It has also become an uber-brand that represents intangible, un-buy-able values (peace, love, joy, family, selflessness) simultaneously with supreme commercialism.

I love Christmas: hot cocoa, a roaring fire, home cooking, decorated trees, lit up streets, friends around, and the overall heightened consideration of other people (which really should be more present year-round). And of course, the unavoidable and remorseless spending of money we don’t necessarily have.

I like shopping as much as the next red-blooded woman, and I love choosing gifts for people I care about, BUT I loathe the chaos that is the holiday shopping experience. Firstly, running a fully booked design firm means I am impossibly busy, and it’s hard to find time to brave the traffic, find parking, and wait in obscene lines at the counter. So I shop for a lot of gifts online, which doesn’t seem particularly festive to me. Something is lost.

Smart online retailers are starting to catch on. In the same ways that a brick and mortar store would decorate their shop for the holidays, internet based companies are learning to create a more festive atmosphere for their customers. We all know that emotion sells. And the experience you’re providing for your customers online can be just as lucrative as one you might create in your physical store.

Now, my customers aren’t looking for the same thing as holiday shoppers. You’re business folk, and it’s not likely you’re going to hire a corporate designer as a gift for a loved one. But, I still felt like I should give a subtle little nod to the holidays… so I created a festive little holiday variant on our logo in the upper left corner. Even for those of us who aren’t selling a product, small efforts like this one show a human side that customers often appreciate.

If your business does happen to be one that caters to holiday shoppers, there are a few things you can do to improve your customers’ experience, and boost your online sales this December.

Intelligent Use of Colour
Humans are deeply and predictably influenced by visual stimulus, particularly the experience and use of colour. If you’re going to ‘decorate’ your website for the holidays, do it tastefully. Blinking flashy strings of rainbow christmas lights as text separators are not going to help your cause. A rich feature area with two or three cohesive colours in a consistent palette will create a pleasing experience, which will make your visitors want to stay and browse around.

Good Bone Structure
If your website design sucks, then no amount of tinsel is going to save it. Before you even think about holiday branding strategies, you need to make sure your base materials are solid. You need an impressive and credible visual image, a strong homepage with obvious calls to action, a simple and clean interface, an intuitive navigational structure, and a minimalist shopping process. Your visitors should not even have to think about how to use your site – you want their focus on your products, not your overcomplicated shopping cart software.

Holiday Sales!
This is a no-brainer. It’s the holidays. People expect special price offers. And if you’re not offering any, it’s nearly guaranteed that your competition is. On a recent trip to Home Depot, my husband noticed there were a lot of two-for-one sales on power tools. He wondered why one might need two of the same tool, but it was actually a pretty obvious holiday sales tactic… buy something you might have wanted for yourself anyway, and get another one free so you can tick a name off your holiday shopping list. It’s a double incentive on high value purchases that might otherwise be put off. His reaction? “That’s brilliant.”

Know Your Market
If you’re catering to a niche market, then your promotional decor should be appropriate to their tastes. A sporting goods retailer would take a vastly different approach to a high-end jeweler. Acknowledge the reasons people come to your website, think about what they want to get out of their visit with you, and adjust your design accordingly. Remember, this is about THEM, not you.

Time For Change
In Q4, users give advertisers 30% more of their time when compared with any other time of year. If you’re going to roll out a new product, new campaign, new feature or benefit announcement, now is the time to do it. On December 31st, advertisers get an additional minute overall to engage their audience. You have their attention. Don’t waste it.

Decorate Tastefully
Cut the clutter. If you have something important to say, don’t drown yourself out with background noise. In trying to say too much, too many end up saying nothing. Focus on a few big drivers, and organize yourself thoughtfully. Your customers come to your website because they want something specific from you, so make it easy for them to find.

Flash is Overrated
A little bit can be nice, but usability is much more important from a shopper’s point of view. The trick is to combine ease-of-use with a visual atmosphere that gives your visitors a good feeling about shopping with you.

