Brand Style Guides and why you should have one

Too many companies are simply without brand guidelines documents. Even some of the bigger ones do not have clear documentation on when, where, how and why to use their brand mark in various media and settings.

Over the years I have created many logos and brandmarks. But when it comes time for a client to pay that extra little bit for the documentation that supports that mark, they often balk at such thought. But protecting your logo, and in turn your brand, is a KEY part of building a brand.
How you are perceived by your customers is something completely within your control. From social media to print to any collateral materials you produce. Consistency is the key here. And a brand guidelines document is the bible.

For those of you not familiar, a Brand Guidelines document details all of the aspects of how your company's mark and materials are presented. From detailed information about fonts, spacing and kerning, free space, color specifications, rules for putting the mark on backgrounds be they solid or photo and much more.

The document should detail the proper usage and also detail some of the ways NOT to display the logo. Of course, non-proportional scaling is one of the big ones.

Too often an over zealous marketing person, or someone on the sales staff will create a document to send to a client that does exactly that. They will dig around the server, or worse yet, copy the logo from the web site, slam it into their Word document and then scale it so it fits some kind of random space. Usually, at this point, the logo looks terrible because it has been squashed or stretched and in the case of some taken off the web, look pixelated or have backgrounds attached to them that look out of place.

Marketing professionals need to police these usages and make sure that a brand guidelines document is available to anyone that might need to create documents for their company. Of course much of this can be avoided by providing a complete set of templates for things like powerpoint presentations, proposals and other Word docs.

The main point is, don't skimp on this phase of your brand development process. Even more important than a good mark is using it properly. To ensure that, the rules for usage must be set.

Pulling All-Nighters for Clients

There is something special about going that extra 100 miles for a client. While you are doing it, you are indeed only human, so you sometimes fall prey to the variety of feeling ranging from annoyance to down-right anger. But honestly, every time I have pulled the all-nighter at some point I start to get really proud. Really intense about what we are doing. And want the project we are working on to be even better than I first imagined.

That happened this past week to several of us here at Optiem. Our staff rose to a huge challenge and so far, has really done a fantastic job. And in the process done some really great work.

Its much like weight loss or saving money or training to run a marathon. Those first few days are horrible. You question every little effort. But as soon as you start seeing progress. As soon as you start to realize what you sought to achieve, your outlook changes. All of a sudden you are doing more exercise, saving that extra quarter at the store and putting it in your savings account, or pushing yourself that extra mile. (Not that I know about marathon running...its only what I read somewhere).

Anyway, I love human nature. It certainly keeps it interesting around here.

Blogging is hard work / Good design grows good design

It has been pointed out to me that my "thought leadership" is lacking because of the lack of postings on this blog. I don't disagree.

But here is the reality of the design world. When you do good design, people want more. Good design is easy to sell. Good, meaningful blog posts are difficult when design is what brings home the bacon.

Of course I don't want this to completely sound like I am on the defensive here, so I will say this...

I have learned many valuable design lessons over the past few months. Some that I can share on here and other, because of their sensitive nature with our clients, will remain unpublished.

Most recently, I have been impacted in my daily work by work that I did many months ago. And in the process, I learned a lesson this week.

Late last year, we embarked on a very successful design project for our wonderful client USTelecom. We, and they, were very happy ultimately with the design we envisioned for their site. It was work of course, but in the end I think we all feel we found a little magic in the design. I was as excited and surprised by that as anyone. It was nice. But that was last year. Right?

Well over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of working on designs that are the direct result of that previous work with USTelecom. I am not really at liberty today to say who I am working on designs FOR... but it was partially the design work we did on USTelecom that resulted in the project I presented today. And the client spoke these words... "I am REALLY happy with these designs!" What a great thing to hear from a client. Made my week for sure.

The point here is... treat ALL of your work like it will lead to more work. Do your best to make your work transcend the singular project you are working on. Find ways to evolve your concepts. Grow your inspiration by looking back at your successes and turn them into more successes. This week I learned that work I am doing today has a definite impact on the work I will be doing 6 months or a year from now. It is a continum. An organic process that helps what you design evolve into the NEXT great design.

