Author: info@celestialprintdesign.com

It happens.

The design deadline looms, your mind is adrift, and your page is blank. How can you generate creativity and move out of this slump? Two resources to leverage are your time and your team. 

Often the longer you spend on an idea, the less productive you become. Especially if you are working alone. With an open concept and no firm timeline, designers may sit at their desks for weeks, spinning endless variations of a vague concept or completely losing sight of the project goals. This is a dead end that can drive everyone mad.

Instead, apply a simple process to prompt stunning ideas efficiently:

1. Gather a team

Everyone has good ideas, not just designers.

Who could you pull – account assistants, content writers, a family member – to brainstorm for a brief stretch of time? Use a pen and paper and spend time thinking aloud together about names, word pictures, or image ideas. Keep it short and sweet but have fun!

2. Review the design brief and project goals 

Amidst the flurry of creativity, stay focused on your target.

When you gather the team for an initial brainstorming session, always review the project requirements. Be sure you understand what the client wants, the project parameters, and the goals for final outcome. This task review and initial brainstorming should last for no more than 10-15 minutes.

3. Launch a 60-minute development blast

Time to send the troops into battle!

If you are the sole designer, it’s all you. If not, send a small batch of people to work for one hour. The group has 60 minutes to come up with ideas. No more! The abbreviated timeframe forces your brain into green light thinking, prompting more spontaneous creativity. Typically pencil, pen, and paper are best for stretching ideas without inhibitions.

After an hour, meet again to chat. Give comments or suggestions to develop the full potential of the best ideas. Usually, a handful of ideas emerge as the best candidates. Now a final concept can be clarified, assigned for full development, and kicked into the digital realm.

If you can’t decide which idea is best, pick the top three and draw scamps to a higher level of finish. Pin them to the wall, talk about the pros and cons of each, and see what the collaborative process brings. Just a little team mojo can make a mediocre idea magical.

4. Keep early and rejected work

Often when you pitch ideas to clients, some of the best ideas get cut.

This is unfortunate, but not all is lost. All good designers will build up a collection or rejected work. Whether it’s an early stage scribble or a fully developed logo, keep a printout of every piece of work. Scan sketches and scamps and clearly label them, so they are accessible later and easy to find.

You invest lots of time shaping a concept, so don’t let an initial rejection close the door on your idea forever. Down the road, these ideas may be a catalyst for an even better spinoff design!

For every Olympic Games, there has been an accompanying logo that brings a unique identity to that particular year while allowing the host country a special place in the global spotlight.

A good Olympics logo should reflect both the host country’s culture and the time period of the games. The 2012 Olympic logo caught a lot of flak for failing in both of these goals. Composed of bright pink and yellow colors, weird shapes, and a jagged, angular typeface, it smacked of an 80’s funk vibe rather than British culture or the London lifestyle. When it was revealed in 2007, a petition circulated Great Britain (signed by over 48,000 citizens) to have the £400,000 logo scrapped a redesigned.

Ije Nwokorie, managing director at the design firm that created the logo, defended the bold look:

“We wanted the logo, in particular, to make people reconsider Olympics, to think about them in a different way,” he said. “London is this kind of dissonant place that you discover new angles and new dimensions to things. In its highest level, this brand was an expression of that.”

Overall, the logo and font sparked more dissonance with the viewers. Many believe it went down in history as a failed experiment.

How to Pick the Best Font for Your Page

Typefaces are the personality on the page.

The way you represent words shapes the style and readability of your content. A font choice can have far-reaching effects, which is why brand style guides are extremely helpful.

But if you don’t have a grid to work from, the endless choices can feel daunting. Not sure where to start? Here are a few tips:

Set the Tone

What is the style of the document? What vibe should the content communicate?

Often the audience you target will shape the personality of your font choice.

Keep it Simple

Unless you are designing an art piece, stick to one or two typefaces. If you are designing for a document, like an annual report, you might need a sans serif and a serif for variety and legibility.