The number of times a client has uttered those words to us (or a close variation on the theme) is somewhat staggering.

Sure, we all want it. And for certain parameters, we can get it for you. But while Search Engine Optimization is a very important component of both web development and your overall marketing platform, it cannot stand alone.

Like anything worthwhile, coming up in the fiercely and tirelessly competed-for number one spot for any search word or phrase requires work. It requires quality setup work upfront, and it requires consistent maintenance work down the line. What many people don’t realize, is that it also requires support.

Imagine a scenario in which you’ve invested countless hours and considerable expense into getting your site into the number one spot on Google, to the exclusion of other online marketing endeavors. That’s fine, but now Google has decided (as they often do) to change a simple filter in their algorithm. Poof. Your site has fallen to page number two thousand or so. You’ve put all your eggs into one basket, and the basket’s fallen.

How will people find your company’s website now?

It’s always best to take a multi-faceted approach to marketing your services or business… an idiom as true in the virtual world as it is in the real one. You wouldn’t take out a single ad on one street corner and trust it to bring in all of your business… would you?

It’s more important to build a strong brand presence that people will recognize and trust than it is to simply be visible on page one. We all know there’s just as much garbage on that page as there are quality sites. In addition to building a strong search engine presence, you should spend an equal amount of time pursuing partnerships with other non-competitive sectors of the internet.

Supplementary Internet Marketing Options

• Press Releases
  While these are reserved for newsworthy purposes (new product/service announcements, acquisitions, events and trade shows etc.), they are a great way to introduce visitors to your website who are looking for information directly related to your product or service. Press releases also an excellent way to build your brand name, and to establish yourself and your company as an authority in your field.
• Directory listings
  This is one of the easiest ways to get your site indexed by search engines. There are many free directories that you can get your site listed in, and there are many fee-based directories that are worth the price of adding your site. The added value is that since your site is listed categorically, it helps to re-enforce what your site offers, since it will be found with similar sites.
• Articles
  Share your expertise. While writing quality articles can be time-consuming and challenging, it is an extremely valuable asset to your site. In so doing, you are creating unique content that isn’t found anywhere else – a very specific criterion that search engines will reward you for. It also gives you an alternative method for explaining your product or services, without putting on the hard-sell. Finally, writing relevant and unique articles on a regular basis will naturally grow the size of your site, and will establish it as a hub of relevant information within your industry.
• Newsletters
  This is an often-neglected approach that requires a bit of work, but pays off consistently. Your site should have an option or area in which visitors can sign up to receive a newsletter from your company. The people who do sign up feel that your site is worth their time, and that you are offering something interesting and valuable. Your newsletter is an outlet to promote new products and services to interested users without the risk of being intrusive, so if combined with the right amount of valuable content, it is one of the best places to make a sales pitch.
• Blogs & RSS Feeds
  While sharing the same benefits outlined in writing your own articles, having an up-to-date blog with RSS on your site gives people a reason to check you out, and enhances your visibility since RSS keeps your prospects in sight without requiring them to find you first. RSS lets you initiate contact. There are many areas to get your blog listed, and in addition to the SEO benefits a blog offers, it also provides an insider’s point-of-view into your company or personality, offering yet another way for users to identify with you or your site.

It’s safe to say that search engines will always be around, and will likely remain the primary source of direction for people on the hunt for information, but for your company to focus on them exclusively could be a costly business mistake. Just remember there are a variety of marketing resources at your disposal that will not only better establish your brand online and bring you quality leads on their own, but will also contribute in a significant way to achieving and keeping that number one spot we’re all fighting for.

Maybe not to “ruin”, so much… being busy is good. It’s fantastic, even. I love what I do, and the fact that so many people come to us on their own or through referrals makes me feel great about my work. But in periods like this, I do come to miss things like human contact, sleep, exercise and healthy food.

That’s one of the reasons I was so surprised this weekend to find a notice telling me that we’d been nominated and chosen to receive a CWA Design Award. Nice!

