Breakaway Graphics

Your Essential Guide To Social Branding

Sheana — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 16:08:41 +0000

Social Branding 101

Social branding isn’t simply a case of just going on Facebook and chatting with your customers under the auspicious canopy of a fancy branded image. It goes a lot deeper than that. It’s about ensuring that every action you take on social media embodies and reflects the essence of your brand. To help you nail that perfect but elusive social media nirvana formula, read on for our essential guide to social branding 101.

Implement a solid CSR initiative

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a new one, but it’s increasingly becoming a crucial aspect of a business’s social branding. CSR refers to a brand’s commitments to social and charitable causes. A shining example of this is apparel brand Patagonia, whose marketing channels are permeated with messages of sustainability and environmental concerns. By aligning themselves so publicly with such a hot button issue (and by actually fulfilling their commitments to them), Patagonia convey a powerful social brand that speaks to their customers. And it works. Consumers are increasingly buying from brands that have a genuine, visible CSR commitment.

Identify a social cause that matters to you and your customers and make it part of your brand strategy. Set up a charity initiative or donate a percentage of your profits to a cause. But most importantly, make your CSR visible. Weave it into your social media channels and let your customers know the good work you are doing. As more and more consumers choose to align themselves with brands with a conscience, it behooves you to be vocal about your support for social causes.

Identify a social cause that matters to you and your customers and make it part of your brand strategy.

Find out what matters to your customers

Social branding isn’t passive. It’s a proactive idea that relies on listening to your customers and finding out what matters to them. Just as a relationship between two people relies on each person being aware of their partner’s needs, hopes, and desires, so too does the relationship between a brand and their consumers rely on the same.

Brands have the advantage in this respect though. They have a range of social listening tools that can help them learn more about their customers, helping them to reposition themselves and their social brand accordingly.

Such tools include Twazzup, a simple application that provides alerts in real-time when your brand is mentioned on Twitter. Alternatively, you could use HowSociable for a more holistic view of social mentions. And for mentions outside of social media, Boardreader lets you search forums and message boards for keywords or phrases.

Monitor what people are saying about your brand online, then adjust your marketing efforts accordingly. You could capitalize on positive mentions, or head off negative ones before they become an issue. But by interacting with them on a meaningful level, you’ll help bolster your social branding with ease.

Offer personality, not a sales pitch

While it’s tempting to focus on chasing the almighty dollar as a brand, try to avoid turning your brand personality into a constant sales pitch. An excessively self-promotional tone across your website, email, and social channels will simply repel your customers.

Indeed, studies show that 45% of consumers unfollow a brand on social media as a result of being overly self-promotional. As a rule of thumb, employ the 80/20 rule: 20% of your content should be promoting your brand, and 80% should be content that content that engages your audience.

Social branding is about building relationships, rather than a one-way street of sales pitches and image boosting. A strong social personality leads to repeat customers and regular sales, even if your product and service can also be bought elsewhere.

A good example of this can be seen in the many dropshipping stores on Exchange. These are businesses that are selling the same thing as thousands of other websites. But they’re successful in making themselves look and feel different to their competitors because they have good social branding. Their customers buy from them not for their products, but for their brand. The evidence is clear: social branding works and adds value to your business.

A strong social personality leads to repeat customers and regular sales, even if your product and service can also be bought elsewhere.

Be speedy and responsive

A brand ignores its customers at its peril: people don’t just expect a reply when they reach out to you, they expect it to be quick and compassionate. A swift and empathetic response to your customers portrays you as a brand that cares about their consumers, in turn augmenting your social branding. An example of how this can impact your branding can be seen in the case of disgruntled businessman Hasan Syed. He made headlines after he spent $1,000 promoting a tweet blasting British Airways over some lost luggage, after they ignored his original complaint. It was seen by more than 50,000 people and was very bad publicity for the airline.

image via Twitter

On the flipside of this is fast food restaurant Wendy’s whose speedy response to one of their customers led to the most retweeted tweet of all time. Carter Wilkerson asked the Wendy’s Twitter account how many retweets he would need for a year’s free supply of nuggets, and the company promptly replied with ’18 million’. The tweet went viral, garnering support from Apple, Google, Microsoft and other big brands. Twitter even included the story in its Q1 shareholder letter of 2017 (and Carter did finally get his year’s supply of nuggets). This brief exchange generated a huge amount of free publicity and goodwill for Wendy’s, proving the importance of engaging with social media followers.

Social branding is vital when it comes to your business’s success. Brands are so much more than their product or service: they are a personality, and they should act as such. You are under scrutiny from your customers 24/7, so you need to work to convey a positive brand that your audience will engage with.

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Digital Painting in Adobe Illustrator

Sheana — Mon, 21 May 2018 18:46:24 +0000

Watch the whole process from start to finish below.

This weekend, which happened to be the opening weekend for Deadpool 2, I challenged myself to create Deadpool fan art in Adobe Illustrator in under two hours. Why under two hours? Because that was the exact amount of time before needed to head towards the movie theatre to see the movie itself (it was AWESOME btw). Anyway, I would have much preferred to freehand the artwork but given my self-imposed time restraints, I knew I needed a little help. I decided I’d have a better chance reaching the finish line on time if I used a reference behind my art board. I was right….from start to finish the drawing took exactly one hour and 42 minutes (including several breaks to care for and feed my furbabies and to get more coffee).

All-in-all I don’t think it came out half bad for a quickie personal project. AND it allowed me to distribute the result using my “five around” method. (a general rule I use to determine priority and set up of various deliverables: If I make it for one specific purpose, can it be used in at least four other ways?). In this case, the original purpose was to create tiled Instagram posts for fun but because I knew I’d want to find four more ways to use it, I screen captured the entire process. I then sped it up, added some royalty free music and created the video above. Then, I was able to post the video on YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook….and as for number four? Well you’re reading it. So there you have it….one for-fun challenge, five distribution points, and a pretty neat looking deliverable.

