Pygmalion Studios

Perception is Everything

2006-11-28T02:21:18Z

The truism of "perception is reality" is well known in retail sales. It means that whatever the customer perceives is more important than what is objective fact. Your retail associate may only be trying to conform to a new company policy, but if a customer perceives that his or her business is unwanted, you will lose sales. Disorderly shelves and cramped aisles can have the same negative impact as a grumpy salesperson. The same can be said for your printed materials or company website; if you are perceived as being thrown together on a shoestring, homemade or hard to use, then that is reality, despite the objective facts of the situation.

]]> You only get one chance to make a first impression, and customers are surprisingly astute when judging you. Inexpensive color printers and amateur-level design programs have not eased the burden of making a good first-impression; on the contrary, they have raised the bar. If a customer's first thought when seeing your collateral is "I could have done this at home," you probably have not made a good first impression. Sure, there is a certain segment of the population that needs your product or service and doesn't care what the brochure looks like. You'll always have a certain number of baseline customers, but you can sell only so much product or services to them, and then you've got to win new customers.

Twenty years or more ago, when a businessperson needed printed materials, he or she had to, as a matter of course, work with a printer and/or a graphic designer. Most routine business work was handled by printers, since it fell into what is called production work (see here for more information about what production work means). The fact that the work was done by a printer did not mean that it automatically gave a good first impression, but it significantly increased the odds.

Consider a tri-fold brochure, a fairly typical piece of business printing. When a lot of people create one on their home computer, the resulting front panel often ends up with color on the left side and bands of white on top, right and bottom. Working on the computer, the limitations of the printing process are not visible, and people often run everything together, putting important elements on fold lines, creating uneven margins and off-balance work. Now consider the same brochure done by a printer. The printer must also fold the brochure and is responsible for the appearance of the finished piece. So you can be fairly sure that the brochure the printer creates will have even margins, no important items hanging across the fold lines, and even if poorly-designed, will still be correct in its techniques. This will create a better impression.

Now consider the same project as approached by a graphic designer. The focus will no longer be on the piece, but on the problem. You will approach the designer with a problem (“I need new customers“ or “I have a new product that I need to tell my current customers about”) and the designer will present a solution. When you go to a printer or sit down at the computer to create a tri-fold brochure, you will get a tri-fold brochure. When you go to a graphic designer, he or she may recommend that a postcard or a newspaper advertisement is a better solution for your problem. No matter what, your final piece will be professional looking. It will (if it ends up being a tri-fold brochure) have even margins and clean fold lines and a well-balanced design. What’s more, the designer should be able to tell you why each element is there and what business impact the design will bring to your business. This design will create the best first impression.

Now, let’s be honest. Not every project will require the attention of a graphic designer. The sign advising employees to keep the fridge in the breakroom clean can be done at home. Regular business materials (once your logo and stationary are designed) can be created at the printer’s. It is the customer-facing materials that drive your business and create sales opportunities that will benefit the most from the touch of a graphic designer and it is where you will most easily be able to see a return on your investment. Your customers will perceive that they are treated as the most important part of your business, and perception and objective fact will agree.

The Design Process

2006-07-07T03:52:39Z

At Pygmalion Studios I have implemented a design process dedicated to generating the best results for my clients. This design process is broken down into five distinct phases: research, concept, execution, publishing, and analysis. Step 1: Research

During this phase I look into your business or industry, research historical solutions, and look for ways to cross-pollinate ideas to create effective results.

Your Business
I will start off every project with a standard questionnaire and I will interview you (over the phone, by email or in person) to determine your goals for the design, to check your satisfaction with previous work that you’ve had done, and to learn what worked, what didn’t and why.
Your Industry
Your business does not exist in a vacuum. I will learn about your competitors, your vendors, and your suppliers and distributors so we know where your company is in the big picture. I will find out about industry trends and market positioning and work to learn (or define) your brand and its position in the marketplace.
Historical Solutions
There’s no need to recreate the wheel, or even re-advertise it, especially if your competitor did just last year. I will look into what has worked in the past and why it succeeded.
Cross Pollination
An award winning ad for a house for sale inspires a brochure for a work-study program; an optical illusion poster provides a concept for a direct mail postcard. Ideas don’t always come in a box labeled ‘perfect for your industry,’ so I will look in unlikely places to create a striking and effective design for you.

