper for making notes in meetings
- if you use a plain paper fax machine – you can load it so that the blank side receives the fax (although environmentally speaking you *should* be using an electronic fax solution)
- donate it to a playschool/nursery/pre-school or elementary school providing it does not have confidential or financial information on the back, because to a child a blank piece of paper is a WORLD of possibility
2. Insurance Is Mostly, Money for Nothing, Until you Need it.
Please do not go and get rid of your insurance just because I said that. You ALWAYS need insurance. However, in the current economic times (more so than ever before) we need to be saving our pennies. Make a note in your diary to phone around for a new insurance quote every month.
Insurance companies are keen to keep their clients, just as other insurance companies want to get as many new clients as possible. Most insurance companies will offer you some sort of no-claim bonus as well. However, I would rather pay less insurance to begin with, than rather hold out for 4 years for some bonus that may never arrive.
You can easily switch insurance companies and reduce your premiums as many times as you can get a reduction in tariff.
Please take note of:
- The fine print, make sure that they are not increasing your excess in order to reduce your monthly premium
- Make sure your coverage is the same as before, it is YOUR responsibility to check the fine print of the contract (no matter how boring and long winded it may seem) before accepting it.
3. Volume Licensing
This relates to software, and more for a corporate environment with more than one employee/computer.
If your company owns several computers, it may be possible to negotiate a volume licensing deal with whoever created the software you’re running (providing of course that the software you’re using requires a license to operate commercially).
4. Better Yet, Go Open Source
A prime example is to ditch Microsoft Office (I just heard a collective gasp from the corporate world in general), in favour of an Open Source product like Open Office or Neo Office. You will save THOUSANDS of dollars.
5. Even Better: Switch To Mac
It is a known fact.
Macs ARE better.
They cost less in the long run if you look at total cost of ownership, follow up training and software required to make it useable.
I still don’t understand why more companies aren’t making the switch. If I hear one more person say, Oh but Macs aren’t very good at running spreadsheets I may just have to slap them around the head.
Macs are better at everything since I last looked, and if you’re that much of a technophobe that you don’t want to switch because you’re afraid of learning a new operating system (you’re probably one of those people that still uses Internet Explorer ((shudder)), then buy a Mac. Because they can run Windows. Better than a PC.
Although be warned, a lot of PC users will try to tell you that “Macs are getting viruses now too” and then laugh in a stupid, neanderthal way, and you can laugh right back at them and say, “Yeah, that’s really only affecting the Macs that are running Windows.” I have yet to meet ONE SINGLE PERSON that has made the switch to Mac, and then run Windows on that Mac exclusively, because that would be like walking into a Michelin Starred restaurant and ordering a Big Mac and fries.
Plus, Macs are SO PRETTY!
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Design Work and New Directions
May 20th
As designers we love our work. It’s rare that we work on designs that we do not like, because we all have personal style, that is reflected in our work, regardless of what our clients want. The trick is to find that common ground with your client between what they think they want, what you know is best, and what works for them, and what looks best to you. Does that make sense to you?
Sometimes though we need to be able to drop what we’re doing, and go in a completely different direction if something is not working out right. I’m working on a particular project at the moment which is setting up a website (blog format) for a local printing company. The work has primarily consisted of optimizing an already established blog design, and tweaking it to meet the clients expectations.
The beauty of using the blog format is that we can upload and work on the content, and *then* tweak the design bits and pieces, without losing the content if we suddenly go off in a new direction. Which is what I found myself doing just yesterday. I’d been struggling with a blog header for this site for awhile, and getting it to fit properly, and get all the other elements to work together nicely. So I decided to take the plunge and stick in a fresh new template that I found whilst trawling the internet, and go for broke.
Sometime during the day after I installed the new template, and began to optimize it with customized headers and buttons etc, I got an email from the client, saying “I like what I see!”, so even though it was virtually a whole new look and feel, and it had been a leap of faith for me, it was clearly a step in the right direction, and ultimately a good decision.
Several emails followed with suggestions from the client, and I tweaked and made changes where they were requested, and it turned into a very productive afternoon. I worked from home, the client was at the office, and we had a perfectly do-able collaboration without so much as a phone call to one another.