I don’t think I’ve entered a design award competition since our first year in business. At first, I thought winning design awards would get the word out, and get us recognized as legitimate and worthwhile. After a while though, and after having won several of these little accolades, I decided it really wasn’t a meaningful investment of my time or money. Sure, winning is an ego-stroker… but it offers little else. Aside from a lucrative profit for the companies collecting the often exhorbitant entry fees, of course.

I had a look at the CWA structure, and they represent one of the few independent design awards that are actually free to enter. The nomination made a bit more sense, now. These award programs that are free to enter (or have a realistic administrative fee) are much more representative and accessible than their largely commercial counterparts. Honestly, no freelancer, independent designer or small studio has thousands to spend on their own ego every year, regardless of how worthy their work might actually be.

A design award means quite a bit more in my mind, when it hasn’t been bought.

I have no idea who nominated us, but to that kind person who thought we were worth some of their own precious and dwindling free time, I sincerely thank you.

I have a few power blocks in my office. None of them can accomodate one plug per socket, since a good proportion of my gadgets use big bulky adapters. I hide them from view where possible. One has a fancy blue light, but it’s not really a design feature.

Ramei is shining a light on those overlooked everyday objects the design world seemed to have forgotten. In fact, his website is filled with simple yet intuitive concepts. In the same area of design, his ‘cord trap’ won the prestigious Red Dot design award last year. He’s even constructed a cool pendant from old clothes hangers brought back from the dry cleaners.

This all illustrates one of my favourite business models… merging the concepts of simple, useful, and sexy. Well, a power bar may not necessarily meet the ‘sexy’ criterion on its own, but in context when compared with what’s available on the market today, it’s pretty swank.

Don’t even get me started on his ‘soar’ sofa, which unlike the Donut, is currently available for order on his website… if you’ve got the dosh.

In my personal life, I would be classified as what’s been somewhat unflatteringly coined SCUMY. That is, Socially Conscious Upward Mobile Youth. Though nearing 30, I’m not so sure about that Y at the end any more. I’m not an extremist, but I do what I feel I can. I’m a vegetarian, buy local produce, reduce and reuse where possible, compost or recycle the rest, work paperless and get around by bicycle, when it’s feasible. I also love hot showers and drive a pickup truck so… well, nobody’s perfect.

The little things we all do on a daily basis are significant, but at the same time, somewhat futile in the shadow of the astonishing impact made by the corporate world. More specifically, the companies who provide the things we use every day… our houses, vehicles, utilities, entertainment, clothing, and everything else down to that small package of screws you bought the other day at the hardware store. These are huge polluters, both directly through their own operations, and indirectly through the production and packaging choices they make.

As a small example of this trickle down effect, take a look at something just about all of us probably have in our refrigerators right now: the ubiquitous Heinz ketchup bottle. I’m not talking the classic glass one, but rather that big plastic tank with the ill-conceived and somewhat ironically named ‘easy squeeze’ cap. Yes, it won the Dupont Packaging Award, but I hate it. From an aesthetic standpoint, it’s just plain ugly on the table. Functionally, it gets a failing grade as well… I squeeze and squeeze and nothing comes out, until BAM. My plate is covered in an explosion of angry tomato. All this to avoid having to give your bottle a quick shake before serving.

I’m not going to pretend to know how efficiently Heinz runs their factories (or their suppliers, for that matter), but I do have one little statistic: production for just one of these lids uses 14.4g of oil, as opposed to 3.8g for a normal lid. Combine that with the fact that these bigger plastic containers are less recyclable and more damaging than the tried-and-true glass bottles, not to mention issues surrounding additives and offgassing. So even if we do choose to recycle, the choices regarding the degree of impact for that action have already largely been made for us.

As a designer who LOVES to work on product packaging, you would think I might be a bit more cavalier, favouring form over function, aesthetics over practicality. You’d be right, and wrong… because I don’t see these things as mutually exclusive.

