The process of selecting a web design agency can be difficult. An abundance of companies, technologies, and processes make the selection process challenging and confusing. And with your website often being the first point of contact your audience has with your organization, it’s important that that your website opens the right doors for you. Here are some tips for identifying an …
time, quality, money A time-honored project management principle is that you can pick only two of the above for any project. Whether this idea is true or not, the concept of framing your next web project as a balancing act can help you save time and money. Here are some simple strategies for creating websites on a …
First do no harm! A rebranding process is an opportunity to rethink and realign your organization’s core marketing and communications. It brings assumptions and challenges into the forefront and opens the door to planning ahead. Yet, a rebranding is not always beneficial and may create more problems than it solves. Here are some guidelines that you can use for thinking …
how web design and messaging can strengthen your brand The most valuable piece of property in the world is the seven square inches your prospective client sees when pulling up your website for the first time. This small parcel of real estate has the critical job of connecting with your audience, either by communicating information …
If you use WordPress or another content management system, you already have the ability to provide new and prospective clients with documents through your website. This capability opens up doors for new ways of interacting with people and can help your audience use your site to solve problems and strengthen their connection with your brand. …
Families of logos and icons are powerful ways of connecting with clients and customers. Where a single logo communicates a single thing, a family of logos talks about similarities, differences, relationships, and choices. Families are about marketing systems and they can benefit your organization’s branding strategy. Visually, a family of icons has one shared element …
We learn the importance of saying thanks at an early age. “Thank you” communicates appreciation, gratitude, and respect. It’s a message that never gets old. Strangely, many businesses and organizations forget about saying thank you or say it in such a perfunctory way that it seems more like an automatic response than a meaningful expression. We believe relationships …
We recently completed this Poster design for KulshanCLT’s Annual Community Party. KulshanCLT wanted to hold their annual event this year in a location that most people could bike or walk to. When the Boundary Bay Brewery location was chosen, we decided to incorporate beer and biking into the design in a playful way.
With so much marketing taking place through a multitude of different mediums and applications, the tendency is for messages to become ever more fragmented — and more easily forgotten. start with a vision Don’t think of standards and consistency until you have clear vision about why you are important to your audience and are able to distill …
“Just to make this stand out” is to design what “Trust me. This is going to work” is to buddy movies. Both phrases tend to lead to fiascoes of one kind or another. Making things stand out – i.e. making things clash with their surroundings – can be a crucial part of design, but too …
Most things are more complicated than they need to be. Navigation is no exception. You can fairly easily see what links people use on your website using traffic evaluation tools such as Google Analytics. More importantly, these tools can show you which links people don’t visit. This can help you make informed decisions about revising …
Research plays a crucial part in creating good design, and so a designer’s life is essentially a never ending series of opportunities to learn. The best designers are really the best at learning. That’s what I like to say as I help myself to a generous handful of research. My third. “That’s Callebaut, 54%,” Kevin …
For over a year now, our company has been working with RE Sources for Sustainable Communities and Climate Solutions to create messaging and graphics about the coal train issue. An overview of the issue can be found here. It has been a challenging project. Challenging in the sheer complexity of the issue: the impacts of …
I thought The Devil Wears Prada had a wonderful insight into the culture of design and the mindset of designers. You may be able to tell at a glance that I am somewhat of a stranger to fashion, but there was much of this movie I could relate to – none more so than the …
The public feud between Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood is an object lesson in successful strategic thinking. It’s also a sign of what is to come in terms of captivating and motivating an audience. For those of you who haven’t followed the controversy, Komen recently announced they would (in effect) not …
Event graphics and messaging are great opportunities for organizations to capture interest by exploring different ideas and flavors in their communication. Shew Design takes a branded approach to event graphics, creating a few simple elements that can be easily repeated in any number of other materials. We think of this as our toolkit, with the …
Hidden messages, conveyed through optical illusions, puns, subliminal messages, riddles, and in jokes, have always played a unique role in visual communications. They raise questions that are fun to ask, but often impossible to answer. More than anything, they appeal to a childlike delight we all share in finding in things ‘hidden in plain sight.’ I’ve read that …
The Power Past Coal website was conceived to be a media hub around the coal train issue impacting the Pacific Northwest. For the unfamiliar: the issue is about a coal terminal proposed to be built at Cherry Point in Whatcom County. If built, this would create an enormous influx of trains carrying coal – and with …
speak friend and enter A fundamental principle about marketing communication relates to making it easy for the audience to understand what you’re trying to say. A message that requires serious thought is almost certainly going to be upstaged by less demanding messages. Yet, as I see marketing as the strategic breaking of rules, I can …
Thinking about where I invest my time and energy, I look at other artists and see what I can learn from the decisions they’ve made. Without a doubt, the best creative people I know are people who have made a life choice of doggedly exploring new ways of working and thinking about their craft – whatever …
