Posted on

Making Print Social: Interactive Media and Integrated Marketing

 

info graphics and interactive media

Infographics have become wildly popular both online and in print. Graphic designers create visually inventive ways to convey otherwise confusing, unclear or tedious information that work well in print layouts and also draw readers online. The graphic-as-step-by-step-explanation trend is almost cliché – so much that The Atlantic was able to explore the trend with its article “The Rise of ‘In One Chart’ In One Chart.”

This doesn’t mean you should run away from infographics, though. They rose to ubiquity because they work: people enjoy them and they help explain complex topics quickly and succinctly. But infographics are inherently a one-way street. The designer and client are communicating with their audience, but the audience cannot talk back. This is why interactive media is a great new frontier for marketing. Users often spend more time with interactive media and they remember its message better afterwords. The following are some great examples of ways to take advantage of interactive media within any marketing campaign:

Quizzes

Dish Network has a Netflix quiz that is close to its television-addicted audience’s heart. With a series of questions, it helps determine what type of Netflix binger you are. Test takers answer some of the questions with responses like “I occasionally skip work to finish a season” or “I lost track of days somewhere between starting “Breaking Bad” and finishing “Mad Men.” Similarly, SnapApp created a quiz entitled “DDI: Common Leadership Styles,” and has reported great results with this as well as with many other quizzes it has put together.

This type of content is fun for users, it encourages them to stay on the website for an extended period of time and it prompts them to share the results with their friends on various social platforms. THIS IS GOLD. Quizzes are good investments to get users interested in looking at your content and promoting it for you – for free.

Contests

New York’s premier hip hop radio station, Hot 97, has remade itself for the digital era. One recent advancement is a contest to find up-and-coming artists called “Who’s Next.” For this contest, the station identifies local amateurs with potential, and each person or band creates a profile page to upload his or her songs to attract positive votes from listeners. A community has developed around the contest, and now the station has a small army of loyal fans who come to the site regularly to check for new music, watch videos and read the bios of those who hope to be the next big star.

Running contests encourages followers to check your site regularly, which gives you the opportunity to promote your product or services to them.

Visual Storytelling

One of the most beautiful examples of compelling visual storytelling comes from the New York Times. It’s story, “Snow Fall” tells the tale of a skier trapped in an avalanche on the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. From maps and video interviews to incredible photos and informative animations, this story has it all.

Although most companies don’t have anything this poignant to tell, the process helps turn all kinds of stories into captivating content. For example, McDonald’s put together an interactive site for user-generated “100 McDonald’s Moments.” This is designed to “remind people why they love the McDonald’s brand experience and core products,” explains Razorfish. The idea proved to be a success since the collection grew from 20 moments to 100 over a month of marketing. Razorfish also notes that the average visitor spent more than seven minutes on the website.

Stories enable visitors to spend more time on your site and engage with the content. Find or create a story that relates to your target market, and encourage visitors to look around for more interactive content.

 

Of course, all of this is part of the strategy of integrated marketing – using all the avenues of connection between you and the public in concert to boost the power of your marketing. Print, website, social media, face to face – it just makes sense to coordinate across all these interactions for greater results. For example, here’s a quick link to a story about how Traveler Beer uses social media to drive interest in their new Shandy drinks. Or this link about how Coca-Cola has generated huge buzz with their VDP marketing of personalized drink bottles.

We can all learn some creative ideas from how the big players use integrated marketing to create powerful returns. But the benefits are in no way limited to huge budgets or huge corporations. Even the smaller companies can coordinate their social media, blog and website with their print and direct mail to generate greater results in their marketing. In short, any content that makes your marketing “social” will be more successful for you and more engaging for the people you reach.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
Posted on

4 Easy Steps to Creating Engaging Video Content

 

Add video to mobile marketing

Visual content marketing, or the use of video in your website’s content, has grown exponentially over the last few years. According to numbers published by Ooyala, mobile and tablet video watching has grown a staggering 532% since 2012. Taking advantage of the new trend to couple content with video is key in your content’s success in engaging consumers. Here are some ways that you can use video to engage your audiences and keep them coming back for more.