Here’s how I see it:

• With the right design, environmentally responsible packaging can be significantly more visually appealing than its bulky nasty plastic alternatives.
• Production costs are often much lower than the popular overpackaging options.
• People who are buying Green products tend to have a higher income, and are willing to pay more for a smaller carbon footprint.
• More and more municipalities are considering shifting waste and recycling costs back to the companies that produce the materials in the first place.

These simple points taken into consideration, I would think that companies are looking at an incredibly easy decision when it comes to packaging their products.

The decisions for consumers are unfortunately not always so clear. With Green being the colour of the year, everybody’s looking to cash in on this seemingly new-found mass social conscience. Faux-friendly offerings abound, and marketing departments are spinning at full tilt. The average consumer doesn’t know the difference between degradable and biodegradable, so when major supermarkets start advertising 100% degradable packaging (hello, fossil fuels and toxic additives ), most of us are easily taken in.

But as with any free ride, this one’s coming to a close. That trusty old consumer skepticism is growing exponentially as more and more companies are making the Green claim without backing it up. The masses are getting wise. So my advice to you would be, don’t get caught in the backdraft.

Even if you forget about environmentalism and ecological responsibility for a second – the fact of the matter is, Green is more appealing, cheaper, easier, more sustainable, and more profitable. What’s not to love?

Naively, I took everyone at their word. The nature of my own well-meaning and fairness-oriented personality made dealing in the often cut-throat world of business somewhat challenging.

Unfortunately, I found myself working all the time (averaging 18 hour work days along with regular all-nighters) and yet somehow I was still struggling just to pay the rent. I was winning awards and getting new contracts every week, then borrowing money from family to buy groceries. People loved me and they loved my work, but Ontario Hydro doesn’t accept second-hand love in exchange for heat.

Over the years I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way, including contract and deposit policies to (at least partially) protect me from con-artists and deadbeats. That said, one of the most important skills I’ve had to develop has been the proper and ample usage of the word “no”.

Don’t get me wrong, I do hate having to say it. And it’s not easy. But it’s as vital to your professional success and personal well-being as the air we breathe.

Here are a few questions I almost always say ‘no’ to:

1. Can you show me a mock-up to help us choose a designer?
Spec work. I used to fall for this one all the time. I even used to participate in design “competitions”, which in essence require a large number of designers to invest work hours into a project, for which only one will actually get paid. A lazy customer wants an off-the-shelf design that they don’t have to invest much time or effort into, so they get a diverse group of naive designers to work for free with the intention of only paying one for their time. I would often “win” these competitions, but it always left a foul taste in my mouth. Time, talent and ideas are our product – we don’t give them away for nothing. It’s NOT like “test driving different cars before choosing one”… it’s more like asking the salesperson to GIVE you a fleet of cars, and then only paying for the one you like best. Even if you never use the other cars, the salesperson doesn’t get them back.

2. I saw someone online selling logos for $99 – can you match that?
Yeah, and you can buy designer handbags in China for a buck. I do unfortunately get this question once in a while, and the response is always “no”, without exception. You can find stock and cheap design easily enough. The tradeoff is… wait for it… it’s crap. And if it’s not crap, it’s royalty free, which means you can’t trademark it, and anybody else with $99 can use the same design for their brand. You would think that more people would realize that you get what you pay for.

3. Can you give me a deep discount?
This is similar to number 2, but in this case it may be a long-standing client asking the question, or just someone who loves your work but can’t quite afford it. I get this question all the time. People are always out to save a buck, and while I’ll quite often apply a loyalty discount or an agency rate if you’re giving us regular work, it’s never more than X percent of our standard rate. I almost never agree to flat rate projects – they will suck you dry unless you’re VERY specific about the inclusions. Remember, this is your livelihood. It’s your mortgage, your grocery bill, your family’s expenses, AND your company’s integrity.

