The 4 C's of Crystals, PART 2:

I'm sure most of you are aware of the 4 C's of diamonds, cut, color, clarity and carat. It's an easy guideline to help the consumer select a high quality diamond. But have you heard of The 4 C's of Crystals?These are similar guidelines I developed to help businesses and consumers identify crystal clear graphic design. They are: CREATIVE, CORPORATE, COMPETITIVE and CHARMING. While I originally developed the 4 C's of Crystals to tie in closely with a play on words to my company, Kristal Clear Graphics, this is a helpful guide that can be used when looking for any graphic design company or similar creative professional.

In the last newsletter I talked about the creative element of design, and with that under our belts, let's move on to the very important guideline,CORPORATE. Whether the graphic design company is made of 1 or 1,000 employees, whether you find a well-known advertising agency occupying an entire floor of a downtown high rise or your nephew working out of his college dorm, make sure they follow these corporate guidelines. They're comprised of two main qualities, professionalism and expertise. Below are some questions that can help you discover where your designer stands in each category.

Professionalism

1. Do they look professional and therefore practice what they preach? Is their logo and brand image clear and consistent across their marketing platform?
2. Do they listen to you? If you share ideas for a project's direction, do they incorporate them into the design or claim "artist's discretion" and give you an over-the-top design they know is better. If you have project goals and a budget do they respect that or do you always feel forced into a sales pitch?
3. Do they value customer service and share examples of guaranteeing their customer's complete satisfaction? It's a fact in life and business that you can't please everyone. However, it's important to earnestly try and communicate how the company will fix the problem and follow up on that promise in a timely manner.
4. Are they quick? In normal communications, do they return messages in a timely manner or when they say they will? Do they meet the deadlines they promise to meet? When producing a project's proof that may have revisions do they have a fast turnaround or will you have to wait 1 week at every step because each team member needs to put their 2 cents in?
5. Are they up front about the process and what you should expect?

Expertise

1. Does your design company use professional design programs like Adobe Creative Suite or Quark Xpress or do they insist Microsoft Publisher and/or an online photo editing program is more than sufficient? Often times it's actually companies who have their employees do in-house work with Publisher that run into problems at the printer for one reason or another.
2. Do they hold a degree and/or have a good number of years experience? If they've only been working for a year or two expect lower hourly rates and the designs to reflect it. There are always times you'll be happily surprised, but generally there are more bumps in the road in the whole process.
3. Do they offer you suggestions and tips of how to improve your company's image you hadn't thought of yourself?
4. Do they seem well versed in the industry and how neighboring industries work, at least to a degree? For example a designer working on a brochure should understand simple things like how to prepare the file for press with high resolution and campy images or more technical things like working with master pages for a multi-page document or implementing a spot color throughout the files.
5. Do they have external sources that warrant their expertise such as educational degrees, being published as "experts" in third party publications, design awards or as simple as testimonials from their clients?

If these questions were answered positively, you can be confident your company is giving you a quality graphic design service which is a great indicator of the professional company YOU are.

The 4 C's of Crystals:

I'm sure most of you are aware of the 4 C's of diamonds, cut, color, clarity and carat. It's an easy guideline to help the consumer select a high quality diamond. But have you heard of The 4 C's of Crystals? These are similar guidelines I developed to help businesses and consumers identify crystal clear graphic design. They are: CREATIVE, CORPORATE, COMPETITIVE and CHARMING. While I originally developed the 4 C's of Crystals to tie in closely with a play on words to my company, Kristal Clear Graphics, this is a helpful guide that can be used when looking for any graphic design company or similar creative professional.

Over the course of the next four newsletters, I'll explain each of these important qualities in depth, starting with CREATIVE. A graphic designer must be creative. They must be able to make eye-catching, professional looking, unique graphics that YOU like. But that's only half the battle. In order to be effectively creative, they also need to listen to their clients. A great graphic designer has a strong right brained creative side paired with a more analytical left brain that helps with problem solving and completing the task at hand accurately.

While it might seem obvious, a graphic designer should be creative. This word, like many parts of graphic design and art is subjective. Approaching a new project with a creative mindset to come up with a new look is equally important as the ability to curb their creativity to coincide with client parameters. Let's say you're in need of a new promo cover for your informational DVD you just had made. You have a set budget allotted for design time, decided it needs to have a youthful look using your company's colors, and you want it to be a single sheet, two sided. Depending on the CREATIVE thoughts of your graphic designer, you could end up with one of many scenarios. Here are a couple possibilities to watch out for.

