An Ink Spot of One’s Own
Written by Jacob Cass on Saturday, July 5, 2008 – 10:00 pm
In this guest article Kristine Sheehan* talks us through her experiences of setting up and running an online based business with some tips on the way.
Taking on an entrepreneurial spirit and making an online design business a reality is a challenge to say the least. With so many design professionals out there, competition is paramount. But once you choose to forge ahead and create an ‘ink spot’ of your own it is not as difficult as it first appears. Here are some tips that I learned while starting my business, ‘The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design’.
Get out there
Utilising the web was the first step at bringing my online business to fruition. Blogging, building a website, and most importantly, offering customised ink works was how I really got my business going.
Become an expert in the field
Read, read and read some more… keep up to date on what’s going on in the technical arena as well as industry trends. Socialise with other businesses and swap idea’s. Borrow and buy books. Attend local work shops and shows. Read Just Creative Design. 
Fly around the world wide web
Regular social networking is easy and fun to do. I fly into social networks such as Myspace, LinkedIn, Ryze, and other online venues to gain exposure for my business. It is here that networking with entrepreneurs and others got the word out about The Merry Bird.
Find your target market
Customers are everywhere, but the ones that are drawn to The Merry Bird are those that like something “real”, nostalgic or customised - ie. Mothers to be, Brides, and women between the ages of 25-50. Finding a target market is crucial to the success of your business and after you find out your target market you should find out their needs.
Ask for referrals…
Once business is in flight, I always ask my clients to give referrals. This definitely opens up opportunities to gain new clients and get more business.
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design has been an online business for two years and I can officially say I have an ink spot of my own! How about you?
*Kristine lives in Connecticut, married with two children and has Studied Art History, Studio Photography and Graphics in the late 80’s and early 90’s. She is bringing her studies of art back into her life full time with The Merry Bird, after it being on hold for a few years.
A Passion For Paper
Written by Jacob Cass on Thursday, July 3, 2008 – 10:00 pm
In this guest article, Alex Charchar from RetinArt discusses the benefits and his true passion of paper. It is a very well written article providing many reasons to make you stop and think next time you start a design. If you don’t have time now, print it out for the weekend or the ride home… I guarantee after reading this you will see a new light on paper and design.
The idea of paper facing it’s demise is one of the dumbest ever. As is the idea of digital ink being used as a substitute for the real thing and the magazine, novel and all other published matters becoming objects of the past, pushed aside to make room for their digital counter-parts.
Why? Because paper is perfect. Paper has a feel, a smell, a look and a vibe that cannot be reproduced, no matter how many pixels you cram into a display. It has attributes that cannot be bestowed upon any other medium. It is something that enriches our lives and minds in ways most of us don’t even realise or notice. Paper is beautiful.
Paper can be Warm & Soft
Paper can be warm. Paper can be cold. If the paper you choose is of good quality and you make it work for your project, it can help set a mood and feeling in your audience before a single word is read or a fraction of an image absorbed. A good example of a high quality publication using paper in a beautiful way is Dumbo Feather, Pass It On. If you have the chance to, it is well worth picking it up as it shows how warm paper can be. It is a beautiful little publication that has developed a loving following, which I’m sure is helped by the feel of the magazine as you make your way through the pages. The beauty of Dumbo Feather begins the second you hold it in your hands. The heavy, soft, recycled stock of the front cover makes you feel comfortable. It helps set the mood for the rest of the document—you just know that what you’re about to digest was crafted by love, with the audience firmly in mind. The stock that makes the pages is also a recycled one – a beautiful uncoated paper, with soy inks used to help round off the mood. It feels like a warm blanket for the stories it tells, like a gentle embrace. It just feels good, feel right.
Paper can be Cold & Sharp
Just as strong is the power paper can have when it’s cold and sharp. This is what should be avoided if you care about your content. Think of the trashy gossip mags the plague the shelves of newsagents and supermarkets. The cold, glossy, thin stock is like the popular group in high school. On the surface it’s awfully pretty and gets attention easily, but spend more than five minutes near this overly superficial gang and you want to blow your brains out. There is no substance to be found and you feel kind of dirty if you hang around it too much. There are of course beautiful glossy papers, mostly semi-gloss stocks with a slight weight to them. These feel like the kind of papers that are that soft mix of good looks and intelligence that are often used by publications, in which a high density and depth of colour is needed, such as art publications and, back to them, those gossip magazines that need to be saturated with colour in order to be noticed.
