Graphic Design & Art Direction
MK Vision Center, a terrific purveyor of glasses in the area of Queens where I live, was kind enough to be a booster/sponsor for my son’s school. As a thank you, I created a web ad targeting parents that appears on the website of the Parent Association stressing their children’s related eyewear and optometric services.
tiny little mind was contracted by Gotham West Realty to design a direct mail campaign showing that, by using marketing techniques such as interesting photography and custom sales copy, sellers would have more tools with which to move their homes. Below is an example of the postcards created to entice sellers to work with Gotham West.
Borrowed interest adds nothing but confusion to marketing. If something doesn’t relate to your product, service, or company image, it doesn’t belong.
Borrowed interest belittles your product by showing that you have nothing to make yours the best of the lot and insults your true target audience by promoting fluff over substance.
This morning I read a point/counter-point style article that came my way via Twitter (thanks to @boxofnuts22) talking about the difference between branding and marketing. Here’s the gist of it:
The first person’s explanation was long and winding, full of MBA-style doublespeak and overly complex sentences. Boiled down he says that branding is company reputation and marketing is everything else – from logo design through advertising, etc.. The second fellow wrote short, simple statements claiming that branding was what makes you different from your competition, logo design, color schemes, etc.; and marketing is how you sell your company’s product or service.
Now if the description of the styles of explanation didn’t tip you off, second fellow is correct (I’ve no idea where the first guy got his ideas).
Branding is what helps the audience know who you are without explanation. It exists to make it possible, at a glance, for a potential client to say, ah, this is a Spacely Sprockets product, not a Cogswell Cogs one. It encompasses logos, color schemes, typeface choices, and the style that makes a company recognizable (think Apple’s simplicity and penchant for black, white, and aluminum).
Marketing is how you use your branding to get the message out there – whether it be advertising, PR, social media, etc..
Very simply put, branding defines the topic and marketing is the message.
MaxWell Medical wanted to give their front doors a classy look while still showing what they do (and make it easier for clients coming off the elevator to tell what door they were supposed to enter). The other requirement was to maintain privacy for the clientele and office staff. Here’s what we came up with.
Context is key.
You get a lot of people who feel that Helvetica makes everything better and Comic Sans is the typeface of the devil. Here are two designs that follow different philosophies… one based on flat design and Helvetica and one based on a more dimensional design and Comic Sans. I asked my two-year old (who would be the target audience) which he liked better… guess which he chose? Everything has its place. It is vital to consider the tastes of the audience.
Whether it be typefaces, copywriting, or design style, it is all a question of context.
(Note: these weren’t done for a client… they are quick and dirty designs for illustrative purposes. Although I do like the bear).
That’s what advertising is about. It is about telling a story. A story of boy has a problem, girl has the solution. Boy meets girl and she solves his problem.
Substitute boy with your target audience and girl with your company and you have an ad.
You are trying to convince your target audience that your product or service is the very thing they need to solve their problem or meet their need. It is as simple as that. If you don’t engage your target by making them empathize with the story, you aren’t engaging them. A list of your product’s benefits simply isn’t enough. It won’t compel your audience to put themselves in a position that makes them want to come to you. People are convinced to act based on need or perceived need. If you can’t make them feel that conviction, that need to have a problem solved, then you have probably failed to get a customer.
And without your customers you don’t live happily ever after.
The images below show the progression of ideas that go into a logo design. The final version was picked by the client in order to offset a possibly overly fanciful name.
The design flow (starting with a later discarded “navigational/nautical” theme then moving into a final, “diamond” theme):
The final design: 
Continuing with our foray into the world of label design we encounter “Frankly Good” released by Hot Dog Vineyards through Jack Jones Wines. The idea was to be fun but simple – getting across the idea of a light, white wine that would be perfect for casual dining. A lot of the artwork on the labels done for our clientele were hand drawn, scanned, and finished in Photoshop.
By now I’m sure a lot of you will be aware of Hyundai’s ad promoting one of their low-emission vehicles. There’s this poor soul who, distressed with how life has dealt him a bad hand or something (I’m fuzzy on the details) decides to end it all by committing suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his garage. Foiled by the environmentally friendly nature of his Hyundai, he goes off to continue his life. I’m guessing that Innocean (Hyundai’s agency) and the client felt that this would be an edgy promotion, perhaps going viral, culminating with an uptick in profits for the quarter. Maybe they even thought that the message of an environmentally friendly vehicle helping to save a person’s life would be a great message.
This is one of the most asinine things I’ve ever heard of.
The first rule of advertising is that an ad is there to help sell a client’s product or service to its intended target audience. Assuming that the intended target audience is human, this ad missed the mark completely. A good agency is able to put themselves in the shoes of the prospective consumer and sell in a compelling and sympathetic manner. Certainly it can be argued that the ad drives home (unintended pun) the point that it is a low-emissions vehicle, but there is nothing funny at all about depression or suicide and all this ad does is make Hyundai look like a bunch of heartless, money grubbing, insensitive bastards (tell us how you really feel, Jason) who wouldn’t know what a human being would think or feel if they ever met one. The apologies issued by both Hyundai and Innocean are quite hollow at this point. That ad should have never made it out of the agency’s creative department, let alone into the wild where actual human beings with feelings would consume it.
A couple of years ago, Nissan ran an ad with Lance Armstrong (yes, that Lance Armstrong) riding on his bike behind one tailpipe or another while training. The ad culminated in him riding behind a Nissan Leaf – an electric vehicle with no tailpipe at all. We could almost feel the fresh air invigorating our beleaguered lungs. All of us have walked behind a bus or a car with an emissions problem and inhaled a noxious, choking cloud of carbon monoxide. It is unpleasant. This ad reminded us of that and made us sympathize with the narrator – feeling great relief that the time is coming where we don’t ever have to deal with that again. It appealed to our common experience. This was a good ad. It was positive and made us think kindly toward Nissan and their forward thinking, sympathetic motives. Whether or not that was their motivation is irrelevant, it was the message of the advertisement and it is one that appeals to the target audience on an emotional level.
On a personal/professional note: there is a common feeling out there that advertising agencies are only out there for the money and we prey on poor consumers by convincing them to buy things they don’t really need and might not be able to afford. Innocean seems to be out there to prove this to be true, and it doesn’t help the rest of us who (while making money for ourselves is, of course, why we have turned our talents to a field where they can feed our families) feel like what we do serves the purpose of helping others build and maintain their businesses – in the end adding to the well-being of their companies, employees, and the economy as a whole. The best and most creative of us can use our common experience and emotional intelligence as tools to accomplish this goal. Those who do not make the rest of us look like ogres.
And for that I’d like to say stop. Please, just stop. We are all human and it is in our best interests, both as people and as advertisers, to remember that.
Jason Polkovitz 