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What Is Corporate Identity

Sheana — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:09:14 +0000

Our Process for Building a Solid and Relevant Identity

The combination of all of the elements that make up the company’s aesthetic is more or less, its identity. Its a visual presentation of the company as a whole. Identity design is based on the visual elements created by a brand expert to build cohesive and appealing sales tools, marketing collateral and tradedress. A specific set of guidelines are developed, inspected and examined to ensure that a company’s brand identity remains intact throughout all avenues and each element adds value to the overall visual feel. To learn more about the ideation process, read my blog about Creating Iconic Brands.

Marrying these elements, the brand expert will create a brand manual and style guide which should be studied and followed closely as it illustrates how the Identity is applied throughout all mediums by using exact color palettes, specific fonts, pre-approved layouts, etc. By establishing and following these guidelines early on, the company can begin the process of building brand recognition, customer loyalty and achieve success by offering a cohesive message and visual aesthetic no matter where the customer encounters them.

To illustrate how each element works together to form a corporate identity, we’ll take a journey through the process using a client of mine and the identity I created for them.

Logo Development

In this case, I had been working with LoPresti Aviation for four years within the limitations of an existing identity they had when I was contracted to do collateral for them. When leadership changed hands, the new owner contacted me to strategize a completely new look (something I had been itching to do since the first sales deck I had produced for them.I started from a slightly difference place than I usually do (see my typical logo design process here), instead choosing to skip some initial steps simply because I already knew so much about the company. I already had a good understanding of their values, competitors, position in the market and goals. The SWOT analysis had already been performed and metrics defined. The first sprint of heavy lifting was in the past. So in this case, I chose to start by confirming if my view of the company’s ideal presentation was aligned with the view the new owner had for the future of the company.

I asked him if there were any elements that needed to stay from the old brand. (Sort of, yes…more on that below). I asked how he wanted the customer to FEEL when they interacted with the company. (Safe and as if they were dealing with THE professionals of the trade). From these and several other questions, I was able to determine four solid personal characteristics that were the foundation of the company’s representation: Dependable, Innovative, Accessible and Bright

The old identity utilized bright yellow, orange, red and a ‘swoosh’. The new owners wanted to maintain some similarity to the old brand. Specifically, they loved the movement expressed by the swoosh and a secondary use of the warm color palette but wanted a more ‘high-end’ feel. I chose to represent movement by positioning the plane as if it were landing or taking off. This ambiguity would also allow the user to unconsciously assign perspective resulting in an organic connection to the mark. I liked the idea that yellow represents optimism, brightness and sunshine in color theory (one of their main product lines is super bright HID lighting systems). It is also the most easy to see color of all the rainbow. This worked right into their product line of high visibility aftermarket lighting.

I chose a warm yellow for its additional connotations of durability (think construction tools) and because when combined with black and grey (the other brand colors we chose to convey elegance, prestige, and stability), the overall presentation was one of sophisticated illumination. I also replaced the old standard italic serif typeface with a sturdier serif/slab serif hybrid. Then, I manually adjusted some of the ligatures and skew so that it nodded to the old brandmark while departing from the commonality of the previous type.

Establishing Best Practices for the Brand

Once the logo was finalized, I further defined the identity by solidifying typefaces, accent colors, patterns, additional supplementary graphical elements, margins and use guidelines. The result of this process would eventually become the style guide which was used as a reference on how to use the brand elements and to ensure that the visual representation of the company is always congruent.

Utilizing the Style Guide to Create Collateral

By carefully following the guidelines and best practices set forth by the style guide, I began to create the various sales tools and internal business collateral utilizing the approved color palette, typeface, patterns and image standards. A typical starting identity suite from a designer would include letterhead, business cards and perhaps a presentation/pitch deck template. In this case, however, I was contracted to work beyond just defining and developing the identity. I was also tasked with creating many additional pieces including presentation folders, envelopes and sales sheets for various airplane models.

So Why Is This Important?

Everything from the shape, the colors and the type to the arrangement of elements, the use of space and minimum standards for imagery are all important components. When combined, they offer the viewer a dynamic view of your company. It’s that view and the resulting opinion formed in the mind of the consumer that will motivate how he or she engages with the company moving forward. Given that successful marketing and design expertly leverage the three “V’s” of communication (55% Visual, 7%Verbal [what is said], 38% Vocal [how it’s said]), it could be argued that your identity (or visual representation) comprises 55% of customer’s first impression. And since you only get one shot at a first impression, you should be deliberate, careful, and thoughtful. What you’d like that first impression to be? How you want your customer to feel in response to seeing it? How you will achieve that response through your corporate identity?

Think of it like this: if the logo is the face of the company, the facial expression and body language are its Identity. As a side note, the brand is how all of the above plus beliefs, personality, style of voice, etc are perceived by the audience….but more on that in a future post.

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How Iconic Brands Are Developed

Sheana — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 03:23:48 +0000

THE THREE ELEMENTS

Many assume that a company’s brand is simply its logo and colors. Most of my clients are surprised to learn that it is a much more intricate and thoughtful process than that. I tend to start with asking a client to describe the company as if it were a human being because a brand is a company, personified and what better way to start understanding WHO the company is than to define its qualities and values?

There are, though, three major facets of a company’s brand:

The logo (the mark that makes a company recognizable), the presentation (the marketing plan and optics), and the personality (message).

BRAND

The Personality

The perceived characteristics of the company as a whole.

LOGO

The Face

A brandmark identifies a business in its simplest form.

IDENTITY

The Presentation

The visual aspects that form part of the overall brand.

IDEATION

SO WHERE DOES IT START?

