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Archive for: Graphic Design
Why Calgary & Edmonton design clients should choose Red Deer
In the weird world of graphic and web design, finding a design service provider that ticks all the boxes can often feel like navigating a complex maze. Clients in bigger cities Calgary and Edmonton find themselves grappling with a lot of challenges – from...
Photoshop AI: AI Images are not there yet
Multiply sales, optimize productivity, & focus on real moneymaking activities. Unburden your schedule and focus on your moneymaking abilities through design!
The Ultimate Guide to Branding: How to Create a Successful Brand Identity and Stand Out From the Crowd
Branding is important because it helps to differentiate your business from the competition and establish a lasting impression in the minds of customers.
A Measley 30 Minutes
Often in this, the age of in-house emergencies, and easily accessible stock graphics, we move fast. Creative is awkward, and often doesn't easily fit within an organizations timetables. This is fine, as we do exist in a market economy and we all produce what the...
Hard Work > Greatness
I have to admit… I obsess about greatness. Not my own greatness mind you, I understand enough about life and myself to not worry about that. Other people’s greatness. What makes someone in any category great? Why is one ordinary person better than another? I suppose...
Branding vs Cloning
Recently I've been thinking more about branding. Branding. The “buzziest” of buzzwords, trumped only, perhaps, by “viral’. I‘ve been around long enough to remember when branding became a thing. Admittedly, branding is probably the best thing. Best because it’s...
The Next Big Thing
Once in a while you see something that shakes things to their foundations. Something disruptive–like the birth of social media, or micro-stock. I really want to discover something like that. This is not that. This is just something cool. Right now, there are lots of...
Meaningful Work
We all want to do something meaningful with our lives, and these days, we would prefer if our work brought that meaning to it. Whether it’s just being a part of something greater, philanthropic, or just “cool” - the feeling is the same. Work should matter. Really, I’m...
The new landscape
I can thank Red Deer's young and current Realtor Mike Wiseman for fuelling these thoughts. Don't worry... it's a good thing! Mike and his wife Andrea Wiseman do an amazing job of leading with the web. Their clean and easy to navigate websites showcase large, glossy...
Terrible Type
Working in the design and print industry, we at Redpoint are constantly bombarded with fonts. Typography is a large part of what we do. We are continually selecting, modifying and talking about type. As exciting as it is to browse Veer for their latest typographic...
Lorum Ipsum
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Hello Letterpress
I recently had the grand task of designing print for my upcoming wedding. There is a lot involved – it was one of the hardest pieces of design I've ever had to do. I knew that there would be high expectations, given my ...sigh... artsy-fartsy nature. So I hope to...
We’re Really Excited.
It’s pretty amazing. We’ve had a tremendous run of creative marketing pieces this past 6 months. Redpointers have created some stuff that is pretty darn impressive. We’ve written copy, printed brochures, made maps, murals, and continue to crank out websites. The problem is, most of it hasn’t been published, released or otherwise produced. It’s been a good year (or longer) since we updated our portfolio. What gives? Well, remember that story of the mechanics car? Yeah, a designers website is kinda the same.
But what are we to do? We’re really proud of the work, and think we’ve really achieved some effective outcomes. We really believe the clients get to launch their products, and we should refrain from jumping the gun. So to whet the appetites of those who check our website daily for updates (we know you are out there, Googlebot!) Here is a short list of highlights to preempt the invariable January portfolio update.
Are Business Cards Dead?
In this age of social media, interactive media, click ads and online networks, a once immovable bulwark of business is slowly dying. the business card. In the “olden days” the mighty rolodex would sit on the office manager or salesperson’s desk – the mighty gatekeeper to leads, key contacts and everything to keep the greasy wheels of a post war boom running (but they date back to the 17th century).
Now that we have online maps, business profiles and SEO aren’t business cards obsolete? Yes… sort of. Designers have a short time to re-define the business card to make them efficient and relevant to newer, younger industries defying convention.
Red Deer’s Coolest Beans
Its not often a potential landmark business opens in any community. Red Deer has been graced with something very unique - our very own coffee bus - the Traptow's Cool Beans Bus, straight from the Oxford Circle in London! Kevin and Becky Traptow have gone to great...
