Your marketing materials may target various demographics, but they should also present a consistent message about your brand; including the features, benefits and quality of your products. When potential customers encounter your business card, brochure, catalog, billboard, television ad, website or other marketing materials, it should be apparent they have a connection with the same brand.

Here are 5 ways to keep your brand consistent:

1. Use similar graphics on each piece

Keeping the imagery similar and repeating some elements across different materials and media creates a clear connection between them all, making sure those who encounter multiple pieces ‘get’ the repetition. Without doing this, your pieces may seem to be disconnected as if they each advertise a different brand.

2. Place key graphics in similar locations

If there is a focal image for the campaign, or even just your logo, keeping it placed in the same or similar place on each piece helps create that cohesive feel that speaks to people of a solid, consistent brand.

3. Use consistent fonts

Much like imagery, typeface inconsistency can be detrimental to your campaign. Many small businesses and new marketers and designers fall into the trap of trying to use too many typefaces in one piece or across a whole campaign. This ruins cohesion and can create a sense of chaos and instability; useful sometimes, perhaps, but most likely not in your case. Avoid this by choosing just 2-3 typefaces for the campaign.

4. Use the same color palette

There’s no good reason to use one shade of blue on one piece and another on a second piece. Yet there are many reasons to use the same shade on both: consistency, cohesiveness, and efficiency, to name a few. Help give your brand a solid position in the minds of consumers by keeping your colors consistent across media.

5. Coordinate paper for your print materials

The kind of paper you print on can be just as important as the imagery, type, and colors you choose. Make sure each paper you choose works together instead of creates a sense of inconsistency.

Bonus: Don’t forget web!

If you’re also developing a website for your company, it should have a clear marketing message that fits your product. It should offer support materials, contact availability and background that is suitable for the product or service you are selling. The visual appeal of the site should reflect that of your printed marketing materials. Using similar graphics and even repeating some of the same elements in consistent places will aid in unifying your marketing message.

5 Ways to keep your advertising consistent is a post from: RSA Blog

RSA’s print department is like a well-oiled machine, a machine that runs on variety and creativity. Our passion is providing clients with top-notch designs and superb customer service. We thrive on the day-to-day challenge of conjuring fresh ideas for effective graphic design. No two projects are ever the same – and we love that! Here are some of our latest endeavors:

• Dakotah Steakhouse menus, billboards, print ads and table toppers
• South Dakota Lottery game POS and banners
• Jolly Lane billboards and newsprint
• Sturgis Rally magazine ads
• Sioux Empire Fair event guide and newsprint
• Black Hills BBQ Festival billboards and posters
• American Sprayed Fibers Inc. logo
• Casa Real mailer, restaurant and bar menus
• Reptile Gardens posters, brochures, billboards and van wrap
• MyTown.kotatv.com logo
• Security First Bank annual report and brochure
• South Dakota Community Foundation annual dinner collateral materials
• Wyoming State Fair event guide, billboards, newsprint and magazine ads
• Western Dakota Tech car wrap
• Ramada Inn & Suites rack cards and billboards
• Wheel Jam posters and print ads
• Rapid Transit outdoor signage
• McDonald’s signage and billboards
• Coupongous logo
• 24/7 Intoximeter brochure

Our expert team truly enjoys helping clients keep their print projects and brands consistent, yet fresh. Far too many times we see brands using a variety of fonts, colors and logos from one design to the next, making for an inconsistent design and confusing brand. We know it’s tempting to try designing everything on the cheap, but realize when you hire us you are hiring a team of professionals who eat, sleep and breathe design every day.

Ask our clients, then become one. We’ll make sure your product or service is highlighted in a uniquely creative way.

- Justin Mather, Print Production Director

Inside RSA Print Production is a post from: RSA Blog

[When asked to write a post for the RSA blog I thought, hey I'm not a writer - and what was I even going to write about? Think Justin....think! Then it happened, my WDT intern Pierre (his name has been changed to protect his innocence) walked in and said "what's goin’ on?" And just like that I had a topic. I tried to get Pierre to write this, but he's lazy and doesn't prioritize very well. You know, he puts school and his job before his internship. Silly intern. Anyway, here's my masterpiece…]

Don't forget my coffee

We love us some interns!

Each year many brave souls apply for various internship positions here at Robert Sharp & Associates, and each year we select a few candidates who show us they want to learn and are excited about what they can do. When they show up for work, we show them what an ad agency is all about: sex, drugs and Facebook!