If you need lots of different headings and subheads, choose a font with a variety of weights (like Bahnscrift or Sabon). Display fonts are fun but don’t offer many choices when it comes to weights.

Make the Best Even Better

Want to inject personality in your text without getting too weird?

Customized fonts work beautifully for logos, headings, or a tagline splashed across the page. Try customizing your favorite fonts with tiny alterations, like this:

• Shorten the descenders on letters like y, p, and q
• Make the crossbars on a letter stop short on one side and cut the corners off letters at an angle (like a capital ‘A’ or a lowercase ‘e’
• Use a bold header and a blurred, slightly transparent subhead
• Erase or add to the font by uniquely featuring something relating to your brand (for example, a baker might use a font where a bite is taken out of every ‘B’)

Don’t Be Trendy

Marketers often choose a typeface because it seems cool at the moment, but the flair can quickly fade.

Like bad wallpaper in your grandma’s kitchen, faddish designs don’t age well. One rule of thumb is this: “If a typeface is quirky, your design might be a turkey.”

Classic fonts that have endured over decades include Bodoni, Bembo, Caslon, Clarendon, Helvetica, Gill, Univers, Baskerville, Perpetua, Futura, News Gothic, and Optima.

From selling products to creating brand loyalty, fonts create a smooth, intuitive journey for people to follow. A little adjustment to your fonts can go a long way!

There are many ways to increase business through marketing with print.

Although the world has experienced an unparalleled technological revolution, print media’s importance in reaching customers remains an uncontested force.

According to Forbes, print marketing is more recognizable, memorable, and decipherable to consumers than its digital counterpart.  

As old as advertising itself, print media is an invaluable resource. A host of strategies have yielded results over time; however, unique print marketing campaigns have ultimately proven the most successful. 

Utilize Social Media’s Simplistic Design

Most companies have adopted digital media into their marketing repertoire.

Customers enjoy simplistic layouts, separating information and graphics. Plus, it has become a recognizable feature of this media-minded society.  

Easy ways to incorporate digital inspiration into print marketing include (but are not limited to): 

• Signage on or around your business
• Business cards
• Mailing materials
• Promotional handouts 

Incorporate the Magic of Multiple Mediums

The Louvre famously employed a simplistic roadside billboard campaign in 2017.

It emulated the orientation, scale, and minimalism of a typical social media post that billions of users are familiar with. However, the museum also took the additional step of including non-conventional aspects to complement their high-way gallery. They set their roadside advertisements up to sync with three local radio stations. The audio component allowed drivers to hear a 30-second artist introduction. Along with attracting more visitors, the Louvre also gained international recognition for its creativity. 

There are endless undiscovered frontiers companies are exploring every day.

One of the best parts of print marketing is its versatility. Virtually anything can become a canvas to market your business. Marketing can also be seen in other lights. For example, a print media campaign does not have to include conventional forms of print advertisements.

While signage, business cards, and mailers are fantastic ways to reach customers, marketing can also be done through creative and more indirect ways. 

Printing Is the Best Marketing Route

Regardless of the methods you employ, finding the right printer to begin your next successful and innovative marketing campaign is simple.

To truly transform your business, join forces with an experienced team of print marketers. We’re here to help.

Your brand is often the key to growing and keeping your customer base. 

A recognizable, identifiable brand with a cohesive look and feel helps you get the attention of a potential customer and keeps the would-be one-time customer coming back for more. You want your brand to be instantly memorable, especially when it comes to print-based marketing. This is why it is essential to make sure your brand is in tip-top shape!

How do you know if your brand is on point or missing the mark? You follow these dos and don’ts of branding.

The Dos of Branding

1. Take the Time to Update Your Brand Logo

Even iconic brands like Coca-Cola revamp their logo on occasion.

The longer you have been in business, the more likely you need to update your brand logo. You want your brand to appear fresh and relevant. You don’t have to redesign your brand logo completely; just give it a revamp. 