The Brand Expert should start by becoming familiar with the products and solutions on a fundamental level in order to start with a blank canvas. Then, by looking at competitors in the market, the brand expert can examine strengths and weaknesses to identify where there are voids that needed to be filled.

Next? Brainstorming. This is far more than basic word association and shouting out ideas, directions or personal opinions; it’s a step-by-step, tried and tested, thorough technique used by Marketers and Brand Experts worldwide but only understood and utilized by few because it is a highly specialized sub field.

Starting with Latin root words then word combinations and finally brand-new words, the Brand Expert will carefully check definitions against multiple languages and even check slang words that could be negatively associated. Sometimes you find one that works in English, but wont work in Spanish or French. Often, through the process, you find a word that fits the core messages and has no conflict linguistically, but come to discover that another company has already scooped up the domain or has already trademarked the word. It is an arduous process.

Sony

Sonus is the Latin word for sound, but the name also comes from the founders considering themselves ‘sonny boys’, a Japanese word that suggest smart young men.

Fage

The word φάγε (translated from Greek to English as FAGE) both the singular imperative verb meaning ‘Eat!’ And is spelled using the first initial of the founders.

Google

A play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros – reflects the mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

THE LOGO

THE FACE OF A COMPANY

Used for identification, a logo represents and identifies a company or product immediately (and simply) through the use of a mark. It does not sell the product directly but rather derives its meaning from the quality of the product it symbolizes. The logo is the FACE of the company.

The 5 elements that make an iconic logo: Describable, Memorable, Effective without color, Scalable, and Relevant. See more about the logo development process here.

MESSAGE

DEFINING A PERSONALITY

This part of the process involves carefully defining the mission, vision, essence, and purpose of the company as well as establishing the Brand’s characteristics and promise.

Misson

What the company wants to do and how they want to do it.

Vision

What the company wants to become.

Essence

A three to five word summary of the brand’s space and how it fits in.

Purpose

The driving force behind the Brand.

Character

If the brand were a person, this is how you would describe them.

Promise

What the company ideally provides to the customer.

INDENTITY

A Company’s Identity might be defined, more or less, as the combination of all of the elements that make up the company’s aesthetic – a visual presentation of the company as a whole. Identity design is based on the visual elements created by a Brand Expert to build cohesive and appealing sales tools, marketing collateral and tradedress. A specific set of guidelines are developed, inspected and examined to ensure that a Company’s Brand Identity remains intact throughout all avenues and each element adds value to the overall visual feel. To learn more about copperplate identity, read my blog about it here.

Marrying these elements, the Brand Expert will create a Brand Manual and Style Guide which should be studied and followed closely as it illustrates how the Identity is applied throughout all mediums by using exact color palettes, specific fonts, pre-approved layouts, etc. By establishing and following these guidelines early on, the company can begin the process of building brand recognition, customer loyalty and achieve success by offering a cohesive message and visual aesthetic no matter where the customer encounters them.

Logo

The symbol of the brand.

Collateral

Marketing collateral includes flyers, brochures, books, websites, etc.

Signage

Both Interior & exterior design.

Letterhead

Letterhead, business cards, envelopes, etc.

Packaging

Includes the actual products sold and their tradedress.

Other

Any additional visuals that represents the business.

BRANDING

Many people have little or no understanding of what a corporate brand actually is. Essentially, a company’s Brand is the way the AUDIENCE interprets the company. This opinion can be shaped by the way the company presents its personality and corporate image combined with the message and how it interacts with the audience, however branding is a massive topic, a complicated task and a multi-faceted concept with a little bit of unpredictability added in. As such, it is not something that should be taken lightly. Through proper planning, research, ideation and development, the end consumer’s perceptions, reactions and emotions can be reasonably predicted.

The fundamental purpose of the company’s Brand is to add value, importance and create loyalty to the company. Every product or service a company sells, every message it sends, every advertisement it places, absolutely every part of a company’s message should represent the parent business as a whole to achieve this. It is the research, development, ideation processes, and objective communication of a company’s core message that defines a brand as much as the end result of these practices. You see, the consistency of the message (whether verbal or visual) and a company’s actions is what defines the company, announces what drives it, promotes where its values lie, and why.

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The Urban Dictionary of Social Media Marketing

Sheana — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 20:54:51 +0000

by Victoria Greene: Brand Marketing Consultant & Freelance Writer.

I work with online businesses and ecommerce merchants to create high-performing content and marketing strategies that yield successful results. I am always happy to share my expertise and love discovering new potential collaborators.

For new business owners and executives who are new to the world of social media marketing, one of the more common challenges you’re likely to come across at the start is attempting to digest all the jargon. Social media is a minefield of odd words, phrases and acronyms that make perfect sense to those who are fluent – but are inclined to baffle the new and uninitiated. Nonetheless, as you explore, you will become more confident. Don’t give up on social media just yet, because it could be just what you need to build an online community around your business. And it’s not going anywhere soon. Here is a guide to some of the more common slang words surrounding social media (don’t forget to read up on social media etiquette as well).

At mentions

At mentions (also know as @ mentions) are used on Twitter. They essentially do the same thing as Facebook’s tagging system, enabling you to mention someone in your tweet, which will automatically send them a notification.

Avatar

Your avatar is much like a profile picture. It’s an image – or sometimes just a username – that represents you online. This could be on social networks, as well as places like online forums. If you set up a Gravatar account, you can set an image to follow you from site to site, so there’s no need to upload one every time.

Bookmarking

You’ve heard of a physical bookmark – bookmarking is not much different, except that it’s digital. If you find something online that you enjoyed or would like to save for reading later, you can bookmark it either directly through social media websites (see bookmarking on Facebook) or through an external bookmarking manager like Pocket.

Brand ambassador

Brand ambassadors are very valuable. They are your best customers: the ones who love your brand so much that they will voluntarily share the positive experiences they’ve had with you on social media. Brand ambassadors are essential to building a good online reputation – even in this digital age, we must never underestimate word-of-mouth marketing.

