“Be ye good, Or be ye bad,
Even by the rotten,
Fun will be had!”

Come one, come all to the greatest Digital Art EGG Decorating Contest of all! EGGcellent prizes await those that participate!

Sponsored by: ToonBoom, Corel, Caligari, Imagenomic, VistaPro, Photoshop Cafe, Neat Image, HDRI3D Magazine, and TheBest3D.
Enter Soon! Contest Closes: Friday, April 13th.
Winners to be Announced: Friday, April 20th, 2007

THE DETAILS

In the latest issue of Showroom (http://www.theshowroom.se/ ) Eric Block, the Managing Partner from design firm Duffy & Partners, tells us that design is the future.

“People don’t want to hear what you have to say, no matter how cleverly you say it or how slickly produced your story is. This includes anyone involved in a profession that’s about telling a story - particularly advertising.” The solution he says, is design. He mentions well designed products and brands such as Apple and BMW.

“All of them put design at the forefront. Good design influences everything they do. Design can make things clearer, simpler, personal - all things people want today. Put your money into the design of your product, not into elaborate stories about it no one wants to hear.”

I partly agree with this, nobody listens to a boring person - but, a pretty person with all the right gear won’t hold your attention very long either if it turns out that they have nothing interesting to say. Remember Bernbach “Just because your ad looks good is no insurance that it will get looked at. How many people do you know who are impeccably groomed… but dull?” The solution is not just to design better products - but to not be boring. Boring comes from telling stories nobody wants to hear. So while we hail design as the way forward, don’t forget to pat research and development on the back as well.

One mustn’t forget though, that the consumer never really cares to make your brand famous, they want to make themselves famous. MTV style VIP-treatment prizes are a bigger hit than a few bucks and a chance to see their own ad on TV. Heck, put their name in the ad on TV, and I’ll promise you they’ll work harder to win. What wins though?

The best ad from a strategical standpoint, or the one with the popular vote? That’s a rhetorical question as the consumer doesn’t have any interested in keeping the brand alive for years to come.

I don’t think that user generated ads are the end-all solution to the problem of reaching consumers these days, nor will it die soon - like the jingle-contests, it will always be around in some way or another. Right now it’s having a hyped up field day because it is refreshingly unlike the big agency produced big ads for the big client, who have spent the past ten years creating ads for the greatest number of people with the least common denominator. User generated ads are actually oddly targeted, and that is why they succeed.

So we’re back to square one. Why is it so, that when the web can offer pinpoint targeting on specific consumers, agencies like to paint with the big brush still? It’s not shouting into a megaphone that will get you more customers, it’s leaning over at the right time and whispering the right thing in the right ear. Remember kids, advertising becomes information when in context.

I’ve always wondered why the web, which is a medium perfectly tailored to be perfectly targeted, so often carries advertising that is not. True, people don’t like to be spied on, and rarely leave the true information about what they earn in a year on some form they have to fill out - if they even bother filling it out - but how difficult is it, exactly, to place baby clothes ads on expectant mothers’ sites, and apple software ads on apple fan sites? Thanks to google adwords these days,
you can place ads nearly everywhere that fit quite well in the context they are in. But advertisers tend want a bigger bang than a few points of text on some random blog.

Enter user generated ads. Back in the times of pens and home pianos, it was “write our slogan” or “write our jingle” contests that were all the rage. When everybody had cameras, photo competitions took over, and now that seemingly every kid has a video camera, a software editing suite and loads of spare time, we’ve arrived at “make our commercial”. User generated ads
are simply a new twist to an old truth: to get the consumer involved with your brand, involve the consumer.

One mustn’t forget though, that the consumer never really cares to make your brand famous, they want to make themselves famous. MTV style VIP-treatment prizes are a bigger hit than a few bucks and a chance to see their own ad on TV. Heck, put their name in the ad on TV, and I’ll promise you they’ll work harder to win. What wins though?

STAY TUNED (The rest of Ask’s post will be up before you can say, ‘WEEKEND’)

Promote Yourself
Another great way to get the clients you want is to let them come to you. The best way to do this is make sure your work is in their face everyday. This means writing press releases on a monthly basis to showcase your recent projects, updating your website consistently with your new work, writing articles for industry pubs that your client reads, submitting to awards and competitions that your client recognizes, and even having a blog that teaches clients how you can make their jobs easier.

Have Promotion Materials
There is nothing more discerning than meeting a contact from a client that you really want to work with and having no business card to give him/her your contact info. So what do you do, you end up writing your email on a napkin, or index card, or some other random piece of paper. Instead, make sure you always have business cards on you and a promotional packet or two. The best promotional packets tend to be little flip books that can show the client exactly what you do, how you do it, and why you are the best fit for them. href=”http://www.flickr.com/do/more/”>Flickr has a great flip book you can purchase that pulls the pictures directly from your account, or if you want more creative control, href=”http://www.lulu.com/”>Lulu Publishing lets you self publish your own books. (more…)

I just read a great interview with illustrator/animator Kao Lee Thao.

Kao mentions that the one theme that resonates in her work is the swirl, ‘…the swirl is a symbol of proportional perfection but what I’m drawn to more is the visual appearance of having no beginning or end is could easily travel on forever. A swirl has an underlying energy that dissipates from the central origin and reaches out to the viewer.

Check out Kao Lee Thao’s swirls as she gets ready to launch her personal website soon at www.innerswirl.com.

As designers we often have a hard time putting on our sales cap and going out to get new clients. The harsh reality is that if you are a freelancer or own your own studio then you need to make sales an important part of your daily activities. When trying to get a new client it isn’t just about getting a name and phone number, rather, the more important thing is that you truly understand what the client needs and how you can fulfill that need. Here are 10 things that I have found helpful to keep you focused and help you keep getting new clients and projects on a continuous basis.

Make a Wish List
You can’t really find the clients you want to work with until you know who they are. Make a wish list of the types of clients you want to work with and be as specific as possible, including things like the projects you would like from that client. Good examples include:

Family Run Catering Company looking for a new identity
Micro-website for HBO Espanol
Website and banner ads for Sean John clothing line

Feel free to update your wish list throughout the year. At the beginning of each month I refine the list and look at who I have gotten in the previous month and who I would like to add.
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Step’s Best of Web Design 2007 competition is open. The winner gets interviewed in Step (very cool) and the competition jury includes Hillman Curtis, Kelly Goto, and Joe Pemberton (not too shabby). Deadline is April 2. Categories include website, interactive advertising, and motion graphics.

Learn more.

Dynamic Graphics Magazine’s Re:Design competition invites you to submit before and after designs. If you have saved a client’s bad ad, logo, website, etc., then enter your rescue effort into this competition.

Learn more here

Due to the successes of their previous competitions the Fur Free Alliance announces the fifth annual International Design Against Fur Poster and Advertising contest. Use your design and communications talents to speak up against fur and at the same time win cash. All entries must be submitted by and be the work of college/university level students who are registered in approved programs during the winter and/or spring terms of 2006/2007. One entry per person or group. Only photographs and images that are copyright free may be used.

This year the Design Against Fur message is “Fashion Victims”.

Deadline: April 27, 2007 (for Russian entrants the deadline is April 2)

FOR MORE INFO