asheville – ImageBlog

March 18, 2020

5 Ways to Care for Our Community During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Asheville Skyline Working Together to face COVID-19

Here in Asheville and around the nation, we are still in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and are struggling to understand its impact on our community. Times are stressful to say the least. One of the best ways to alleviate anxiety during uncertain times is to look for ways to be of help and service to others. Many people and businesses in our local community will be heavily impacted by this disease in the weeks to come – here are 5 quick ideas how we can all easily help out right now:

BUY LOCAL – more than ever, community businesses and their employees will need our support to stay open. Shop local, and consider buying gift cards for later use from your favorite shops.

ORDER TAKE OUT – local restuarants have been hit first and hardest in this new world of “social distancing.” If you want to help your favorites and their employees, order take out and let them know you’re on their side.

CHECK ON YOUR NEIGHBOR – the elderly and others at high risk are espcially vulnerable now. Offer to do shopping or run errands for those you know who may fear being in public.

BE GENEROUS – donate to food banks, churches, animal shelters, or your favorite charity. The needs they work to meet are more critical now than ever. Donating blood is also safe and urgently needed.

POST POSITIVE – we are all inundated with frightening facts and negative speculation about the future. Help others to remember that we will get through this together – your words online can be just what someone else needs to feel stronger!

Of course, follow all the advice from the CDC and your health professionals about how to keep yourself and your loved ones healthy during this time. The official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 website is here. For an easy recap, the White House and CDC have released official Coronavirus Guidelines for America as of March 18, 2020, which you can see below.

Official Coronavirus Guidelines for America

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication, design, and teamwork. 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.

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.

November 1, 2016

Big Dog Love: the Canine as Logo and Brand Mascot

Brands make lucrative use of the visual and emotional appeal of animals in their design strategies – perhaps the epitome of the brand “mascot” is man’s best friend himself: the lovable dog. Remember the terrier on RCA Victor‘s record labels with the title “His Master’s Voice”? Dogs are a natural fit for a surprisingly wide range of enterprises, from beer to high finance – and the reason is pretty clear. Dogs have an almost universal appeal as faithful companions, loyal and fierce protectors, and they share a nature that is intelligent, calming, comforting, and speaks of home and hearth.

Those warm and fuzzy canine qualities are a valuable fit in the branding strategy of many businesses, and not just for vet clinics, pet shops or animal services. This blogpost looks at a few local Asheville and western NC ventures that make creative use of canine appeal extending beyond the field of animal care.

Beer

Probably the only thing more popular than our beloved pets in WNC is beer. The business of craft brewing has boomed internationally over recent years, and the dog makes frequent appearances in both the names and logos of breweries and of their specific beers. Red Dog, Blue Dog, Mad Dog, Flying Dog… its a long list. Just Google “beer, logo, dog” to get a feel for the popularity of this trend. Locally, canine-friendly Asheville Brewing Company has a great offering in their Lemon Space Dog Wheat, a wheat ale with lemondrop hops.

Sanctuary Brewing Company in Hendersonville, NC is ” a nano brewery and tap room committed to enriching the lives of humans through our excellent craft beer, and benefiting animals through local advocacy.” The owners work with local shelters and animal advocacy groups as part of their mission to rescue and benefit animals in the area. A great combo!

Pink Dog Creative

Art studios and retail space in Asheville’s booming River Arts District, Pink Dog Creative uses just that – the shape of a large, tooth-baring pink dog as it’s logo. The huge pink dog on the buildings wall mural has become symbolic of the resurgence of the River Arts District and of the role the arts have played in Asheville’s success.

Plum Dog Financial

A dog represents trust and dependability, as well as the idea of home. That is why you see a dog in the logo and marketing of Plum Dog Financial, mortgage brokers and financial experts located in the Montford neighborhood downtown. Creatively, its a natural fit and definitely works to bring the potentially distant and unfriendly world of finance down to a personal, approachable level. Smart marketing!

