Response to Shanghai Experience – Digital Challenge

Learning about cultural differences in relations to marketing and advertising is important in our current market that is ever-expanding via the World Wide Web. The ability to move your product or service into foreign markets with ease is a great advantage. The ease with which this can be accomplished involves several influential factors including the cultural differences and similarities between the current market and the market being entered, and the need for the product or service in the new market.

Cultural differences between markets
Whether you are vacationing in a foreign country, taking in the unknown experience, or have gone as part of a foreign studies group, it is difficult not to notice the cultural differences. As we observe these differences and learn the motivations and reasons behind them, we learn to understand the culture, learn to understand that people have life-shaping forces that are very different than the forces that shaped our lives in many cases. This is a great experience for personal growth but also for anyone who is working with foreign business markets.

Cultural similarities between markets
In addition to our differences, however, there are many ways that humans are the same the world over. These similarities are also important to note and may simplify some aspects of foreign marketing. There is a balance that must be achieved between a standardized marketing campaign for use in all markets and customizing the marketing efforts for certain markets. This depends on the product and how its performance may differ in varying market locations.

Easy transitions between markets
There are some products and services currently offered online that do not require much alteration between markets. One of those is printed materials. An online printing company is able to serve customers where ever they are located through the use of digitally transmitted designs. The customer will dictate the needed cultural variance in their marketing material when it is submitted. The online printing company’s capacity to communicate with the foreign market makes doing business there more easily accomplished than through using other products or services.

25 Design Magazines

Every designer, whether a professional or someone who likes to design their own corporate literature, needs to be surrounded by inspiration to keep the ideas fresh. Keeping new tips and tricks of the trade handy is also important, which is why graphic design magazines are such a necessary part of any designer’s library. Print magazines are especially nice to keep around for flipping through during down time at the office, but online magazines also carry lots of ideas for graphic design, both for print materials and web design. Here are 25 of the best graphic design magazines available. Most are printed magazines, while others have both print and online versions, and still others are only found on the web. Browse through them at your leisure and decide which ones are the most necessary for your niche of design. There are so many golden nuggets in this list that you’ll be tempted to order a yearly subscription to most of them, but remember that you can only read so many magazines at once.

Print Magazines

1. The International Design Magazine
This magazine provides lots of articles, inspiration, contests, and more for design in the broad sense of the word and the business world of design.

2. Before & After Magazine
Perfect for inspiration, this is the “how to” magazine for graphic designers with the latest design tutorials and tricks available.

3. Layers Magazine
Another wonderful “how to” magazine, you’ll find everything you need to know about designing with Adobe in issues available on CD and in print.

4. HOW Magazine
Amazing career and design advice are available both online and in print through HOW; as well as contests, inspiration, forums, and events.

5. PRINT Magazine
A commentary on design culture, this bimonthly magazine provides valuable insight into environmental, social, and commercial design.

6. Communication Arts Magazine
Both online and in print, Communication Arts provides plenty of helpful information for designers, such as job postings, competitions, news articles, and design tips.

7. Beautiful/Decay Magazine
This is the ultimate in inspiration and current trends as a magazine designed to showcase established artists from all over the world.

8. Wallpaper Magazine
Find excellent advice and trends for graphic design, fashion, interiors, and lifestyle in each issue as well as online.

9. Juxtapose Art & Culture Magazine
Both available online and in print, Juxtapose provides a wide variety of artistic inspiration.

10. Applied Arts Magazine
This Canadian visual arts magazine provides industry information, ideas, tips, and beautiful inspiration for designers.

11. Design Edge Canada Magazine
Another Canadian magazine, both available in print and online, offers valuable resources for designers, such as job offers and news and trends.

12. Graphic Design USA Magazine
A news magazine for designers, Graphic Design USA will help any artist keep up with what’s happening in the design world.

13. CMYK Magazine
Available both online and in print, CMYK provides some of the best, most creative current designs; perfect when needing some fresh inspiration.

14. Computer Arts Magazine
One of the most popular design resources available, this UK magazine provides tutorials and new design ideas in every issue.