2. Pay Particular Attention to Detail

Designing for print leaves little to no room for error.

You want to get it right the first time and avoid costly fixes down the road. Therefore, it is usually best to start with a digital design before printing the final product.  

3. Take Advantage of Print Textures

Because print-based marketing gives the consumer something they can hold, don’t forget about using print texture to enhance your brand.

Techniques like folding, embossing, or even well-placed foiling can create a unique print experience. 

4. Respect White Space

With print, sometimes less if more.

Try to leave space between the icon and the text. Try your design in black and white before adding color. You’ll see just how impactful it is or realize you need to go back to the drawing board for tweaks and adjustments.  

The Don’ts of Branding

1. Forget to Edit

Editing is often the best friend of printing and branding.

Come up with several options before settling on something final. Brands will inevitably evolve, but spending the initial investment of time on the front end will allow you to come up with a solid brand.

2. Add Too Many Fine Details for Printing

There is a time and place for intricacy when it comes to branding.

Intricate designs with multiple colors and gradients may be amazing for digital marketing platforms but will most likely get lost in translation in print. So instead, think simple but unique for print purposes by scaling back fine details.

3. Use a Wide Variety of Colors

One of the goals of print marketing is to get the customer’s attention.

While you can do this with color, too many colors may have the opposite effect. Think about the size of your print materials and use that to guide your choices of colors. 

4. Use the Wrong Font

Think about your brand. Is it bold? Demure? Classic?

Choose a font that represents the overall feel of your brand. For example, a construction company would likely never utilize a swirly font with loopy letters. Put your font choice to the test before making a final decision. Look at it in various sizes. If it doesn’t translate well to several settings, choose another font.

Creating a brand for your business doesn’t have to be an impossible task. When you keep these dos and don’ts of branding in mind, your business can be well on its way to iconic status in no time. 

Partner With a Marketing Expert

When it comes to building a successful printing brand, partnering with an experienced team of marketing experts is crucial. With years of valuable experience, we’re here to help your business shine. Contact us today to get started!

When Brendan Kane scheduled a Fox Business interview, he never planned to bag a presidential candidate.

Kane, a social media influencer strategist, thought his Kennedy show interview was simply another media spot. Until he landed in the green room with Democratic presidential candidate John Delaney. Kane later admitted he didn’t even know who Delaney was – he just wanted to have a good conversation. But as they visited about their lives and interests, Delaney was quickly drawn to Kane’s magnetic, genuine personality.

One warm conversation bloomed into a partnership. Before the day was over, Delaney asked Kane to help him with his political social media campaign.

Sell Yourself, Then Sell Your Products

Do you want to create a rapport that quickly builds trust with others?

This starts with meeting people organically and connecting with them authentically. Brendan Kane never tried to sell John Delaney anything; he just took an interest in his life and story. It was Delaney who eventually pitched himself to Kane!

Great business relationships start with rich personal interactions, including conversations that flow from an authentic, nonthreatening place. Are you looking to sell yourself so you can then sell your brand or product? Here are three tips to get you started:

1. Offer non-judgmental validation

People feel heard and valued when you seek their opinions and input without judging them.

Seek the other person’s opinions and thoughts without jumping to conclusions. While you don’t have to agree with what they say, adopting an attitude of acceptance means respecting a person’s feelings or values as valid, even if they are different from your own.

If this is difficult for you, taking time to imagine yourself in the other person’s place can help you be more open and empathetic.

2. Listen with your full presence

Do you ever talk to someone who seems distracted? Even as this person listens, you can see a thousand thoughts racing through his head, as if he can’t wait to cut in and speak his mind.

One of the best gifts you can give someone is your full presence and attention – to truly listen. Beneath all the swagger or struggles, everyone has a story to tell. People are longing to be seen and heard, and when you ask questions and actually hear the answers, you’ll be amazed how quickly connections are built.