Paper Is Perfect
Paper is, above all, one of the closest-to-perfect surfaces on which to place your design. As graphic designers, we still look at the design of posters and magazines from 30, 40, 50 years ago in awe as their beauty and elegance bounce off the page. Paper is afforded this quality by not being a platform that is engaged in a constant evolution like that of computers, televisions and all other multimedia platforms. Of course, this is probably exactly why a lot of multimedia designers love their digital mediums – they can make things move and dance. Plus, there is always something new around the corner to wow us.
Digital Lack of Control
But for me, it’s the quietness of paper in its self that makes it special. It lets your words and your images live. It gives them a home, a couch upon which to sit, rather than a cage which is forever changing shape to be jailed within. A cage of glass, metal and plastic that it cannot escape. Digitally housed design is almost never going to work the same for the entire audience. Different monitors sizes, resolutions, internet connections, home-theater setups insure that the design process is a little more complicated when the whole audience is considered thoroughly. It is harder to give this entire audience the same experience—to view the content the same. Unless you’ve got the biggest screen in town, there is always someone experiencing what you are looking at better, which isn’t the way creative outputs should be experienced. It is the creator, the designer, who should be in control of how their work is seen, so the audience can give it it’s own life, instead of worrying about having the biggest monitor or loudest sound system. You shouldn’t have to do everything you can to squeeze the quality out of the work, especially with gadgets you have to fork out large sums of money for. With paper, we’re all on a level playing field.
The Difference of Paper
Print a magazine, it is always seen the same. Typeset a book, it’ll always be read the same. Read, study or flick through a publication in your favorite chair, on the toilet, on the train, at your desk, at the gym or at the library and, yup, you guessed it, it’ll be the same. This is an amazing insurance when you’re a designer. It means you know exactly how your work will be seen and you can control the way it is absorbed and processed by the audience to a much higher degree. Just because you can browse the internet on your iPhone doesn’t mean it’s going to be as enjoyable as reading the paper. Think about your audience and how they read. It is an awfully satisfying thing to crack the glue that binds a hardcover book or to crease the spine on a softcover novel. To get to the end of the newspaper and have it split by several cross-hatching folds. Paper remembers what it has been through, it leaves tracks that almost make you proud to see on your bookshelf, desk or bed-side table, rather than having hit up the same site on the 13th, 14th, 19th, 21st and 28th of March, as your internet history will tell you.
What you put on a page, stays on a page
An argument against our precious paper is that the elements that you put on a page, stay on a page. They don’t move, they don’t animate and they don’t make sounds—they aren’t interactive. Well yeah, of course that’s true. But most of the time, we turn off the audio and block the ads. And TV? The television does all our thinking for us. A good book that gets us to think is far more valuable to our minds than a box emitting light and sounds that tell us how to think, when to laugh, when to cry. Paper doesn’t need a source of power to do what it does. Once the pigments hit the fibers it is complete. Nothing more needs to be done. No power cables, no recharging, no monitors or keyboards. All you need is a little light and you got yourself all you need to enjoy your experience. And really, who says paper isn’t interactive? You pick it up, move it, fold it, smell it and, if something worth while is printed on it, it moves your mind around.
Remember
I do hope that you understand I’m being a little over the top here. Of course paper isn’t the be all and end all of delivering information and design. This is why radio, TV, the computer and the internet are what they are. They do things that could never be possible with paper. They give us continuously updated content at break-neck speeds, which is an even bigger step forward in our culture than that which Gutenberg gave us. But sometimes it’s nice to go a little slower. To spend a few hours here and there, enjoying the printed word over a couple of days, weeks or months. We can take our time with paper. If it’s on paper, it means someone thought it was worth designing, printing and shipping, which means it just might be worth looking at, might be worth spending a bit of time with. Not always, not even most of the time, but a nice portion of what is printed and designed with care, that ends up on paper, is something special in its own right. Remember that the next time you commit something to paper that it should be worth reading, worth taking note of and worth keeping. Otherwise you’re just creating more junk. Pick the right stock and don’t just use what your printer has in bulk. Pick something special. Something welcoming. Something perfect. Don’t cover it in inks, varnishes and cellos. Just pick a paper that already sings the tune you’re after and let those special inks be a rose in the pocket and nothing more.
How To Spot and Work with Graphic Engineers
Written by Jacob Cass on Sunday, June 29, 2008 – 10:00 pm
In this truly EXCELLENT guest article Prescott Perez-Fox* goes through the inner workings of the obsessive creative designer and shows how to effectively spot and get the most out of one. A extraordinary and must read article - trust me.
It is an unfortunate truth that in our society, engineers are underrated. Compared to the scientists, architects, and politicians they work with, the engineers remain relatively unknown and are just those behind-the-scenes ‘elves’ who hold the ship together.
