Why is visual consistency important to my design?

Why is visual consistency important to my brand? Branding expert Marty Neumeier explains in his book that a brand is not what you say it is, but that it is what your customer says it is. This means it is incredibly important that you are transmitting the values you want your customers to associate with your company. Once your customers start understanding what your company is really all about, it is important to continue to maintain that impression. This is where consistency comes in.

It is important to unify the entire customer experience so that it aligns with the company's values and mission. Your should do this not only for your visual design, but also at every customer touchpoint from the design of your retail or office space, all the way to how you treat your customers. President Obama's 2008 campaign branding is a great example of this consistency in action. Obama had a unique platform based on bringing change to our nation. To visually illustrate this concept, his marketing team worked to create a logo and overall visual look that was a radically departure from what most presidential campaign logos look like. To take it even further, President Obama's team demonstrated his mission in dozens of other ways, including the candid interactivity of his online presence, which attracted youthful, change-hungry supporters who rallied for him.Obama's marketing team took the core of his campaign and consistently reinforced it through every single touchpoint. Because of this, his mission occupied a distinct place in citizens' minds and drew like-minded supporters to him like a moth to a flame. No matter how small your organization is, you can achieve similar effects with your clientele by consistently reinforcing your brand through every opportunity you have—including every piece of visual design. This consistency helps develop brand recognition and fosters your customer's trust in your company. Over time, they come to know exactly what they'll get when they choose to work with you, and this reliable experience is what builds the loyalty that keeps them coming back over and over again.

Why aren't unlimited revisions included in your estimates?

I recently received an estimate for some design work, which included a set number of revisions. Why aren't unlimited revisions included in your estimates?

As a business in search of design help, it is completely understandable that you want to go into a new design project feeling confident that you'll end up with a finished product that achieves your goals. The thought of limitations can make you afraid that you won't be able to get the project finished the way you hope for. Rest assured that it is incredibly important to us that you are thrilled with the final result of your project. That being said, there are essentially two reasons we limit revisions on a project estimate: 1) to promote mutual trust and 2) to keep our business profitable. Let me delve into those two items a bit further.

Promoting trust

Typically, our clients come to us because we have expertise in creating something that they don’t have as much experience at. In order to have a healthy business relationship, our clients need to trust that we’re listening to them and working in their best interest to translate their vision into something that works for their users and for the medium they are using. Ultimately, a project needs to be about the end user (rather than any one individual’s personal opinions), and if we have our clients’ trust and understanding that we are working together to make something that communicates well to their user, there should be fewer revisions needed.

Staying profitable

All of our estimates are based on a certain number of hours that it typically takes us to create a specific deliverable. The unknown factor in a project is always how many changes are requested. Since our estimates are based on how much time we are investing, we can’t really include unlimited revisions because we need to make sure we don’t invest more time than we are being paid for. To attempt to meet out clients half way, I almost always include at least one round of revisions (because it is almost inevitable that there will be a least a few items that need tweaking). Additionally, we can always do as many revisions as needed for our clients. We’re not looking to rule our clients’ projects with an iron fist. However, it will cost more once we get past the quoted amount of revisions because, at that point, the project is taking more time than we’d estimated for. To sustain our business, we simply need to charge for that additional time.As a final note, we always want to try to get on the same page as our clients before beginning their projects. We truly want to understand your vision and work with you to translate it in the way that will engage your audience. We are always more than happy meet up with you before beginning a project to get to know each other in person and get on the same page about what you are looking for.

Why is branding important?

I keep hearing a lot of talk among other business owners about branding. Why is branding important for my business?

Branding is definitely an important element of building a business. If you're like me, the term "branding" probably brings up images in your mind of ranchers jabbing cattle with searing hot metal stamps. Well, that image actually isn't that far off—only we're looking to sear impressions of your company in the minds of your consumers.

Let me tell you a little story that illustrates brand loyalty at its finest.

I have a younger brother who insists that Hunt’s Ketchup is better than Heinz. He would whine and whine when he was forced to eat Heinz Ketchup on his hot dog or hamburger, so several years ago, my mom and I decided to test out whether he actually knew the difference between the two brands.One night at the dinner table, we performed a little taste test. I squeezed out a dollop of Heinz and a dollop of Hunt’s Ketchup onto a paper plate, and wrote their respective names on the underside of the plate. We had him give both brands a try. I’m sure you know what is coming next—he chose the wrong one. That’s right, he thought the Heinz tasted better than the Hunt’s brand. He insisted we cheated, and we insisted he never knew what he was talking about.The fact is the kid had an unshakable partiality to the Hunt’s brand. Such a partiality that he couldn’t even fess up to actually liking the other brand better.This is how consumers minds work. They acquire a strong affinity (or possibly, a disgust) toward a specific brand of product or service. And once that opinion is formed, it is pretty tough to change their minds no matter how many facts or features you offer them.This is why it is important for your brand to come out of the gates strong and work hard to maintain its consistently. Even the smallest companies can do this. It starts with solidly defining what you stand for and sticking to it. From there, you build the look and feel of the brand (designers will call this your “brand identity”) so that it reinforces your mission.As my brother’s story demonstrates, an impression of your company may never be able to be reversed. This is why it’s absolutely vital to make the investment to make sure your company makes a positive, professional impact from the start.

What makes a good logo?

A logo is a pretty pivotal part of your brand identity. But what makes a particularly great logo? There are two different ways of viewing a logo as successful: It achieves the true purpose of a logo, and it is technically usable.