Step 2: Concept

After doing all that research, I’m going to have lots of ideas for your solution. Not all of them are going to work: some may be too expensive for your budget; others may be great ideas that just don’t fit into your current need; still others may have the core of a great idea, but I have to figure out how to transform that idea into something your customers will see and understand. To do this, I will go through three subphases in concepting: thumbnails, roughs, and comps.

Thumbnails
This is the stage where I get all the ideas floating around in my head out into a form that I can look at and explore. For every idea that makes it to the next stage, I will probably produce 20-30 of these sketches to get there.
Roughs
Depending on your budget, this may be your first chance to see what I’ve been thinking about (the earlier you become involved in the project, the less finalized the ideas will be and the more work will be needed to produce a final piece, so on a tight budget it may be best to wait). Now I will start thinking about type, color, size, and production requirements. These pieces are larger and more refined, but they are still very rough sketches of the ideas.
Comps
Depending on your budget, I go through the prior steps intent on creating one to three final ideas to present to you (if you’re on a limited budget I will limit myself on the previous steps, avoiding esoteric ideas that may lead to more unique solutions). I will present these comprehensive drafts of the final ideas to you. Note that these are still ideas and not final pieces, so artwork and type may be mocked up instead of being in finalized form.

Step 3: Execution

Another article in this series, A Wrench is Not a Hammer, covers this phase in more detail. During this phase, I will use industry standard programs to turn our idea into a final piece ready for publication. Artwork and type are finalized during this time, so I will need final versions of any copy (text) and artwork that you’ll be providing at this time. I will secure licenses for any type and stock photography or illustrations during this phase, and we’ll commission any new artwork or photography needed.

Step 4: Publication

Once I have the final piece and everyone has had a chance to approve it, it will be time for publication. For websites, this may be a simple process of uploading the final files to the website and making everything available to your customers, or it may involve interaction with back-end programmers to implement all your needs. For print work, I will send final files to the printer (depending on your needs, this can be a printer of your choice or one that I work with on a regular basis) and, if needed, consult with the printer and do press checks.

Step 5: Analysis

A lot of designers believe that their job ends at Step 4 (some aren’t even interested in working directly with the publishers of their design work), but I believe that effective design requires measuring success. I will touch base with you after the design has made its way to your customers and work with you to determine if the design met its goals. I will use these rubrics to learn how to make our next project together even more effective.

]]>

A Wrench is Not a Hammer

2006-06-03T02:01:47Z

The general purpose of these articles is to define and educate buyers of graphic design services. This particular article strays from that stated purpose, so some readers may wish to skim the technical discussions which form the focus of the first part of the article, and skip to the “Why Does It Matter to Me?” section that discusses the ramifications of designers knowing the tools they are using.

In your local hardware store, there is a section devoted to tools, and in that section is a subsection devoted to hammers. ]]>
Just as different tools are designed for different tasks, graphic designers must choose the best tools to accomplish their goals.

Stages of a Graphic Design Project

Almost every graphic design project goes through five stages: research, conception, execution, publishing and analysis. In the research stage, the client and the target market are examined; in conception, the idea that will drive the design is created; in execution, this idea is turned into a finished design, ready for publication. Once published, the design process is not yet complete, because the final result must be measured to determine effectiveness. For many designs, execution is the make-or-break time that determines whether or not a concept can go from the ‘neat idea’ stage to effective design. This is the time for the designer to select the best tools for the job.