3. Establish a time constraint early in the conversation

Have you ever been sitting in an airport or your office chair when someone unexpectedly approaches you to start a conversation?

This scenario can be unsettling for many people because no one wants to feel trapped in an awkward, unplanned discussion (especially with someone they don’t fully trust). To quickly set an associate at ease, preview the end of a conversation before it starts.

Say something like, “I’d like to visit with you about ____, can I grab 10 minutes of your time?” or, “I’m on my way out, but before I left, I wanted to ask you _______.”

Enlarge Your Influence

Building rapport is critical for nurturing strong relationships and amplifying your influence on others.

When you build relational bridges, you will engage people on a human level, foster transparency, and fuel a culture of innovation, loyalty, and collaboration.

Your brand is everything.

It’s what makes potential buyers and customers recognize you and helps set you apart from competitors.

It’s important to maintain the value of your brand in order to make the most of your business marketing. Keeping brand focus and consistency is key. If customers know what your brand stands for, they’ll end up appreciating it more, and you’ll gain more organic traffic.

A strong brand value helps tell your company’s story, creating awareness, loyalty, and excitement for the consumer.

Sales and marketing trends will continually change over time. However, building the power of your company’s brand is an investment that pays for years to come.

3 Ways to Keep Your Brand Value

1. Business Visuals

Your logo is at the forefront of your company.

Anyone who knows your business knows what your logo looks like, including the color palette, typography, imagery, and graphic elements. These brand visuals are most important to maintain throughout your business advertising.

When marketing for your business, continue to use these same characteristics of your logo throughout. Over time, after creating enough brand awareness, you should simplify your logo, and people will still know exactly who you are. For example, the Chevrolet logo doesn’t need the word “Chevrolet” next to it for people to know who they are. They’ve been around long enough and created a strong brand value to be able to pull that off.

2. Business Values and/or Mission

Brand values and/or the mission of your business are just as important to show and maintain as the logo characteristics.

Use your values to strengthen your advertising, show what you stand for, and create awareness. When people see an advertisement, they should be able to tell what company it’s for before even showing a logo or a name.

3. Business Style

Your company’s style fits in with your brand value and is important to maintain across all marketing consistently.

Does your building’s interior design use a modern appeal or more of a rustic look? Does your website use a white and clean look or a dark and textured theme? Use this style as a part of your print marketing and other advertising. 

The Ultimate Marketing Combination

All of these things; your logo, values, and style all play an important role in maintaining brand value.

Used often and strategically, these brand elements will help strengthen your brand so that your business is better known, and you’ll gain more traffic online and in person.

When facing a life or death decision, do you think the opinions of others would affect your behavior?

Social proof is a powerful phenomenon. People constantly look to the opinions of others to help them live wisely and navigate uncertainty. The behavior and preferences of your peers can shape every choice you make – from the vehicles you drive to the candidates you vote for. But surely some of that superficiality would fade in more critical situations, right?

Not necessarily.

More than 40,000 people in the United States experience end-stage kidney failure every year, with bodies that cannot filter toxins and adequately remove waste products from their blood. These people are dependent on dialysis treatments as they wait desperately for a kidney transplant. Often more than  100,000 patients are eagerly waiting for a new organ.

Surprisingly, research shows that 97.1 percent of kidney offers are refused, and nearly 1 in 10 transplant candidates refuse a kidney in error. How could this happen? The research of MIT professor Juanjuan Zhang points to social proof. Say you are the one-hundredth person on a transplant list. If the first 99 people turned down a viable kidney, often people lower on the list conclude the organ must not be very good (“if someone else doesn’t want it, then neither do I”). They infer it is low in quality and wait for a “better offer.”

Zhang found this psychological trigger – a follow the crowd mentality – prompts thousands of patients to turn down kidneys they should have accepted.

If Something is Built to Show, It’s Built to Grow

Do you want to sell more products, grow attendance in your community group, or get momentum for your idea?