Clickbait

You’ve probably seen clickbait around, you perhaps just didn’t realize it had a name. Any marketing material that relies on an overly hyped or sensational headline to try and entice you to click falls under the category of ‘clickbait’. Clickbait articles are designed to generate revenue and nothing more. They might sound like ‘People are doing something seriously weird with their McFlurrys’ or ‘How old was Rooney Mara when she first ate pie?’.

Facebook advertising

Facebook has its own advertising system that allows businesses to reach a precise audience with relevant, targeted adverts. There are various pricing options available for most marketing budgets, as well as the ability to select your audience by demographics such as age, location, and interests. Arguably, Facebook advertising is one of the more efficient ways to advertise online. Here’s a beginner’s guide.

GIF

GIF is shorthand for Graphics Interchange Format, and on social media they act as small animations or video clips – characterized by being rather jerky. They are usually just a few seconds long and played on a loop, often with subtitles (but not always). GIFs can a fun way to illustrate a point and are perfect for young, playful businesses to share.

via GIPHY

Hashtag

A hashtag can be a word (or group of words) that starts with this sign (#). The words are grouped together and are usually to categorize information and ideas, making your posts more relevant and visible for other users. Examples of popular hashtags (right now) include #wimbledon, #dontsteponabeeday, #thingsbleachcantclean and #mondaymotivation.

Influencers

Influencers are social media power users. They have large online followings and with them, the ability to sway the thoughts and opinions of others. Influencers tend to be well-connected, activists, early adopters of new products or technology, and social media savvy. Popular influencers in 2017 include Zoe Sugg (beauty), Lilly Singh (entertainment), and Mark Fischbach (gaming).

Meme

An internet meme is a catchphrase, image, concept or other piece of media that spreads. Mostly memes come in the form of an image, but they can also appear as videos, websites or hashtags. Memes commonly take their roots from popular culture, although not exclusively – they can come from almost anywhere. They provide a fun and playful way to express a point on social media. Here are some of the internet’s favorite memes.

New media

‘New media’ is really just another way of describing social media, though in the past it’s been used to describe all kinds of digital media. A more accurate description would be any digital communication channels that promote collaboration between users, rather than that which is static, such as a print magazine.

News feed

On Facebook, your news feed is very simply the central column of your homepage – the one that you will inevitably start to find yourself scrolling through. The news feed is constantly updating with new stories, pictures, events and other media from your friends and the people/businesses you follow.

Newsjacking

Newsjacking is when a person, brand or business capitalizes on a popular news story in order to amplify their sales and marketing efforts. Newsjacking can be effective, but it must be done with care and consideration, and only when truly relevant. Here’s a guide to successful newsjacking on social media.

Retargeting

This online advertising technique is used by social media marketers and ecommerce merchants to display ads on social media to users who have previously visited their website. Retargeting campaigns can be highly effective, reminding users of the products they were interested in but perhaps didn’t get round to purchasing the first time round. Retargeting functionality can be added as part of your online store setup using apps and/or plugins.

Tagging

Similar to ‘at mentions’ but for Facebook, tagging is where you can attach a person’s name to a picture, video, or status update. Tagging has a lot of meanings online, so it can be easy to get confused. So for example, if you were to upload a photo to your page that featured three of your staff members, you could individually tag each staff member and they would receive a notification and be able to see (and display) that photo as desired. Facebook tagging is becoming more sophisticated thanks for facial recognition software.

Troll

No, they don’t live under bridges – although who knows, maybe some of them do. An internet troll is an altogether different (though equally unpleasant) type of beast. They go around posting on social media and in the ‘comments’ sections of articles and forums, deliberately inciting arguments with irrelevant, hostile or inflammatory comments. Their primary goal is to make people angry and provoke some kind of response. If you ever encounter an internet troll, here is what you should do.

Viral

When something ‘goes viral’ on social media, essentially all that means it that it became very popular and got widely shared – usually in the tens of thousands or millions. So you might say “this Breakaway Graphics blog post has gone viral!” if it were shared and then reshared thousands of times on Facebook or Twitter. But it’s not always an article – equally (perhaps more often) it is a video, meme, infographic, or even a GIF. Virality is highly sought after in the marketing world, but can be difficult to achieve, as there are multiple factors (timing, relevance, shareability) at play.

Although some social media terms can be tricky to understand at first, most of the time they actually relate to something very simple. All it takes is a little getting used to – and just like learning a language, the more you immerse yourself in it, the quicker you will pick it up.

What other social media slang words do you find confusing? Let us know in the comments below (no trolls please) and we’ll see if we can help.

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Copyright Myths

Sheana — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 20:40:37 +0000

In my job, Copyright Laws and Intellectual Property come up for discussion on almost a daily basis. As a Freelance Designer, I uphold and respect these laws even if it means I loose an account due to refusal to copy or mimic someone’s work. Why wouldn’t I? Copyright Laws protect my designs too and let’s face it, my designs are how I make a living. So in an effort to set the record straight, I have compiled a list of the most frequently misunderstood laws and commonly held false beliefs.

1. If it’s on the internet, it’s not copyrighted. Wrong. Every picture, article, song, video, and design is protected by copyright law. As a rule of thumb, if you would like to use an image you found on the internet, contact the author and get permission. If permission is not received, don’t use it.

2. If I can’t find the author of an article, I can use it. Nope. Anything that is created has an original author. In the digital age where people think anything on the net is fair game, it can be exceedingly difficult to track down where the article originated if it has been re-posted multiple times but, again, that doesn’t mean that the original author has given up his rights. Don’t publish anything that you don’t have permission to use.