15. Eye Magazine
This international magazine provides reviews of popular graphic design and other areas of visual culture.

16. Creative Review Magazine
This British magazine reviews the best in the field of visual communications, from graphic design to architecture to advertising.

Online Magazines

17. Smashing Magazine
One of the most thorough ezines available, Smashing Magazine offers design inspiration, articles, tutorials, free downloads, CSS info, and more.

18. Dynamic Graphics Magazine
The perfect online magazine for graphic design professionals, each issue provides powerful career, project, and software tips and tidbits.

19. PDF Magazines
Over 200 free pdf magazines are available on this site, and most are focused on design, art, and illustration, as well as culture.

20. Design and Publishing Ezine
Each issue of DTG contains valuable information on everything design related, including type and graphics.

21. Tutorial Magazine
Find the latest and greatest design tutorials on this site, from Photoshop to Flash, updated with new content every week day.

22. GoMediaZine
Freebies, success stories, tutorials, industry insights, and more are what you will find in this magazine designed by real world designers.National Association of

23. Photoshop Professionals
Join the NAPP and receive incredible benefits, including the Photoshop User Magazine, discounts, tech support, and more.

24. Designer Today Graphic Design Magazine
With product reviews, premium tutorials, services, jobs, and articles, just to name a few, this online magazine is a very well-rounded resource for graphic designers.

25. Speckyboy Design Magazine
With tutorials and inspiration for everything from Photoshop to typography to WordPress to logos, web designers especially will find this online magazine to be full of helpful information.

Building your Brand During a Recession

Especially in times of financial crisis, it is important to communicate to your costumers that your brand is the best option. It must stand out from all their other options; your brand’s image must speak to them personally. It is not enough to just have a catchy slogan and logo; you must find a way to make the customer feel that your brand is right for them. But how does one make a brand memorable? What differentiates your brand from the hundreds of other choices out there?

Associate your brand with an idea or image

You are not just selling a product, you are selling the associations that go along with it. If your product is clothing, you should also make the customer feel that he or she will be more fashionable as well as just keeping warm. The look and ideas that go hand in hand with your product are just as important in making a sale as having a good product.  Just because a product is in demand doesn’t mean you don’t have to work to promote it, because otherwise people are just as likely to get it elsewhere. Your product has to stand out from the competition, and making an emotional connection with the customer is the best way to do it. Tell them how your product will make their life easier or better.

Advertise your brand on every email and package that you send out

Many companies print business cards, but there are other options to increase brand awareness and to make customers remember your company. Rather than using a plain receipt, always use one with your brand logo. Put your brand on shipping boxes, bags, and include it in emails. These are also cost effective, because it costs you nothing to include something about your brand in an email signature; and you are probably printing out receipts for your items already, so why not make sure there is a large, memorable logo on them to make sure a customer pays attention to it? The more often they see your brand logo, the better they will remember it, and if they remember it, they are more likely to become repeat customers.

Have a website to market your products

Even if you do business mainly in person or through the mail, a website is a cheap and useful marketing tool that is always available for your customers to look at. Make sure it is visually appealing and has plenty of information. It is important that a site be easy to navigate and simple to understand. Even if you do not take orders online, a website is a great way for a customer to look at pictures and find information about your product. Make sure it is clear if you take orders online. If you do, use shopping cart software that is easy for the customer. If not, make sure you clearly state how they can buy your product, what hours they can contact you, and any relevant addresses and phone numbers.

The Growing Importance of a Brand

In a very crowded marketplace, it is imperative for your company to create a stronger brand presence. The next time a customer needs a new widget, how can you ensure your organization immediately comes to mind? Having a consistent message and look across all marketing materials is essential. This should include business cards, letterhead, website design, color brochures, signage and multimedia tools such as PowerPoint presentations or videos.

