A good time sink – The phone guy Great design in book form – Logology Therapeutic introversion – Merlin Mann show A weeks worth of lunch breaks – Mcsweeneys lists Good things on the horizon – Simple CRM
It’s been coming for awhile now. Direct mail had its hay-day, but is now lying at the bottom of the waste bin. Tele-marketers were really successful while people still considered them human. Billboards worked great until people were too busy with their iPods, cell phones, and XM Radio to pay attention. Newspaper advertising worked great back when people still read. Websites worked until there were hundreds of millions of them. And now in a never-ending tidal wave of spam, email marketing too is waning as a successful way to get the word out.
So does anything still work? The simple answer is “yes” -but marketing, like it used to be, is hard work again. Every so often a new media pops up, and there is a brief honeymoon period of novelty. People are receptive because they haven’t yet grown mistrustful or bored with it.
Marketing today has to be even more creative, and even more truthful for it to resonate. It’s no longer as simple as dividing your budget between the media options, and casting your hopes to the wind. You may as well throw your money out the window…
People, even designers, struggle with defining identity. Of course it has a dictionary definition, but we’re talking specifically about a corporate identity. Talk to any designer, and they might tell you identity is:
We think all of these are right, but lacking. We tend to think of identity as literally everything. Anything that you see, hear, read, touch, or maybe even smell is part of an identity if it relates to a company. From the way your receptionist answers the phone, to the navigation on your website. Anything that might affect a customers perception of you is a component of identity. That’s not a textbook definition, but it’s our definition…
It’s best to live with your logo design for a few days… You might be surprised at which one is you’re favorite now, versus next Monday. Your gut decision is important, but it’s often clouded by your bias. We’re on your schedule, -not ours. We’ve split the plan into two phases… The first part involves […]
via 37 Signals Learn the trade – Designencyclopedia Ideas after our own heart – Proposal guidelines Music to design by – FineTune Another 99 list – But useful this time