1.             The designer creates a beautiful piece, very different and unique, but it's a multi-page folded piece instead of a single sheet because "the designer felt the larger size would be more dynamic and eye catching with their design. Maybe so, but the extra large dimensions cost you more money in design time and at the printer.

2.             The designer creates three options for you to choose from. You like one a lot, but have just a few minor adjustments. All seems great until you get the bill and see the designer forgot about your budget. The two extra concepts that got thrown out took up additional time you didn't allow for in the budget. If they had delivered just one concept at first, at least there would have been a chance not all three concepts would need to be created, AND you would have been aware that asking for an extra concept would probably mean extra time and money. Now there's nothing wrong with looking at more than one concept at once. That's sometimes very helpful for a client. Plus, from experience I know it can be part of my own brainstorming process. One concept develops into the next so it's easy to separate out and deliver multiple concepts. The problem comes in because the designer didn't communicate this presentation option to the client before hand and disregarded the budget directions.

3.             While the designer did use your company's colors, the concept, in your opinion, is anything but "youthful". Well, we have to keep in mind that "youthful" in this context is pretty subjective. The designer explains his reasoning for why his design is youthful, but you still disagree and don't like it. If the designer asks questions to pin point the problem and makes a new concept in a different direction, even if it's not exactly 100% on target yet, this is a good sign. However, If the designer continues to insist his first design was the essence of youth and subtly infers you don't know good art when you see it, this would be probably someone to steer clear of. They're probably a magnificent artist, but lack the left brain balance to take constructive criticism that their idea just wasn't what you, the client, wanted. In the end, you are the client and what you want is what you should get.

Overall, if a graphic designer has creative talent, but doesn't stay within the parameters you give them, you'll be wasting time and money that will need to be redone later. However, on the opposite end, you need to be careful that your designer delivers your project with a professional look and creative edge that screams, "This business is serious about what they're doing!"

Kristal Young, owner and graphic designer of Kristal Clear Graphics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offers creative services in print, web and beyond. Now specializing in social media design for business identity, you can visit online at http://www.kristalcleargraphics.com or like Kristal Clear Graphics on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kristalcleargraphicsllc.

Expand Your Company's Image: Branding Across Social Media Platforms

If you’re in business, whether big or small or just thinking about getting started, it’s getting to be old news that you should have your company on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Then, once you’re set up, you should use it often to reach your clients and customers. But did you know that many of these social media platforms are great opportunities to increase your brand awareness and professional image? A great client of mine, Katie Felten who founded MKELive, gave me my first opportunity to execute this idea when I designed a social media campaign for her. I quickly discovered how valuable this marketing method was and how many more people should be taking advantage of it no matter what stage of business they are in at the moment.

So how does it work? Well, just as you brand your logo and design image on brochures, web site, advertising, etc. ... continue your look onto the social media pages you're using.

Instead of using generic or supplied backgrounds from the social media sites that have little or nothing to do with your business, use a custom background and/or profile picture that matches your company exactly. When anyone sees you on the social media page, they instantly recognize your company and you gain extra credibility as a more established, dependable business.

Not only do you have a professionally marketed look, but you can also include important information in the design that might have gotten missed otherwise. For instance, people won't always search your page to find out every detail in your profile, but if your phone number or slogan is smack in front of their faces and highlighted with a unique design they can't miss it. Either way, you'll be able to share your contact information, areas of expertise, or whatever facts you want people to know more easily and quickly.

Still a little unclear? You can see an example of some of our project on my web site http://www.kristalcleargraphics.com/gallery_web-social-media.html. In this case, Katie’s image consisted of her logo, which was an offshoot of MKELive, and the social media icons she used to build her business. Her twitter page resembled her YouTube page, which also stayed consistent with her about me page.

As life would have it, in the midst of designing a similar brand image for her facebook page, some new opportunities came up for her career and she decided to change the direction we had been heading. Even though this would mean redoing some of the pages, the good news was this was the Internet we were working with on free social media sites. We hadn’t wasted any money in printing, mailing or web hosting costs to reach her target market like we would have in traditional branding strategy methods.