In recent years, McDonald’s has built locations featuring the familiar yellow arches in the shape of an M, but did not include the word McDonald’s on the lighted pole sign. Their branded image is simply that strong. That type of powerful statement is possible as a result of years of consistency throughout their marketing. Their restaurant décor may change, but the hallmark symbol of their brand, the golden arches, has remained virtually the same for decades.

Therefore when building the foundation to create a stronger brand presence, careful consideration should be given to the look and any taglines you might include on your materials. The size and placement of a company’s signature logo should remain consistent whether on a multimedia piece or a color brochure.

Another key element is the color palette. Researchers indicate the viewer responds differently to specific colors. Messages related to action often feature bolder colors and even brighter whites on their color brochures and websites. FedEx is one example.

      

Blue is said to inspire trust, a sense of steadiness and reliability. As a result it is a common color utilized by law firms, accounting practices and iconic American companies such as Ford and Sears.

While personal tastes can be considered, this is true only to a relatively minor degree. Although an owner may love the color fuchsia or hot pink, probably not a color palate for a clinic or accountant.

Many companies have found a great deal of success in developing a unique logo, whether it is an image or typography used for company name. When you see the large bold letters IBM, the company brand is universally known.

The challenge in today’s marketplace is not only must your branding messages look good on a color brochure, but should easily transfer to other mediums. For example will it stand out as an avatar on a social media website such as Twitter or Facebook? If the design is too wide, it can look distorted in confined in such small boxes.

When trying to create a stronger brand presence always try to identify the key points that will spur a potential customer from recognition and awareness to using your service or product? Answer those questions as much as possible; yet keep in mind the final look of your marketing materials across platforms such as websites, signage and color brochures. These principles along with quality performance will help create a stronger brand presence.

Your Marketing Campaign Check Up

Your business cannot succeed if you do not effectively market it.  And your marketing techniques will not be continuously successful if you do not critique them regularly.  It is important to check up on the success of your marketing efforts periodically in order to keep them fresh and operating at peak efficiency.

So how do you critique yourself in terms of your marketing efforts?  Well, you just have to ask yourself the right questions.  Here they are:

Self-Grading Your Business Website

If you do business though a website, you need to know whether or not your site is creating enough profit for you.  Now, you might be saying, “Well, I’m making money, so it is doing its job.”  Or, you could be thinking, “Well, last quarter was pretty rough, so maybe my site is not performing all that well.” 

Neither one of those thoughts is going to help you much.  You need to have a firm, qualitative way of grading your site.  Here is a step by step guide to doing just that.

A Novel Idea: Custom Notepads

Because of the rough economic time that we are experiencing, custom notepads are growing in popularity.  These little marketing wonders offer companies a way to advertise their business and cut costs at the same time.

Tips for Powerful Brochure Marketing

Every successful company uses brochures simply because they are such a powerful marketing tool. A well-designed brochure sends the message that your company is legitimate and professional, a necessity in today’s digital business world. Just make sure to keep these marketing tips in mind so that you get the most out of your brochure printing.

Change it up

Maintaining a fresh look improves the professionalism of your company. An updated brochure assures customers that your business keeps up with the latest improvements in your industry and is able to handle their needs better than a competitor. Making changes to your brochure printing needs to be done carefully, as you don’t want to appear flaky or unreliable. Therefore, most of the changes you will need to make are to update the information. Improving the layout is also important, but make sure to maintain your brand identity, as changing colors and other crucial brand information will confuse consumers.

Be prepared
Very often, a brochure printing design will work only for certain situations, so what do you do when an opportunity arises suddenly? If you have a brochure template handy, you can simply enter the necessary message and send the design to an online printing company. Rush the order and you’ll have brochures ready to hand out the next day. For the fastest design, have colors, text boxes, graphics, and even contact information in place. You may also want to keep different headline and messages available, so you can simply copy and paste the appropriate one into place.

Create a schedule

For those brochure advertising opportunities that you can foresee far in the future, create a plan. Grab a calendar and pencil and schedule dates for your brochure printing campaign. Look ahead to conferences, fairs, and other valuable marketing events. If you plan to use your brochures for direct mail, schedule when you plan to send each wave. Knowing ahead of time for what and when you will be using brochures allows you to more accurately design the message. Save money by designing a brochure capable of a variety of uses (inserts can help with this task) and order as large of a quantity at one time as possible.