Some designers prefer to conceptualize on the computer; others prefer to use traditional materials for their concepts. Regardless of the method used, the designer must keep the concept separate from the concept sketch. It is inadvisable for the designer to begin the execution stage by modifying the concept sketch. If the computer will be used for execution, then using the sketch (either computer-generated or scanned in) as a background layer may be useful, but taking a low resolution sketch done in Photoshop and trying to turn it into a final print piece or website is a recipe for disaster.

Choosing the Proper Tools

Graphic design tools can be grouped into four categories: drawing tools, image-editing tools, assembly tools, and delivery tools. The drawing tools and image-editing tools are used for creating content to be assembled, and then all of the elements are packed for delivery. In web design, the assembly and delivery tool can be one and the same, but in print design and interactive design they can often be separate tools. This overview also ignores another tool — the word processing tool. This article assumes that you, the design buyer, are providing the copy (text) for the design.

Selecting between using drawing tools and image-editing tools is often the greatest challenge for the designer, especially for less experienced designers, and this choice can have the greatest impact on the finished product. Making the right selection is often a problem for self-taught individuals, who may have access to only one program, or may only feel comfortable using what they already know (the adage of “When all you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail”). Also, recent versions of these programs have blurred the lines between these tools, and the best choice may not be the most obvious choice.

Trying to use a wrench to drive a nail is a frustrating process that usually produces less than ideal results. Beware of ‘professionals‘ that use non-industry standard programs; word-processing and presentation programs are not design tools and will not produce professional results. Neither are ‘home-publishing‘ programs designed to function in a professional manner. The assumption with these programs is that you will be creating and printing the piece on the same machine, which may work for twenty brochures, but will you print 2000 flyers on your office inkjet?

Creating Design Elements

Often the best way to determine which program to use is to consider the starting and ending points of the element being created. An element existing only as a sketch will probably be created in a drawing program, whereas a photographic element will often be manipulated in an image-editing program. However, it is easy for the roles to be reversed — recreating a logo that is now only available in printed form is done best in a drawing program, even though that logo could be scanned into the image-editing program. Many designers and illustrators are able to create amazing ‘digital paintings’ in an image-editing program from their imagination or from a rough sketch.

The Destination of the Element

The destination of the element can also be the determining factor. A drawing program creates what are called vector graphics — each part of the drawing is mathematically defined, and can be scaled up and down without any loss of quality. Also, in specialized applications like sign fabrication and embroidery, vector graphics are essential. The software either cannot handle image files or produces poor results when working from an image file. Image-editing programs use what are called raster graphics. The image consists of a certain number of dots, and going up or down from that size can produce less than ideal results. Raster graphics are necessary for reproducing photographs and often the best choice for certain web graphics. Mixing the two types of programs for a single element can also produce lower quality results. A vector graphic imported into an image-editing program loses its ability to scale to any size, and a picture placed into a drawing program does not (without extra work) become a vector graphic.

Assembling the Elements

Once the individual elements are created, an assembly program is used to combine the elements into the design. Less experienced designers often are tempted to try to use either drawing programs or image- editing programs to do the assembly work. Using a drawing program can be inefficient and limiting. Using an image-editing program does not allow vector graphics (including type) to retain their vector nature and can create designs that are difficult or impossible to publish (unanticipated color shifting or unprintable gradients for print work; the entire page being a single image for web work). Assembly programs often provide additional benefits, such as allowing the designer to define areas for bleeds (elements that go to the edge of a printed piece), allowing both vector and raster elements to coexist, even allowing elements of different color modes on the same page and allowing a preview of the final result.

The Delivery Program

For web design, the delivery program is the user’s browsing software, and most web designers use various browsers to preview the results as they develop the web site. For interactive designers, the delivery program is a scaled down version of their assembly program, only able to play back already created content. For print designers, the delivery program can be more complex, allowing different output profiles depending on the intended destination and allowing imposition for final printing. Decisions made here can have a dramatic impact on the final result.