Now I’m not advocating not using those older methods to brand your business, but realize those are just some of the ways we get our company’s image into the world. The more opportunities you have to touch your clients with your professional image the better.

Each avenue is important and has its own positives and negatives. This social media platform is actually one of the easier ways to brand your image since it's quick to produce and there are no costs for printing or web site hosting. Unlike print media, it has the potential to reach an infinite number of people in your target market at the same design cost similar to a web site.

Additionally, when your logo and background images are consistent with the rest of your company’s image, it shows the world that your company is modern and keeping up with technology and the times. You’re reaching the market segment that is getting most of its information from social media as a trusted, knowledgeable professional.

If you have any questions about how this works or you're interested in learning more about starting your own social media campaign, please contact me at Kristal@kristalcleargraphics.com.

Kristal Young, owner and graphic designer of Kristal Clear Graphics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offers creative services in print, web and beyond. Now specializing in social media design for business identity, you can visit online atwww.kristalcleargraphics.com or like Kristal Clear Graphics on facebook atwww.facebook.com/kristalcleargraphicsllc.

Are You Being Money Smart with Your Web Site?

We're all watching our budget line extra close these days to stay ahead in our business, but are you making the best decisions for the long run? When you first built your site you had to make all the decisions. You had to decide who will create it for you, do you want to update it yourself, use a content management system or keep the web developer in the loop. What extras did you want such as a shopping cart, data bases, blog and the list goes on depending on your individual needs.

One of the biggest mistakes clients can make is they get a great web site, but then they let it sit and never update it. There are plenty of reasons why this happens, but a big one is the cost factor. The problem with this is when you let it slide too long, you get to a point, where it becomes better to just start over again. This is a much larger cost than just updating it here and there to stay current. When you fall into this pattern, you end up losing your largest initial investment every several years when a complete redesign is in order instead of putting forth the smaller effort and costs to make small updates along the way.

If you haven't updated your web site recently, CALL YOUR DESIGNER RIGHT AWAY! Not sure if you qualify for a tune-up? Follow these guidelines.

Make sure your web site:

1. has regular text changes on it to keep it fresh for search engine optimization. The more frequent the better. It's even possible to implement code that automatically changes it on a daily basis.

2. has updated content, be it graphic or text, that reflects your company, which is also continually changing. (This could be new staff photos, new specials going on, etc.)

3. is keeping up with technology and uses the best interface possible for your needs. For instance, does the navigation still make sense and is it easy for people to find what they need.

If you don't know how your site is holding up in comparison to these suggestions, that's ok. Your web designer can help you answer them. The important thing is to at least ask these questions so you keep the momentum of your new site moving. You want to take ownership of your site, and be aware that it's most advantageous to keep it fresh. Just like you wouldn't dream of buying a new car and skipping the regular oil changes to maintain it, make it your goal to treat your web site investment with the same care.

Kristal Young, owner and graphic designer of Kristal Clear Graphics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offers creative services in print, web and beyond. Now specializing in social media design for business identity, you can visit online at http://www.kristalcleargraphics.com or like Kristal Clear Graphics on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kristalcleargraphicsllc.

Be a Princess to Your Clients

I have the fortunate privilege to not only be the owner of my graphic design company, Kristal Clear Graphics, but I’m also a full-time mom who gets to stay home with her two kids. So now as a mom of a four and one year, I have a fun variety of topics I talk about during my day from branding and design details to Barney and Bottles. A couple months after my son was born, I was feeling stumped in trying to come up with a topic for a newsletter that I was writing to my clients and contacts. I asked my daughter, who was 3 years old at the time, "What should I talk about in my business newsletter?" She replied with an obvious answer … "princesses!"

I don't know how she became obsessed with princesses as my husband and I tried our hardest to DIScourage the princess phenomenon, but it still came. So I thought to myself, "Ok, Kristal, you've got a creative mind for your design projects, why not put a creative spin on princesses for your newsletter. So this is how it turned out, and I’d like to share it with you:

Remember the last time you were in line at the grocery store looking at the tabloids and you saw that regular article about the celebrity that looked less than perfect. Maybe they gained a lot of weight, were caught by the photographer without their makeup and dressed in sweats, or just looked intoxicated. Whatever the mishap, it's our human nature to think what we're seeing on the celebrity is undesirable.