4. I really like X by Y company – can you copy it for me?
This comes up more than you’d think. A client sees something they like, and they want it for themselves. It’s only natural, but a line has to be drawn. You can use existing sources for inspiration, guidance, general style and the like, but a carbon-copy is immoral, unusable, illegal, and relegates the designer to more of a drone than anything else. Nothing good will come of it.

5. Can I have your home number?
I’ve given this out to precious few clients. It’s hard enough to keep that fragile line of sand that separates work from home from blowing away in the wind of my hectic schedule. While I work very long hours, and I always have work “with” me in some form or another, I do make serious efforts to be as fully present as possible, in whichever context I find myself. If I’m at work, I’m at work and I am immersed in it. If I’m stealing a few precious moments to have dinner with my husband, we both deserve to have that time to ourselves. If you don’t maintain some sort of balance, you’ll be looking at an early grave – or a mental hospital.

6. Can you design X for free in exchange for advertising or stock?
Um, no. I’ve reached the point where my company gets all the advertising it needs through word-of-mouth. Everything I do that’s not covered by an NDA (and that I actually like) goes into my portfolio or my Flickr profile, and websites I’ve developed link back to my website from the design credit area. This is my career – I’m not your neighbour’s kid with a stolen copy of photoshop. And while I do appreciate the offer of stock, and I wish my clients the best, it’s rarely a wise investment on my part.

7. Can you do this by tomorrow?
I always have at least a dozen or so contracts on the go at once, with each one often having a multitude of different tasks to complete. All tasks go into a queue, with a constantly changing order based on an algorithm involving time, priority, skill, effort, urgency, overall project scale and client seniority. Note that urgency is only one part of the equation. If I can do it, I will, but please don’t ask me to stay up all night to get it done. I’ll often do that on my own, but the generosity can end rather abruptly when you start to make assumptions. Remember, the more you bend over for a client, the more they’ll expect you to bend in the future. That’s not to say you shouldn’t do good clients a favour now and then (you should), but be mindful of the slippery slope.

8. Can I just pay the whole amount when I’m done?
I’ve been burned by far too many deadbeat and dishonest clients to fall for this one. All new contracts require a 50% deposit before any design work begins – and it doesn’t matter how big or small the contract is. At the end of the project, finals are only delivered AFTER final payment has arrived. The majority of your clients will be honest, and the majority will pay in full provided you’re good at what you do. But you always have to account for the jerk factor. These people don’t care about the time and effort you poured into the project. They don’t care if you can’t afford to eat because you devoted a month to a project that would never be paid for. Don’t fall prey to it. I do have long-standing clients on monthly billing schedules, but only agree to do this once you’ve developed a trusting relationship with the client.

So there they are, but remember, there are no absolutes. Depending on the situation, you may have different answers (and I may too), but the take-home message here is that you need to develop the ability to say no to your clients. The customer is not always right, and when they are wrong, your personal and professional success will depend on your ability and willingness to tactfully tell them so.

This landed in my inbox not too long ago. It’s hilariously lazy in a way, but in another it’s a bit of an oxymoron in practice. Expend a pile of energy to have the luxury of parking your butt anywhere you want – for about five seconds, which is how long it takes for the pavement to reach up and smack your behind through the rapidly deflating marshmallow-like bubble seat.

The designer, JooYoun Paek, puts it a bit more eloquently, claiming “the balance between exercise and rest would be maintained by wearing this suit”. Food for thought I suppose, but I’m happy to continue walking the old fashioned way.

Thankfully, this was never meant to go to market or midnight infomercials. Paek hopes the provocative piece will “transform the humdrum experiences produced by routine walking commutes into an amusing interactive performance”. Indeed.

As an added bonus, I just can’t help but mention Robert Nightingale’s Hitch Concept, which proves that design has as much a place in absurd (im)practical comedy as anything else.

There are no words.

We designed their old site some years ago, and changing with the times, they graciously decided to come back to us for an overhaul.