An internship at RSA starts with you getting me coffee and a Taco John’s breakfast burrito (relax, I’ll pay every third time) and ends with REAL world experience. Rather than just filing and other menial tasks, you’ll attend important meetings and be encouraged to participate in discussions. You’ll be shadowing a professional and actually doing real agency work. Whether it’s brainstorming a creative idea to promote a product or helping to maximize the most out of a budget (or the coffee grounds), you’ll gain valuable experience during your time here.

Internship Opportunities

Is it cheap labor for us? Maybe. Is it a great opportunity for you? Absolutely. We have internships available in account management, graphic design, audio/video production and event management. There is plenty of room for growth, and we like to bond with our interns. Some have even been known to work here after they graduate.

Just like our team here, we like our interns to be a well-rounded bunch. There is no mold to fit into when it comes to our agency – just read our bios. Do you love motorcycles? Are you a bookworm? Obsessed with online gaming? It doesn’t matter. As long as you have a passion for what you do (and a 4.3 GPA), you are welcome here. That’s right, we only accept smart people (insert overly-used acronym here).

It’s a melting-pot

Many unique personalities have come through these doors. A variety in attitude and style is what we want. We like the free-thinking and detail-oriented creative, as well as the OCD project manager with the loud boots. It takes all types of pieces to put this puzzle together, and once you think you have it done, the picture changes and it’s a whole new puzzle.

So be welcome, all applicants, and don’t forget the coffee and tacos.

Shaping the minds of tomorrow is a post from: RSA Blog

Sometimes your color preference doesn't matter...

As Amanda mentioned in her recent post on designing professional logos, designers tend to approach their work in a different way than many people think. Our decisions aren’t arbitrary – it’s not like ordering food, where you just pick whatever you happen to like at the time. There needs to be purpose.

Many of the decisions designers make are based on some external criteria. In this business, that’s usually the audience being catered to. A common experience, however, is for the client on a project to override some such decision based on their own personal preference.

Often, however, the client isn’t even part of the desired audience. So while their preference might be relevant because they own the project, it doesn’t necessarily help the project be more effective. As a simplistic example, if the audience mostly responds to blue and the client wants it red…well we’re missing the boat.

Think about that next time you start a project: are you part of the audience you are trying to appeal to? If not, how might your preferences interfere with reaching that audience? If so, do you think your individual preferences are representative of the majority of that audience?

In either case it would probably serve any project well to find out exactly what that audience likes or prefers, and base decisions on that data, regardless of the personal preferences of the project team.

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Photo courtesy of pinksherbet

Does this logo make me look fat? is a post from: RSA Blog

Professional logos

I don’t know how many times I’ve started a project for a new client when I hear those soul-crushing words, “The client will be sending the logo later today, it was designed by [the vice-president's wife/the boss' daughter for a high school art project/So-and-so's neighbor's son Johnny - don't worry, he's into computers...].” Yeah, you get the picture.

Why does this frustrate me so? It’s simple. Your logo is one of the most important parts of your brand, and it can make or break your company. An easily recognizable brand allows your company to stand out from the competition, and builds trust and loyalty in your customers. A well-designed logo will help build a strong brand, and it’s not something to skimp on.

This takes me back to why Johnny, the neighbors boy, should not be designing your logo. Johnny might have some artistic ability, and that’s great. But he’s not going to approach your logo the same way a trained professional will.

You can’t set yourself apart if you don’t know what you are up against. The first step in building a strong brand is to research the competition. After you know what the competition is doing, you need to consider the following: What graphics should you be using? What colors should you choose? Which fonts represent your image best? How will you use your logo?

All of these questions (and their answers) factor into creating professional logos.

Creating Logos

Graphics
Keep in mind not every logo has to have a graphic element. Some of the best logos ever created use only text. For example: FedEx. Have you ever noticed the arrow hidden in the text? Or Coca-Cola, no graphics, just that ever-recognizable script font.

However, if you insist on having a graphic in your logo, there are some things to consider. The uniqueness of the graphic is important – it sets your brand apart from the competition, who you certainly don’t want to look like.

Your logo should have a balanced image. Simplicity makes a stronger design; extra clutter will only confuse your audience, making the logo harder to digest quickly. You want a design that is easy to see and recognize at a glance.

Colors
I have discovered that many people will approve or disapprove of a logo color based on their own personal likes or dislikes. This is the worst approach you can take when creating your logo. The colors you chose should be based on your target audience and the feelings you want them to experience when using your product.