The next step of the process is to decide what to believe about the celebrity. Was their image taken out of context and you give them the benefit of the doubt or do you develop negative feelings from that image that make you dislike them and possibly even boycott their music/movie/TV show/etc. So the moral of the story is it's in the celebrity's best interest to always look like a princess (or a prince)!

How does this pertain to your business? Well, a celeb's face, personality, actions, etc are the brand and image they create for themselves. It's a little different from your business's brochures and web site, but both market to their audiences with these tools. Just as a celebrity could lose popularity and eventually money based on bad decisions they make with their image, businesses who don't put a "pretty princess" face on won't thrive amongst their competition either.

For instance, imagine you're a customer looking for a tailor to make alterations for that special "princess/prince" attire you need for a wedding. An acquaintance gives you a business card of someone from their networking group. The paper is flimsy with a random clip art image of a dress and suit on it. It has their company name in text but no logo and you can tell the owner printed it off their computer. It doesn't feel like a very professional establishment, but you go look at their web site anyway. It's quite obvious they made it themselves as well. It's very plain, hard to navigate, and little sense of design organization. Not completely comfortable with trusting your formal attire to this place you google other area shops. It's no surprise you didn't find the first shop in your google search, but you do find one nearby who's web site gives you a much better feeling. Their logo and design style is prominent, professional looking, plus it's consistent throughout the pages of the site as you discover it's quite easy to navigate. Your last discovery is that both shops quote you at the same price. Which company do you feel more comfortable going with? Obviously the one who's first impression was a professional one you could trust.

Now there's no reason both companies couldn't perform upright, quality service, but there is a reason they had to come up with the phrase, "Don't judge a book by its cover." It's because it's human nature to do just that, and in this day and age when people's attention span is so fast your business can't afford to not look its best. Instead, you always need to make your business look like a princess.

If you'd like more information about how you can give your business an attractive cover that will make your clients choose your product or service from amongst your competition, contact me today and let Kristal Clear Graphics turn your business into a princess.

Kristal Young, owner and graphic designer of Kristal Clear Graphics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offers creative services in print, web and beyond. Now specializing in social media design for business identity, you can visit online at http://www.kristalcleargraphics.com or like Kristal Clear Graphics on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kristalcleargraphicsllc.

Graphic Design Myths: #4. One Size Fits All “If it’s good for one company it should work for me too.

Four Graphic Design Myths Busted

Welcome to a short four-part series of advice tidbits that can help guide you through the graphic design process. The last three months we covered three different myths, “More is More,” “It’s Too Expansive to Hire a Graphic Designer,” and “Web Site Horror Stories,” which you can see in the media tab on my web site http://www.kristalcleargraphics.com. Whether you’re a small repair business with a marketing plan or the VP of an amateur golf league with an annual membership booklet to design, there are some basic art, business and communication principles, that everyone should understand. It might be easier than you think to believe these myths because in the short run it appears to be the cheaper, quicker and overall, easier decision. However, make yourself aware of these pitfalls and trust me, you’ll be better off and more likely to avoid these mistakes.

Graphic Design Myths: #4. One Size Fits All “If it’s good for one company it should work for me too.

One idea of thought when starting up a new business is to have your logo on everything that your client's hand touches. While there is nothing wrong with this strategy, it might not be necessary for everyone. Sometimes beginning entrepreneurs get caught up in the staging process of their new business; they get their logo designed, they need a business card, letterhead, brochure, flyers, post cards, e-mail blasts, web site, company pens and hats ... oh, and don't forget those fun stress balls with the logo on it.

While there is nothing wrong with getting your name out in the market in a professional manner, you want to be careful on where you spend your marketing dollars. Just because ABC company orders 10,000 sheets of letterhead at a time, doesn't mean you have to do the same. Maybe it makes more sense for you to promote your "green" side and have a letterhead designed that you can print out for yourself on an as needed basis. Help the environment, show your caring side to your clients and customers and save some money all at the same time. Freeing up some cash could also allow you to try some guerilla marketing ideas to really set your business apart from the competition.

Overall, not EVERY company needs EVERY type of marketing piece despite what some agencies may want you to believe. If you look at your marketing plan from an "a la carte" view point, you might be surprised how many items you truly don't need. But how do you know which to invest in and what to pass on? You guessed it. The answer is unique to every company so do your homework. Find an experienced individual in the marketing world you can trust and ask for their opinion. I'd be more than happy to share my design/marketing experience with you. Plus, for more specialized needs like overall marketing help, writing, photography, etc, I have my pockets filled with other trusted professionals that I've worked with on past projects. Just tell me how Kristal Clear Graphics can help you find the solution that fits your company best.