Are engineers disrespected, under-appreciated, overworked? Is their role in society valued and rewarded? This debate is ancient, and it comes back into the light whenever something big goes terribly wrong. NASA scientists landed men on the moon, NASA engineers mixed up feet and meters resulting in the loss of an expensive satellite. You see my point.
What is A Graphic Engineer?
The design profession has it’s engineers too, and they are just as underrated as their sciencey counterparts. Their arena isn’t space tech or tall buildings, but rather packaging die lines and website code. I’m not talking solely about the production people, proofreaders, mechanical artists, programmers, etc., but rather those individuals who dedicate themselves to becoming Graphic Engineers. The Graphic Engineer (GE) is not identified by his job title or his skill with software, but rathey by his mindset, his personality, and his work habits. He is someone who views the world differently and approaches every problem from a slightly steeper angle of incident.
The GE is a valuable member of any successful design team, and a good engineer can make everyone’s job easier, but they’re not always easy to manage or to work with. Here’s how you might identify, and then accomodate your GE, to get the most out of him, and your team overall.
How to spot a Graphic Engineer
The Graphic Engineer:
Is obsessed with Details.
Not just the obligatory ‘detail-oriented’ that every job description in the world includes, these people go above and beyond what most folks would consider ‘a closer look’. Spotting a misused Em Dash from 30 meters is just the beginning. Editor: One of the 15 signs you’re a bad graphic designer.
Values the methodology, sometimes over the results or the time frame.
Embodying the philosophy that “anything worth doing is worth doing right,” the GE will go out of his way to ensure that any process is done to the letter, including documentation and feedback, which often go overlooked. He’s the one most likely to create immaculate CSS style sheets, even if it’s just for an internal login page. Table styles in InDesign, layer comps in Photoshop? Most likely put together by a GE. Best practices, after all.
Never accepts good enough.
Along with his obsessive nature, the GE has an overdeveloped sense of duty, and never leaves a job unfinished. For that matter, he re-defines the word ‘finished’, and will take those extra precautions to ensure quality. After all, it’s his butt on the line when something goes wrong. Just like NASA.
Lives in a world that always needs fixing.
Rather than simply striving to make the world more enjoyable or more beautiful, the GE strives to solve problems, correct errors, and iron out all manner of wrinkles in the day-to-day of our profession. It’s a very blue collar approach to graphics but show me where the leak is.
How to get the most from your Graphic Engineer
Now that you’ve identified your groups GE (raise your hand if it’s you! - Editor: You got me spot on!) , you have to understand a few things about how he works. Because GEs are unlike regular employees, a bit of tact is required to get the most out of your engineer.
Give him space.
This is both physical and metaphorical. Clearly, all GEs work better with a larger desk, larger monitor, more sunlight and square footage, and an ergonomic chair, but at the same time, I’ve never met a GE who worked better with bosses hovering and peering over his shoulder. In fact, that’s probably the easiest way to get shoddy work when you need it most. (Editor: Amen)
Ask his opinion.
Personalities aside, GEs always have opinions. And those opinions are often based on independent research, industry knowledge, trial-and-error, prior experience, and good old fashioned gut instincts. In other words, those opinions are valuable and ignoring them simply isn’t smart. GEs want to improve their general situation (they live to fix leaks, remember?), so their advice is usually constructive. Also, ignoring those opinions can lead to bitterness, depleted productivity, and the wording of those same precious opinions and ideas.
Let him rant.
Since engineers are often under tremendous pressure, they may need to let off some steam. (pardon the metaphors) So let them. Do whatever you can to get the most out of your GEs, even if that means shaking things up in your studio. Ranting often brings to light feelings and thoughts shared by many members of the team but why not let your hardest thinker explain why the current situation has gone pear-shaped.
Learn from him.
The engineer is naturally a teacher. By providing knowledge, he helps elevate everyone around him and thus feels less aliented. Also, this makes his job easier because the rest of the crew is meeting him half way (or at least part way). Considering GEs are often well versed on the latest trends, languages, software techniques, and professional happenings, you might actually learn something when he pulls out the “well, actually” during a meeting.
If you’ve never spared a thought for the Graphic Engineer, now’s the time. Next you need him to tidy up a messy style sheet, extend a poorly cropped photo, or a revive hand-me-down Mac, show a bit of appreciation and understanding. Graphic Engineers are the glue that hold together the gears of the creative industry. Imagine your life without them.
*Prescott Perez-Fox is a brand developer and designer in New York City. He blogs about design and branding at his site, Perez-Fox . He also happens to have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics with a concentration in Aerospace, but that’s hardly relevant.