The Park on Main Hotel

A 24-suite luxury hotel in Highlands, NC, The Park on Main Hotel cleverly uses the image of a scottish terrier in their print and social media branding. And what a perfect fit – the hotel is a pet-friendly business marketing specifically to pet owners. The idea of the loyal family dog emphasizes a comfortable, home-away-from-home atmosphere that all hotels desire. The terrier, Mr. Pickles, even has his own Twitter feed and proves to be the ideal mascot.

Is your own pet primed to be your small business mascot? If you had to choose an animal to represent your business, which would be the best fit? Perhaps there is a creative connection there that would work well for your marketing strategy. If that brings up any ideas for you, talk to your printer about where that could lead: anything from a seasonal promo idea to a brand refresh or redesign. Remember, if you have the right printer they are your marketing consultant and specialist as well!

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 & Personalization – 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.

July 11, 2016October 14, 2021

Asheville Blues: Color Choice in Local Branding

Color is one of the foundational elements of graphic design and visual marketing both in print or online. Pondering color choice in the brands that surround us and the possible reasons behind those choices can be enlightening – so over a few occasional blog posts we will take a quick look at the local Asheville area and check out who feels blue, wants you to see red, and so on. Now about blue…

Blue is a winner worldwide in the “what is your favorite color” category. And while colors can shift meanings across cultures (blue in America can mean sad, while in Germany, drunk and in Russia, gay), the color of the sky and the sea is so integral to life on earth that it’s popularity in logo design is no surprise. Generally speaking, dark blue can represent trust, authority, stability, intelligence – while lighter shades evoke feelings of peace, spirituality, infinity and calm.

Whose brand invests in blue on an international scale? Well the tech world certainly embraced this color: Twitter, Facebook, Pandora, Skype, LinkedIn, Google Earth, intel, IBM, HewlettPackard, Samsung… whew! The list goes on. AT&T, WalMart, Ford, and Boeing are also a few traditional powerhouses who have dressed in blue for many years.

As we discussed in our quick look at the color red in Part 1: the challenge for marketers is to choose appropriate colors to work within the context of the larger message they hope to create and the product or service that represents. It is never as simple as “blue = trust.” Blue doesn’t draw more customers then red to trust one company over another. But blue, when used in the appropriate context, can help successfully attach specific feelings and energy to the experience of a brand. (For a clearer, more thorough discussion on that, here’s a great article about the importance and complexity of color in marketing.)

All this can begin to sound like a lot of psychological hoo-ha (a technical term) except for the fact that as humans we react emotionally to color, and we recall a set of connoted meanings attached to that visual experience. Smart marketing uses this to advantage through consistent branding, establishing a positive connection and memory through color.

So who chose blue in the Asheville area to speak for their business or organization? A lot of successful folks rely on the cleanliness, coolness and dignity of beautiful blue:

It’s no secret that Asheville itself has been a desirable destination both for tourists and new residents, and the city itself is branded with blue. In print media, PMS 661 is Asheville’s color – a dark, rich blue that leans toward the royal side. Blue is an obvious fit for an area nicknamed “Land of the Sky” and located at the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Two things that definitely say “Asheville” are beer and Tourists’ baseball. Both brand with blue. The Asheville Brewers Alliance promotes craft beer and breweries in Western North Carolina, representing by my count 36 local breweries! The Asheville Tourists are the local minor league baseball team, a farm team of the Colorado Rockies. They’ve been a part of Asheville as far back as 1897.

Education in our local area thrives on the blues! The Bulldogs of UNC Asheville brand with PMS 654. But other shades are also used for the Asheville School, Montreat College, Warren Wilson in Swannanoa, Mars Hill in nearby Madison County and South College Asheville. Blue clearly must stand for fine education and a commitment to scholarship.

