Design

What is "Good" Design?

There's an old saying in the publishing world: "Everyone is an Art Director".  It's only human for each of us to have strong opinions about the way things look.  All design is personal. Which is why there is no such thing as "good" design.

We Believe in "Effective" Design

Design is a tool.  And a tool is made to do a specific job -- otherwise you get yourself a new tool. Design has a job to do. Several jobs in fact.

• • Look Professional
    Your design needs to look polished & professional.  This is fairly simple.  It's mostly about policing the design to eliminate egregious, sloppy elements.  Here's the key: if your design looks professional, new prospects will assume that your business acts in a professional manner with customers.
  • Reflect Your Brand
    What are the chief characteristics of your company? Do you stand for fast service? Low prices? High quality? Your design can't telegraph everything to everyone. But it can speak your best truth to your most likely customers.
  • Design "In Service to Copy"
    This is the first rule taught to everyone who goes to school for commerical design. Design has limits. It can attract attention and create a general impression -- but that's about it. Copy is what makes people take an action. Only words can get the click, grab a lead, or make the sale. Decades of research always comes to the same conclusion.

    It all comes down to one simple task.

  Design Needs to Lead the Eye
  to the Words We Want Customers to Read.

  Just like we did here by centering the sentence above, with bold type. A huge part of Effective Design is about how the copy is displayed. Most designers do not understand this concept. Which is why most design you see, especially online, is woefully ineffective!

  The giants of the Internet did not get successful by building pretty websites. FaceBook, Amazon, Yahoo -- these are not attractive sites by any stretch of the imaginaion. But each one is designed to make is easy for visitors to get the information they want.  They all practice Effective Design!