The more public a product or service, the more it triggers people to act. Visibility boosts word-of-mouth advertising, and this informal person-to-person marketing has a significant impact on others. People rely on peers to help them decide what movies to see, which vet to use for their pet, or the best software to buy. For example, recent studies show that more than half of adults under age 50 consult online reviews before making a purchase decision, and 88% of people read reviews to determine the quality of a local business.

Reviews and testimonials are powerful, but you can also build influential triggers into small things like your product packaging, stickers, and more. Social influence is stronger when behavior is more observable.

Here are just a few ways outward symbols have made personal choices more public:

–Polling places that distribute an “I voted” sticker to those who cast a ballot

–Devices that attach a mini advertisement to every email (like the classic “sent using BlackBerry” tagline)

–TV shows that used canned laugh tracks to prompt more emotional buy-in from viewers

–Bumper stickers or yard signs sharing political ideas or coffee preferences

–VIP purchases that convince participants to wear conspicuous wristbands instead of using a paper ticket

–Fitness trackers that automatically post progress to a person’s social media page

–Grocery stores that distribute beautiful branded reusable bags

Monkey See, Monkey Do

It has been said that when people are free to do what they please, they typically imitate others.

How can you build more social currency into your marketing? Whether you choose recognizable product colors to selfie photo booths at your events, make it easy for people to share your brand through social media or when they’re just “doing life” in the public square.

When something is built to show, it’s built to grow.

Tension. There’s just nothing like it to prompt emotion in relationships, film, and art.

Steven Spielberg demonstrated this masterfully in the classic 1993 film Jurassic Park. While young siblings Tim and Lex hide in an industrial kitchen, two raptors creep inside and begin prowling and sniffing the perimeter. As the children silently crawl on their knees and cower under stainless steel countertops, the toenails of the raptors click . . . click . . . click . . . along the floor behind them.

Though some would classify Jurassic Park as a children’s film, you can be sure the tension of this scene had every adult breathless as the raptors prepared to pounce.

Create Rhythm and Release in Your Page

As plot twists are to a story, visual tension is to design.

Visual tension is an aspect of composition that uses unexpected color, shape, or scale to create energy. While visual tension can be used to evoke anxiety, typically it is used to add depth and create a more dynamic viewer experience. This pattern of building and releasing tension is one of the most ingrained patterns of human experience.

Here are four ways to weave visual tension into your next design:

1. Go Off the Grid

Most shapes or pages have a sort of “structural skeleton” running through them.

In a square, the axis points would form a letter X through the center of the page. Elements placed along any major axis (or in the center) will appear more stable. Objects placed outside these major grid points will carry a greater sense of tension. If you place a logo underneath the invisible X of a square page, your design will feel a bit more exciting.

2. Use Jarring Color Combinations

While monochromatic or complementary colors are soothing, dissimilar or bold combinations create a unique energy in your designs.

The possibilities here are endless! Try gray suede and cheetah print mixed with white and gold. Or electric orange interspersed with neon pink. A rule of thumb is to favor one color over another (like using a dominant color for the background and the secondary color for accents). To tone it down a bit, use both colors for accents against a neutral shade.

3. Try Something Unexpected

Is the sky always blue?

It doesn’t have to be! Designs spur emotion when you do something unexpected, like adding a hot pink filter to a nature landscape. Try something surprising, like placing a giant head on a tiny body, coloring a chicken blue, or creating a visual puzzle (using concepts from the Gestalt principle) within your logo design.

4. Employ the Spatial Properties of Color

Colors create movement and affect the way we perceive an image.

Did you know that warm tones appear to advance in three-dimensional space? If you want to highlight a focal point in your image, you can increase the size of this object or also use a warm color such as red, orange, or yellow to bring it forward. If you want to reverse this effect, use a cool color (like blue or purple) on the closer, larger object and a warm color like red on a distant, smaller object. Viola! Tension created.

Engaging, Irresistible Images

Balance and tension are at the heart of every creative endeavor. Build hierarchy, focal points, and flow as you create a visual tension that makes your image irresistible!

