Publication Design is any print or digital multi-page document (white papers, annual reports, booklets, catalogs, ebooks, interactive fiction, etc.). Because of their size and being spread across many pages, publications require more planning, custom image creation, and shuffling of elements than about any other design projects. Their complexity also of production, publication design should be left to experienced professionals like Company Man Design.
Print Publication
White Papers
As Google puts it, a white paper is an “authoritative report giving information or proposals on an issue.” It is a multi-page document that is too often thought of as dry and direct, but white papers present your organization opportunities to influence readers, whether current or prospective customers.
Annual Reports
Due to their complexity and volume of content, annual reports rival website design in their magnitude. As such, they tend to fall into two categories: poorly designed, usually because the client organization relies on a cheap designer or a design firm that has bid so low that the work falls in priority; or well-designed but ultra-expensive because the client organization has gone with the biggest national design firms. Let Company Man Design produce a report that maintains and grows shareholder confidence.
Catalogs
In addition to the shared considerations of publication design, catalogs present additional unique design challenges: managing large amounts of data; coordinating quality, consistent product and/or portrait photography; and developing multiple templates for all common page types. Let Company Man Design produce a well-designed catalog that targets your customer demographic.
Digital Publications
ebooks
The technical learning curve of designing and producing an ebook can be daunting, even for and experienced designer. The challenge is multiplied for authors with zero design experience.
Company Man Design is the perfect fit for your ebook design. Our primary, Thomas McAuley, has years of writing experience and had designed and produced multiple ebooks. So not only can we layout your words themselves, as a marketing-focused design company, we can approach the design of your ebook in artful and sales-minded manner so you’re not writing just for the love of it.
Interactive Works
Provide us with a story map or a finished IF work in any common software program and we’ll collaborate with you to produce your interactive fiction work. We will work with your photographers and illustrators or coordinate work with those in our professional network. Our founder is a writer and writer advocate so you know your work is in good hands.
Brochures and hand-outs share many aspects with other effective marketing design pieces. They’re similar to flyers in that they are left behind to catch viewers’ eyes. They’re like sales sheets in their capacity to convey a lot of detailed information and a clear call-to-action. They can act like hand-held posters or oversized business cards in their eye-catching simplicity. Since they’re sturdy and cheap to produce, they should be part of any smart marketer’s tool kit.
Brochures
Beyond the obvious production considerations, brochures require unique design planning when it comes to where and how they will be displayed. If handled correctly, brochures can be a very power vehicle for your offerings and for awareness of your company.
Handouts
The main differentiator between handouts and flyers is that handouts are frequently handed directly to a prospective customer. However, in cases when they aren’t, they still need to stand on their own.
Let CMD design your brochures and handouts so they can do the job they were intended to do: to convert customers from “prospective” to “paying”.
Graphical elements are usually graphics that are functional, utilitarian, or supportive in nature. That is not to say they are unimportant. They are the backup singers, the hidden heroes, of the design world and should be given the credit (attention) they deserve.
As the hidden heroes of graphic design, icons, icon sets, graphs, charts, decorative touches, and data visualizations bring clarity and interest to whatever environment they’re placed, whether for web or print.
Header text is fine, but how much time can be saved by distinguishing text blocks of similar subject matter with carefully crafted or selected icons? How much clearer is data presented in a chart or graph? How much easier is it to communicate a potentially complex process with a detailed illustration or infographic?
If your content is running on or you’re detecting a lag in user/viewer interest, or if you’re having a difficult time simplifying your product, process, or concept to a client, maybe it’s time to consider value-added graphics. Maybe it’s time to consider Company Man Design.
Billboard Design: Special graphic design considerations
At a glance, billboard design appears to be a seems simple task. But that is an illusion. And there are considerations unique to billboard design at every point in order to achieve that illusion of simplicity—while marketing, during design, and throughout production.
These facts apply to any designed piece:
The time required to adequately take in a design—to comprehend its who, what, and how—is directly related to the design’s simplicity and logic of its layout; and,
Viewers only act on what they take in.
Billboard design is especially vulnerable to this truth.
The Who, The What, And The How
On average, viewers have 5 seconds or less to take in billboard details, so they must have ultra-simple designs—simpler in fact than business cards. A viewer can take in about three design elements in five seconds. These are almost always the company name/logo (the who), the message (the what), and the call-to-action (the how).
The Company Name/Logo
It’s beneficial to speak quickly about the importance of a clear, simple corporate logo design. If viewers spend half or more of their time deciphering all the layered detail of a complex logo, there’s little time to get to the other two important elements. They’d know who the client is, but miss the message or how to engage—the what and how.
The Message
All that billboard space can lead one into message bulk. “Well that’s part of my message, too.” “Seems like we have plenty of space for , too.” “How about we add…” are common requests, even understandable, but they should be seen for what they are: temptations into the Forest of Ineffective Design.
Imagine you have only 5 seconds of battery life to tell your rescuer how to save you. Would you ramble like an auctioneer, trying to get in as many details as you could quickly. Maybe, but you’d be wiser to include only a couple key details in as clear a fashion as possible. The same is true with billboard design. Rather than filling the space edge-to-edge with information, it’s wiser and more effective to limit the message to one thing whenever possible—one service, one special, a short pitch. And that one message should itself be ultra-short:
Fun for the Whole Family
Free Drink with Fill-Up
Best Mexican in the County
Next Stop 50 Miles
Free Estimates. Always.
The Call-To-Action
The call-to-action is what the viewer needs to do to become a customer. Like the message, it needs to be singular and concise:
Phone number
Web address
Exit 250 / 1 mile
Stop In. Next Exit.
Since this unique ad space is expensive and because attempts are being made in every market nationwide to phase it out, let Company Man Design concept, design, and deliver your attention-getting, effective, and targeted billboard.
Environmental Design encompasses any design that connects people to places, including everything from graphic design to architecture to landscape. However, at Company Man Design, we’re concerned with the graphical side of things, such as interior and exterior signage and signage systems, to design and art intended to both decorate and impart information in an organization’s place of business.
Signage and Signage Systems
Signage and signage systems may seem like a simple affair. But because much of it works well in our lives, we may find that we take it all for granted. But undertaking signage is not only expensive from a production standpoint but it is also surprisingly complex—external, internal, directional, fixed, moveable, static, changeable, print, digital, fabricated, etc. Then one must consider the specifics of human interaction—viewer distance, time exposed, language, symbology. Then there is corporate identity. And more. Let CMD guide you through this complex landscape.
Wall Art
Businesses have the option of designing their interior and exterior wall space to include anything from fine art to informative posters to inspirational quotes and more. Let CMD help you get the most out of the spaces around you whether you’re wanting a calm, inspirational, informative, or mixed work environment.
CASE STUDY: TWELVESTONE HEALTH PARTNERS
Tennessee-based TwelveStone Health Partners‘ needed exterior signage, digital signage for their infusion suites, and decorative and informative wall art to fill out their Murfreesboro and Chattanooga locations’ interior spaces. We provided them a cohesive set of signage and artwork that maintained the strong corporate identity we had helped create for them in 2015. We are proud to continue to work with them regularly today.
Signage and signage systems may seem like a simple affair. But because much of it works well in our lives, we may find that we take it all for granted. But undertaking signage is not only expensive from a production standpoint but it is also surprisingly complex—external, internal, directional, fixed, moveable, static, changeable, print, digital, fabricated, etc. Then one must consider the specifics of human interaction—viewer distance, time exposed, language, symbology. Then there is corporate identity. And more.
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