3. If it doesn’t have a copyright notice, it’s not copyrighted. You guessed it….wrong. As I stated above if it was created, it has an author and it is by default copyrighted. While it is good practice to watermark your photos and designs or include the standard ‘Copyright [dates] by [author/owner]’ on written pieces, leaving it off does not relinquish your rights as copyright holder.

4. If it’s an old photograph, the copyright has expired. Maybe, but probably not. The shortest Copyright Term is the lifespan of the author plus 70 years. Photographers, for example, might transfer the copyright to another member of the family prior to his/her death thereby ‘renewing’ the copyright. Once again, ask for permission from the copyright holder.

5. If I change it 10%, it’s a new work and I am the copyright holder. This is just ridiculous and completely wrong. I’d like to ask: what exactly constitutes 10%? Changing the font? Reversing the photo? Applying special effects? Replacing one name throughout an entire story? This is hands-down the biggest, most widely held, completely incorrect copyright myth out there. The notion that a photograph can be scanned and reversed and is now no longer the original work of the photographer is simply stupid. If you cannot use the photograph without the permission of the author, why would be be allowed to use it for manipulation to create your own work? The same principle holds for design. Derivative works can actually be considered property of the owner of the original work with the major exception of parody which is a super gray area for which I am not properly educated to elaborate on.

6. Ideas cannot be copyrighted. True. An idea cannot be copyrighted but the work based on that idea can be. This is where copyright law starts to get confusing. I understand it to mean, in a story for example, a woman’s husband is having an affair, she finds out, the story unfolds. This is an idea. VS. Jane, a high powered attorney, finds her husband Curt, a car salesman, cheating on her. Jane and Curt’s characters are copyrighted as are the actual words used to tell the story and what actually happens in the story.

7. If I don’t make money off of it, it’s not infringement. Wrong. It’s like saying, if I don’t get caught, I never committed a crime. I believe this idea stems from misinterpretation of ‘Fair Use’. Each case determining fair use is different and takes into consideration many aspects of the alleged infringement so don’t assume that you can use whatever you like just because you don’t make a profit by using it. I write this blog without profit, that doesn’t mean that I can simply hunt around the internet for articles I find interesting and paste them here as if I came up with them myself. In fact, even if I gave the original author full credit without gaining his or her permission to reproduce the work, I’d be in violation of copyright laws.

This is, of course, not a comprehensive explanation of copyright laws and I am by no means a lawyer (so don’t take the above as legal advise). The myths listed above are simply the one’s I encounter most frequently in my day-to-day life as a designer. There are many more out there so when in doubt if you didn’t create the work, you shouldn’t use it. If you’d like more information regarding copyright and intellectual property laws, visit http://www.copyright.gov/. For more information on copyright infringement, visit http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html.

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Home Office, Not Homework

Sheana — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:57:31 +0000

Many professionals and freelancers work from a home office: perhaps due to familial or personal restrictions, perhaps because the commute to the company office is too far, or perhaps that’s just the way they like it. Whatever the reason, once a designer finds his- or herself in a situation where work is performed under the same roof as laundry, a few small actions can make all the difference in maintaining a healthy life-work balance and not getting caught doing homework.

A Dedicated Space.

Remember when you were a student and you would sit down in your favorite spot to do homework? Maybe it was the kitchen table, maybe it was a little desk in your room; either way, you did your best studying when you were in ‘your spot’. This can be true for the home office too. It is preferable to have a dedicated room if you plan on working full time from home although this may not be an option for everyone. At the very least, you should have a specific area to work and be devoted to only performing work in that area. What I mean is, don’t do your Skyping® with family or play games from your work area. Similarly, don’t take your laptop into another room to work. You wouldn’t eat in the bathroom or vise versa (think about it…..yuck!), think of your home office the same way. This little trick helps the human psyche to distinguish from work and play subconsciously.

The Switch to 9 to 5

If You’re Not a Student, Why are You Doing Homework?

I would be willing to bet that is the hardest adjustment to make since working from home means being near the office all the time and never actually ‘leaving’ your office building. The work is always there, lurking in the background and beckoning you to pay attention to it. If you are not diligent at keeping your personal and work time clearly separated, you stand the chance of putting in way more hours than necessary. Is it really necessary to work on that proof at 2 a.m or spend all day Sunday making updates to a website that no one will even see until Monday? No, it isn’t. Resolve yourself to working on client projects only during your regular work hours. By answering phone calls and emails only during posted hours of operation, you send a clear message that you are a bona fide business like any other. Also, actively disconnecting your personal time by physically shutting your office door (or shutting down your computer) when the work day has ended will help remind you that just because you’re ‘at the office’ doesn’t mean you have to be working.

Of course, business owners and freelancers are often required to work on things not necessarily related to production or billable time like bookkeeping, billing, and filing. Setting aside time to do the extras like making backups on Friday evenings and sending out billing on Monday mornings you can accomplish most of these tasks when a regular employee would be performing opening or closing duties and not get stuck doing them on your personal time.

Making Your Space Awesome

One of the most wonderful parts of having a dedicated office space in your home is your ability to do whatever you want with it! You can surround yourself with all the things that inspire you. You can be as messy or organized as you want and you can place your office essentials in a place that is easy for you to access, not down the hall where everyone can get to it. It is YOUR space. Paint the walls in a color that induces creativity or keeps you motivated. PANTONE® has a great resource on their site to help you pick just the right color to fit the mood you want to create in your work environment (http://www.pantone.com/pages/paint/moodselector.aspx). Being creative by nature will surely help in constructing a space that promotes your personal productivity.

Go to Work!

Some designers swear by acting as if their home office is an actual commuting job. They may, for example, get up, take a shower, get dressed, and have a cup of coffee before ‘leaving for work’. This is a great tip if you are having a hard time adjusting to working from home. By creating a routine, you are again training your psyche to distinguish work-time from playtime.