Mistakes. They happen.
Yes. Mistakes happen. Yes. We make them. Mistakes teach designers what they’ve missed, and what they don’t know. Mistakes also give us the opportunity to show integrity, and to make things right. I think mistakes are the single greatest opportunity to show you care about clients. Will you abandon them or make it right? Will you take your lumps or be indignant? Heroes don’t often rise when nothing is wrong.
I think mistakes are the single greatest opportunity to show you care about clients. You rise and fall on your reaction to errors.
We had a stationery project go bad this month. It was a collection of small things that culminated in a botched print run.
Now, in this case it has turned into a lot of extra work for us. But how can you know if you’ve gotten it right?
The Bloc Wins!
Well, it’s election time again in Canada and Canadians are busy listening to the parties and their platforms. Now, it may be more efficient if the parties would wait a bit longer before calling an election, we seem to get elections more often than we get spring, but we all have to play the hand that’s dealt to us, and get out there and vote.
Now what’s really key in this election, in our view, is not platform, it’s not star candidates and its not scandals. It is clear, the major issue is… who has the best election website? So who should YOU vote for?
Don’t ask us. This post is not about policy. It’s a light hearted review of some nerd’s handwork. Read the platform pages on the above sites and make a decision, but most of all, vote. Otherwise we’ll end up like Venezuela. Seriously.
Paper + Ink + Weddings
Planning a wedding? There is so much to think about... colours, guests, venue, photography, attire, flowers, invitations and on and on. We took a little stress off a beautiful bride to be recently and coordinated her wedding print for her. Honestly, it was a privlege!...
The Chemistry of 2011
January 2011 is a pretty big month - it marks the official five, count 'em, five year anniversary for Redpoint Design. It marks the end of 2010, in which we saw explosive growth, not in terms of volume, but in terms of technology (social media and all that rabble)....
What is “Creative”?
A month or so ago, the gang here went up to Edmonton to the Graphic Design Association of Canada’s Edmonton Chapter’s charity auction “a Creative Cause”. It was an art auction raising funds for a notable shelter in Edmonton. It was awesome.
I love art auctions. My wife and I used to go to the Red Deer College “Affairs of the Arts” every year, RDSO and whatever we could. I was excited to go just for the experience, but also because I had donated some work to the show. It’s an odd thing for me, really – to have produced a creative work that is not marketing related. I haven’t done that in at least a dozen years. Wow. A dozen years since I’ve pursued a personal creative direction. I was both paralyzed and excited at the same time – followed by relief that some of the work I donated actually sold (I was well outdone by a colleague down the street)
What struck me at this event was how much good ART was being produced by the design community. Printmaking, painting, jewelery, photography – just about anything you could imagine was available that night. There are some really good creatives making some really great fine art. That got me to thinking – what is a creative?
The Age of Stencils, Paint and Dirty Fingers
The design industry has come a long way in 20 years. Heck, it’s come a long way in 10 years. On holidays this summer I noticed something while whiling away the miles on the Trans Canada. We seem to think only computers can render type these days – its a rare thing to write a letter, particularly in business, and the world ceases to exist when an email server goes down. The only thing average people actually write anymore is a grocery list. But there was an age where sign painters created an awful lot of marketing by hand and brush. I’m a little young to really have lived in this era – when a skilled calligrapher could hand letter in various fonts and sized with accuracy – but somedays I’m jealous of their craft. The last remaining thread of this line of craftspeople is perhaps the window painters that appear around Red Deer on Westerner Days and Christmas.
So we thought about this at the studio, and Kayla and I went out and photographed some samples of hand painted signs in August. Read the full story to see some samples of the original graphic design: hand created signs.
Why No One Can Beat Aaron
We meet all kinds of different people in the design industry. Some people just need a business card and some need more complex communication solutions like large websites or trade show booths. One consistent thing that pops up more and more is the actual act of “communication” – the realization that what we say gets read and what we gets noticed. More and more of our clients ask things like “you tell me what to say”.
People are either passionate about their company’s communication, or too busy for it, but we’ve learned that everyone cares.