Teach Them Something

Your audience may be interested in your product, but may be unsure of how to use it or are confused about its applications. Smart content coupled with instructive videos can engage and inspire consumers to make the jump from interested to invested. For example, Callaway Golf’s online show, “Callaway Talks,” is a video podcast where pros talk about equipment, performance and innovations within the world of Callaway Golf clubs. The information provided, discussions, and debates are all powerful content marketing tools utilized by Callaway to reach out to consumers with video content.

Tell Them a Story

The line between marketing and entertainment is becoming more blurred than ever before. No recent advertisement serves as a better example of how entertaining content can serve to capture the imagination of consumers and engage them in your brand than the recent viral video shared by the Wall Street Journal of Jean-Claude Van Damme doing powerful splits between two Volvo Trucks. In just a minute and a half Volvo created massive social media buzz and demonstrated to the world the stability and control of Volvo’s powerful Dynamic Steering systems. You may not have world-class martial artists at your disposal, there are plenty of royalty-free stock videos available online. With clever editing, narration and your own video content, even stock video can be utilized to craft a memorable tale to capture consumer attention.

Get Them to Relate

If your brand isn’t strong, most consumers will see you as just another faceless company with something to sell them. By adding a compelling and human face to your online presence, you can draw in customers on an emotional level and help them relate to you. Global arc welder manufacturer Lincoln Electric crafts oxyfuel cutting devices and distributes soldering alloys internationally—not exactly a relatable business for most consumers. However, through personal and introspective videos available on their LincolnElectricTV YouTube Channel, Lincoln electric connects with consumers by showing them how welding helps in the creation of everything from farm equipment to roller coasters. With the video tagline of “Welding Makes This World Possible,” Lincoln Electric grabs consumers emotionally and makes them take a second look at the products and people that they may not have ever given a second thought to.

Let Them Participate

The final tool in your video content arsenal comes from your customers themselves. Encourage your customer base to create their own videos sharing how your product or service effects their life, and share the ones that best represent your brand. In doing so, you essentially crowdsource your marketing directly to your audience, and create a connection with them. Everyone wants to be famous for a moment, and sharing consumer created video content is a sure way to get them talking about your product with their friends and families. Integrated marketing that truly engages your audience is the goal. Check out these links to see how companies like Taco Bell and Traveler Beer are utilizing creative ways to bring their customers into their marketing outreach.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
Posted on

Shandys, Selfies & A Mustache: Traveler Beer Does Integrated Marketing Right!

 

Stick on Mustaches from Traveler Beer

What is more fun than a stick-on mustache?!

…well, taking a selfie with your mustache to share with the world AND enjoying a new European twist on delicious beer at the same time. That combo has helped prove Traveler Beer Company a pro at integrated marketing. Combining a great product and marketing design with social media buzz is one step. But in Traveler’s current campaign, the vital link between the products and the online excitement is good, old-fashioned print and promotional products! It is exciting to see these traditional marketing tools put to their best use in combination with the latest in digital communications.

Traveler is “introducing” to the American market the European tradition of “shandys” – quality craft brews combined with carbonated citrus or fruit flavors. The four Traveler flavors use lemon and lime (“Curious Traveler“), grapefruit (“Illusive Traveler“),  strawberry (“Time Traveler“), and pumpkin (“Jack-O Traveler“). With such a unique product, Traveler is wisely shaping their marketing around the adventure of a new experience. By using a turn-of-the-LAST-century flavor to the graphics, they are reinforcing the idea that these flavors have been around a long while in Europe and proven a favorite. With the current public preference for all things hipster, the classic Victorian handlebar mustache works as the perfect representative of the product, and the perfect way to involve consumers in becoming a part of the marketing itself.

Promotional Products from Traveler Beer

Traveler’s mission was to involve the public through social media – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, primarily. To achieve that, they created a great variety of bar swag and promotional products to put the Traveler brand into consumer’s hands. Online, and in retail outlets, bars and restaurants, you can find branded t-shirts, backpacks, glassware, bar taps, and on and on. The key to actually involving folks in the marketing game is a set of stick-on mustaches attached to printed cards. The card for each style mustache directs the user to stick on the mustache, take a photo, and post it online with the hashtag #TRVLR. The result has been that elusive social media buzz and virality that makes a marketing campaign successful.