Avoiding Distractions

(addressing the friends and family issue)

When you were a kid and little Bobby came by your house to see if you could play, your mom opened the door and explained that you were doing your homework and could not come out until it was done. Well, your Mommies can’t help you now so it’s up to you to address the common assumption that since you work from home, you can ‘play’ whenever you want. This may be technically true but let’s face it; we all have bosses, our CLIENTS who depend on us. By being honest and frank about your working hours with friends and family, you can avoid the hassle of constantly having to explain that you are not sitting around all day eating Cheese Puffs and waiting for something to do. You wouldn’t dare interrupt your friend’s workday to ask if they could walk your dog, or check your mail, or run an errand for you….they shouldn’t do this to you either.

Improving Every Day

Everyday is an opportunity to improve your work environment and adjust to a designer’s ever-changing work load. Obviously, the above cannot be implemented in a manner that never allows for change (heck, we’ve all had an all night deadline at some point!), but making a continued effort to balance one’s life can’t be a bad thing. One of the most fantastic benefits of setting your own hours and working from your own space is that you can alter your schedule to suit the ever changing needs and obligations of life. If you’re having an off day, go catch a movie or take the dog to the park. Feeling a little less than creative? Pull out the sewing machine or canvas and oils and work in a different medium for a few hours. You have the freedom to make your own choices, your own hours, your own environment…..take advantage!

Please feel free to comment with additional tips, experiences, or questions about maintaining a healthy work-life balance when your work and life happen to coexist in the same space.

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Spec Work & Contests, They Fail, Oh My!

Sheana — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:05:35 +0000

It’s a growing debate among designers: Spec Work & Design Contests (also known as crowdsourcing); good or bad? The setup: Businesses can have designers from all over the world ‘complete’ for their design business. The business owner creates a ‘contest’ and receives dozens (maybe hundreds?) of designs from several designers, pick the one he/she likes best and award the prize to the winner. Sounds awesome, right? Well, not so much…for the sake keeping this post relatively short, I will use a logo design contest as an example:

Let’s look at it from a numbers standpoint.

Have you ever heard the saying you get what you pay for? Its true in design too. These so-called ‘designers’ who participate in Spec Work (offering services in hopes of receiving compensation but without any guarantees) aren’t professionals. They are often students, foreigners, or regular people with a copy of Photoshop (which isn’t even the right software for creating logos, btw). Would you let a student or guy-off-the-street balance your books, do your taxes, or perform a dental check? I think not. And yet, this is exactly what businesses do when they choose to participate in these ‘contests’ in the hopes of saving some money. So, these part-time, untrained ‘designers’ really want that extra $200 but know that what they submit will have to compete with dozens of other designs so they work extra hard to make sure their design is the best and gets chosen by the client, right? Not likely. They may spend fifteen minutes, an hour, maybe even two…heck, you might get lucky and get yourself a newbie who doesn’t know the software yet or its their first time taking a shot at design contest so maybe they really give it a good try (then you’re really getting a bang for your buck!). But all-in-all, these ‘designers’ aren’t going to spend the necessary time it takes to create a good logo. (see my logo design process here). No, they are more likely to invest as little time as possible since they know they’ve only got a 1-in-X chance of getting paid. Of course, if they don’t win, they could always try to sell that design to another sucker in another contest. Plus, the less time they spend per contest, the more contests they can enter so they might try to churn out as many designs as they can in a day without much thought as to who they are designing for, the nature of the business, or the effectiveness and reproducibility of the design. It’s about the numbers, man.

Now let’s look at it from a design standpoint.

Choosing to use one of these contests to set the visual tone for your company is really just a terrible idea. You’ve worked hard to create a business plan, choose inventory, secure the right retail space, hire all the friendliest and most qualified employees, and now you’re going to risk all that by using a Spec Contest to create your brandmark? Why don’t you just get one of those employees to whip you up a logo in Word and use that? “Oh, no, no, no, that would be a bad idea”. Of course it is, but that’s exactly what the kind of work you are likely to get when using crowdsourcing or contest sites. Again, professional designers do not engage in crowdsourcing contests so you are not likely to get professional designs in return. Many times, these are novice designers who are pumping out designs that require the least amount of time, effort, creativity, skill, and thought because they know that there is a good chance they wont get paid for it. These sites are chock full of bad design, many of them ripped off from actual designers and yet, you want that to be the face of your company? Professional Designers spend time creating the right brandmark for you, utilizing years of experience. You know they’re good because you’ve seen their portfolio before you hired them, you’ve read testimonials from actual clients, you’ve met them face-to-face. Professional Designers work closely with you creating a design brief and brand guide, they ask questions and research. They take the time to really understand you, your company and your goals and they do this with a firm understanding of design. Do the ‘designers’ on these crowdsourcing sites do that? Maybe. But is maybe good enough for you?

What you get for the money.

Now, I’ve never personally used one of these sites but several of my clients had before they found me. I have seen (and had the unfortunate and frustrating experience of trying to work with) the amateur designs that come from these sites. First, they are almost never the right file type (believe me when I tell you that having the right file type is essential), they are only sometimes created in the right software, and they are rarely the proper resolution and colorspace. These are the basics of the profession, people….if the ‘designers’ who participate in this practice don’t know the difference between 72dpi and 300dpi, they have absolutely no business collecting any amount of money for their ‘designs’. In all the cases that I have been given one of these crowsourced files to attempt to work with, it has been a nightmare.

What you DON’T get for the money.

