Microsoft Office is everywhere. There’s hardly a company, from enterprise to small business, that doesn’t use it to create letters, proposals, estimates, promotional emails, even flyers and (gasp!) ads for the Yellow Pages. The “desktop publishing revolution” was supposed to put great-looking documents within reach of Everyman and change the world, feed the poor, end […]
Some of my recent projects have run into what I call the “too many cooks” problem. Different parts of the client’s branding or collateral were done by different people at different times. The result is that none of the parts — website, identity items like logo and business cards, marketing emails, brochures — look like […]
We’ve all seen great ads that stuck in our minds because they had a touch (or a bagful) of humor in them. Who can forget the kid in the Darth Vader costume who “starts” his dad’s Passat using The Force?
Nike’s ad agency in Turkey came out with one of the most original and playful example of correct positioning I’ve seen lately. You know Nike — athletics, “Just Do It” and that iconic swoosh — even if you’ve never owned a pair of their athletic shoes. In this video, the agency combines a strong message […]
A client commented to me the other day, “I think I get some of your best work from you,” right after he’d commented that my “best” work was at the back of my portfolio. I was a bit taken aback; a design professional tends not to think in those terms. It got me thinking. What […]
I’ve mentioned Ultra Essence before. They were the subject of an earlier post because they provided a great example of how a correctly designed advertising display increases sales. The company has a new skin-care product for men, “Ultra Handy Man” or simply “Handy Man,” that gives me the chance to write about a simple case […]
I had a fascinating conversation recently with the renowned Danish photographer Thorsten Overgaard. Thorsten shoots almost exclusively with a Leica, the camera that arguably has more claim to the word “classic” than any other, and is one of the most brilliant documentary photographers in the world. Like many in the profession, he uses Adobe Photoshop […]
This is the story of a book. It starts in a waiting room, where the lady sitting next to me had a spiral bound book on her knee. It looked — it screamed — “home made.” It wasn’t something you’d want to try to read. I couldn’t let it go by without doing something to help, […]
Here’s a common scene that plays out between a designer and a client: Designer: “We can’t use that image in your [brochure/flier/magazine cover] because it’s too small.” Client: “But I got it from our website. It looks fine there, and it’s almost three inches square!” Designer: “Well, do you have the original photograph? I can […]
Ultra Essence is a national distributor of popular skin care products, sold primarily at shows, state fairs and similar venues, where people are looking for things they don’t normally find in stores. Their sales booth advertising was in need of a face lift, though, being just a bit too “down home” and not a good […]
