Where in the world am I today?: Winnipeg, MB, Canada

I’ve been staring at the design for a new Checkerboard Guy business card for a week or two now… It’s going to be a double sided full color front, full color back sort of dealy and the challenge from the beginning has been to find a suitable replacement for image/look on card I’ve been using for years and years.

This image has served me incredibly well because anytime I’d hand a card to someone with this image of me with my tongue sticking out on it, the reaction was priceless… It made people laugh from the get go! I debated keeping this image for the front of the card and just reworking the back of the card to be more in keeping with current promo. After much deliberation I’ve chosen to make a break from the old image and work with some more recent shots.

The new images are more in keeping with a lot of the other promotional materials I’ve put out recently in terms of their look/feel. They also feature me in my more upscale costume which is useful as I seem to be doing more and more work in venues that require a more corporate look.

I’m lucky to have worked with a couple of great designers over the years who’ve helped me craft some great rules to follow when it comes to attacking a new piece of promotional material. Coming up with these rules or guides, things like a consistent headline font that you’re going to stick with, a distinctive logo or logos, a consistent color pallet, established catch phrases or slogans and great photos allow you to put the building blocks together in multiple combinations for various purposes while staying true to certain pre-established parameters. There may be a bit of room to play within the context of these rules, but working from a place of a certain consistency does help to keep the ‘Brand’ recognizable.

So… I made certain decisions about the elements that I wanted to use for both the front and back of the card then took several stabs at laying things out in various configurations. My buddy David Duchemin endured many many emails and brain storming sessions where I’d craft something then throw it at him to see if it would stick… With out his eyes and brain I’m sure the end result would be far less effective.

For the business card I got all of the building blocks sorted out, configure them based on solid design principals. Thanks again to my buddy Dave who sat down next to during one configuring session and stressed the CRAP Principles – Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity (each word links to a post he wrote where he discusses these on his blog). Then, once I had what I thought was a design I was happy with I’d print it out at actual size and stick it on my monitor and just look at it for a few days and digest the look/feel of things. I did this two or three times before getting to the design above that I’m pretty pleased with.

Next… I got in touch with another buddy who’s got a great eye for proof reading and who had fresh eyes for this project. Not only is he a good proof reader, he’s also published several books and understands design. He caught something that I hadn’t even seen or thought about which was awesome… Just a simple little kerning issue (character spacing) which although subtle made a difference when addressed.

Over the years my process has gotten a lot more involved and time it takes to get from initial concept to final product seems to have increased as I’ve gotten more thorough about the checks I’ve put in place to make sure the marketing materials I create are as effective as possible

.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.