Category: Design for Business

Authenticity indicates whether or not some thing’s “real.” Low-bandwidth websites appear more authentic, and current research shows that “authentic” ads and brand experiences are what consumers crave. People don’t trust most advertising. They trust online advertising less, in particular, online video and online banner ads. We Rely on “Authenticity” to Trust a WebsiteLong ago, we trusted “the media” to give us…

It’s important to understand what a theme is and why it is critical in design.  I present a quote by Johannes Itten (1888 – 1967) and then a quote by Hillman Curtis (1961 – 2012): ITTEN Wrote: “Decorators and designers sometimes tend to be guided by their own subjective color propensities. This may lead to misunderstandings…

The text of this webpage example is excerpted from an INFP writer’s emails to me. The site was built as an experiment of balancing speed and beauty. Her text is worth reading. Almost all links are disconnected for this demo. Once the text snippets were put together and edited it made a nice philosophy about…

LIKE HUMAN BODY LANGUAGE, graphic design expresses similar implied non-verbal business attitudes or values. Graphic design is a method of differentiating business or products in the market. Graphic design is considered of equal value to other intangible assets like special customer offerings or an in-house mailing list or goodwill. Design builds a sense of community or habitat for customers…

Awards from other design committees are usually pretty meaningless to most clients. Designers awarding designers certificates and trophies sounds sort of silly. What matters most to clients is if you have a success story of your own where your design made someone money or helped them achieve a goal. I was once in a designer’s studio and…

I’ve worked for a lot of tech businesses. I insisted on photography and not illustrations of products. Subconsciously, engineers and scientists wonder if the product is “vapor-ware” or a pseudo product if there aren’t photographs. In one case, my client felt intimidated by a new competitor. They asked me to analyze the newcomers strengths and weaknesses. I saw that the…

Clichés actually are very “good” when it come to logos. Why? Because of fast recognition, memorability, and meaning. We know instantly the connection. It isn’t “distinctive” necessarily but human beings succumb to clichés all of the time. It’s a subconscious “mental shortcut.”

This is going to sound completely crazy but I have done it and won more work and client loyalty. When I can’t stand a site I built because it has aged. I either redo part of the site (on my test site –sandbox) or work up wireframes and demonstrate them to the client. This I do for free…

1. Good names have few syllables. 2. If you have two English words. Those are probably not very legally defensible. A fusion noun like “ValuedExpert” is better. 3. Good names grow out of positioning statements. 4. Good fusion noun names need two parts. One part denotative (dictionary meaning) and one part connotative (implied intangibles.) Potentially two connotative…

Mezzotints are a method of converting black and white continuous tone images without using hatching, cross-hatching, or stipple. To reduce file size, but add coarseness, a mezzotint can be converted to a bitmap image (in Photoshop or GIMP and probably other image processors.) A bitmap image consists of only black and clear pixels. This makes it possible to do some…