Twitter and Instagram SelfiesThe payoff for the consumer? Primarily, the fun of seeing their mustachioed selfies online! The Traveler website has a page called TRVLR GLRY with Mustache and Traveler of the Week photos, and shots from parties and events hosted around the Traveler products. Search for the hashtag #TRVLR on Twitter or Instagram to see all the folks joining in the fun.

The greatest part of this type of marketing? It can be done on a large scale like Traveler has shown us, or on a small scale for a local business with a lot less money and time to invest. Print and promotional products can be designed to encourage the recipient to actually market for the brand – post a photo, wear the logo, visit a webpage, or share the experience on social media of using the product. The reward for doing that can be a coupon or discount, a contest prize, or it can just be the kick of seeing one’s very own selfie on a website. When done right, adding the social media component to a standard print marketing campaign only amplifies the impact of the original idea but with very little, if any, added investment. For the consumer, it enhances your brand image and their enjoyment.

 

 

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
Posted on

ImageBlog’s 2013 Print and Design Year in Review

ImageBlog 2013

End of the year reflection time – which means of course a Top 10 list, right? Imageblog is our online newstand of conjecture, knowledge, experience and opinion about the world of print, design, marketing, technology and sustainability. Looking back at 2013, it was a year of growth. We were excited to feature our first guest blog authors, and hope to bring you more of that in the future. Below are articles we featured in 2013 that covered events unique to this year – changes, updates, memorials, anniversaries, and historic firsts. This list hopefully highlights some of the unique events of the past year:

  1. USPS Issues First-Ever Global Forever Stamp
    Just like the popular domestic first class mail Forever stamps, the USPS began offering a Forever stamp for international mail in February of 2013. For $1.10, you can send a one ounce letter anywhere in the world. The great circular design of the stamp is eye-catching and popular with philatelists.
  2. Boston Magazine Cover Highlights the Power of Print with a Moving Tribute
    After the tragic terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon in April, many newsstand covers featured stunning and moving photography and design memorializing that day. One we liked the best for its design, color and ability to capture the personal side of such an event without capitalizing on any tragic images, was Boston Magazine’s image of the shoes of actual Boston marathon runners forming a heart. Even better, proceeds from the sale of an accompanying poster go to benefit the One Fund–Boston, which has raised millions to help those affected by the attack.
  3. “Pencil to Pixel” Exhibit a Great Success Gill Sans Italic, original pencil and ink drawings
    British firm Monotype’s “Pencil to Pixel” exhibit in New York provided a museum setting exhibition for typography lovers in May of 2013, following an initial run in London in 2012. The rich show highlighted the craftsmanship and design behind well-known typefaces of the past and present.
  4. Coke Gets Personal with VDP and Integrated Marketing
    Variable Data Printing (VDP) and Integrated Marketing techniques continued this year to bolster the power and profitability of print advertising in an increasingly digital age. Coke experimented with personalized bottles in some foreign markets, as consumers begin to notice and expect individualized content in all forms of marketing.
  5. TCM in the Spotlight with Awesome Graphic Design
    ImageBlog took a look at the great graphic design work produced over at Turner Classic Movies on their website, on air productions, print materials and marketing collateral. Nothing’s more inspiring than great design and TCM and the charles s. anderson design co. are doing a world class job.
  6. 20 Years On: Newsweek Prophetic 1993 Vision of the Future Cover story on Interactive Technology from Newsweek
    A 1993 cover story from Newsweek offered a surprisingly accurate look ahead to today, contemplating the coming “interactivity” in the world of marketing and the resulting ethical dilemmas that might arise. An interesting read, but perhaps the most interesting part is that Newsweek did not foresee their own 2013 about face: first halting print production in favor of an online-only version at the end of 2012, then reversing course and planning a return to weekly print in 2014.
  7. 1931 Frankenstein Poster Sets World Record
    The only confirmed known insert poster of the 1931 Universal movie “Frankenstein” sold for over $262,000 dollars – over 5 times the estimated amount. Print is valuable!
  8. New Help for an Old Question: What is that Font?
    As just one example of the innovative ways technology is providing great solutions, we highlighted three online sites that help solve a problem designers and prepress departments have always struggled with – identifying a mystery font! Sooner or later, you’ll have the same problem and here are some great online resources.
  9. The World’s Most Expensive Printed Book is Sold Digital Bay Psalm Book
    The Bay Psalm Book now holds two world records: it is the first book printed in British North America and now the most expensive as well, having sold at auction for over $14 million! You can peruse the book yourself with the digital copy that is now available online for free, courtesy of the Old South Church in Boston.
  10. Cyber Monday: an Ongoing Evolution
    The busiest online shopping day of the year, Cyber Monday continues to evolve as  technology and social media change. Small players are now part of the game and the line between brick & mortar stores and their online enterprises gets blurrier. This day is a phenomenon that surely represents trends that will continue to define the changes in print and marketing in the year ahead.