Want to build connections that bring benefits?

You can do this everywhere you go by using people’s names. Career Coach Joyce Russel shared a story about a friend recovering from an injury. This man was staying in a rehab hospital and was not particularly happy with his care from the therapists and staff.

Unsympathetic, his wife noted that he hadn’t treated the hospital staff with particular kindness, “Do you even know the names of the people who are helping you?” she asked him. “No, why should I learn their names?” he replied. She reminded him that just by learning and using people’s names, he might get better care.

Sure enough, it helped!

Keep Your Best Customers Coming Back

Personal attention brings powerful results.

If you want a no-fail tactic to increase your sales, one of your best strategies is to entice proven customers to buy again. Here are just a few ways to keep customers coming back:

Greet People by Name

When you want to build loyalty, learn and use the names of your customers.

There should be a distinct difference between how you interact with your consistent clients and those you meet for the first time. Even if you don’t remember someone’s name, let them know you recognize them and are happy to see them. Say something like, “Well, hello! It’s great to see you again.”

When you take a phone call, the person on the other end usually identifies themselves immediately. Use this to your advantage and try to speak their name in conversation as the call progresses. As Dale Carnegie often said, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Keep Your Eye on the Customer (Not the Profit)

Clients want to be recognized as people, not as potential profits.

In what ways can you be helpful regardless of profit? If a VIP customer needs a minor repair or replacement part, could you offer it at no cost? If a valued partner is considering a service upgrade, could you provide a free month of benefits? Small gestures (like carrying someone’s bag to their car) cost very little, but they add up over time.

People will continue taking their business to places they feel valued, and they’ll tell their friends too.

Keep Your Commitments

Reliability is the foundation of good customer relationships.

If you make a promise, keep it. If you say, “your new grill will be delivered and assembled by Saturday,” make sure it does. Never make claims you can’t back up with certainty.

The same rule applies to client appointments, upcoming sales, deadlines, etc. Think before you speak because broken promises are a slight on your character and your business’s reputation.

There is a great deal of time, effort, and energy placed into updating your print marketing materials.

You need to cover all the relevant information in a very limited space. This means you need to fully optimize your messaging and make sure your materials attract attention.

With all this thought going into ensuring packaging and flyers and postcards are fantastic, you may be unwilling to make regular updates. Unfortunately, this can allow your message to become stale or even allow inaccurate information to be shared with customers over time. 

Time to Make a Change! 

Donna, a local florist, realized it had been more than 6-8 months since she reviewed and revised the messaging on her printed materials.

She knew it was probably time to make some tweaks. Businesses can change dramatically over time, with shifts in hours of operation, updated special offers, and more making an appearance. 

Regular reviews to ensure your messaging is still on point helps keep your marketing materials fresh and interesting for repeat customers. Plus, it ensures that any new prospects have your best offer in front of them at all times.

Donna worked with her local print shop to update her messaging, and her customers certainly noticed! She received many positive comments and new clients from an updated postcard and flyer combination that she designed and had printed locally.

Update Graphics and Colors

Has your logo evolved a bit over time?

It’s not unusual to spread out all of your marketing materials on a table and find that you have several iterations of logos or color schemes represented. Viewing your marketing materials together as a whole can add necessary cohesion to your brand. 

While you may not want to follow on-trend color schemes or make changes based on the seasons, you may want to do a quick update to your color palette. Ensuring that your brand look stays fresh and current is an important part of brand management. 

Put Your Best Offer Forward

Are you placing your very best offer in front of clients and prospects? Do you need different offers for individuals at various stages of the buying journey?

Now is a great time to look at your audience segments and see if you can fine-tune any graphics for eye appeal while meeting their unique needs.

Whether you’re looking for options to create branding materials for a new company or simply refreshing your current options, your local print shop is here for you! We work with organizations of all sizes to ensure you have access to exceptional resources to promote your brand.