The Innovative One Page Resume & Portfolio
Written by Jacob Cass on Thursday, June 19, 2008 – 10:00 pm
In this guest article Jacob Share* goes through an innovative new way to display your work and CV - all on one page.
Many companies and recruiters prefer the simplicity and speed of one page resumes. As a designer, how can you have maximum impact with only a single sheet of paper? The answer…
The one page printed résumé and portfolio.
The one page resume portfolio is a 6-panel pamphlet that shows your resume when folded and your design portfolio when unfolded. You can click on the image above to view it in full.
How does it work?
The above image is an example of the one page printed resume and portfolio from a French Graphic Designer. It shows 3 different views and below is a description. From left to right;
- Front view of the resume portfolio, slightly open.
You can see the designer’s logo and contact information. Notice the vertical bar on the right side of the inner panel, where the text reads “curriculum vitae” with a right arrow and “portfolio” with a left arrow pointing inside. - Partially-open view of the portfolio.
If you followed the left arrow and continued unfolding, this is what you’d see before you’re done. The panel with the arrow bar folds outwards, meaning that there’s actually more room for portfolio highlights inside. - Resume details.
Following the right arrow will have you flip over the pamphlet, leading to the actual resume content.
Is it right for you?
Cons
- Somewhat complicated design is time-consuming to update or customise
- Uneven folding looks sloppy if done incorrectly and ruins the impact
- Usually requires costly colour laser-printing on thick paper for full effect
Pros
- More space to communicate and brand yourself
- Very memorable, especially when done well
- Design pun: lets you describe your skills while demonstrating them
Best Practices
- Have a history of school, volunteering or work projects before you use this design. Substituting with content that isn’t yours but that you’re “capable of creating” defeats the purpose and looks amateurish.
- The one page resume portfolio works best live when people can hold it and unfold it, like in interviews or at professional gatherings.
- The front panel should contain your logo and contact information at a glance.
- The front panel should be particularly eye-catching to make people want to pick it up and open it.
- An attractive image that continues off one panel will encourage the reader to unfold until they can see the entire image. Above, the French designer used that effect to lure the reader to see both resume-related panels together.
- The 2 configurations that work best are the pictured 4:2 portfolio to resume panel ratio with arrow bar and the 3:3 “resume-outside portfolio-inside” ratio.
- Use the resume portfolio to complement your “full” design portfolio whether physical or digital. For the former, you might consider a sentence about what else not pictured is in your portfolio. For the latter, give all pertinent links.
Want more resume and portfolio tips?
- The Graphic Design Resume Guide
- How and Where To Get Paid Design Work For Students
- The One Page Graphic Design Portfolio Guide - Online
- Resume-Writing Dos and Don’ts
- The 7 Deadly Sins of Resume Design
- Design Resume Style Guide
Conclusion
Great design is the best combination of trade-offs for a certain context. If you use it wisely, the one page resume portfolio could be a valuable tool in your hunt for new design jobs. What are your thoughts?
*Jacob Share created the award-winning JobMob to rally job seekers and jobfinders in getting jobs in Israel and all over the world. The blog is filled with straight-talking real world advice, lots of humour and design inspiration such as 36 Beautiful Resume Ideas That Work. Subscribe for a week via RSS, it’s free.
Dudes and Dolls and Design Decisions
Written by Jacob Cass on Monday, June 16, 2008 – 10:00 pm
In this unusually quirky and informative guest article Kelly Erickson* goes through some tips and examples on how to design for men and women - showing how to win them over and get referrals at the same time. A really unique article that I would highly recommend to read. - Jacob Cass.d
The Sticky Realisation That We Are Not All the Same
“I am not young enough to know everything.”
—Oscar Wilde
When I was younger, I never wanted to believe in gender differences. Okay, beyond the obvious. To think that women can’t play pro ball, that men can’t enjoy an art gallery, that men can’t be good listeners, that women can’t learn where their carburetor is? No, I did not like that idea at all. I’m firmly in the post-feminist generation, believing that when we start treating our kids as plain “kids” from birth, these differences will recede.
It pains me deeply, but the older I get the more I realise there are some differences in how men and women fundamentally see the world.
As designers, we’re going to have to deal with these differences if we want to get the most business from our clients. Who doesn’t want that?
Designing for the Ladies:
Stories, Details, Design
1. Women want visuals that remind them of themselves, on their best day.
Women want visuals that remind them of themselves, on their best day whether its a house, a car, or a model. Accept us: We buy from people who know how we live. We don’t have time for aspiring to future perfection we can never reach.