You’ve chosen to use a contest allowing all but one lucky designer to work for free, trying to create the face of your business without so much as knowing who was actually creating it. Perhaps you’ve ended up with a design that you are happy with. Here’s the most terrifying part, after you’ve spent a fair amount of money getting that logo printed on business cards, banners, letterhead, signage, and product packaging, you’ve been served with a Cease and Desist letter from the rightful owner of the Copyright your ‘new’ logo infringes upon. These crowdsorcing and contest sites have long lists of Cease and Desist complaints against them for violating copyright as some of the ‘designers’ who participate don’t follow the rules and ethics of Design and simply do a google search to find a nice design to copy . The crowsourcing site owners clearly state in their terms and conditions that they make no claims as to the originality of the work submitted (check it out for yourself). So who are you going to blame? The Website who legally hides behind an ‘it’s not our fault, you agreed to the terms and conditions’ standpoint? The Designer you’ve never met or even spoken to? It will be up to you to hire an attorney to fight or settle. It will be up to you to now hire a professional to design a new brandmark. It will be up to you to re-print everything with your new logo and pay the web designer to update the website. Does crowdsourcing sound as good now?

The Moral of the Story

The above are only a few reasons why participating in these ‘contests’ is a very bad idea, both for the participants and the business owner who solicits free design. I didn’t even scratch the surface of how it devalues Design, promotes Design as a commodity and as inessential to your business, or how it stifles any real creativity or logical thought when creating visual solutions. While I can understand the cost of doing business is high (I know, I own and run a business too) and the temptation to save money and cut corners can almost be considered a necessity for some, I beg of you, contact some local Designers first. Most of us will collect the vital information and create a personalized quote for free, without obligation. At the very least, you can get a good idea of what Professional Design actually cost (it’s likely a LOT less than you think) and establish a real relationship with a professional right there in your town. The differences between using a Professional Designer and a’contest’ designer are vast to say the least but I think Red Adair said it best when he said: “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire and amateur”. It’s true for most professions, and it is true for Graphic Design, too.

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“My Designer Wont Give Me My Files!”

Sheana — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:56:52 +0000

Often, in design, there are requests by the client to release the layered, master files. Many clients feel a bit peeved when their designer tries to explain that the master files are not included in the final price and are not considered part of the Final Deliverables. Perhaps they are right to feel this way based on a misunderstanding of the profession and the assumption that the price they pay is for the rights to the master artwork. One of the roles designers play is to educate the client (or public) about many things, one of these things being why Master files are not always part of the deal. In an attempt to to clear up misconceptions, I’ve detailed the main reasons behind why master files are not considered part of the package for many freelancers.

First, we should resolve the difference between work performed by an Independent Contractor versus Work-for-Hire. According to the United States Copyright Act of 1976, “work made for hire” is— (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. (17 U.S.C. § 101). Work-for-Hire typically implies that any work created by a graphic designer as an employee of Company A, remains the property of Company A, not the designer. Occasionally Graphic designers are commissioned to perform Work-for-Hire but at a substantially higher rate (usually 300%) and when the terms and conditions are mutually agreed to in writing.

An Independent Contractor is commissioned because the work requires significant artistic skill. The Designer supplies her/his own tools, performs the work at her/his own office, works for a relatively short time on a project-to-project basis, and controls when, how or how long he/she works. Typically, in this arrangement, the client has no part in the Designer’s business practices, does not provide the Designer with employee benefits or contribute to his/her unemployment or worker’s compensation, and most importantly to Uncle Sam, the client does not treat the Designer as an employee for tax purposes. Independent Contractors work where they want, when they want, how they want and with whom they want. They pay self employment taxes and foot the bill for health insurance, technical maintenance, tools required for the trade, and provide a valuable service to their clients.

So, “why aren’t master files supplied to me, the client? That’s what I am paying for, right?” The short answer is no and here’s why:

1. You’re paying for the final product, not the tools to create that product.

When you contract a professional graphic designer to create and deliver a brochure, that’s what you will get for your money, a fully completed, fully thought out printable (or printed) brochure. You are not paying for the history, tools or layers used to create that brochure nor are you paying for the fonts and images contained within it. Think of it this way: if you went to the hardware store to buy a drill, you pay the cashier for the drill to take home and use as-is, not for the manufacturing trade secrets, right to the mechanicals and mechanisms or for the rights to take that drill, remove the brand sticker, replace it with your brand sticker and sell it to the public for profit.

2. There are third parties involved that you may be unaware of.

Every designer uses fonts, photos and graphic elements that are often the works of someone else. Designers spend a good amount of money (font licenses can cost anywhere from $25 to $600) purchasing licenses to multiple typefaces in order to offer you options that maybe you don’t already have and to create the perfect overall look for your collateral. We spend our capital to have access to stock imagery that must be purchased for use in your collateral. These tools are not our property but are the property of their respective creators, we have simply secured the right to use it to provide you with awesome designs. Because of this, it would be unethical and illegal for Designers to release those tools to you as we are not the copyright holders.

3. You likely don’t have the hardware or software to handle or manipulate the master files.

Graphic files can be very large and what I can open and manipulate with a fair amount of quickness with my heavy-duty machinery, could slow your equipment down to snail speed. Assuming that you have the proper software and can open the document, what are the chances you know what to do with it afterwords? Do you know how to change the text, what color space and resolution to use, how to format it for different mediums or how to collect it for submission to printers or vendors? There is a whole host of technical junk Graphic Designers have to learn and use everyday. We’ve already put in the time to learn the ins and outs, the technicalities and techniques, so why not just let us handle it and save yourself the headache?

4. We worry about issues with file types.

As designers we often keep track of multiple proofs, files and file types. For example, I may have a high res psd or tif file that I use for the artwork, a indd file I use for the text and layout, various files for import into InDesign, a few low res pdfs of various revisions, a high res pdf with trim marks for an offset printer, a high-res pdf without trim marks for another printer, a high res pdf with half-inch margins for in-house, inkjet printing, a low res jpg for web, and possibly several more. I know the specs, color space, technicals and use for each of these files and can easily send the one needed to various vendors if need be. What many designers worry about is that a client with all the files will erroneously and unknowingly send the wrong file, causing a headache for the client, the vendor and the original designer as usually we’re the ones who have to step in and remedy the situation. Also an issue is that if a layered file is supplied to a vendor who doesn’t have the same fonts or embedded images, the formatting and typeset can go very askew (i.e. the font will automatically change to a default font, ruining any formatting and the images will either show up as grey boxes or in low resolution and will not print properly), turning our hard work into a mess and making life harder for the recipient of the file and causing undue upset to the client.