My dad always used to tell me... "Do the job right the first time and you will never have to do it again." I respectfully disagree. In this business, if you do the job right the first time, you will have people lining up at your door to do it for them too.

Today was a perfect example of that for me.

Adobe launches new FREE web-based Photoshop

In an effort to increase its brand awareness, especially with kids, Adobe is now offering a completely web-based version of photoshop for free online.

As a long time photoshop evangelist, I completely support this move because it really should help to cement this product in the the minds of the up and coming generation.

Read more about it here.

Live from SXSW

So my coworker David Mead and I made it out of Cleveland apparently just in time to avoid one of the biggest blizzards in recent memory in our fair town. My wife informs me that the snow is up to her hips in the back yard. She promises to send me a photo, yet I have the digital camera with me here in Austin, so I am not sure how she will do that.
I am just sitting down in my third session here and so far have had mixed reaction to what I am hearing. Part of that is my own fault for choosing poorly the session that I started my day with today. After that, I did have a much better experience for my second session.
Right now I am sitting in Ballroom B in the convention center in Austin and anticipating a good session called Great Design Hurts. I will try to file something post session to fill anyone in who might be reading this.

Cool Web Gallery Tool... all in DHTML!

So I stumbled upon a really cool photo gallery tool built by this guy named Gerard Ferrandez. The whole thing is done in Javascript with DHTML and is really nicely implimented. Of course the code, which he gives away for free, is incredible and graceful as one would expect. Photos move around in relation to where you mouse is located on the screen. Transparency is used to overlap them. You can click on a photo to to zoom in and get a closer look and click on it again to move out. This is really a nice alternative to flash and is just a beautiful implementation. Love it.

Inspiring clients to take risks and stand out

Over the last several years I have done probably hundreds of web designs. Here at Optiem, we typically we do at least two different designs to present to a client. First of all, our contract usually states that this is what we will provide, but on a more practical level, it really gives the client something to compare and contrast when they are looking for a new design.

If we have done our job correctly, we already have a very strong understanding of the client's "aesthetic". So our designs are targeted to reflect that. But as designers this can sometimes leave us wanting... wanting to push the envelope more... to stretch our wings.

So recently, on those projects that have the potential, I have been trying to provide a third look. But I try to make that design something that is really out there. Something that no one else in their industry is doing. Something that really sets them apart and is a differentiator. But these are usually hard to sell to clients.

How do we comfort clients enough that they are willing to be more aggressive in the design of their web sites? For many companies, taking a conservative, "proven" approach is the safest and easiest path. And when dealing with a larger group of decision makers, it is much easier to get consensus on something a little more traditional.

My goal is to get our clients to see the web with different eyes. With a twist. To take a "risk" and put a site out there that is a really different approach or concept. To be a leader in their respective industry. To have something that no one else has. So when someone visits their site they say (or at least think) "now this is different. Who are these people?".

This requires some forward thinking by the person or people picking a design. But I feel in the long run this kind of thinking could really pay off. Being a trend SETTER as opposed to a trend follower is what really makes for success. Sony created the Walkman. They set the trend in personal music devices. Of course Apple has really run with that in recent years. But Sony enjoyed a great deal of publicity with the whole Walkman trend. They launched a whole new product line.

I guess there are people out there that are uncomfortable sticking their necks out to be different. To take that "risk". But the gains can be really worth it. From a marketing and brand standpoint, this has the potential to elevate a company into a whole different realm.

I remember back in the dot com boom days that kids were starting companies in their parent's basements. They would design really hot web sites with flashy logos and give the illusion that they were really something. And in fact, many of them BECAME something. Of course there is far less risk in being a kid in your basement and acting like you are a multi-million dollar company. As opposed to a multi-million dollar company pretending they are a kid in their parent's basement. But too many multi-million dollar companies are unwilling to look less than polished and buttoned up. Too bad.

I digress a little here. But this is just to say that we want to try to get our clients to look at opportunities to stand out. And doing the same old thing as everyone else is doing isn't enough anymore.

The beauty of the web is that you can change it immediately if it isn't working for you. It isn't like you have printed 100,000 brochures and all of a sudden the company logo changes and those boxes of brochures become door stops.

So, take a risk or two with your design. Push the limits of what you have done before. Use the limits your competitors stopped at... and start there.