2. Women want stories that draw them in.
For the ladies you are going to need more content in that website or ad you’re designing. Give us concrete details we can related to: When we see or hear about Suzie’s problem that your product or service solved, we look for connections to our own issues. Connect and you’ve got a customer.
3. Women want value now and over time.
You’ve heard it a million times: “I got it for half what so-and-so paid, and I’ve had it for three years now with no problems at all!” Now and over time. It’s a tall order, but you must offer an answer for now that is also going to hold up over time. It’s not just for a product, either. That website you’re working on—if women don’t see the value on the first page they hit, they’re gone. They’re not looking for some interior page that may reward them (see #1), because you didn’t meet the value-now threshold. If the value’s there, however, they may just read it all (see #2).
4. Women love to share with others.
Remember this: Word-of-mouth is for helping the friend we’re talking to, not the business we’re talking about. Get personal with us, and we’ll chat about you. Remember our kids, our dog, our favorite charity. If you really want our help spreading the word, give us little touches that are worth discussing, and make sure we know that your business (or your client’s) can solve our friend’s problems, too.
Designing for the Gentlemen:
Proof, Immediacy, Ambition
1. Men want visuals they can aspire to.
Why do think sex sells? The house they’re not in yet, the hobby or the vehicle they can’t afford, the model who’d never blink in their direction. Men are looking to the future, and in that future she’ll be winking his way. Show that you understand their unique ambitions. And that website? If they’re half-convinced and half-intrigued, men will click through, looking for the payoff. Appeal to their sense of adventure and exploration in real life and online.
2. Men want proof, pure and simple.
Detailed stories are going to be skimmed for evidence that the herd has been this way. If you can say that 100,000 people per year use your product or service, great. If 52 people a day give you a call, you might not mention that they don’t all end up buying. If numbers are not in your favor, then go for testimonials. Prove that others like what you’ve got, whether on a package design, an ad, a website, or a brochure.
3. Men make purchases now, for their now needs.
Itch=scratch. Sell to a man quickly, visually, with awesome benefits that provide the Ideal Solution. Don’t worry men about future value, which they are not thinking about at the time of their purchase. Men are just as busy as the ladies, and the future is just so… future.
4. Men love bragging.
Word-of-mouth is for discussing the elephant they bagged. Make yours remarkable, because men don’t give recommendations as easily as women. Here’s a secret: Get personal with men, too. They love being engaged, singled out, and surprised. Remember their family, their hometown team, or their hobby. Exceeding their expectations is part of what makes your elephant stand out from the others.
But I’m Designing for Everybody!
Okay, first of all, maybe you’re not. Take some time with this. Carefully imagine that one Ideal Customer. Flesh him or her out, and you may discover you should not be designing for both sexes, after all. Trying to please everybody is not always the best idea.
Well, lets’ say you’ve narrowed it down to young, hip graphic designers (for instance 
), and you aren’t going for a male or female audience. How do you keep everyone’s attention? Editor’s note: Write about all three?
1. Keep your visuals strong, positive, and make emotional connections.
Don’t go too over-the-top, you’re going to turn some people off. Keep the visuals clean. We are all easily distracted for our own reasons, and if your package or your page is too cluttered to read and make sense of, we’ll move on in a hurry. Focus the visual message.
2. Write the story in an active voice.
Describe the kinds of situations where the product or service is essential, and provide proof that other buyers agree. A well-chosen picture is worth a thousand words. Either the story or the proof may be more memorable in a photo.
3. We all want benefits.
From visuals to headlines to body copy, tell me what’s in it for me. Remember men and women want different benefits, so include appeals to both immediate and long-term needs. As the designer you may not be writing this copy but only arranging it. First, make sure the copy you’re given covers these needs. Then break things up: Use of subheads, bullet points, numbered lists, callouts, and bold type within the story. Maybe not all at once; that violates Everybody #1.
4. Call it sharing, call it bragging.
We all want to spread the word. Be remarkable. Be valuable. Demonstrate it in your graphic design. Exceed our expectations. When it comes to personal interactions, especially after the sale, delight us.
If this is work for a client, you may think that’s outside your field. Now is the time for you to exceed expectations—if you’ve thought of clever ways for your client to remain engaged with customers after your incredible work gets them the sale, talk about tie-ins with them. From thank-you notes to member websites to gifts for the wife of a top customer, if you’ve got an idea, share it. That idea may be where your next job comes from.
What are your thoughts after reading this article? Do you design differently when designing for men or women?
*About Kelly Erickson: Kelly is the owner of VisionPoints, The Experience Designers and she is “obsessed with your success.” You can read more writings about Experience Design at the Maximum Customer Experience Blog.
Subscribe by RSS
Subscribe