Delivery programs allow users to define output settings like resolution for raster graphics ... The program can’t increase resolution for a lower resolution file, but it can reduce higher resolution files to an optimum resolution for the printing device. However, this reduction applies to all raster graphics, even type that has been converted to raster. While reducing the resolution of photographs to allow a better match to the printer is desirable (for technical reasons), reducing the resolution of type or other graphics meant to have sharp edges is not. Also delivery programs allow the designer to flatten the file... desirable to create a more accurate match to what the designer sees on screen, but also capable of lowering quality (flattened graphics become raster graphics).

So Why Does It Matter to Me?

The above discussion involves many technical details that are probably of more interest to designers and their publishing partners than to you. You may find the overview beneficial to better understand certain issues the designer may discuss with you, for example why the designer would much rather have the eps file (vector graphic) of your logo, rather than the Microsoft Word file or a business card with the logo on it. But another impression you may get from the above discussion is that the execution of a design requires a large number of decisions, and those decisions can have a direct impact on the effectiveness of the design and, therefore, your business.

You will notice that there are few absolutes when it comes to these decisions, and multiple paths can lead to success. Different destinations necessitate different choices; for example, web or interactive work requires a different output than print work. To make the right decisions, you will want to work with a designer in whom you have confidence, and you’ll want to consider two important factors: the decisions that impact the current project, and the decisions that impact future projects.

Decisions that affect the current project are most of the decisions that we have discussed above. Be clear with the designer about the intended use of the design. Try to provide the designer with resources in the best format possible (high resolution photos, vector graphics of logos) — doing this reduces the workload on the designer, potentially saving you money and reducing inconsistencies between different versions of files produced for different projects. You don’t need to be involved with every decision, or even most of them, but the designer should be able to explain to you what decisions were made and why.

When assembling the brief for the designer and creating those clear expectations for the design, try to think ahead for other implementations. Perhaps an element in a brochure will be used on your website. Even a dedicated print designer should be able to provide a web-ready version, and it will be even more important if the element will be used on the web first and then in a brochure for you to have a print-ready version. Make sure you inform the designer of your needs and be prepared to discuss the most efficient solution for those needs. (Perhaps having one designer handle both the brochure and the website will be best, instead of having one designer produce a version to pass off to another designer.)

Execution can be one of the most challenging aspects of design, but with clear expectations and good decisions, you will be able to move to the most exciting stages — the publication of the design and the results that the design generates!

Design for Small Business

2006-05-29T01:29:25Z

Every Fortune 500 company uses graphic design to create and increase brand awareness and to advertise its products and services. Every piece of customer-facing material, and most internal material, is produced by either in-house or agency designers, using a consistent style that connects to the corporate brand. The result is a “look and feel” that connects customers to the company, creates loyalty, and drives return business. Big business doesn’t use design because it has money to waste; big business uses design because it is good for business.

“That’s fine for big business, but I’m a small business — I can’t afford agency rates and I sure can’t have an in-house design department.”

]]>
Contests and Speculative Work

Some business owners, faced with a need for design and a small budget, decide to use a contest or other mechanism to have multiple designers submit ideas for a project. This is called speculative (or spec) work. On the surface, spec work sounds like a great idea, but it is often a failure for the business owner. Why, you ask? Professional design organizations advise their members against spec work, so the only submissions you’ll receive will be from inexperienced or desperate individuals. In addition, you’re asking several people to build a bridge for you, but not showing any of them the chasm it must cross or discussing what equipment you’ll be driving on the bridge. A contest will not produce a well-researched design that appeals to your particular customers.

Employees, Friends and Students

All three of the above can probably help your business in meeting your design needs, but maybe not in the way that you would expect. As mentioned above, most small businesses don’t have the budget or need for an in-house design team, so your employees probably don’t have the experience or software needed to provide design solutions. Programs like Microsoft Office are powerful and very good at fulfilling their given roles (word processing, presentations, etc.), but they are not design programs and will not produce professional results, even in the hands of a highly skilled employee. However, Office and other programs can use templates to interact with professionally designed materials, and your employees can use these templates to create material that still has your brand and your identity.