Their old site worked, but originally it didn’t have much to offer apart from the standard “this is who we are”, “this is what we do”, and of course an online shopping platform. And it didn’t expand well… being a forward-thinking company they had added a few features on their own over the years (like the useful but not-so-pretty translation options at the bottom), which just didn’t work visually.

The New Site

In addition to a complete visual overhaul, we’ve also worked in a few treats like a video blog with discussion and high quality full screen capabilities, an easily updatable news section that feeds the latest straight to the homepage, an expansive knowledgebase design, live chat skins, and a media vault for things like customer downloads, press kits, and whatever else they decide they want to offer down the line.

Plus, it’s gorgeous. If I don’t say so myself.

The only thing we didn’t turn on it’s head is their old online shop platform, which they’re keeping as-is for now. Watch that space…

A lot of the work I do is button-down corporate, which I love, but it can’t help but get a bit bland at times. It’s projects like this one that renew my love of design, and clients like Steve who allow me to push the envelope a bit to get the best possible result. There are a few things about this site that are a bit edgy, and certainly not standard, and I’m thrilled that ER is the sort of client to let me run with it.

I love my work.

See the live site at http://intotherainforest.com

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.

A successful catalog must be impeccably well-designed, and most importantly, needs to be tailored to convey your company’s image in a way that is relevant to your audience. For example, a catalog intended to sell modern gadgets and electronics should present an appearance and image vastly different to one intended to sell baking supplies.

The Front Cover
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? The front cover is your first impression, and as in so many other facets in life, first impressions are primarily visual. So, immediately, your front cover must be aesthetically appealing. Depending on your product and market, you may want to present a specific feeling… of refreshment, comfort, or excitement for example. Front cover design follows many of the same premises as ad design… keep the text content to a bare minimum (often just the company name, slogan, and perhaps a catch phrase), use a clean and uncluttered approach, and be sure the cover clearly features your company name.

Try to select an image that is relevant to your audience, and that will make them want to use your products. For instance, if you sell sports equipment, you might want to feature a dynamic image of a cyclist, pushing hard to the finish line or busting a difficult trick, wearing a jersey with your logo, and using equipment offered in your catalog. This type of imagery speaks directly to your audience, and uses a setting they understand and enjoy, allowing them to place themselves into that image (and by association into your products).

Back Cover
The back cover is often neglected space in catalogs and magazines, often reduced to ad space for other companies, or boring blank space with a barcode and address. A surprisingly high percentage of people actually read through catalogs backwards, starting at the last page and flipping to the front. I’m not sure why, but I often find myself doing it too. If you’re publishing a magazine, you would generally use this space for a second lead. Similarly, a catalog’s back cover can be used to feature new products or showcase an overview of major current products (with references to page numbers in the catalog itself).

And like the front cover, the back cover should be easy on the eyes with a simple message… attractive, clean, focused and uncluttered.

If you have other plans for the back cover, you could also position your second lead on the last inner page face within the catalog, since the reader’s eye lands there first when the catalog is opened from the back.

Inner Pages
Primary Focus
In laying out the catalog’s internal pages, as with any print materials, the primary focus zone is the upper right corner of each two-page spread. The reader’s attention will be directed there first as pages are turned forward. Similarly, the upper left corner of each two page spread is the sweet spot for backward flippers. Use these areas for products in your inventory that are the most visually compelling or interesting. Your best selling products can appear elsewhere on the page, unless you’re really trying to further push those products in excess of their current success. Diversify – your best sellers can become boring, in that featuring a product people are already familiar with doesn’t really garner any new interest.