Kristal Young, owner and graphic designer of Kristal Clear Graphics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offers creative services in print, web and beyond. Now specializing in social media design for business identity, you can visit online at http://www.kristalcleargraphics.com or like Kristal Clear Graphics on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kristalcleargraphicsllc.

Graphic Design Myths: #3. Web Sites Horror Stories

Four Graphic Design Myths Busted

Welcome to a short four-part series of advice tidbits that can help guide you through the graphic design process. The last two months we covered two different myths, “More is More” and “It’s Too Expansive to Hire a Graphic Designer” which you can see in the media tab on my web site http://www.kristalcleargraphics.com. Whether you’re a small repair business with a marketing plan or the VP of an amateur golf league with an annual membership booklet to design, there are some basic art, business and communication principles, that everyone should understand. It might be easier than you think to believe these myths because in the short run it appears to be the cheaper, quicker and overall, easier decision. However, make yourself aware of these pitfalls and trust me, you’ll be better off and more likely to avoid these mistakes.

Graphic Design Myths: #3. Web Sites Horror Stories:

"If I have a bad web site experience, it’s best to stick it out. I’ve already spent so much money with the bad company, and I don’t want to lose my investment. They said they'd fix it this time."

Some other trusted web site designers and I have heard this too many times. Sometimes it’s fun to get spooked, but the horror stories about bad web site companies are nothing to smile about.

Here are some classic signs (and unfortunately true stories I've been told and/or experienced) you might be in a web site horror story:

1) You tell the company you need a web site built, but have a very small budget, actually less than $500. They tell you, "No problem" and with some information and money exchanged you find yourself with what seems to be a great deal for a web site. What they didn't tell you was with such a low budget, they only had time to build you a landing page (home page) with no links or if they include links it's just a pdf they uploaded to look like a web page. This means they uploaded one big picture instead of text and code, which is what search engines use to find your page. I'm not saying you have to spend $10,000 on a site, but you do get what you pay for. At first glance it looks nice, but no one will be able to find it or use it.

2) You've been asking your web guy to make changes for months/years. They keep saying they'll get to it, but obviously they never do. In two different cases, I was the "other" company brought in to make the changes the original company was slacking on. That kicked them into gear at least for awhile, but even that wore off eventually. Not a way to treat your clients, if you ask me.

3. Some companies are more template-do-it yourself web sites allowing the customer to save some money. While they promise and do technically deliver customer service, it's very low quality. I have spent literally hours on the phone with these people who are either uneducated in their own software or poorly educated in a general knowledge of web design, and I really got nowhere ... aside from teaching them some new things.

Now I'm not trying to scare you or use this as a place to vent my horror stories that have been shared with me over the years. But instead, I don't want this to end up in a court case somewhere (yes, I've seen that happen too) and give you some tools to fight the bad web site company villains.

Tools of Advice:

1) Shop around for web design companies, and I don't just mean for price. If one sounds too good to be true, I'm sure it is. The more people you talk with, the more you'll start to understand what you need and what they're offering. My experience with the average entrepreneur is they greatly under estimate what a web site should cost. The more interactivity you want (shopping carts, user accounts, or the ability to make your own changes down the road) drastically bumps up the cost.

2) Use your networking connections for recommendations. Ask about the whole process and what they liked and didn't like about it. Even if you don't go with their recommendation, you'll gain some valuable advice on what pot holes to look out for that are probably common in any web site building project.

3) The web site jargon out there can be tricky and confusing when you're hearing it for the first or even 100th time. Maybe some things I wrote in this article went over your head, but don't feel singled out. You're probably not the only one out there and I would always be happy to explain anything further. In fact, anyone you're working with should be willing to make you feel comfortable in this very large, important purchase you're going to make that could make your business sink or swim.

Kristal Young, owner and graphic designer of Kristal Clear Graphics in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, offers creative services in print, web and beyond. Now specializing in social media design for business identity, you can visit online at http://www.kristalcleargraphics.com or like Kristal Clear Graphics on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/kristalcleargraphicsllc.