Here’s hoping you will find some interesting topics in our list, or some useful information about print, design and marketing for the year ahead. Thank you for stopping by!

 

 

Rely on your printer for advice and direction with all your marketing needs. the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files.. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!
 
Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
Posted on

The Rapid Evolution of Cyber Monday

 

Cyber Monday Inbox

My inbox was full of Cyber Monday reminders today.

The idea of “Cyber Monday” as a sales event has proven in just eight short years to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When it began in 2005 – at least that’s when the term was coined after online retailers noticed a spike in online sales on the Monday following Thanksgiving – there were 9 other days of the year that saw greater online purchases. Still, the growing event inspired  great sale prices, giveaways and free shipping. As the catchy name and phenomenon caught on among retailers creating a double whammy with the already successful Black Friday marketing push, the event has now finally lived up to its name by becoming the #1 online shopping day of the year. Sales are estimated to hit in the area of $2 billion for 2013.

While the concept of Cyber Monday has now lived up to its name, the phenomenon is still changing. Below are a few significant ways:

  • Cyber Monday is becoming Cyber Week: Why limit such an effective promotion event to just one day, when shoppers will be selecting their purchases for the holiday season online for several more weeks? Retailers are catching on that the windfall of a Cyber Monday need not be limited to one day of bargains.
  • The line blurs between Online and Brick & Mortar: Most brick and mortar retailers are now online as well, becoming increasingly savvy and profitable with their online business. The idea of Cyber Monday being a profit-maker for just the online-only retailers like Amazon is a thing of the past. Integrated marketing now connects in-store and online specials in increasingly creative ways.
  • High speed internet changes things:  Why did the Monday following Thanksgiving originally show such a spike in online sales? Because people came to work to do their shopping! Back in 2005 and before, most homes had slower dial-up internet connections so folks waited until work resumed to order online. Also, the workplace afforded the privacy away from family members to do their shopping. Today, with high speed internet everywhere and the prevalence of smart phones, waiting for a workday to shop makes less sense.
  • It’s not just for the big players anymore: Small businesses are coming into their own online, with the ability to offer specials and promotions through their interactive e-commerce websites. The large sales figures for online shopping no longer need to be just the windfall of the large corporate retailers.

Here’s a link to a great infographic on the history of Cyber Monday.

 

 

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
Posted on

Newsweek’s Prophetic 1993 Vision of the Future

Cover story on Interactive Technology from Newsweek

We came across this magazine recently in our shop. Twenty years ago, the May 31, 1993 edition of Newsweek featured a cover story that envisioned what the future might hold once information began to race along a looming “superhighway.” While this fast approaching digital revolution was undeniable, the details of how it would change everyday life for all of us were largely unclear. Change on that scale is both exciting and intimidating, as we all have learned over the past two decades. With speculation rampant, Newsweek journalists Bill Powell, Anne Underwood, Seema Nayyar, Charles Fleming, Barbara Kantrowitz and Joshua Coooper Ramo envisioned a surprisingly accurate overview of how technology was preparing to change our lives.