5 Ways to Fight Designer’s Block

We’ve all been there. Staring at a blank InDesign document or a blank piece of paper. Willing the creative ideas to pour forth onto blank slate. And yet, nothing. What’s commonly referred to as designer’s block (adapted from writer’s block) can be a real pain. But designer’s block is completely natural and common among creative types.

Luckily, there are ways to get past the dreaded designer’s block. I’ve found these strategies to work best for me. What kind of strategies do you use? Feel free to comment so that all of us creative types can learn from each other and hopefully ease some of the pain!

1. Take a walk. This is an old one, but it works for me. When I take a walk, I’m concentrating on the feel of the pavement or gravel under my shoes; the smells, sights and sounds; keeping my dog from walking in the middle of the road. All of these things seem to let my subconscious do its thing and by the time I come home, I’m in a better place to let the ideas flow.

2. Sketch anything, including the kitchen sink. This can be hard for some people to do because it can be seen as a waste of time, but I say, you’re not designing anyway so what’s being wasted? Sketching designs featuring your dog, any household item or anything out your window can help spur your brain into at least getting into the designing mode.

3. View artsy sites and blogs. Often seeing other people’s works will get your brain working on projects of your own. Our brains are wired for some weird associations, so you never know what’s going to come up.

4. Put on some music. Music lights up parts of your brain associated with creativity. Instead of taking a walk, if I put on some music and start dancing, not only do I get the physical benefit, I wake up my groovin’ brain. Classical music can help babies and toddlers learn, so I don’t see why disco and hip hop can’t make adults grow new ideas!

5. Get into a child’s mindset. Try to remember how you saw the world at 5 years old. Most things were still new, and you explored everything because you didn’t know any better. Explore the world by trying to see things in a new light. Look at trees from different angles; view your dining room table from below. Who knows what might come to light from looking at ordinary things in new ways.

A Better Client = A Better Brochure

When it comes to brochure design, multiple factors can make (or break) the success of the project. This means that you need to be a very thorough and helpful client so your designer can create that perfect look for your brochure. Here are just a few areas in which you can make your designer’s job a little easier.

1. Images
Send all of the images that a designer could use in your brochure, from images of your company to customers using your product to your actual product. The designer may pull from a few stock photos as well, so let your designer know ahead of time if this is something you prefer or not. Also, don’t forget to send all file copies of your logo, as the designer may need the different sizes/designs.

2. Copy
Save yourself both time and money by writing the copy for each section, including the headlines, yourself. The only problem can be that many clients tend to feel possessive of their written work, making the designer’s job difficult. A designer needs the option to rearrange or reword information sometimes to make it all fit into the layout. Be a good client and allow the designer to do his or her job. You can always ask them to change anything that you don’t like once you see the proof.

3. Format
Don’t just assume that a designer can read your mind and choose the format you desire. Remember that brochure printing cn be done in all shapes and sizes, so let your designer know at the get-go the specifications of your brochure. Different sizes and folds mean different layouts, so ask your designer how the format you choose will affect the information you need to send.

4. Branding
You want your brochure to be an accurate representation of your company image, so give your designer all of the information they need to create a design consistent with your brand. Don’t forget about colors, fonts, taglines, and even past designs that represent the look you desire. If you don’t yet have brand information, be sure to communicate the look you are trying to create and any styles you don’t like.

5. Printing
Find out if the designer has a printing company he or she uses. If this is the case, make sure the quality and prices are right for your brochures. You may decide to send the file to a brochure printing company you trust rather than risking an excellent design on poor printing.

The bottom line: communicate with your designer, and not just a little. If you think of something after the consultation step is over, simply contact your designer. They will be more than willing to hear what you have to say to get your design right. Remember, a good client means a successful brochure design. Give your designer all the tools he or she needs and your brochure design is sure to be a smashing hit.