3 posts tagged “design”

Travelling is a luxury we cannot afford regularly.

Any plain Joe or Jane would know just how regular trips would dent one’s pockets and savings. And with the continuous increase of oil prices, who can truly afford to go so far? And so, I have resigned myself to watching television programs that featured all these must-see places, must-sample foods, and must-try activities.

I love and hate television this way.

This ambivalence, of course, can only spring from the fact that you are sitting at home watching these people visit one destination after another when it could have been you. All the while, you mutter under your breath “You lucky people.” And you think about this, time and again, and the irony presents itself louder each time. You think - how can I just sit here and watch these travel programs? Why cannot I just go and wander off? It’s not as though I am chained to this couch. Besides, am I not working to earn enough and fund what I love to do? But in the end, the reality just bites you in the ass. There are bills to pay, work to go to, a cat to feed, and so on.

Then you pity yourself and reality sticks its head back in the room. Reality hangs around as you mull over thoughts that prick your ego like needles. You think you want to stop watching travel programs but you can’t. You know how this cycle is insufferable yet you still do it. This sado-masochistic activity pulls your heart two ways.  

And so, once you have had your fill, you retire to your bed and wonder how you’ll boost yourself for the next day.

*      *      *

That’s me right there. The person who can’t seem to have anything going. And funny thing is, I’m sure I’m not the only. I’m sure this isn’t my story alone.

So while I can’t afford to go to a private island just yet, I’ve decided to do what two things that will help me through. As inspired by a program by Giada de Laurentis, I will do even the most cliché things that any tourist would do – I might, hopefully, learn a few things that way. I’ll do this by visiting select places that a particular town or city is famous for – be it by their frozen custard ice cream or by a local lake. When that is not an option, I can go on a little adventure and can look for a postcard perfect view of my own – even if I am in an urban landscape.

And so, as inspired by Giada de Laurentis, I do these things: 1) At the River Side café, I will sit under the Brooklyn Bridge with a Manhattan cocktail in hand, watching the sunset fade out into the night while the skyscrapers’ lights fill the skyline. 2) Wait in line at Grimaldis and order a whole Margherita pizza; 3) I will find a heavenly spot in the acres of sprawling space that is Central Park and have a breakfast of bagels with smoked salmon or cream cheese, foamy cappuccino, and fresh strawberries. 4) Go up the Empire State Building and capture my own picture, postcard design perfect image of New York.

Posters are strange things. Sometimes an extremely pretty picture wins all the awards but none of the expected customers, while those tacky posters win more attention that wonderful ones.

When I was younger, with my first attempt at poster printing was a recruitment poster for my university organization. Of course, I took it as a chance to show off my design skills and aimed for a professional looking poster that will win admiration. It was professional looking alright, but it looks like every other advertising poster around.

I guess my friends at the organization liked it though because they have something to plaster around the booth, and they were extra enthusiastic about it. They even used the slogan to call people’s attention. Our recruitment improved that year, but I doubt the posters effectiveness has anything to do with it.

With the popularity of non-traditional marketing, you may wonder whether your print ads are worth printing at all. For retail industries, you think you can always rely on good old word of mouth from satisfied customers to get the sales ball going.

I realized that although these posters looked nice, no one bothered to stop and look at them. There wasn’t anything in them that communicated any specific benefit to the target audience. The one benefit it served though is at least people are now aware our little club existed.

It was a good thing as well that the cheap poster printing didn’t dry up our budget. Don’t get me wrong, the posters are in very high quality but because we had it printed digitally it didn’t exhaust our budget.

In the business world, word of mouth is still the most potent marketing tool businesses can use. The thing is though satisfied customers are seldom very good at voicing their enthusiasm about every single product or service that exceeded their expectations. Sometimes a talkative customer can mention your business in passing but has no motivation to pursue the conversation.

I think posters are important as a backup marketing material to make explaining a little easier for customers. You can use an interesting and thought provoking poster to give your customers a little more leverage.

One of the reasons posters mass advertising is so popular because it gives people a starting point for conversations. A common ground they can use to create a context they can use to clue in other people into the conversation.

I guess, if I can do things over again, I would have made the poster less professional and more college student looking, maybe use graffiti art or use a more personal tone in the copywriting. It will make it a little more relatable to, and a whole lot more interesting.

I first made and designed my own business card back in high school. And I made not just one design but several. Now you might say, “Who would want a business card from a nobody, high school student?” Simple. My friends.

“I have a number to give out so I might as well do it in style,” I thought. So I conjured up my own business cards back in 1996 or so. Yes, I had no knowledge of other design programs back then and still Corel Draw was a bit new and troublesome for me. Anyhow, all I needed back then was MS Word and clip art images. I also only had the Paintbrush tool where I would make my own designs. I would later copy and paste these designs and lay them out in a blank Word document for printing. I was off to a good start with MS Word. I felt I could print anything.

So there, I have had sheets of my own business cards. Back then of course, my print outs weren’t exactly those of a professional 4 color business card printing company. They were actually a far cry, so there. But it really did give me a sense of freedom – as to who I could be, which facet of me should I reveal on my cards and so on. I kept playing on with different designs and I felt I could be anybody. The possibilities were absolutely liberating. It’s realizing big fantasies on such small 2 x 3 spaces. Isn’t that weird?!

There were stars, unicorns, rainbows and bears on one business card. On another, there were paintings of famous artists. On others, there were just these collections of crazy fonts. I printed pastel colors, dark colors, neutral ones, greys and so on.

I even bought all kinds of paper I could get my hands on. Simple bond papers are no good, except of course for text prints. I printed on board stock, on colored paper, on neon paper, paper with metallic finish, pearlized colors, paper with all sorts of texture, and so on. I think I even printed sticker business cards.

Consequently, I learned my ABCs on printing from such experience no matter how limited it may seem.

I knew better what to expect when printing on colored paper, on highly-textured paper or paper with uneven surface, and on paper with a smooth feel versus ones with a rough feel among others..

Nowadays, with the complexity of design software programs and with the confusing resolution, of dpi’s and ppi’s, and file formats, I sometimes wonder “Do we get to toy around with printing and design anymore?” I guess I better buy my Dummy guides soon.