Posts filed under 'branding and corporate identity'
Five old-fashioned arts to grow your business today
Today it seems as though all what one must do to grow his or her business is to get online, find as many Facebook friends and tweet every other minute. While social media and Web 2.0 have dramatically transformed the way we do and grow business, it is important never to forget why they have done so: They have moved the marketing from primarily a one-way street (such was the case with broadcast advertising and older web-based marketing) to a moderately unregulated and decentralized relationship, or conversation, coming and going in all directions.
This brings the business back to the spirit of a more traditional age, when most shopkeepers and salespeople grew their wealth out of conversations, relationship, words-of-mouths and their reputations in the wider society.
It does not take an expensive campaign or a rocket science to cultivate such a beneficial relationship. Here are five easy and inexpensive ways to move your business from purely a pursuit of sales figures to a solid foundation for a long-term prosperity.
Read more on Biznik.com: http://biznik.com/members/sarah-morrigan/articles/five-old-fashioned-arts-for-your-business-today
Add comment October 27, 2009
Branding: When color means brand
About a month ago I was at a neighborhood festival showing my art. I was directed to a small section called the “village” where there was a small live music stage and space for vendor tents, tables and art displays.
In front of me was a white and green canopy, which is rather ubiquitous in recent months at events such as this.
Honestly, this color combination got me confused for a couple of minutes. Was this Cricket Wireless, or Clear Wireless? They both have been heavily promoting at fairs and events like this, using almost the same modus operandi. The former is a cell phone company with an add-on mobile broadband Internet option; the latter is a WiMAX broadband Internet service. And they both use a very similar green-and-white branding schemes.
This is rather unfortunate. How many people are readily able to tell them apart when they see a green-and-white tent or a sandwich board sign?
Granted, they are not using exactly the same shade of green. Clear’s green is approximately RGB (127, 195, 86), while Cricket’s green is RGB (64, 181, 77). But how many people can distinguish them apart, especially when they are not next to each other? To excerbate the situation, Clear and Cricket are in the same industry, further contributing to confusion.
What can we learn from this?
1. Be very specific about color schemes when you are thinking of a branding makeover. Just like your alma mater has very specific school colors, your business must have specific colors that reflect who you are. A trivia: Portland State University and the University of Oregon are both green, but the former is RGB (101, 136, 26), the latter RGB (17, 111, 74).
2. Avoid confusing color schemes. When DHL rebranded back in 2004 following its merger with Seattle-based Airborne Express, many thought their delivery workers were from McDonald’s. Within or without your specific industry, people perceive a certain combination of colors and associate it with something you don’t want. Come up with unique combination of colors. Using a color wheel to find which colors complement one another. Haphazard combination of random colors can have a devastating effect as some colors are never meant to be seen together.
3. Have a corporate-wide guidelines on branding, including appropriate use of colors and typefaces. “Green and yellow” would be too vague and your employees may have a very different idea about green and yellow than what you might. It is also possible that employees and contractors might take an artistic license and modify your brand in such a way that it would no longer bear any resemblance. If you must, create a list of acceptable alternative colors — especially one that uses only “web-safe” colors (i.e. 216-color palette) and for monotone colors (this would allow you to save money on printing and advertising expenses every once in a while). Ideally colors should be defined precisely by RGB, CMYK and hexadecimal numbers.
Add comment October 23, 2009
How to make your own stylish business card with free software
As many new business operators soon discover, there are simply never too many business cards once they get serious about promoting what they do and have to offer. From local networking groups to coffee shop bulletin boards, there are many places where handing out or exchanging business cards is a must in creating leads and gaining clients.
Some business operators would still like to make their own business cards with their own computers and printers for a variety of reasons: scalability in expenses, flexibility and speed.
Read more at http://biznik.com/articles/stylish-do-it-yourself-business-cards-on-the-cheap-and-quick
Recommended software:
- Scribus
- Inkscape
What else you need
- Pre-perforated business card stock paper such as Avery 8879; or
- Nice hard card stock paper and paper cutter (desktop rotary cutter is good).
