Brand Rant: Who’s Your Product/Service?

Developing one’s brand is a sensitive and at times painful journey. The beginning stages are often riddled with confusion and uncertainty because the task is immense.

The success of any endeavor is determined by the quality of the relationships between those involved. Whether for profit or not, the relationship between your product/service and target market is crucial. What that relationship should be and consist of can be allusive.

A tool that I learned from the founder of Marketshift when developing my brand process workbook for my clients is to think of your product/service from an anthropomorphic perspective. What this means is to consider who your product/service would be in relation to your clients rather than what your product/service does. Who do you want your target market to see you as? Create a profile of your product/service as if it were a real person and the characteristics of your brand will start to unfold.

Is your product/service the parent who knows and wants what’s best?

Is your product/service the grandparent who lends support and guidance?

Maybe your product/service is the hip, cool aunt who just wants to have fun.

Or your product/service might be the friendly neighbor. There to lend a helping hand when needed.

If you can come to terms with the relationship that you want your product/service to have with your target market then the rest of your brand can unfold through that relationship. It will give you a perspective on how to communicate with your market. It can provide a kicking off point for the feel of your visual identity.

Once the relationship is identified then the challenges within the relationship can be identified and addressed as well. For instance in a “parent to client” relationship, one of the challenges might be in relaying what’s best without being bossy and alienating. Or if it’s a “hip, cool aunt to client” relationship, a challenge might be in coming across as fun and energetic without sounding flaky and unreliable.

Whatever the dynamic of the relationship that your product/service might have with it’s target market, it must be defined to create a clear and solid foundation moving forward.

Define it, own it, be the best. Carry forth entrepreneurs…carry forth and conquer.

Peeps I Dig – July ’11

Welcome to the July ’11 installment of Peeps I Dig. If you’re new to this series, you can read about the birth of Peeps I Dig here. This month is all about Paul Rand.

Paul Rand (1914 – 1996) is the graphic design dude that everyone knows even though you might not know him by name.

Paul Rand

His cannon of work is immense and much of it has braved the test of time. There’s a lot of biographical info on him out there so I won’t regurgitate all of that here. I just want to give props where props are due and share my two cents.

Rand created some of the most recognizable logos. Some examples of logos that we all know:

Some examples of logos that are just as awesome:

Thus the nature of creatives is to have many mediums in which to express themselves. Rand was no different although this side of him might not be as infamous as the IBM logo but excellent nonetheless.

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Be sure to check back monthly for more Peeps I Dig. Who inspires you?

Brand Rant: Target Market

Let me start by defining what a target market actually is—the audience in which your product/service is marketed to, usually consisting of age, gender, demographics, lifestyle, and/or socio-economic grouping.

It seems an easy task but I’ve found over the years that it’s very much easier said than done. The reason for this being that when one chooses a target market, it’s not just a shot in the dark. You’re target market corresponds directly with your brand. Who are you trying to hook? It’s much easier to fish if you know who you’re fishing for. You want to bait your hook with something that’s appetizing to your target market. Your fishing pool is determined by your brand.

For example, if you are an upscale, men’s active wear/gear store then you aren’t going to cast your line into a pool of geriatric men with no money. You want to cast that line into a pool bubbling over with active, adventure seeking young to middle-aged men with mid to high incomes.

You really don’t want your pool to be too large which is the mistake that most entrepreneurs make. Of course you want to reach everyone, but that’s just really unrealistic and only waters down your efforts. If you’re busy trying to appeal to everyone then you can’t become an expert. In order to become an expert, you have to reel in your line, define a niche, and focus your efforts within that niche. That doesn’t mean that other fish won’t be swimming in your pool but your focus is on catching your niche fish.

Karl’s Kick “Defining Your Target Market”… by francismedia

Define it, own it, be the best. Carry forth entrepreneurs…carry forth and conquer.

Peeps I Dig – Jan ’11

Hope all of you peeps are getting an awesome start to the new year. It’s always nice to re-evaluate and get back to the basics.

For this month’s Peeps I Dig, I decided to do just that and highlight a company that I absolutely love and respect: French Paper Co. Why a paper company? Well, as basic as paper is, it’s an important part of any printed project. The French Paper Co. handles their business and product with personality and quality.

French Paper is a sixth-generation, family-owned company established in 1871. They were fore runners of recycled, post-consumer, and other environmentally friendly sheets. Their paper is distributed nationally and throughout Canada.

Did I mention that their brand rocks?! It’s funky. It’s fun. It’s effective. I love it. Make sure to check them out and check back for more Peeps I Dig.

Peeps I Dig – Nov ’10

The weather is getting chilly and the holidays are upon us! It’s November and because you’ll be spending more time inside this month’s inspiration is about sites that I dig. So grab a cup of hot chocolate, snuggle up with your laptop, and enjoy.

Abduzeedo

Abduzeedo.com is “a collection of visual inspiration and useful tutorials…The blog is run by design junkies for design junkies, always striving to provide the community with the latest and hottest of what the web has to offer”.