Enter Aaron Sheppard from Career Assistance Network
One of our longtime clients, is the managing partner at the Red Deer Career Assistance Network – a company that serves workers and employers all over Central Alberta. Aaron offers front line service to clients, and facilitates group programs for “work”. For “fun” he markets his company well, creates programs and diversifies his company into new niches at every opportunity.
Slow and steady wins the race
So much of the design and communications industry is based on speed these days. Printing presses are built for quick turnarounds, websites are updated in moments and twitter sends information in seconds. Well today we saw the completion of a project that has actually been on the books for over two years! The Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery has been undertaking a massive revitalization for the past 3-4 years with major renovations, new staff, new programs and a new ability to host national level exhibits, the MAG is truly not the Museum we might remember. We were asked in the midpoint of 2008 to start looking at new exterior signage for the building.
That Shiny Digicam
I’ve been talking a lot about content lately and thought to myself this weekend: “I’ve got another good point… Photography!”
I wrote last year about photographic creativity, so this is not so much about that. This is more about how to manage the photographic process as it relates to marketing. Most marketers have two avenues for acquiring photography assets: professional and in-house. Professional photography always gets better results. In house photography is always cheaper and results are questionable, and this age of large mega-pixel digicams proves bigger isn’t better.
Now, I’m not trying to say I’m a good photographer with these tips, but I am a pretty good art-director (and modest, too), and I’ve seen a lot of interactions with clients and ‘photogs’. For a photographer’s thoughts, read this comment to one of my previous posts. What I really want readers to get here, is that the process takes time and money, but it means the difference between a mediocre piece of communication vs. something that truly moves people and will illicit a reaction.
Let’s break it down.
The Elephant in the Room – Part 2
I wrote recently about the conundrum of content. As a designer, you're paid to create the visuals the content goes into. As a client you pay designers for communications solutions (design is one part of this). It's neither cost-effective or efficient to write content...
Pink Suede – No Ordinary Leather
We recently completed two tradeshow banners for Pink Suede Imaging. They turned out so wonderful I felt the need to blog. Pink Suede is a service that assists women in the area of personal image. Think of them as the What Not to Wear of Red Deer. If Clint & Stacy...
MAG Moves To The Mall
Today was a pretty cool day. We visited the Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery in their new temporary location at the Parkland Mall in Red Deer. The Museum staff were very excited to embark on this new adventure. Firstly, they have closed the regular downtown location for...
Annual Super bowl Ad Review
This year people really expected a drop in quality for the advertising at the Super Bowl. With all the recession talk, advertising we not supposed to be quick to step to the plate. Well, it was a good game and it was pretty darn good to see the commercials too. It's...
What Side Are Your Signs On?
Today I saw some street signs (handwritten, no less) advertising an event at a hotel. A sale, actually – someone had taken the time to rent a convention room, and set up a clearance for their products. Sounds good. An Industrious, clever and hard working type of idea....
International Design Award Gold Medal!
We were excited to hear friday from Red Deer College that another project we completed for them has won an award. The 2007 Series brochure, part of larger campaign, was just awarded a gold “Paragon” award at the NCMPR (National Council for Marketing and Public...
Welcome Back!
A the first week of January comes to a close, it’s worth reviewing 2007 and all it brought. 2007 brought a new designer to Redpoint: Sonya, a new office, tonnes of new clients, as well as continued loyalty from existing clients. Moving back downtown gave us an...
Design Thinkers Ontario Overview Part II
Another major theme we caught at the conference was the title: “DesignThinkers.” Design Thinking Andrea Siodmok, of the Design Council in Britain, and a few other more analytical speakers, brought up the issue of Design Thinking. Andrea offered more statistics on...
Design Thinkers Ontario Overview Part I
It’s been a few weeks since I got back from Ontario, and before it gets too distant, I thought I'd recap the week’s events.Push vs. Pull The conference was quite interesting. I think the biggest single theme I came across was that the world economy is changing and...
Off to Toronto! Design thinkers Conference 2007
Look out Hogtown… Redpoint Design is coming to town! I’m off to Toronto this week for a conference sponsored by the RGD (Registered Graphic Designers) association of Ontario. Design Thinkers 2007 is a hodgepodge of new media, branding and design leaders from across...