So, lesson learned. If you hit a brick wall, with a design, take it as a sign to take the plunge let go of your initial work, and go in a totally new design direction, because the chances are that it will be a great decision and work out for the best.
Here is where the header from my last post (with the photo, and the mountain) has gone to. It’s totally different, but it works.
Now, one of the key design brief notes was that the business owners face had to be featured prominantly on the website. So when I went off in a new direction, I could not simply ignore that instruction, but I had to find a way to work around it. So I introduced a profile box on the right hand sidebar. Like so:
The reason for the prominence of the business owners profile is simply because she has been successful in the local printing industry for 20 years and her name is synonymous with integrity and great service in her business. To *not* have it there would have put the website at an immediate disadvantage, so it was imperative to make it a feature.
Beyond the clickable image, in otherwords linked to the profile box, is the story of how she originally came from Zimbabwe, (then known as Rhodesia), and grew her business from scratch, relying on sheer grit and determination to be successful.
I chose the textured paper look, and the ‘American Typewriter’ font type to give the profile box that retro printing look, a bit like an old newspaper. The story of her rise in business is actually taken from an article written about her a few years ago, so it all fits together beautifully.
Lower down the page, I’m using the ad-space slots provided in the template, for a completely different function entirely – to showcase the other members of her team.
This is one of the wonderful things about using the blog format for web design, because there are just SO many possibilities and opportunities to be creative!
Right enough talk, time for action, and it’s back to the grindstone!
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Know Your Strengths, Outsource Your Weaknesses
Feb 3rd
Knowing your strengths is a key to business success.
This does not however mean, that you should ignore your weaknesses and blunder forth.
Let me give you an example. I am a photographer, who dabbles in graphic design. If I have a client who suddenly comes to me waving big bucks and looking for swish flash animation, or video production, I must not be so blinded by the big bucks and say yes – and produce substandard stuff, given that I know that these are not my strengths, rather, instead of turning the client away, which would be down right stupid, I should outsource that work.
Your client need never know that you outsourced that work.
Afterall, when you go into a furniture store, do they tell you where exactly that sofa was made? Or that they had it made by a new supplier? Not generally. Unless it’s going to enhance your oppinion of it – and generally if you’re happy with your purchase, they’re far more likely to want to bask in the reflected glory of your happiness. Why should your line of business be any different? By outsourcing those things which are not your strengths you are:
- Retaining Business and making money which you would not have had.
- Improving on relations with other suppliers, who may in return send you business back that IS your strength.
- Maintaining your brands integrity, by not producing work, that you are aware is not the best for the client.
- Keeping your customer happy, since they came to you in the first place, and now you’ve delivered what they wanted.
One of the ways in knowing how to outsource is, quite frankly, keeping your eye on the ball. That is, the internet.
You need to keep abreast of as many new things out there as you can, in order to keep your business current. Believe it or not there are some shops out there, that *still* spend hours on the phone, ordering off manual stock lists, because they don’t believe in that ‘fax machine phenomenon’. Um, welcome to the 21st century!
How many companies out there need video conferencing, but think it’s a huge expense, and are not willing to look into it?
Are they even aware of something like web conferencing affiliate programs? The fact that they could join a service that would allow them to use a web based conferencing service, improving their productivity and efficiency (at a fraction of the cost of say setting up an in house system) AND produce returns by joining the affiliate programme?
Well, if they never bother to do the research, they’ll stay in the dark ages, which is frankly, not somewhere I’m willing to let my business be.
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Business Process Management
Sep 13th
Well that’s a very hoi polloi title for something that can actually be quite simple.
Business Process Management or bpm is often complicated to the point of ridiculousness. It is just about any technique that improves business. It is just about anything that contributes to a business process improvement, and can therefor mean any number of things.
One of the most awesome things about working for myself is that I don’t have to be confined to any one type of process, or methodology. Usually the reason why large corporates stumble and fall, and lose out to smaller competitors is because they become so bogged down in established methods and practices that they can go round and round in circles in those evil never ending spheres called ‘meetings’.
On the other hand, having an established practice and method can enable a business to maintain perhaps a larger area of business than if they were to apply no technique at all.
What am I saying here? Don’t be afraid to shake it up if you work for yourself. Try new things while using your established techniques on your core clients. But don’t be afraid to fix what ain’t broken, especially if you can make it better.
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