Buyer Personas
I needed an idea for a radio spot for my graphic design services and was struggling with how to translate such a visual medium into sound. I was also aware that Kauai Design is primarily a B2B (business to business) business and that the vast majority of the radio audience are not business owners or executives. So how could I reach out to that small percentage of listeners who need my services? It came together while reading The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott. Buyer personas. Scott insists that ‘push’ marketing...
read moreBreak Up Your Text
Your readers will love you for breaking up long blocks of text into manageable chunks of information, and you can make your pages more attractive and interesting in the process. White space, photos and illustrations are commonly used for this purpose. Other...
read moreNine Mistakes Beginners Make
With a computer, a bit of software, and internet access, almost anyone can be a ‘desktop publisher.’ And that’s a good thing. Power to the people. Self-expression. A voice. A forum. But along with the proliferation of information (and opinions) that came with the home computer and the internet, came a lot of bad graphic design. I made all of these blunders and more myself as I was getting educated in the principles of design, layout, typography, etc. In the interest of helping to raise the bar for any ’newbies’ out there, I offer...
read moreContrast
by Laura Lamar. Excerpted from Before & After magazine, originally published in 1992 Design isn’t just about making things look good. It’s about helping the reader receive information. Contrast is a designer’s most powerful communication tool: It can attract the eye, create visual priorities, establish landmarks, control movement, lead, label, emphasize and define. I’ll go so far as to call it ‘the design secret of the...
read moreThe Creative Process Illustrated
Review of W. Glenn Griffin & Deborah Morrison’s The Creative Process Illustrated (How Advertising’s Big Ideas Are Born) Griffin and Morrison take us backstage and introduce us to 36 successful ‘creatives,’ (creative directors, art directors and writers) and share their backgrounds. But the best part is getting into these folks’ heads as they unveil their processes for getting to the ‘Big...
read moreCreating Motion in 2-D
kin·es·the·sia noun 1. The sense that detects bodily position, weight, or movement of the muscles, tendons, and joints. 2. The sensation of moving in space. Origin: 1875–80; Greek kin ( eîn ) to move, set in motion. ki·net·ic adjective 1. Of, relating to, or resulting from motion. 2. (of a work of art) Depending on movement for its eff ect. I am highly kinesthetic. I love movement and touch. In fl at, two dimensional (2-D) graphic design, that translates to a love for active, kinetic...
read moreGrids
Excerpted from a post by Antonio Carusone, TheGridSystem.org Behind most professional page layouts lies an invisible grid system. This page, for example , is overlaid on a classic 12-column grid. I recently came across a website dedicated to grids (!!) and this article challenging some misconceptions about their usefulness in graphic design. #1 GRIDS ARE A DESIGN TREND. Grids have been in use long before graphic design became a discipline. During the 13th- and 14th-centuries,...
read moreHow We Decide
Review of How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer Born of a science writer’s difficulty choosing which Cheerios to buy, How We Decide takes us on a fascinating ride through the human brain, exploring the edge between emotion and reason in our deciding process. THE VALUE OF FEELINGS The feeling part of the brain is an ancient and finely tuned instrument for survival. It can detect danger and discord long before the conscious...
read moreColor: When Less is More
The Zen arts teach never to use more when less will do. One place this principle can be applied in graphic design is in the use of color. Visual layouts often contain several competing colors (or hues) when a single hue in various shades (black added) or tints (white added) or tones (gray added) could have been more...
read moreA Brief History of Graphic Design
Source: Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. Fourth Edition. 2006. Starting with ancient pictograms on cave walls, visual communications date back to at least 10,000 BC. These graphic representations of ideas are still widely used today as ‘icons’ and transcend language and literacy barriers. Though movable type printing originated in 105 AD, reading for education and communication purposes didn‘t gain momentum until the 1400′s, with the introduction of Johann Gutenberg’s printing...
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