Category: Design for Business

Athought provoking Wired magazine entry makes me wonder about all that link clutter from social media. Check it out > I don’t think committing web page real-estate is worth the distraction and visual noise. I haven’t met anyone who’s had personal phenomenal success from social links (jobs, money.)

I’ve been an advocate of author Marty Neumeier’s thinking – but his day in the sun has probably past, I think. You can read about him here. And one of his books I’m going to quote from at slideshare. As with all author’s, I do NOT agree with everything he says. But I’m still a fan-boy. He…

I read an article last night that “advertising” is dead. We have to use new labels to let people know we are in this present time and not the past – but the goal is still the same. Increase sales or promote an idea. Advertising is Dead > I do not agree with everything in this article. No big…

Positioning and differentiation are tried-and-true CREATIVE advertising strategies. I can tell you how changing positioning strategies meant making millions for many clients I’ve served. It changed them from confusing to understandable. Positioning is an idea that’s been in existence since 1980 and now taught in every business course in the world. That doesn’t mean getting noticed and being remarkable isn’t important.…

The way I’ve handled this “delay problem” – in my fixed-bid agreement – is instead of a “penalty,” I say the agreement is valid for 90-days. If the project isn’t completed by then, the terms are renegotiated. While this isn’t actually used as a “threat”, it’s a nice incentive or motivator for them to keep the energy on high.…

The upfront expenditure to wheedle out of a client what they really need I call “Design Therapy.” More than normal questionnaires, it takes  unconventional “tricks” to get this information out of them. You have to analyze them and also the motivation of their audience – quickly. It’s a journey into psychology. They frequently suffer from Cognitive Dissonance. It’s the…

Here’s something I’ve advocated for a long time and that’s building separate websites for different services. Every good product or service deserves it’s own website. The “business herd” tends to think a “big authority website” is best. They are not. They are bloated and easy to get lost in. Telling people you can do everything is the same…

HERE ARE 53 PHRASES TO AVOID IN YOUR WEB COPYWRITINGBuzzwords, marketing tripe, and meaningless hype. These most notoriously appear in the ABOUT US section of websites. I’ve collected them from many sources.  While appending my latest additions, I realized I’ve been violating a bunch. So it’s a good review. For a long time I’ve called myself a “creative strategist,”…

An adage I like when it comes to hiring a designer is: “Never speculate on a portfolio.” What that means is, if you don’t see something in the designer’s portfolio that looks close or similar to what you want, you’d best not hire them. That advise will seem harsh counsel for the design community. Designer’s frequently like to “earn…

Why are captions important in advertising?A caption writing style guide. The graphic metaphor’s advantage is carried in the captions. Here is where words carry more meaning than pictures as the viewer relies on the caption for proper interpretation of the image’s meaning. Without this caption, you might not interpret a photo properly.   Note: National…