Every business needs a graphics department.

Many people think they can’t afford graphic design, especially in these tough times. But good design doesn’t have to be extravagant. Here’s a few reasons to either hire a designer or spend some time learning about graphic design yourself. Personally, I recommend doing both.

If your name is on it, it should look good.
I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty easy for me to get a negative impression about a business based on something small. If a plumber has an invoice that’s a 5th generation photocopy, it makes me wonder if they put the same effort into the plumbing. But just having a clean and crisp invoice makes me think that they understand that even small details are important…and I assume that they put that little bit of extra effort into fixing the pipes.

Good doesn’t necessarily mean expensive.
A new order form, invoice, or simple business card can be put together quickly, especially if you take the time to plan out what information needs to be there. Then, all your designer has to do is take the information and organize it so that it looks good, is easy to read and understand, and maintain the look and feel of your business.

Content means nothing unless people read it.
You may think that you are saving money by making your own ads, poster, or signs, but you may actually be wasting it. Just as many people only read the first paragraph of a newspaper article, they only glance at an ad unless it can draw them in. A good designer has made it a point to study color, word choice and placement, alignment and proximity of elements, and other design fundamentals that can alter the effectiveness of your materials.

Prioritizing.
Choosing what to have designed or redesigned can be difficult. My recommendation is to look at 2 aspects. First, the exposure of the material. Second, the current quality. If it is only seen by a few people, and it looks more or less okay, leave it for now. If it is seen by half the valley, or it looks like it was last updated 20 years ago, it should probably go near the top of the list.

The same goes for choosing what to have professionally designed and what to do yourself. If it is only seen by a few people and you can make it look pretty good, go ahead and do it yourself. But if it circulates to all your prospective clients, you want to make sure it looks excellent.

Candy Wooding creates books, boxes, and other keepsakes, and can customize them for any event. Since a great deal of her work utilizes her handmade pastepapers, I scanned in a sheet and turned it into the short-end border. Her handwritten name was also scanned and smoothed to use as her logo. Future cards may have different pastepapers and a revised color scheme to match.

Dale’s creations are colorful and whimsical, and her card needed to reflect that. I spent some time working on a basic logo, then Dale and I sat down to tweak it until we were both happy with it. Once that was done, it was time to scan in the photos, adjust the color and contrast, and add them to the business card. A nice thing about artists’ business cards is that you can turn a basic card design into multiple cards just by changing out the images.

The grand opening for Ashland Art Center is coming up, and I put together a flyer for them. The design went through several incarnations, as did the specifics of the event and ticket locations, but in the end, it was worth it. Please come check it out, and stop by my office (behind the main stairwell) and say hello.

Red Hibiscus is a Hawaiian fusion restaurant opening downtown. When they were told that their awning art had to be submitted in a particular format, they came to me. Unfortunately, what they wanted would not translate well for the purpose at hand. So, with some throwing around of ideas, a few rough drafts, and a final polish, a logo was born.

The Treasures Series, published by Morgan & Chase Publishing, was a series of coffee-table style travel books. They highlighted local businesses within the area with full color photos and a story. As the supervisor of the graphics department, I wore the hats of art director, senior designer, assistant production manager, organizer, and inter-department communications head. When I started, we were putting out a book every 3-4 months. By the time I left, we had a book out every 2-3 weeks.

Treasures of Alberta was one of the favorite covers I designed during my time there. This and several other books are on display in my office for you to look through if you stop by.

While working at Morgan & Chase, I was asked to create a certificate. The concept was to make it fun and whimsical. Management wanted a way to encourage employees to give them their ideas and suggestions to improve morale, efficiency, and practices in the company.
While I could have made this look more like a traditional certificate, it would have added formality and ended up being counter to the concept of the certificate itself. By using a cartoon image and adding humor to the text, it carried a more personal feeling. It didn’t hurt that the name on the signature line was fake (an inside joke within the company).

When I began work on this project, I had to start almost from scratch. It was a 128pg directory, with blue, white, and yellow pages (community, basic directory, business listings/ads). The previous format had no cohesiveness, each element competing with others on the page. I picked out a font family to use throughout the book, added the colors to differentiate the sections, re-designed or re-created the vast majority of the blue pages, typeset the white pages, designed some ads, and organized the yellow page ads and listings.

Then I designed the directory again the following year, but from a much better starting point.