Arguably the most impressive techonological accomplishment during my early childhood was the NASA moon landing. I remember being aware in 1969 that my grandmother, who lived with us and was born in the 1890s, had been my age at a time when even flight seemed a ridiculous concept. Now she was sitting beside me watching a man step out onto the moon’s surface. That fast pace of change in one lifetime has of course continuted to accelerate. The world of 1993, only twenty years ago, stood on the cusp of the digital revolution, although the term “internet” was still largely unknown. 27% of American households had a home computer, but many admitted to using it less than 5 hours a week! Fiber-optic cable was far from universal, movies were rented at brick-and-mortar stores to be viewed on VCRs. The CD ROM was an amazing new invention that could store video, music or text on one disk but needed a specialized player to be accessed.

In their focus on the potential of what was about to happen, Newsweek chose the concept of “interactivity.” The future would allow consumers to be participants in their consumption of entertainment and services, no longer just a “couch-potato” who passively viewed and absorbed information. The missing pieces in 1993 for this sea change were the expansion of fiber optic cable networks to connect us, and huge investments in infrastructure, technology and content that the major players in the cable, communications and entertainment sectors were deploying. Looking ahead from this landscape in 1993 with amazing prescience, Newsweek envisioned:

  • Video phones with clear pictures (and lens covers to ensure privacy)
  • “New age goggles” and virtual reality that a “mighty computer” would be able to deliver
  • Lightweight, compact laptop computers. “Work will never be more than a keystroke away.”
  • HDTV with a sharper than ever screen picture
  • Software to be used for education.
  • “Viewer-directed” movies and video games where the user can choose alternate endings or direct the entire action.
  • On-demand movies and channel selections. (In 1993, only one network in California offered “interactive TV programming” where you bought a device for $199, then paid $15 to interact with game shows or predict sporting events.)
  • An early concept of “icons” on a computer screen that search the “superhighway of information” for news uniquely tailored to a person’s interests…. and then connect to other people with those same interests – social media in it’s infancy!

A central concept our 1993 world had trouble envisioning was through what devices in our households would we be accessing this interactivity, and who would be paying to do so. Would it be through our TVs, phones or personal computers? If these “smart boxes” as Newsweek calls them, grow too complicated, would people want to deal with them after a long day’s work? How much would we be willing to pay to access banking, entertainment, or investment information?

This article also accurately foresaw the dilemnas and coming ethical conflicts our new interactivity would generate:

  • Al Gore was advocating for a “scheme to build a nationwide fiber-optic network,” and is quoted as saying this “data superhighway” will be the ” ‘most important marketplace of the 21st century.’ ” – He got that right.
  • “It’s quite possible that some entrepreneur in a garage is coming up with a really new idea that will forever alter the best-laid plans.” – A premonition of Zuckerberg and Facebook, perhaps?
  • “Who will protect the privacy of consumers whose shopping, viewing and recreational habits are all fed into one cable-phone company data bank?” – an early understanding of the complexity of privacy issues that abound today.
  • “The government could electronically spy on individuals; bosses could track employees.” – Edward Snowden was about 9 years old when this was written.
  • Of the major players in the industry in 1993 – U S West, Time Warner, AT&T, TCI, Microsoft, Intel, General Instrument, Sega, MCA – Newsweek realized these would “live or die based on the decisions they make in the next decade…. Not everyone is going to make it. Those that do could change everything.”

With all they got right, what is the most surprising thing Newsweek missed in their look ahead? That their magazine itself would, in twenty years time, cease print production at the end of 2012, becoming an online-only digital publication.

Interactivity and the future of technology

Related BLOGPOST: 15 Years of Rapid Change for the World of Print

 

Printers understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
Posted on

Boston Magazine Cover Design: Moving Tribute, Powerful Print

 

Boston Magazine Cover

Boston Magazine: www.bostonmagazine.com, Cover image by Mitch Feinberg

 

Sometimes an image captures the heart and emotions of a nation. Even in a world of film, video, 3D imaging and iMax movie experiences, a single still frame frozen in time can speak in a unique, powerful way for people with a power that other media cannot duplicate. Boston Magazine has created such an image that is both a moving tribute to the tragic bombings in Boston and a telling demonstration of the enduring power of design and the printed image.