- This template
Add comment October 23, 2009
Gearing yourself for a multicultural audience
Today, micro- and small-enterprises are in a much better position to serve a diverse, global customer base thanks to a robust cultural exchange aided by social media. Yet, a successful business must remain culturally competent to build rapport.
Add comment August 12, 2009
Iridia Creative website glitch with some browsers
It appears that some browsers have difficulty displaying the Iridia Creative website correctly. I have been testing the site with a number of browsers on multiple operating systems, including the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera, Microsoft Internet Explorer, K-Meleon, Amaya, and Epiphany.
This may be due to some browsers not interpreting CSS as it should.
If you cannot see the text, if the text goes invisible or instead shows Unicode numbers (small numbers in boxes), use the no-CSS, lite graphic version below:
- Iridia Creative home
- Iridia Creative graphic designs
- Iridia Creative fine art
- Iridia Creative window paintings and signage
- Iridia Creative contact (the webmail form may not work in this version)
Also the problem may be resolved by forcing your browser to ignore CSS and use fonts of your choice (Arial, Helvetica and FreeSans should look okay). Since this problem is largely limited to Firefox and other Firefox-derived browsers in Linux, try this if you are using Linux:
Edit (Alt-E) > Preferences (n) > Content tab > Fonts and Colors > Advanced button > de-select “Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above”
Press OK, go back to Preferences > Content
> Fonts and Colors > Colors button > select “Use system colors”, deselect “Allow pages to choose their own colors…”
Additionally, Opera 9.64 for Linux displays the site correctly but it may not be in your distribution’s repository. You can download the installer file from Opera’s website. (This will involve a knowledge of unpacking a .tar.gz file, then running the installation shell script by using chmod and ./ inside the shell.)
Add comment July 9, 2009
It’s your business. Dream it up, and do it, in style.
Download problem fixed: Use this link to download any of the ads below in PDF.
Download the PDF version of this ad.
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Iridia Creative Production has launched a new marketing campaign and doing it in style! The tagline here is “dream it up, and do it, in style.” More than anything else, small businesses and community organizations are manifestations of someone’s visions and dreams. Entrepreneurs literally “dream up” — envision, innovate and create — and set the world of the future in motion. In this difficult time it is a common temptation to cut down on what one may perceive as “non-essentials.” As a result businesses become too boring and sterile for owners, employees and customers alike (remember that it is the experience that counts in all aspect of turning up the profit), innovations are stymied, and customer communications suffer. I believe that the time has come to do it — and get it done — all in style. Even if heaven forbid some people were to fail, I’d like to see them fail in style, not just fail like a roadkill.
For the rest, I am here to help you achieve what you dream up — in style.
2 comments June 16, 2009
Iridia Creative Productions, the “corner store” of graphic communications: Strength in underserved markets
In a Google search alone there are literally thousands of graphic design firms in Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. Some are quite small, while there are a number of well-established firms in large Pearl District office spaces with many employees.
So why choose Iridia Creative Productions?
ICP primarily serves local and — thanks to the power of the Internet — global small or home business and community nonprofit markets. ICP is equipped to handle the necessary flexibility inherent in a human-sized business enterprise, in a way no big corporation can. ICP has a better capacity to spend more devoted time on each client — where our clients are not merely “accounts” but actual human beings an artist relate on a ground level.
Here at ICP, I openly admit that this is not a “big-box store” of graphic design and visual communication. This is more like a corner convenience store — so when a small business owner or local nonprofit executive needs a small project done quickly and done right, Iridia Creative Productions is the right place to contact.
Add comment May 1, 2009
Sarah paints Southeast Grind!
Brand designed by Sarah A. Morrigan, Iridia Creative Productions.
Southeast Grind will be opening tomorrow, Sunday, April 19 at 8 a.m. Normal hours of operation will be 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. This was formerly Fireside Coffee Lodge, and the address is 1223 S.E. Powell Blvd., Portland, Oregon 97202.
Add comment April 18, 2009
