Graphic designers typically work with three main programs which are all part of Adobe Creative Suite (CS): Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. We’ve outlined these three programs below along with their basic uses and restrictions. Abobe Illustrator – AI: The files generated are vector art. This means that all objects can be manipulated, recolored, resized, etc…. More »
Your Brain on Logos: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Logo Design
Our brains are very interesting places. Neuroscience is finding more and more fascinating information on how we process and store information based on MRI research. Design is no stranger to the world of influencing human behaviour and in a recent article on how your brain “sees” logos, I found some very interesting findings. First, here is… More »
The Dangerous World of Rebranding: The New Airbnb Launch
While there has been a ton of controversy about the new Airbnb logo design (it’s too sexual, it looks too much like another logo launched at nearly the same time), dubbed Bélo, I want to speak out in its defense, and in defense of their overall launch strategy. On the day of the launch of the… More »
Six Simple Rules for Your Next Website Design
These six basic but oh-so-often violated simple rules should guide the design for any website. Despite the simplicity of these, we’ve seen every single one of these rules being broken over the years — from different sets of navigation on each page of a website to a home page containing a book’s worth of content…. More »
Logo Designs: From Elegant to Weird
Getting stuck in San Francisco traffic means I get to look around at what’s happening in the city. I always enjoy the colorful pole flag banners lining the streets around the city advertising various cultural exhibits. Last week when I was on my way to Sausalito for a meeting, I spied the California Academy of… More »
The Journey Is the Destination: A Case Study of a “Typical” Design Process
The design process is capricious. One of our latest projects is a classic example of this. Here’s how it’s gone so far: We promise the client two designs for the project. Round 1: We bring three designs to the client (after about seven went through internal review and four failed …). Client can’t decide between… More »
Using Logo Design as a Strategic Communication Tool to Drive Results
Logo design needs to drive results. The logo is an integral part of the brand. It is the public face of the brand every minute of every day. It needs to be working hard every minute to support your overall communication objectives and support the message you want in the marketplace. There are tons of… More »
Top 5 Web Design Trends for 2014
It’s that time of year. Prediction articles abound. Saw one set of web design predictions recently that I really liked because I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how web design is changing. Again. Here are my top five predictions for what I think are the most important web design trends, and how I see… More »
How to Launch a Logo Design Right: Take a Cue from Cadillac
Cadillac launched its new logo design at the 2014 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), the first new logo in 14 years. They dropped the “crest” as it had “become dated.” The new logo is describe by Cadillac as having a “jewel-like” quality to it and a sleeker, more modern edge to it. Not only… More »
4 Tips for Picking the Right Color for Your Brand
I’m back from a brief commercial break while I recovered from ACL (knee) surgery to talk about color theory and how it applies to your brand. This question came up during our webinar last month on strategic branding. One of the attendees was in the process of developing her brand for the first time and… More »
Know Your Users: Simple Features Make the Difference
In web design, as in life, sometimes the smallest gesture can make the biggest impact. I was recently asked by a Board member of the nonprofit, Center for Domestic Peace to help them with their brand strategy. So first thing I did was look up their website (like 90% of people). What struck me the… More »
Our Latest Mission: Rebranding a Nonprofit to Win
Over the summer, we’ve been secretly working on a great project … we’re doing a pro bono brand relaunch for Operation Freedom Paws. Why? Because we are a bunch of softies here at ThinkResults. The combination of giving shelter dogs new lives as service dogs and helping veterans with invisible wounds move back into a… More »
Is Your Website Sticky or Slippery?
One of the nice things about having been working in the web world since the mid-90s (I came out of the science world so we were “playing” with the web before it became a big popular thing), I’ve seen a lot of trends and changes. Always interesting to see how things change. Five or so… More »
Introducing Ready, Set, Launch!: Our New Quick Start Launch Program
Do you need to get your new venture launched very quickly and with a fixed cost? Do you need a soup to nuts identity (logo, stationery designs and a slick website)? Not sure it can be done in your crazy short timeframe? Then consider our fixed-scope, fixed-fee quick start launch program, Ready, Set, Launch! We… More »
Drinking Our Own Medicine Is Painful
For the last several months, I’ve been running ThinkResults Marketing through our own full relaunch process and it’s been a humbling experience. When we’re working with clients through a launch process, we are fully prepared for emotional reactions, for them to take longer to move through the plan than they expect, and for there to… More »
Google!
Sheesh, after over a dozen years of trying to decipher Google’s highly secret rubric for search, I think we’ve gotten darn good at it. We’ve catapulted brands to the top of the search heap and seen them maintain that position sometimes for YEARS after we finished our search engine optimization work for them. So we… More »
Whose Logo Is It Anyway?
A client recently asked us about our logo design philosophy, which I thought was a very interesting and perceptive question (reflects the questioner well). To us, logo design is much like the rest of what we do. It’s centered around our belief that we are designing work for our clients’ use. That seems obvious but… More »
Move over PPT … New Kids on the Block!
Just received this from a colleague who works at SlideRocket: This is a such a fun and hopeful story I just had to share. And, I had the opportunity to see it unfold first-hand as I am doing some work at this company (SlideRocket – think PPT on steroids!). We all know people who have… More »