Graphic design &
web design blog.
The Designers Notebook.
Trade Show Displays: Reducing and Reusing
The Red Deer Homeshow, this weekend at the Westerner , is one of the biggest trade shows in Red Deer, and we’ve been bustling all month preparing numerous projects for the “really big show”. One could argue Trade Shows are one of the more wasteful marketing activities one could pursue – you need large flashy booths, lots of give-aways (read: print destined for the trash) and if you are a large firm at the Calgary Oil-show, you might even need beer girls to spice things up. All of this amounts to a lot of extra raw materials being used and a lot of it is unavoidably wasted, trapped in the bottom of someones show-bag, never to be seen again.
I always recommend a “use what you actually need” approach to marketing. Buy the right amount of brochures, even though they get “cheaper” when you purchase by the pallet. Drive customers to websites where they can get further information rather than printing a large catalogue. These are all earth saving tips for an industry that is wasteful by it’s very nature. (Does the world really need another tri-fold brochure?)
A good piece of hardware might last 10 or 15 years! The average message might last 1 year.
Trade shows are the opposite of this ethic: you need lots of material, it has to be compelling, and messages are almost always timely – they don’t carry over year-over-year. Shows are messy, busy and you need to set up and break down fast, which usually increases waste. So what can you do?
Building Community – Olympic Style
The recent Vancouver 2010 Olympics was quite a ride for just about anyone Canadian. We've seen an Olympic result that is record setting and hard not to be proud of. We indeed owned the podium. Canadians banded together in a way I've seldom experienced - The most...
The Elephant in the Room – Part 2
I wrote recently about the conundrum of content. As a designer, you're paid to create the visuals the content goes into. As a client you pay designers for communications solutions (design is one part of this). It's neither cost-effective or efficient to write content...
The Elephant in the Room.
I've been thinking a lot over the past couple of months about content. All sorts of content, from brochure text, trade show display lists, and website pages. The old adage goes "content is King", but from the point of view of many projects, actual content is more...
Trrrrrade Show!
Early this week, Kayla and I attended the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours Trade Show. I have to be honest. I love trade shows, but I rarley attend them. I usually equip them. I have to say though, the host, Red Deer's One to One Fitness was very...
A Big Comfy Couch
Some milestones are worth noting – graduations, weddings, first steps – and we had one of those moments today. No, it wasn’t a Cannes Lion, though that would be nice, we got a couch for the office! Thanks to the Brick’s Boxing Week Blowout, we got a red leather (read – pleather) couch. Extravagant? Not really – we don’t have a lot of choices for seating here, and have really nice north facing windows looking out at Red Deer’s lovely parkade.
An Age Old Christmas Book Chronicled
So I have this book… my Dad gave it to me in 1979. It's a Christmas book about Santa's workshop. I treasure this book. I keep it in a box and it only comes out once a year for about 2 weeks. Thing is, this is one of those pop-up books with flaps and tabs and things to...
Pink Suede – No Ordinary Leather
We recently completed two tradeshow banners for Pink Suede Imaging. They turned out so wonderful I felt the need to blog. Pink Suede is a service that assists women in the area of personal image. Think of them as the What Not to Wear of Red Deer. If Clint & Stacy...
Twitterpated
I opened my twitter account on the advice of a client who I respect quite a lot. The advice was "I expect you to know about this , so whether you like it or not, you need to have a twitter account." I reluctantly opened the account and started to tweet. At this...
Juggling “Real” Work and Marketing
2009 has been a year of stops and starts, there is no doubt. One thing has really become clear, though. Managing any type of marketing requires a lot of effort. A lot of our clients are small central Alberta companies and associations who don't have full time...
Creativity… Shaken or Stirred?
The concept of the creative process is a pretty cloudy one. Shops guard their "process" carefully, larger shops acting aloof and technical, and the smaller shops tend to try and look bouncy and approachable to counteract the larger shops. The client is either being...
Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery Website Launch
Working on web based projects is always consuming and requires a lot of commitment. We launched the new web presence for the Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery this week, and journey that has taken us down a road that has lasted almost two years. The site is bay far one of...
MAG Moves To The Mall
Today was a pretty cool day. We visited the Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery in their new temporary location at the Parkland Mall in Red Deer. The Museum staff were very excited to embark on this new adventure. Firstly, they have closed the regular downtown location for...
Career Assistance Network Website Launch
After quite a few months, we’ve finally launched the new website for the Career Assistance Network in Red Deer. It has been a fun process and the amazing thing about a site is watching the content come together. I have to admit, I’m a sceptic when talk turns to the...
Annual Super bowl Ad Review
This year people really expected a drop in quality for the advertising at the Super Bowl. With all the recession talk, advertising we not supposed to be quick to step to the plate. Well, it was a good game and it was pretty darn good to see the commercials too. It's...
The Difference Creativity Makes
Today was a really good case study in the difference a little creativity makes in the general outcome of a design project. I’ve been going on about passion for design a lot lately and there is good reason for it. Passion for design or moreover, passion for creativity...
2008 comes to a close. A New Era Begins
As another year come to a close, it’s worth looking back at ‘08. We aren’t much bigger than we were in January, but this has been a year of monumental change and growth. With bad economic news coming every day, we are keeping and even keel and trying our best to...
New Adobe Content Management System Beta Testing
We were contacted a few months ago by a team building the brand new Konductor Website Content Management System, built on the chassis of the new Adobe Air Application. We were lucky enough to get in on the development beta team and have been toying with the new...
Settlement Tales Book Launch
Today was an amazing day. Sonya and I took in the launch of the Central Alberta Historical Society’s book launch for “Settlement Tales of West Central Alberta - The Markerville Story” - a coffee table history book about the characters in and around the Markerville...
Tippaccino! Thank’s a Latte!
It’s not often we get gifts from clients - usually we are the one giving them to our clients. But a few weeks back, we received a card in the mail from a client with a tip inside. A small token that allowed for some free and easy ordering at the local watering hole -...
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