Fonts
Use and treatment of type in any kind of publication is much more important than you may think. If you use a font that is too casual, or clutter your catalog with a dozen different fonts, you risk looking like an amateur outfit, which will sacrifice credibility, which will lower sales. And if your catalog isn’t easily and immediately legible, people won’t bother reading it, no matter how carefully your product images are laid out. Remember, most people tend to flip through catalogs rather than sitting down to read them like a novel… your message needs to be clear, concise and compelling. A few simple rules of thumb will ensure your catalog reads as good as it looks:
• If you want to use different fonts, use no more than 3: say one for section titles, one for product titles, and one for descriptions/prices.
• Vary type usage with bold weight, italics, different sizes and colours, but be sure to keep treatments consistent throughout the catalog.
• Font size should be no smaller than 8pt
• Using all capital letters should be kept to a minimum, and do not underline – use bold or italics for emphasis instead

Remember, consistency and clarity are key. You want the reader’s attention on the product, not a cacophony of conflicting typefaces and font treatments.

Brand Your Catalog
When your catalog arrives in the mail, your customer should immediately recognize it as belonging to your company. Customer loyalty depends on a certain level of predictability, which breeds familiarity and comfort. They know what to expect from your catalog, and they know how to find what they’re looking for within it. For example, everybody knows how to navigate the Sears Wish Book at Christmas time – and you know exactly what it is, even from a distance. It’s familiar, it’s easy to use, and people love it.

For your catalog, you will want to consider finding some kind of hook to differentiate your company from the competition. For example, Ikea catalogs often feature room packages, which show a full professionally designed room layout, with a total price for everything featured in that room, and a breakdown of products needed to achieve that look. It’s very effective for people who need a bit of design help or students on a budget, and is quite good at convincing people to buy add-on items from the same retailer in order to achieve a look they like.

All of your catalogs should follow a consistent navigational and design theme, so your customers will come to be familiar and comfortable with your catalogs. And by creating a “look” for your catalog that is comfortable and familiar for your readers, you will be able to keep their attention even when the products are switched over for new offerings.

Product Shots
Group photos are nice, but featuring individual items in a clean, polished way will sell better. Group shots do have their place, provided you use small groups of closely related products rather than a large pile of random “stuff” that can become confusing for your audience. And if you do use group shots, be sure that products within the shot are carefully and clearly keyed to the individual product descriptions (i.e., a small but clear “A” on the photo should correspond to the product description marked “A”).

When possible, isolate product shots on a stark and seamless white background, highlighting crisp detail and forcing focus on the product itself. If you’re selling jewellery, use professional photomanipulation to maximize the shine, gleam and sparkle in your products. Use subtle effects such as a barely visible drop shadow, or wet surface reflection, as appropriate for the specific product line. Again, if you use a certain effect, keep it consistent throughout the catalog.

Ordering
So you’ve sold them on a product, and now they want to buy it… but how? Be sure to make the order process exceedingly easy. So easy they could (almost) manage an order blindfolded. And though most people will process an order online or by phone, many people still prefer the old fashioned paper and pen order form – do not exclude these people, as they may prove some of your most loyal customers. Even people who order by phone or online may use the order form to work out the details of their order before making the call/visit. It’s also the perfect place to list terms of sale, return policies, and other relevant corporate information.

On your website, prominently list a phone number, email and order area/shopping cart. If you have an online store in addition to your catalog, create a custom order area where people can enter catalog product numbers directly so they do not need to go through the process of finding all their products over again on your site. If you have an order number, be sure it’s manned by a real, living breathing person – nothing turns customers off more than automated phone systems.

The Printed Product
You’ve invested a lot of time, consideration and planning into the effective design and layout of your catalog. Please, PLEASE do not just go with the cheapest print company you can find. You’ll regret it. Trust me.

Be sure to choose paper stocks that are suitably thick, and that feel nice against your skin. A thin, harsh uncoated stock looks cheap, feels rough, dulls colour, bleeds ink onto your hands and generally will not represent your company or products well. Use a proper cover gloss stock for your cover, and a nice gloss stock for the inner pages. 100pt is ideal, but 80pt is also acceptable given the paper feels and prints nicely.

And remember, your catalog is going to be delivered through the mail. Unless you’re packaging the catalog in a sealed plastic coating, it is going to be subject to some potentially harsh weather conditions. Keep this in mind when choosing your paper options.

