Everything Ink Graphic Design

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - Graphic Designers are from....

2009-07-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

I would like to tell you a story. It is going to be roughly 800 pixels long, 250 pixels wide. The color palette of this story is going to consist of colors from within the Trumatch and Pantone books. We will start with a typeface that will grab your attention, but will not be so far away from the brand that you have already built that it will intimidate your target market. Once we are done here you will end up with an Encapsulated Post Script, Portable Network Graphic and Graphics Interchange Format for utilization in print and web collateral.

Not really, but now you see how some Graphic Artists will speak with their clients. I recently wrote an article on the importance of having a graphic designer create business cards for your company rather than trying to produce them at home. In one of the responses that I received to that article it was suggested that I write an article on how to communicate to your graphic artist so that they know what you're looking for and you get what you want.
I am now starting to understand why there seems to be such a great rush to get away from utilizing these professionals, such as myself, to assist you with your companies branding (really just a fancy way of saying logo with an icon or special font and colors that can be utilized in other materials for your company), business cards, brochures, website and the list goes on and on and on...

The best place for me to start is the same place that you should - The beginning. Let's face it if your company is suffering from an identity crisis you need to fix a couple things before contacting a graphic artist. Yes we are the creative ones, yes we do run on caffeine and nicotine and most of us perform our best work while the rest of the world is ridding the bottoms of their eyes of those nasty bags and dark circles, but we can only perform miracles every 3rd harvest moon.

Some of us may seem psychic, but we are just intuitive

Prior to contacting a graphic designer get yourself a pen and paper and start by writing down some ideas of your own. Write out everything that you feel you are going to need. This can (and should) start with a logo, and no I don't mean that web graphic that you downloaded 3 years ago that looks like 2 Nike® swishes intersecting each other that is why you are here reading this...now when I snap my fingers you are going to call a graphic designer...*snap* - thought it was a worth shot. But seriously write down everything. It's never too late to have a professional logo and business collateral created. If you look at some of the big players in the business world a refresh or rebrand can be a good thing. Companies like Fido, Jack in the Box, Apple, Nokia - the Sci Fi network went so far as to rename and rebrand themselves as Syfy. It's kind of like Botox for your business. Now you have your list of things that you need to have designed we're going to get your preferences.

If you want the Emerald Palace start with the yellow brick road
Now that you know what you are going to get designed start thinking about the specifics. What colors do you want? What colors do you NOT want? Do you know of any designs that could be helpful as inspiration ( I said inspiration, you should not get an exact copy, nor should any designer be willing to directly copy any existing work, inspiration and copyright law are two separate things) This can be useful in assisting you with what you want and what you don't want. A professional designer will always give you their opinion. What works and what doesn't work. If you own a company that creates and distributes baby clothes then fire-engine red may not be the best choice of colors for you. On the other hand if you are the distributor of high performance auto parts you should stay away from leafy greens and baby blues. Does that make sense? Don't leave any aspect of the design open to interpretation. We are the professionals and will let you know if what you want to see is not going to work. As the business owner you need to know what you want - as the graphic artist I need to inform you about what works and what doesn't.

If the fine print is too small turn on the screen magnifier

The more research that I performed on this subject to find out what information graphic artists are looking for the more I was amazed at the fine-print I was finding. -Price includes 1 revision - Price does not include ownership of final files - Price will be dependent on amount of time input - Are you kidding me. Can you imagine going to buy a car and the salesperson tells you that the car you just bought only comes with steel rims but no tires? Or even worse you can take the car home, but we still own the rights to the car and might need to use it on long weekends or holidays?!? Yeah?! Right? Get all the details. I know numerous graphic artists that do not charge for revisions, supply numerous different file types at the end of the project and sign over all ownership to the buyer once the job is done.

This article gives you a great foundation to start the communication with a Graphic Artist. I am going to continue on with this subject in more detail in upcoming articles. If you have a suggestion or question about this or another topic relating to graphic design please contact me I would be more than happy to assist you bridge the gap between you and your graphic designer.

Perforated Edges on Business Cards

2009-06-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

Alright, let's discuss business cards. You know that little piece of your business that gets shoved into pockets, left on dashboards, used to pick teeth after a meal (okay so that last one is a little bit gross...but come on I know you've all seen it done.)

This 3.5" X 2" piece of cardstock can be the life line of your business or the downfall of the image that you are trying to portray if not done correctly. I want you to go and get one of your business cards...go! Right now. I'll wait.

Okay, you've got one? Good. (for those of you that didn't go get one, shame on you for making the rest of us wait.) I want you to look at the card. There are two things that I want you to look for:

- perforations around the edges.

-streaks in the ink from the inkjet printer that you used for printing your own cards.

-a logo or graphic on the card that was either downloaded off the internet, created using an online or software based logo creator or free graphics

You don't see any of these things? Great. You get an A+ and can quit reading now. (unless of course you really want to see where I am going with this or just like the way that things are going here and can't wait to see what happens next. If you are the latter, you really should go to a book store and buy a good novel, this is a blog and I'm really not that enjoying to read am I?)

Sorry. Okay for those of you that saw one or two or even....HOLY HELL - ALL THREE!!! - you need to pay attention to what I am going to say next.

Throw out all of the cards that you made with your inkjet printer, get rid of all the blanks that you still have that you purchased at that big box retailer and get in touch with a graphic designer. You can do it. You owe it to your business and to the professional image that you want to give to those that might be interested in you and your business.

I can tell you from experience when I first started in the business world that home made cards will not gain you clients. You could just grab a felt pen and a bar napkin, jot down your name, phone number, web address and draw a little smiley face with your company name beside it ... this would be as effective as the business card you hold in your hands right now.

Trust me, make the investment in your company. Get a graphic designer to create a card and a logo for you. It really doesn't need to cost you thousands of dollars. You can find great local designers, if you take the time to look, that will charge from $50.00 to $100.00 to design a professional looking business card and $250.00 - $300.00 for a logo that can be then printed at a professional print shop and will make you look just as big and important as the big dogs out there - you know that Bill Gates doesn't have his cards printed at home, even though I'm sure that he could.

A couple of examples of cards that I designed for my clients ($50.00 for full color single sided and $75.00 for full color double sided, $300.00 for the logos)

If you enjoyed this post .... just wait until the next one.

I am going to strive to write entertaining and informative information to assist small business owners understand that they don't have to spend thousands of dollars to have their business look as professional as a large company with millions of dollars in advertising budgets.

Welcome to my new blog home

2009-06-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

The first post to the new blog. Welcome to my new home. I was on wordpress but feel that this new home is going to be much better.

I will be posting information on Graphic Design topics here.

I am a graphic designer located in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. I work within the realms of web, print and apparel design.