The site is Brazilian born but has expanded it’s workforce to the USA and has readers from across the globe. I enjoy a majority of the inspirational posts and actually comment on quite a few of them. There’s daily, weekly and monthly themes ranging from illustration to architecture. They even have an iPhone app!

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COLOURlovers

COLOURlovers is a global, creative community where people who are tickled by color gather, share, and discuss colors, palettes, patterns and trends.

I have often used this site to light a fire under my color creativity.

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Yahoo Directory

The Yahoo Graphic Designer’s Personal Exhibit Directory is simply a listing of portfolios.

It is a fantastic place to spend a bit of time for inspiration. There’s a wide range of talent from all over the world and I find it very exciting and extremely inspirational to peruse this listing.

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Graphic Design Blog

Graphic Design Blog is “a podium giving professional insight on graphic designing, graphic designers, logo designs, typography and much more”.

I frequently enjoy GDB’s posts and they’ve recently added a forum that I’m sure will become a valuable resource.

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Toxel

Toxel is a design, inspiration, and technology blog.

I love this sight for the sheer variety. It examines inspiration from everything. When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. It’s a really cool site to peruse but make sure you have time because you’ll definitely get lost in the world of Toxel.

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Be sure to check back monthly for more Peeps I Dig. Next month’s theme: holiday designers that inspire me. Who inspires you?

Get Justified

I’ve recently came to the realization that the process of building one’s brand is freakishly similar to going through puberty. At least that’s how I feel about the ups, downs and crazy rounds that I’ve experienced in my almost 4 years as theLULAdesigns. When I first took the plunge to live my dream of running my own business, I knew that I wanted to design but that’s pretty much all that I knew. I didn’t have a brand dream team backing me up so I took what I knew and launched my brand.

Over these few short years, theLULAdesigns has gone through brand puberty. With every project my experience expanded and with every client my pitch became increasingly honed. My confidence built and I grew more and more into who I needed to be. So now almost 4 years and a few redesigns later, I feel like theLULAdesigns is leaving its prepubsent form and heading full force into puberty.

With a new year came new positioning for me. In actuality, it isn’t new positioning per say. Really, it’s the realization and clarification of what my positioning has been and should be.

Taking a look back at my clients, projects, and what got and gets me jazzed, it turns out that I’m a bleeding heart, tree hugging humanitarian activist. I swing left—way left, which brings me to my positioning: people, planet, profit. I’m borrowing buzz words from the triple bottom line phenomenon but when I dig deep that’s truly what I’m all about. It’s always what I’ve been about and will be about.

It just makes sense. I’m doing what I love while simultaneously giving back and standing up for the causes that I believe in. I’m theLULAdesigns and I’m justified left. Which way do you justify?

Best Guerrilla Marketing

The art of guerrilla marketing is a tricky one. If done well it can catch like wild fire and bring more exposure to a brand than any big money campaign could. It’s hard to do well but definitely memorable when success is achieved. Here are some of my faves:

Guerrilla marketing isn’t only effective with making a buck. It can give exposure to a cause. It can also elevate the “good” factor of a brand like these tactics by The Fun Theory, an initiative of Volkswagen, to raise social and environmental awareness.

When you really think about it, the best and most memorable marketing initiatives go out on a limb and are full of creative energy. Another awesome guerrilla marketing montage for your viewing pleasure:

For a freelance designer without a Fortune 500 marketing budget, self promotion can be taxing at the least. These campaigns inspire me to think outside of the box with my marketing and flex my creative muscles. Get guerrilla and have fun.

Feel free to let me in on your guerrilla faves. Inspire me!

10 tips for an online identity as a freelance creative

As a creative freelancer, your website is your key marketing platform. It needs to be clear, intuitive and really speak to what you do.

Here are 10 easy tips to creating a full-fledged online identity (that works!) in a digitally minded world:

1. URL. Make sure your URL is relevant to what you do, and make it simple and easy to remember. Your name alone is great—like alxblock.com or a mix of your name and trade like theluladesigns.com. Short and sweet is the key here.

2. TITLE. Remember that we are trying to make your site work for you, so we want people to be able to find you with a simple search. Make sure your name, trade, and location appear in the title of your site:

This is an easy thing to do with by implementing the <title>REPLACE THIS WITH YOUR NAME, TRADE, AND LOCATION</title> tags in your header.

3. KEYWORDS. This is about selling YOU. You need to make sure that not only is your online portfolio a good representation of your work, but that it is fully visible. Your portfolio should include keywords that will allow the almighty Google bots to find you. Use keywords in the header by implementing the <meta name=”keywords” content=”INSERT COMMA SEPERATED KEYWORDS HERE”/> tag on each portfolio page.

4. CONTENT. Google likes dynamic over static. Make sure your site is built in a way that allows you to update it often with new content quickly and easily. Having a blog on your site is ideal because you can post something new every day, making your site much more interesting and allowing you to come up in the search results more often.