Catalogs come in all shapes and sizes. The standard sizes are cheaper to print, and for most applications are perfectly suitable:
• Standard full-size (8 3/8″ x 10 7/8″)
• Slim (6 1/8″ x 11 1/2″)
• Digest-size (5 3/8″ x 8 3/8″)

Unique sizes will attract attention, and can be highly effective in building a unique brand image and moving product. However, moving away from the “standard” sizes will add as much as 25 percent to the cost of production. So you would need to evaluate whether the extra investment is worth it for your particular company.

Printing in increments of 16 pages will be the least expensive option, as heat-set web presses print in 16 page signatures. This means that your catalog would be 16, 32, 48, 64 pages long, and so on. The next best option is to design in page increments of eight.

Colour Sells
If you can afford to print your catalog in color, it will invariably make a better impression, and will generate at least 25% more sales than a black and white catalog right off the bat. Colour sells – no question. That said, as with all other elements in your catalog, colour schemes not related to your actual products should remain consistent throughout. You can also use different colours to represent different sections in the catalog.

Bring it all Together
Successful collateral design uses a lot of consumer psychology in addition to professional design theories, and catalogs are no exception. Take advantage of what professionals have learned about how consumers think, react and attach to concepts and visual elements. Consider how the reader’s eye crosses the page, capitalize on primary focus zones, and present your products in the best way you possibly can through use of layout, colour, type, and texture.

When a catalog takes on a personality of its own and becomes something the customer enjoys, then it has achieved a positive brand image. No other kind of marketing collateral targets a niche audience quite as well as a thoughtfully designed and produced catalog, which can either serve as your primary sales vehicle, or as an excellent companion to an online or physical brick-and-mortar shop.

Unless you are in the community being targeted, it can be hard to tell upfront whether the design of your creative is going to be effective. But when you’re part of the targeted community, you get the message loud and clear. The trick comes in when you want to target a niche market to which you yourself do not belong. Bridging this gap between business and niche markets thus often requires a thoughtful cultural conversion campaign

The concept of cultural conversion in the creative field is very important when designing materials for niche markets. Once a base concept is defined, your need to evaluate the viability of your message within the context of your specific target markets. Advertising is about emotion. If something in your concept is offensive to a particular group, it needs to be addressed. Similarly, this type of evaluation can help to highlight latent strengths in your concept, which can be played up to maximize efficacy for that market. If the concept translates well, then you can begin to refine your message, creating highly targeted language and visuals. If it doesn’t, then you have the luxury of reworking the concept at an early phase until it does.

Cultural conversion evaluations have the ability to capture both intellectual and visceral nuances in a concept. One of the core properties of a successful ad campaign is the presence of a direct perceived connection with the audience. More campaigns today are veering away from the staid and safe language of standard sales copy, and are instead delving into the expression of more raw and emotive concepts… and niche audiences are loving them for it. It can be a heady trip, and a tight-wire act… any campaign that leans heavily on emotion is taking a chance. However, when you hit the right note, the rewards are undeniable.

Correctly targeted and expressed emotion in marketing can also lead to fierce brand loyalty – your market connects with you on a personal level… not just a practical one.

As business owners, we always want to make our brands bigger… more effective, more important, and more relevant. The style of marketing you use should excite the people who buy your product. And in order to do this, you need to know who these people are, where they live, what they love and the values by which they live their lives.

Targeting is more than just using photos of your niche market in your advertising materials. A properly composed marketing campaign needs to target for a culture… which is more than just fashion. To target properly, you need to understand your market’s entire mind-set, while avoiding stereotypes.

The approach you choose to take in marketing vis-a-vis its returns can be likened to your investment strategies. You can develop safe, palatable solutions that have a predictable but somewhat lackluster return, or you can aim for high returns by taking a risk, stripping down your brand and pointing that arrow directly at your market’s heart.

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.