Logo design is unique for each and every business. As you can see in the portfolio samples above, there is a great deal of diversity among the businesses represented.
Logo development can take less than an hour or up to a dozen hours. Much depends upon the client’s own vision, budget and goals. Some prefer to tinker with the visual ideas through many drafts and others approve a logo with the first design.
The company’s WordPress website hadn’t been updated in a number of years and some modules had become unusable, providing the owners with motivation for an overhaul. Adding to the site’s senior age was an inflexible visual design and poor navigation, as well as a lack of analytics for tracking site success. Goals for improvement included:
This up-to-date site has garnered many ways to view content from desktop to mobile platforms. With the added flexibility it is much easier to make a reservation or contact the owners, regardless of viewing platform. Finally, site analytics show site traffic steadily climbing in search results.
COMPETITIVE ADVERTISING How do you compete against larger-sized ads on the same printed page? Bigger isn’t always better! While ad size may give you a competitive edge for more eyeballs on your ad, it can be meaningless if the message doesn’t match your brand’s image. This auto shop grabbed viewers’ attention not only through a generous dose of bright colors that matched the existing logo, but also through highly visual seasonal offers and graphic styling we provided to match the brand.
Seasonal advertising brings fresh customers as well as long-timers to your door. Use the current holiday to reach out to clients and fans. Each Cornucopia Creations’ ad is custom designed to meet the client’s specific needs. For this local auto repair shop, we crafted season-specific ads to remind existing customers of ongoing maintenance needs as well as draw new clients to his business.
eNewsletters remain one of the most successful communication tools with fans and customers. For those with products to sell, e-newsletters continue to garner the highest open rates and click through rates to generate engagement and sales. Shown above are but a few of the e-newsletters I manage for clients.
Of greatest advantage, e-newsletters provide immediate feedback regarding success. Analytics provide valuable data on which items were of greatest interest to recipients. And the ability to A/B split test allows business owners to truly fine tune what keywords, subject lines and products resonate most strongly with recipients.
Last, but not least, depending upon the size of your emailing list, e-newsletters can produce dramatic results on a shoe-string budget. No printing costs, no envelopes, no postage and no 2+ week wait time for results. If you’ve ever wondered if and when to jump into contacting your customer base via e-newsletter, wait no longer! Your customers are waiting to hear from you!
One of the trickiest brochures to design is the one that represents everything for the company. It represents the brand and all product lines. Chief among the challenges is choosing which products to showcase in the artwork. Print brochures represent a mere snapshot in time these days. It’s tempting to treat it like a catalog. But in doing so, the essence of the company would be lost. This effort represented a marriage of branding while highlighting only a few of the company’s core product lines.
This company was tackling multiple problems at one time with this new site: The company was undergoing a name change, new branding/logo, relocation and staff expansion. The original site was a small, one-page overview. Goals included:
The conversion from a one-page to multi-page site was affected in less than a week. Taking longer (and still in development) are the staff photos and biographies. With so many changes taking place in a short timeframe, some things were shifted to a temporary backburner. Bottom line: Our sites are flexible, allowing you to complete one section when another must wait.
BROCHURE DESIGN Sometimes making a client’s products look extra special takes extra special work in Photoshop. While the foodstuffs were photographed in the basket, it wasn’t on the table. And the tablecloth color didn’t match, nor was the table even in the room shown here. The flooring and rug were added as was all the special lighting to tie it together. …But it did sell a lot of bronze-colored baskets!
Metal baskets rarely ellicit the same emotional reaction as photos of cute kitties and adorable puppies. But a client needs as strong an emotional reaction to their products that images of baby animals generate. We provided the client with a complete backstory and set styling instructions for this closet before their photoshoot so that the finished ad and brochure would turn heads. …And they did!
Sneak Peek “trailer” videos often take much longer to create and edit because there is so much raw footage to contemplate inclusion. The primary goal is to garner audience interest. (If they leave after but a few seconds of video, you haven’t served them well.)
Having just shot a number of “Tractor Chronicles” segments about planting the winter cover crop, it became a matter of selecting (editing) the most eye-catching sequences to cobble together into a teaser film.
Topping off the challenges in this type of project is selecting and editing the music. First, it’s necessary to determine what mood should be set by the sneak peek film, and then music can be selected to match the mood. On the techical side, it also requires careful editing to match the music’s beat throughout the teaser.
TRADITIONAL PRINT ADVERTISING Despite the success of various onlne marketing tools, traditional print venues, such as newspaper, magazine and postcard ads remain strong producers of new business. Ad design services include sourcing appropriate photography or illustrations, copywriting and overall creative direction to differentiate you from the competition. This client was specifically targeting restaurants for their payroll service.
Challenges in marketing and design include creating eye-catching artwork for businesses that don’t have inherently visual products or services. This client supplemented a traditional print ad campaign with a postcard mailing, reinforcing the message.
As a gift to wine club members, Trinitas Cellars (left) planned to give custom-made wine charms (using the visual elements in their logo). The trick was creating packaging that reinforced the brand’s message and attractively displayed the charms. But wait! There’s more… In addition, to test the effectiveness of the gift, the client wanted to extend a 10% off discount on the back of the wine charm packaging card. The design challenge: Ensuring no key information was blocked by the actual wine charms attached to the card.
Tuscan Cowgirl Dezerts (right) brought lots of specific visuals ideas to the table that they wanted combined: The cowgirl was a metal figurine they wanted on the label. The landscape background evolved from elements of several pictures, paintings and tapestries. To top it all off, the client requested the cowgirl be lassoing a rope (originally around the company name). All requested components were seamlessly integrated into the design for a cohesive and unique look for this high-end baked goods company.
