“Creating a new website is like having a baby – the first one really is the hardest.”

These words came from one of our current clients, during the early wireframe phase of his first website. And although we make the process as easy as possible for our clients, it remains a valid point. Your website is your company’s public face after all, so you really do want to make sure that each and every detail is just right.

The process can be overwhelming for the uninitiated. If this describes you, read on. What follows is a basic, plain-language checklist for getting your organization online.

There are thousands of resources online and in print purporting to hold the secret to success in business. It’s a vast and profitable industry, and books continue to fly off the shelves. From a service industry perspective, to me it seems to boil down to a single, simple ideal: The best way to attract and keep clients is to create a service experience that is second to none.

Providing exceptional design is not the full picture of what our company does. For a professional firm, quality of design should be a given. What keeps people coming back is the combination of high quality work product, and excellent customer service. And the same is true with any business.

Life is all about the little things.

I often wonder why so many of the business owners and brand managers who approach us are so obsessed with the overall machine, without giving so much as a nod to the cogs that make it work. I’m not talking about employee recognition here (that’s another topic entirely) but rather, the less tangible qualities that impact the customer’s experience in doing business with you.

How many times have you avoided returning to a restaurant with a shoddy bathroom? And how wonderful is that free tea or cappuccino at your favourite spa?

From disparate beginnings, Christmas has become largely a cultural celebration for my generation – one meant to bring people together and place our focus on the people we love.

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

The Green movement is in full swing, and in most ways it’s a very good thing. Marketing hype issues aside, many have worried aloud about the future of the printed word/image. With digital alternatives becoming increasingly pervasive, and former print industry leaders abandoning the page in favor of the screen, what’s to become of our beloved magazines and photo albums?

Luckily, in amongst the world of digital photo frames and web based magazines, the paper industry is taking notice and finally stepping up to the plate. Recycled paper has been around for a while, but as with any buzzword, use of the word ‘recycled’ doesn’t necessarily mean a whole lot. It could be as little as 10% recycled material, added to the fact that the raw materials are such a small part of the whole picture.

Everyone in business is in the business of sales. You may not be peddling widgets, but we’re all selling something. Like it or not, commerce depends on marketing: a high-pressure, highly competitive field where genuine talent seems to be diluted with morons. I’ve worked with a lot of highly impressive and capable marketing professionals, but I’ve also dealt with too many who fall into the other camp. The fact is, being effective in marketing requires intelligence, an intuitive and intimate understanding of human psychology, and a finely tuned talent for communication.

Personally, I rank selling myself up there with paperwork and taxes. I’d rather be doing actual design work than making a sales pitch. I’d rather be doing just about anything else, for that matter. But success in business demands we master not only our own craft, but also those fields that we depend upon to stay afloat (and prosper). In my case, I’m helped along quite a bit by way of the fact that I also happen to have a university degree in psychology, so I’m able to mesh what I know about design with what I know about people.

Back when I was making the big switch from the safe nine-to-five desk job into the overwhelming world of business ownership, I was eager to take on any task, regardless of the proposed “return on investment”, let’s call it. I don’t think the word ‘no’ was present in my vocabulary.

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.

If ever there were an overly competitive industry with little to no regulation, it would be the commercial design industry. Any child with a computer and some basic software can market themselves as a designer, while the true industry suffers wide scale devaluation and thousands of business owners are taken for a ride by unqualified or even unscrupulous “designers”.

As a consumer, how do you protect yourself and your company? The answer is more simple than you may think – all you have to do is a bit of homework.

Question:
What does excellent trade show signage look like? Is it simple? Colorful? Digital (narrowcasting)? Branded?
Jan-Burger Troost, Owner, Wester ExpoGraphics

Answer:
Your exhibit and trade show booth graphic elements must powerfully reflect who you are and draw visitors to your booth in the midst of a loud, crowded exhibit hall filled with distractions and competitors…

When you’re not around to make a personal impression, your materials are doing it for you. So naturally, you want to be sure that your materials are making the right impression. In this article I’ll go over a few specific bits of advice to ensure that your corporate identity materials are projecting an image of competence and success.