5. BACKEND. I’m a huge fan of WordPress and use it on almost every site that I build (even this site is built completely on WordPress—portfolio and all.) With all of the plug-ins being created by developers worldwide, it gives you the largest selection of cool things to add to your site. The best part is that you need little-to-no technical knowledge to use it. It’s simple and effective. Make sure that the CMS that your site is built on is something that you can manage. Make sure it achieves your goals.

6. USABILITY. What good is an online portfolio if you can’t navigate it? Make sure your links are set-up in a way that is clear and intuitive. You always want to give your visitors somewhere to go next. As soon as they reach a dead-end page on your site, they are out of there and onto the next. Be as clear and bold as possible with your navigation.

7. AESTHETICS. Dude. Make it pretty. You’re a creative and this is the impression you are going to make on people. Make sure your images are clear, your type is clean, and your grammar is correct. People will judge your work based on how your site looks, so be sure that it’s as awesome as your work is.

8. NICHE. It’s impossible to appeal to everyone. Think long and hard about the people that you really want to target. If it’s non-profits, then be sure to include examples of your work done for non-profits. If you’re after agencies, then be sure to include a well rounded array of collateral materials. Make your portfolio relevant to your audience.

9. CONTACT. So now that someone has landed on your site, make sure that it is super easy for them to get in touch with you. Try having your email in the footer of each page. I would also recommend a full page dedicated to the ways people can get a hold of you. This could include badges to your social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIN, or just a simple contact form for people to fill out:

10. BRAND. As a freelance creative, you are the visual expert. Your site must be clear, effective, have a streamlined look and feel all the way down to the language that is used in speaking to your audience. Make sure that your fonts appear the same way on each page, the colors all work together, your logo is clear and present everywhere that they look, the language is consistent and that it all represents what you do.

I’m not trying to imply that these are the only things that make a successful site. Good traffic and a profitable return on your hard work can take some time. Be patient. Build that strong community by following these tips and the business will follow.

-Alx

http://alxblock.com

I bow to thee, oh fabulously designed Wii

So this evening I experienced the Wii Fit Plus. When I say experienced, I mean that I was stupified by this beautifully designed machine.

My lust for the Wii has been lingering since they first hit the market like everybody else but as with everything in my life, if it’s not vital then it’ll have to wait. It sucks but that’s the way of life with baby.

At any rate my sister-in-law, Katie, just purchased a Wii Fit Plus. I was there when she got it and the envy was boiling over. I had to resolve that I would just go play it at her house.

Well, ladies and gents, tonight I did for the first time. When Katie pulled it out from it’s little nook under the TV and handed me the remote I was dumb struck. It was gorgeous. The Balance Board was sleek, white, and compact. It wasn’t really much bigger than an average weight scale but oh my it was so, so much more. Even the ergonomic remote was beautiful AND it came with a trendy wrist strap. It was so pretty you’d think that Apple had made it.

The fresh white and green branding elements that are present in the packaging, on the website, and in the game added to the allure as well.

Not only was the system aesthetically pleasing, it was really fun to play. Let’s just say that I broke a sweat taking down Katie’s hula-hooping high score. I even got to design my own Mii. Your Mii is basically your Wii avatar. There’s so many choices in features that I was actually able to make it look very similar to me. The graphics are great. It sort of reminded me of Super Mario Brothers but much cuter and cooler. I guess that makes sense since Nintendo puts it out.

I’m so glad that I finally got to play a Wii and am even happier that it’s my sister-in-law’s so I can drop by and play all of the time. So thank you fabulously designed Wii, I bow down to thee with respect and admiration.

Spider Man vs. Spidey Lizard: The Ultimate Brand Smackdown

Who do you think you are Mr. Freaky-Spider Man-Poser Lizard!?

Male Flat-headed Rock Agama by D. Gordon E. Robertson

I resent your outfit and that smug look on your face. Don’t you know that there’s only room for one guy with a red and blue spandex suit in my psyche? You’re blowing my mind Spidey Lizard. So what if art mimics nature. I mean really, just because the Mwanza flat-headed rock agama has been around since, well probably the beginning of time, doesn’t mean that you can bite off of Spidey.

Born from the recesses of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s marvelous minds, Spider Man has been rockin’ his signature outfit since ’62! Take that Spidey Lizard! And guess what, you don’t have a leg to stand on in court because you didn’t copyright it.

Yeah-yeah, you did it first but you’re so old by ’62 it was public domain. Spider Man turned his mutation and fashion forward outfit into a multi million dollar brand. Don’t be jealous, it’s not becoming. Just accept your defeat. We could solve this the old fashion way, mano y mano, but that would just be inhumane.

Seriously Spidey Lizard, your beady little eyes, scaly skin, and ability to climb vertically are about the only things you have going for you. Spider Man swings from webs, can read and write, has an alter-ego that doesn’t have to wear spandex, and gets some hottie girl action. Sorry I can’t say the same about your plain Mary Jane.

Female Flat-headed Rock Agama by D. Gordon E. Robertson