Boston Magazine produced a cover image in response to the Marathon bombings in that city which seems to be an overnight sensation, currently making the rounds on social media. The heart shaped design composed of shoes from actual Boston Marathon runners visually tells the story of hope and endurance behind the experience of the bombings. All the major networks have reported on the image and its creation as a top news story. The powerful design will be printed not only as a magazine cover, but also as a poster with proceeds going to The One Fund – Boston. If you are interested in obtaining a poster of your own and thereby contributing, Boston Magazine says, “Please send us an email at bmagdigital@gmail.com if you would like more information about the posters once they’re available.”

Yes, many of us will experience the image digitally as it permeates the culture through social media. But the printed magazine cover and the subsequent demand for a poster bring the image into the tactile world as a keepsake. Great design in a cover image can produce a print edition that becomes a lasting keepsake for many. Even in an increasingly digital world, print retains the power to influence and communicate in a unique way.

Below are a couple of other memborable cover images memorializing the events.

Time published a special “tablet-only” edition with the cover image below. You can download it here. (photo: Bill Hoenk)Tablet only verison of TIme Cover

 

The New Yorker’s “Shadow Over Boston” issue features the artwork of Eric Drooker: New Yorker cover for the boston bombings

 

Donate to The One Fund – Boston here to help those affected by the Boston bombings. The One Fund – Boston donation site

Printers understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design, signage, apparel and integrated marketing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Shop our full ImageSmith catalog online here. We can work with you to find the best option to suit your needs. Please note, prices in online catalog do not include decoration, but call us for a quote at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
Posted on

New Global Forever Stamp from the USPS: Great Design, Great Idea

the new forever stamp for international mail

Now the convenience for a Forever Stamp, like the ones we all use for domestic first class letters, is available for international mail. For $1.10, you can send a one ounce letter to any country in the world (or a 2 ounce letter to Canada), and these stamps may be used in the future no matter how much postage prices change. They may be purchased individually or in a sheet of 20 for $22.00.

The beautiful stamp was designed by Greg Breeding, art direction by William J. Gicker, and the composite satellite image of the earth was created by Leonello Calvetti. The unusual round shape is eyecatching and unique, a suitable fit for a stamp that has a unique function and carries its message around the world.

The USPS, which receives no tax dollars for operational expenses and funds itself through the sale of its products and services, is actively branching out in social media and marketing to its customers, especially stamp-collectors. Check them out on Facebook or Twitter @USPSStamps. For philatelists, or stamp collectors, the USPS has a great site called Beyond the Perf, showcasing upcoming stamps, first-day-of-issue events and other stamp-related news.

Posted on

Font Fail: How Not to Design a Wedding Invitation

 

(source)

An interesting print/design item from the gossip world… Levi Johnston’s wedding announcement. You remember Levi – former fiancé of Bristol Palin, father of their son Tripp. Well he recently wed Sunny Oglesby, mother of his second child, Breeze. And while we wish them well in their new marriage, there’s not a lot of hope for their wedding invitation – a textbook lesson in bad design.

Now, I have to admit it’s much easier to be critical than creative. But at the same time, a sound critique is a great tool for identifying and learning from what does NOT work well in print and typography. The Johnston/Ogelsby union unfortunately gives us a great learning tool. Looking more like a page from a type reference book than a formal announcement, I’m counting NINE different fonts on only nine lines! (I don’t know what’s behind the black box used to cover up the contact information, but I’m willing to bet it’s another font.) I’m a little disappointed they didn’t use Comic Sans or Papyrus.

Aside from the font disaster, the first two lines form a sentence fragment; the word “famalies” is misspelled; and I’ve never heard the term “join marriage” used quite that way. Throw in a crazy clip art spree and you’ve got Exhibit A in Typography 101’s course on how not to design. Lesson learned, right? Go easy on the fonts.

Big thanks to Rafi D’Angelo’s awesome blog So Let’s Talk About ______ for showing us this design fail, and of course the source for all things gossipy, TMZ.

 

Rely on your printer for advice and direction. They should be able to provide you with everything from encouragement and advice to complete design, layout, copywriting, production, multi-purposing and distribution of your marketing outreach. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.