The purpose of a logo

Legendary identity design firm AdamsMorioka put it best when they explained the purpose of a logo:"[As people] we are identified ... with names like John, Maria or Frank. We prefer not to be called 'the guy who lives on Maple Street and works at the pharmacy' or 'the woman who has a beehive hairstyle and runs a trucking company.' This is a long-winded, confusing, and forgettable. In the same way, a logo should not literally describe the client's business; a logo is an identifier. Many clients would like their logo to describe every aspect of their company. This is natural, they're proud of their achievement. It is problematic, however, and may lead to a restraining identity. The logo is a signpost that identifies the company and reflects its attributes and values." It shouldn't be an illustration, but "a shortcut, a visual language that is quickly recognizable and memorable."To put it simply, the purpose of a logo should not be to literally portray what your company does, but rather, it should be a visual hallmark that sets the proper tone for what your company is about at its core.

A logo does not need to literally describe your business; a logo should simply be an identifier.

A technically usable logo

Since there is no such thing as the logo police (although sometimes I wish there were!), there are technically no hard-and-fast technical rules of logo design. However, the way a logo is crafted can either save or cost you money when it comes to reproducing it across print, web, and interactive media. As a small business or startup, there are things to keep in mind that will enable a high degree of usability in your logo (and hopefully a low cost of reproduction!).

1. Your logo should be in vector format

It’s the most basic of logo design principles. Your logo design should be created in vector format. With a vector logo, you have the ability to scale the logo up or down with no loss in quality. To create a vector logo, your designer should be working in a program such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. If your designer is creating your logo in Photoshop, you may want to inquire if it can be created in a vector application instead. A logo created in Photoshop is really just a photo. The problem with having a photo for a logo is that when it is scaled up in size it becomes pixelated with yucky, blurry squares that will not give your business the professional look you desire.

2. Your logo should work in all black

Many business owners (and, unfortunately, designers too) get one step ahead of themselves worrying about logo colors. Color is important, but a logo should first and foremost work in all black. There are plenty of times you will need to use your logo where only black (or one-color) can be used.

3. Your logo should work very small

Marketing is not all signs and billboards. In the course of your marketing, your logo may very well need to be used in some pretty small areas. Take something as simple as your business card: a business card is only 3.5″ wide by 2″ high, and typically the logo should take less than half this space. Merchandise tags are usually more petite than a business card, and often imprint areas on promotional items are even smaller yet. It is important not to get too carried away with the complexity of your logo and remember that all elements need to be clear and readable at a very small size.

4. Keep logo colors to a minimum

Sure, this might not sound like much fun, but neither is a whopping printing bill because your stationery had to be printed in 4 custom colors. Additionally, we need to keep in mind the purpose of a logo as a hallmark for your company—"owning" one or two colors in the mind of your customer is much easier than trying to own a broad spectrum of colors. A streamlined palette is simply more technically usable and also more memorable. You can always integrate additional, coordinating accent colors into the surrounding design of your marketing pieces to achieve additional color and depth.

5. Keep the overall shape in mind

The overall shape of the logo should be roughly equivalent to a standard shape, such as a square, rectangle, circle, or triangle. This doesn't mean your logo needs to actually be one of these shapes, but that its overall layout should group together as a whole, rather than spreading out into a nebulous shape. The reason it is important that the logo unites into a strong shape is so that it can be placed next to other content and copy and still stand strongly on its own. If the overall shape of your logo is nebulous and awkward, it will quickly get lost among other elements on the page.

If you follow these overall guidelines, you'll create a logo that stands the test of time and can be consistently reproduced across all media.

How can I write better copy for my business?

As a small business, my website budget is tight and I won't be able to hire a copywriter right away. How can I get started writing copy for my business?

Most people really struggle to write about their business. Because you know all the little facets of your business, it can get really hard to narrow down what you want to say and how to say it.

Writing for yourself is also a challenge because you so rarely have the time to write when the motivation strikes—you're too busy working to serve your clients! Once you manage to schedule the time to do your own writing, you might not be filled with that motivation to write that you had a month ago when you were too busy working to write.

Over the years I have formed a system that helps me to write passionately about my business. The system can be a little chaotic, but it has always enabled me to capture my creative copy ideas when I might not have the time to sit down and write.

The super-simple system

The system is simple—every time I have a copy idea, I write it down. You may wish to work in an analog fashion, tracking ideas on slips of paper, post-it notes, or in a notebook and filing them away in a file folder, or you may wish to work digitally in an Evernote note or a Word document.

Whatever method you choose to use, the most important thing is that you are able to keep it readily available. This is important because our brains are usually the most creative when they are relaxed, which means ideas can (and will) strike at completely random times. I can't even begin to tell you how much of my website copy was conceived in the moments right before drifting off to sleep.

Bringing it all together

I usually start collecting ideas a few months before I begin my website redesign. This way, there is some time for my ideas to simmer and for inspiration to strike, and inspired copy is always much more engaging than copy that feels forced.

When I start getting close to working on my website copy, I make some time to go through all of my notes and compile them into a single digital document. Make sure to include all of your ideas to start with—it doesn't necessarily have to make sense yet.

Once I have all of the ideas compiled, I go back through the ideas and start grouping like items together. At this point, I usually have a good idea of what kinds of copy I need to create (i.e. home page copy, bio copy, etc.). If you don’t know what kind of copy you need, you might want to stop and write a list before grouping your copy ideas. That way you know what you are looking for.

After I've grouped related ideas together, I string thoughts together to form cohesive copy. Of course, you will need to add some filler copy in addition to these copy lines, but these initial ideas are likely to hold a lot of passionate thoughts. You will probably only need to add a small amount of additional copy to link them together. Don’t feel you must include everything—it is natural that you will have ideas that don’t fit in or bits that speak with an unfitting voice.

That’s all there is to it!

This process has helped turn website copywriting into a much less painful process by collecting your best ideas slowly and consistently, and I hope it will help make it easier for you too!