When blue is part of your name, it’s pretty obvious that blue stands a good chance of being in some, if not all, of your logo and branding. The Blue Ridge Mountains themselves lend both their name and color to local professional enterprises like Blue Ridge Orthodontics, Blue Ridge Bone & Joint, and many other medical and dental practices. Another example, the Blue Dream Curry House is a natural for blue. The downtown high-rise Hotel Indigo uses a whole palette of colors in their stylish branding, but with a name like Indigo, it includes a deep blue as well.

Blue works across the gamut of businesses in successful branding: from the popular eatery Sunny Point Cafe in West Asheville to the pro bono legal experts at Pisgah Legal Services. Asheville Savings Bank, first chartered in 1936, uses trustworthy blue as well.

And of course, we’re a fan of blue around here, too – specifically PMS 549.

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 & Personalization – 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.extremeap.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.

September 28, 2015

Seeing Red in Asheville – Color Choice in Logo Design

Color is one of the foundational elements of graphic design and visual marketing both in print or online. Pondering color choice in the brands that surround us and the possible reasons behind those choices can be enlightening – so over the next few blog posts we will take a quick look at the local Asheville area and check out who feels blue and who wants you to see red. Speaking of red…

Why choose red? Major corporations spend millions branding themselves, and you can bet the color of their logo is no random choice. Target, Coca-Cola, Adobe, Nike, Xerox and a host of other international enterprises look to the color red to identify and represent their essence in our minds. What is the message of red?

The current consensus on what red “means” traces back to the common experience we all share from nature of the color: fire and blood. Emotions associated with those two elemental red sightings center around, at least in western cultures, love, passion, intensity, aggressiveness, emotion, excitement, urgency and power. At the same time, marketers have to consider that every positive reflects its opposite or negative interpretation. For red, that includes danger, warning, injury and, from our experience in traffic, the need to STOP!

Subtle changes in the color can build new meanings: a shift toward burgundy can symbolize more warmth, experience, tradition or calmness; a lean toward light red and the emphasis shifts toward the attributes of pink, which include femininity, playfulness, affection or joy. Combinations with other colors increase and fragment the experience in increasingly creative ways.

All this can begin to sound like a lot of psychological hoo-ha (a technical term, no doubt) except for the fact that as humans we react emotionally to color, and we recall a set of connoted meanings attached to that visual experience. Smart marketing uses that to advantage through consistent branding, establishing a positive connection and memory through color.

So how does a brand call upon one perception of a color and not others, bearing in mind each consumer has individual tastes and preferences? The challenge for marketers is to choose appropriate colors to work within the context of the larger message they hope to create and the product or service that represents. It is never as simple as “red = power.” Red doesn’t sell more widgets than blue. But red, when used in the appropriate context, can help successfully attach specific feelings and energy to the experience of a brand.

So who chose red in the Asheville area to represent their business or organization? A lot of successful folks let red stand up for them with all its passion, intensity and aggression:

Different shades of red, but all making a strong statement: cyclist advocacy group Asheville on Bikes, Chef Anthony Cerratos’ Strada Italiano restaurant, Architect Robert M Todd’s Red House Architecture, Lexington Avenue eatery Mela Indian Restaurant, the world’s largest self-pour bar Pour Taproom, the Citizen-Times’ Asheville Scene website and publication, and the downtown institution Tops for Shoes. Aggressiveness, intensity, love, passion, excitement… all in line with the natural properties of how we experience red.

Red shares an equal spotlight with black in these well-known local brands: Asheville’s own 12 Bones Smokehouse, ABYSA – the Asheville Buncombe Youth Soccer Association, the Asheville Grown Business Alliance of independent businesses, and Loving Food Resources, the food pantry for persons living with HIV/AIDS or in hospice care.

Combining red with yellow or orange is an analogous color combination that further uses the palette of colors from fire. This combo calls to mind warmth, the sun, the hearth. It is a popular combo locally: New Belgium, the original Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria, Mamacita’s Mexican Grill, Asheville Brewing Company pub, restaurant and theater, and Haywood Road’s West End Bakery.