5. If you have the software and technical know-how, why do you need a freelancer?

The simple answer to this is that most people don’t have the specific skill-set and/or talent to do the work or that they simply don’t have the time. If you are hiring a designer simply because you don’t have the time and are looking for someone to collaborate with, then the work is considered work-for-hire and would be handled as mentioned above. Similarly, if you are hiring a design professional for their creative and technical talents with the intent to use them for the concept and initial execution but not for derivative or future works of the concept, with the purpose of making future changes yourself, you would need to work out a Work-for-hire agreement between yourself and the creative. Unfortunately, many designers face the sad fact that there are people out there who want to pay them for a stellar concept without being completely forthcoming with their intentions, then secretly hand off that concept to a novice or cheaper designer to save money. Since the original designer has done all the hard work already, the second designer gets to reap the recurring financial benefits of that design for doing little work. It’s unethical and unfair to the professional designer. Of course, if this is stated up front by the client, most designers will negotiate an additional fee or higher hourly rate to complete the work for another designer to take over. In this case, it is Breakaway Graphics, LLC’s practice to require the client to purchase all fonts, elements and photos used in the design and stipulate that once the files have been released, we are held harmless of any warranties with the design.

If you are working with a designer and would like to obtain rights to their layered/master files, just ask. Most designers won’t have an issue negotiating a price for the transfer of full copyright including layered files and are more than willing to help you secure the various image and font licenses to protect yourself from violating a third-party’s copyright. The industry standard for copyright transfer is 300% of the total bill so if you’ve used your designer for letterhead and business cards that total $200 in design fees, be prepared to offer him/her about $600. This will cover the loss of future income for the designer from those designs as well as the time it will take him/her to collect and prepare the documents for sale and aid you in securing licenses. If you are working with a designer who flat out refuses to release copyright without one of the above valid reasons, find a new designer.

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Photoshop User Magazine Feature

Sheana — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:00:15 +0000

We are super excited to announce our feature in Photoshop User Magazine! After contacting Photoshop User Magazine to put our hats in the ring as a featured designer for their column called “Design Makeover”, we received a phone call from Jake Widman requesting our help for an upcoming issue. That issue is out now and we are happy to share it with you!

The Magazine Intro. by Jake Widman

Zoccoli’s, “The Italian Delicatessen,” has been owned by the same family since 1948. From the website, “In March of 1948, Robert Zoccoli Sr. and his wife, Augusta, both Italian immigrants, along with their daughter Nelli and her husband Lloyd Sherman, formed a partnership and bought a small grocery store. The Plaza Grocery, a Red & White Food Store, was located in downtown Santa Cruz where Zoccoli’s Deli resides now. It was a very diversified operation that sold everything from household supplies to deli meats and cheeses, many of which we still carry today.” Today the store isstill run by the third generation of the Zoccoli family. It’s been operating out of the same location since 1948 except for 18 months after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused extensive damage to downtown Santa Cruz, when the store had to operate out of a trailer while the structure underwent seismic retrofitting.

In the 1970s, the store started making sandwiches, which continues today. At lunchtime on the main street of downtown Santa Cruz, workers and tourists line up for house specialties like the Italian Club and the Santa Cruzer. While the sandwiches are fresh, the logo also dates from the 1970s–drawn by a family friend–and is looking a little stale.

Zoccoli’s is an integral part of Santa Cruz, and Marie Mediterranean is an part of Zoccoli’s. “We could never change our logo,” says Zoccoli. Nevertheless, she gave us permission to ask three designers to redo the deli’s logo for a new generation–the people who would order a hummus or chicken pesto sandwich as soon as they’d order classics like the meatball or antipasto creation. Zoccoli said any logo should convey the business’s virtues like “very involved in the community, love downtown Santa Cruz, customer service, quality at a good price.”

Each designer created a color one for use on the website and a black-and-white one for use on their catering and sandwich menus, which are simply photocopied onto 11-x-14-inch paper.

My Design Explanation

“My goal for the Zoccoli’s logo and menu cover was to stay true to the long-established identity of the restaurant. Although the ‘before’logo seemed amateurish to me, I didn’t want to change the shape of the mark since it has been used for decades. I wanted only to freshen it up while maintaining its grass-roots, small-town appeal.

Scalloping the edges of the original shape instantly gave it a vintage yet familiar tone and I sought a typeface that would embody the heritage of the restaurant and evoke an immediate sense of longevity. Phaeton, licensed through Veer, with it’s classic, solid presence proved to have just the right amount of hand-lettered flair and was easily tweaked to perfection. I felt the secondary font, from the IM FELL collection, complemented the mood of the main font nicely and was obtained through the author’s website (www.iginomarini.com).

I decided to keep the general appearance of the Character the same but repositioned her to add a little interest. I eliminated the ‘extras’from the ‘before’ design which resulted in Miss. Mediterranean’s transformation from schoolmarm to killer-cook-suited-for-this-millennium.

With the logo finished, and armed with the knowledge that the menus are printed with margins, in black and white and are likely photocopied,I aimed to design a cover that could be reproduced in the same manner without losing depth in the design. Resisting the urge to go full-color, full bleed and require professional offset printing, I instead created a simple, classic, easily reproducible cover using art from Fotolia by Albachiaraa. An awning to match the building’s facade, repeating the scalloped corners on the border, a custom illustration of the kettle, and a commitment to the fonts, tied the logo and menu together.

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