You might have a friend who went to art school, or someone at the office has a son or daughter who is “really good at computers.” When deciding to use a friend or relative to produce design work for your company, even if the individual has all the skills and experience needed, you will need to ask yourself if the friendship or family relationship will survive a process that often involves intense deliberation, revision, and sometimes simply throwing away an idea because it’s not working. Friends that you trust may be the best people to have as sounding boards and a test market for new designs (if they fit your customer profile), but it will be up to you to decide if they will be the best people for you to work with. Also, if they are still in school, or just recently graduated, keep the following points in mind.

Design students can be an excellent resource for small business owners, but the scope of work and desired end result should be kept in mind. Also, design is a broad subject with many disciplines. Your cousin may be going to design school, but interior design or interactive design students may be of limited assistance in getting a brochure designed and printed. Keep in mind the level of experience of the student as well. If you had a niece in premed school, and you were sick, you might rate her advice a little higher than someone with no medical training, but you’re not going to have her operate on your kidney “just so she’ll have some experience.” With a design student, creating new material based on an existing style guide might be a beneficial experience for both you and the student; however, redesigning your identity might be more than either one of you wants to take on. Also, both print and web design come with intricacies that may not be obvious to a student — it is possible to design something on the computer that is completely unprintable because of technological limitations, and it is possible to create a website that looks perfect on one type of computer, with one type of software, but will be incompatible with other computers and software (like the computers and software your customers are using). It is traditional that recent graduates do what is called “production work” at their first job or two — like a resident doctor who is advised by more experienced doctors, a new graphic designer does finishing work, supervised by a more experienced graphic designer, while learning the pitfalls of the profession.

Production Work

This is what a lot of print shops would consider “typesetting” or “composition,” and they may call it by those names. Most printers, whether digital or traditional, will have one or more people on staff to do what is called prepress and production work — getting submitted files ready to be printed and producing projects at the request of clients. They may be newer designers or seasoned professionals who have found their niche, or they may just be doing the job because “they know computers.” Some larger, higher-end print shops might have experienced graphic designers on-staff as well, to oversee the production work and be available for consultation on more involved projects. Some independent designers and design boutiques will offer production services. The key component of every design is the idea, and for production work that is something you will provide. Unlike the consultative nature of graphic design, production work involves the implementation of an already provided idea, from provided materials. Because of this, it costs less than graphic design, but production work rarely, if ever, produces a unique or startling result.

Independent Designers

Often called “freelance” designers, these are graphic designers that you hire for a specific project. Whether you are interested in introducing a new product or service, expanding your business to a new customer base, or extending or redefining your brand and identity, an independent graphic designer consults with you to produce the most effective result for your business need. This isn’t the best solution for everyday needs; using a student, opting for production work, or having a designer on retainer may be better for recurring or minor needs. Hiring an independent designer is best for a specific project where you need someone to approach your business with a fresh set of ideas, research the customers you are trying to reach, and create a connection between those customers and your business.

Retaining a Designer

Say you have a newsletter that you publish every quarter. It’s an involved design that you want to use to communicate your brand message, and it’s going to press, so everything needs to be perfect, every time. Or say that you have a website. You like the design of the website, but you want to rotate out sections as you market new products and services. Both of these situations are ideal for hiring a designer on retainer. You may pay that designer a fixed rate at regular intervals, and you receive guaranteed service and support from someone you know understands your needs and your business. This can be very beneficial to you, for not only are you able to project your expenses, but you can also often receive discounted rates, since the designer is able to plan for your needs on a defined schedule. Remember that this works best for recurring projects with a well-defined scope — don’t expect your retainer for the newsletter to cover a logo redesign, a project that entails a large amount of research and legal work.

Making a Decision

Every small business has different needs, and your needs may change with time. I hope that this article has given you insight into the various options available for your design needs. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment here or contact me directly.