Likewise many people think designers choose colors based on personal preference. This is not the case. In fact, a good designer understands the psychological impact color can have, and how to use this to their advantage. For example, red has been shown to raise blood pressure. Probably not the best choice if you are a trying to sell spa services. Color can also vary depending on cultural differences. White can mean one thing in the United States, yet mean something completely different in Eastern Cultures.

Fonts
Your choice of font (or typeface) is just as important as the graphics and colors. There are thousands of fonts (no one really knows how many world wide) and each font has it’s own set of characteristics, which, like color, have an impact on the viewer. There are curvy feminine fonts, bold masculine fonts, playful fonts, the list goes on and on. Again, your target audience must be considered: you wouldn’t want to use a thick, bold font if you were selling a high end make-up line. Nor would you use a straight, cold font to brand your toy company.

Media
What you use the logo for can impact the success of its design. For example, it might need to be readable on business cards and other print material, websites, t-shirts, electronic billboards, television, or a physical product. The size of the logo for each of these media is a big factor, as some logos are simply a mess at small sizes or look really odd blown up to a larger size. Another factor is the material the logo is printed on – some materials can make a logo look very poor.

Professional Logos

This is why – if you need a professional logo – you shouldn’t bother Johnny the neighbor kid. He’s going to put something together based on his own preferences, without any thought for how these various factors affect your brand. And just like any part of your business, ignoring the factors that affect how your customers feel about you is brand suicide.

Why Creating Logos is Best Left to Professionals is a post from: RSA Blog

Integrated media; balanced marketing

Lost within the maze of our office, sitting in front of his Mac – probably playing video games – is Justin Mather, one of our graphic design veterans.  Last week we bribed him to sit down and spit out a few notes about traditional advertising. Here’s the dirt:

Traditional advertising has been around a long time, much longer than anyone reading this. Today, it still plays a vital role in the success of any business. The technological aspects of marketing are changing fast, but traditional media is still a great way to consistently reach large numbers of potential customers, particularly for local advertisers.

Your logo, brand and image is just as important as it ever was

Keep your collateral materials fresh and updated. For instance, if you are featuring more services or made upgrades to an existing product, you’ll need an updated brochure/rack-card to make existing and future customers aware of this. You must maintain a strong market presence while effectively reaching your intended audience.

Consider this…

It’s true that fewer people are reading actual newspapers (as opposed to online), but fewer is not the same as nobody; and even that depends on your demographic. If you’re trying to reach an older demographic, newspapers work great. Coupons are also a good way to increase traffic. A direct mail piece with a good offer is a wonderful way for you to get more “bang for your buck.” Just make sure to routinely change your offer and the look of your mailer to avoid being overlooked by desensitized consumers.

Even though the possibilities offered by interactive media are compelling, and we’re doing more all the time, advertising in print, outdoor, and direct mail will still have a great impact in any balanced, integrated marketing plan.

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Photo courtesy of aeu04117

Traditional Advertising Is An Oldie But A Goodie is a post from: RSA Blog

Who cares what the glass looks like...is the beer any good?

Who cares how a website looks if it doesn’t work?

Well, the owner of the site, usually. Many of the websites I’ve built over the years have been for clients who care very much how their websites look, and often make decisions to enhance that aesthetic quality at the expense of usability (the ease with which a person uses the website).

Of course the “look” of a site is important. A website needs to draw and engage the eye quickly, or at the very least, not make the visitor puke on their keyboard (here, this might help you with that).

But drawing the eye is only part of the equation. Readers familiar with this subject might here expect me to talk about “function”, and how it needs to take precedence over “form.” In other words, don’t sacrifice usability for flashy eye-candy. But we all understand that, don’t we? I don’t need to beat this dead horse, because look, here’s a perfectly good, live horse that’s ripe for a beating:

Form follows Function follows Content

What’s usually left out of the puzzle is content. Yet content is the most important piece. It’s what the internet is about; it’s what you visit websites for. It’s what you came here for. You’re reading content right now.

Would it make a difference to you if this site was ugly (go ahead, call the site ugly–Google knows where you live), so long as you were still interested in this article?

Further (let’s assume you came via direct link), would it have mattered to you if, when you came here to read this article, the navigation was broken, the images didn’t show up, or the styles or scripts didn’t operate quite right? Would you still have read the article? I think so, provided you were interested enough. And interest in content is only effected by lack of good function or form to the degree that lacking hinders your ability to view the content.

Form follows function follows content. Content comes first; it’s what we build the website around. As a designer, it’s always better for me to know the content before beginning design work. It allows me to design a better website, something that fits the content in look, layout, and function, and to do it much more efficiently.