Straying away from the regular PMS 185 or 486 reds are a few other local brands that tend more toward burgundy or a wine color: Brother Wolf Animal Rescue, East Asheville’s The Social bar and restaurant, AB Tech Community College and the home of local hard-hitting journalism, The Asheville Blade.

Need some more red inspiration? Here’s a great list of over 70 new, creative logos that prove the marketing power of red. We will follow up with an eye out for another local color in our next blog post.

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.

March 13, 2015

Great Balls of Fire: Two Great Stories on the Longevity of Print

Print has a way of sticking around.

And while it can often be neglected in the excitement surrounding digital and cutting-edge communications today, print continues to thrive and surprise. It’s very physical, tactile nature is the reason for the powerful impact and longevity of print. Two great illustrations of that popped up on the same day.

Here at the print shop sat an old dictionary from the mid 1950s, purchased at Good Will, and gathering dust. Yesterday our bindery manager discovered, tucked back inside the pages, a Civil Defense brochure from 1959 outlining the emergency drill in case of a direct nuclear attack on Asheville or Buncombe County. Seems our proximity here to the Oak Ridge facility in Tennessee put us in harm’s way. Interesting reading – a great insight into the mindset of the Cold War days. The brochure, printed in patriotic red and blue, had hardly ages at all, well preserved between the dictionary pages.

And the same day we stumbled across the story online of a rediscovered typeface – Doves Type – that had spent almost 100 years at the bottom of the Thames River in London. Designer Robert Green led the search for the type which had been thrown off a bridge into the Thames in 1917 in an attempt to settle a dispute over it’s usage. Green’s team retrieved about 150 metal type pieces, rediscovering what was once a lost typeface. (Watch a short BBC film about the story below.) And to bring the story totally up to date, you can now follow Doves Type on Twitter @thedovestype.

So you never know where you might find a lost piece of print history – tucked in the musty pages of a forgotten book or at the bottom of a river. Either way, print can surprise you, proving itself to be influential long past your wildest expectations.

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.

June 5, 2013

Buy Local, Buy the Book – Indie Asheville and Print Go Together

Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe is the flagship, downtown, indie bookstore in Asheville, NC, and always does a great job in outreach and marketing to the community. With an award-winning events program, website and social media plan, a sister-store at Downtown Books & News, and a bustling café with local pastries and house blends, Malaprop’s is nationally recognized as a leading independent bookstore. Even their free bookmark shows me why they are such a success.

Last week I bought a book at Malaprop’s and the associate stuck a free giveaway bookmark into the volume – a simple, direct way to reach your customers. The bookmark (see above) promotes shopping at local, independent establishments like Malaprop’s and Downtown Books & News, and spells out 10 clear reasons why doing so helps you, helps your community and helps the larger world as well. Click the photo above to see a larger version and read the 10 great effects of your choice to buy local and indie.

What makes this marketing piece so effective?

It is useful, and will therefore have longevity. A printed bookmark will stay around to mark your place while you read, getting notice each time the book is opened – a much longer “life” than for most printed direct mail or marketing pieces.
The message is clear. The card draws a clear connection between the act of choosing to spend your dollars locally and 10 specific results of that choice.
It is thought-provoking. Issues of job creation, environmental sustainability, choice, local economics and growth and more are effected by the decision to shop locally from independent merchants.
It rewards the consumer. The free bookmark is positive reinforcement for a smart choice.

And all from a small piece of printed paper! Print and paper are the perfect marketing fit for a bookseller, but if a bookmark is not a natural fit for your business or product line, consider the huge selection of promotional products that you can brand with your logo and message to use in a similar way. Think creatively about new ways your business can reward customers while establishing in their minds the message you want to promote. This little bookmark can help get you thinking about ways you can do that in your own style.

Don’t forget 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 environmental 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.