The benefit to you, the business owner, is a better website all around.

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Photo courtesy of stevendepolo

Is The Look Of A Website Most Important? is a post from: RSA Blog

Whenever I sit down to go through ideas for blog posts, I inevitably think of a few that sound great, only to realize hey, we already wrote that one. A lot of the things we wrote about last year are still relevant even now – maybe more so.

Looking back through our logs, it’s no surprise to find some content was more popular than others. After all, we’re still experimenting to find the sort of thing you, our readers, find most useful.

To make sure you didn’t miss any of the good ones from last year, here’s a short list of our most viewed posts from 2009.

Why Good Customer Service Is So Important

5 Reasons Not to Cut Your Marketing Budget in a Recession

Elements of Internet Marketing

Going Nuts? Don’t Cut your Marketing

Should You Put Video On Your Website?

Understanding Web Design

14 Practical Uses For Social Media

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Photo courtesy of kevinzim

Stuff You Liked From 2009 is a post from: RSA Blog

She's right...

What is “good” web design? Many people don’t understand what makes websites good or bad, and some are even surprised to learn that effective web design takes time, and isn’t cheap. Let me explain…

When you look at a website, you’re looking at an end product. Like a car, there’s really no indication of what went into the creation of the product. We can break it down into its individual parts – wheels, pistons, frame, gears – but we don’t know *why* they, specifically, were used in its construction, or how to acquire and assemble the right types of parts for another car.

Who decides what’s good?

Most of us probably don’t understand how cars are designed, and have only a basic understanding of how they work. But we do know how to use them. We call them “sweet” or “clunker,” seeing distinctions in quality based on various attributes, such as age, safety, power, or utility.

Let’s dwell on that for a second. The designers and engineers who build these complex machines understand them a gazillion times better than you or I, and yet *we* are the arbiters of automotive quality? How does that work?

It’s simple, really. Cars are designed to solve our traveling problems. Need to pull cargo in hilly terrain? Alright, here’s a truck with more power…how’d we do?

“I need cargo space, but also passenger room.” Here’s your gas-guzzler.

“I need a place to put my drink while on long trips.” Okay: this model has 200 cup holders.

“I need an economical car.” Here’s a chair on wheels.

And we get to be the judge as to how well they’ve accomplished those goals. SUV? Wildly popular. Chair on wheels? Not so much.

So these researchers, designers, engineers and others all get together and attempt to solve our problems. They each have a role in the design and construction of our cars, and, together with all the complex parts and mechanisms in the machine, make for a price that can be pretty shocking.

After all, it’s just this little car. Like…a frame on wheels, right? With lights. And gears. Computers. An engine. Hoses and fluids and wires. Fabric and safety belts and airbags and safety glass and…yeah, that sounds expensive now.

You know what? I bet many of us could walk into a big automotive company office and tell those designers a thing or two about building cars. They’re made for *us*, after all. “Here’s what I want…”

But we’re not really telling them how to design cars, are we. We’re just telling them what problem we want them to solve. In the end we trust them to solve these problems in the most effective way, all variables taken into account, because we just don’t know how to design or build cars.

So now that we’ve completely forgotten the point of this article, let’s get back to web design.

Web design is…

The process of solving a business problem, communicating a message, and facilitating user action on the web. That’s my working definition. By all means, critique it in the comments – I’d love to get it nailed down.

1. Solving a business problem.
Website design – even print graphic design – is not art. As a designer, I’m not creating a work of art. The graphical and architectural decisions I make throughout the process are not primarily based on my own preferences – I have reasons for each choice I’ve made.

This is because I am creating a solution to a business problem. However one might want to articulate that problem, it usually can be constructed as an objective end, “Generate more foot traffic,” or, “Increase non-local sales,” or, “Take over the world.” Whatever the objective, all of my efforts as a designer revolve around it and attempt to fulfill it. This takes research and planning, information organization, writing, discussion, graphics work and programming.

The point here is that web design isn’t like creating art. Designers do have to think about the aesthetic form of the design, but within the context of business goals and the rules that go along with a communicated message.

2. Communicating a message.
With every website, something specific needs to be communicated, both visually and through the copy. Call it the brand or the marketing message – either way for this message to be communicated successfully, graphic and structural decisions must be subordinate to it. Does this color help convey the message? Does it fit the brand? Is it simply a preference? In web design, preferences must die.

3. Facilitating user action.
If there’s a clear goal for a website, the website user or “visitor” is involved on some level. You want them to read something, click something, subscribe, purchase, or interact in some other way. The design of the website must facilitate and not hinder whatever action you want the user to take.

All design decisions must be subordinate to usability. If a website looks great but is slow and clunky, or isn’t easy to figure out, it is not an effective solution to your business problem. Yet if it’s incredibly usable but has no visual appeal, you might also say it’s less effective than it could be. So there is a balance to be found, but when it comes down to either aesthetics or usability, usability must win. If your visitors don’t take the action you want them to take, you’ve failed.

Clear as mud?

I know there is confusion out there, and I hope this helps somehow. Creating a website is not just painting a pretty picture or moving some colored boxes around on the screen. It is an attempt to construct the most effective solution to meet a business goal, and sometimes this can be a lofty endeavor. There are so many things to consider beyond just the “look” of the site: the user experience, structure of information, findability, search engines, and more. It’s no wonder this stuff takes time.

But we’re not talking about a piece of wall art, here. This is a business investment, the core of your company’s web presence – a web used by over 1.5 billion people worldwide.

Don’t you think that’s something to take seriously?

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Photo credit: lmnop88a

Understanding Website Design is a post from: RSA Blog

As a business, you have many options for delivering your message to your target market. Be it a billboard, newspaper ad, television spot or some dude in a chicken suit standing on the corner handing out flyers – each has specific techniques for maximizing its effectiveness. When incorporating your website as part of that message delivery system, it’s important to remember the web is its own medium and must be treated as such. All media types are unique and beautiful snowflakes… or something to that effect.

Many of the ideas from traditional media (television, print, outdoor) translate, while others do not. First, all good design guides the viewer’s eye in the path the designer chooses. This is Graphic Design 101. Sometimes this is done gracefully through the use of a focal point, contrast and repetition. Other times it is not so graceful (star bursts anyone?). Think of some great print advertising you’ve seen. I’m willing to bet the first element you saw was either some fantastically unique or emotionally engaging photo, then a bit of text and finally the company logo/call to action. Or think of some effective television advertising – again, I’m willing to wager the ad was visually stunning, funny or emotionally appealing with a call to action towards the end. If this commercial doesn’t appeal emotionally to you, check your pulse. This model works because it grabs your attention then invites you to act on the emotional response you’re currently feeling. People often buy on emotion rather than logic. Why else would someone buy a pair of Crocs? The emotion of feeling comfortable beats the logic of appearing sane.

When GD101 is applied to a website design, you want your users to first understand where they are (your logo and branding). This is especially important if your visitors are landing at your site from an organic search result – meaning they typed in some search terms and your site topped the list naturally, not from a paid placement. Next you want to make sure they find what they’re looking for. If they spend any more than a couple seconds looking for the desired content, they’re likely to leave your site and look somewhere else. Not good. Finally, you want them to find the other stuff in your site. This generally refers to your navigation and/or graphic elements to allow access to other areas of the site.

So, basic design principles still apply. This is a good thing. Otherwise, we’d have an internet populated with a bunch of un-navigatable (yay for made up words!), illegible and irrelevant websites. However, when it comes to the web, the standard method of generating action is no longer applicable. When someone lands on your site, they’re already working through the “acting on” stage. You don’t need to grab their attention with a huge “hey, look at  me” graphic – it will just get in the way. They are looking for something and whether it’s a product you sell, an answer you provide or simply your business hours, the worst thing you can do at this point is lose that attention.

The magic word for retaining their attention is, say it with me now, content. If your content is engaging, informative and well structured, you’ll not only provide that nugget of information the user was mining for, you will also entice them to stay a bit longer to see if they can dig up anything else useful to them. If they find your site especially useful, they may link to it, blog about it, bookmark it, or better yet, take the initial step to do business with you. Understanding what content should be on your site and how that content is written specifically for the web is a great start to an effective web strategy, but that strategy must first begin with a fundamental understanding of the medium.

Understanding the web as a related, yet entirely different medium than TV, direct mail, or the guy-in-chicken-outfit and it will simultaneously release you from preconceived notions of what your website should look like while opening other avenues you never thought to look down.

The web is gradually moving away from the “all sizzle-no steak” mentality prevalent earlier in the decade. Today’s users are savvy and impatient. They know where to look and what to look for. If you don’t provide the answers they seek, you might as well get suited up and print out some flyers, it’s going to be a long year.

A website is not a guy in a chicken suit is a post from: RSA Blog