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Are the Fundamentals of Design becoming lost?

Fast access, global demand, short deadlines and quick turnaround have made it all too easy to stray away from the basics of design. If you had a professor in college who taught you design fundamentals, the basics should be engrained in you. If you are self-taught, you may have a book on your desk that you refer to on a daily basis. For the masses, the internet is both a valuable resource, and possibly the source of a design epidemic.

People have flooded the internet looking for design content, and while you might not need to learn the basics before attempting a stellar gradient in Photoshop, there will come a point where this style is left behind and a new style reaches popularity. In history, this lesson has repeated itself with movements like ‘Bauhaus‘ and ‘Swiss Modernism‘ which will soon label our current trends as part of design history.

The fact is, the fundamentals of design will never change:

  • balance
  • contrast
  • emphasis and subordination
  • directional forces
  • proportion
  • scale
  • repitition and rythmn
  • unity within variety

They are the glue that holds the design industry together and to reach success, we need to learn these from the very beginning.

What can Musicians Teach Designers?

Oftentimes, the best inspiration comes when you look outside of your circle or industry. You see a fresh perspective and gain new insights for your own field. The reason this works is a lot of fields are creative.

So even though, say, music and design don’t have much in common on the surface, the creative parallels are pretty clear.

It’s true that an electronic music producer or rock band or jazz outfit or whatnot aren’t crafting visual or web designs. But the way they do their craft and the value they bring to the audience is more or less the same as a designer.

Thus, you can find out some pretty relevant tips from how the best musicians do what they do. And then you can apply it to your own field. You’ll become a much better designer in the process. Here are 3 things that musicians can teach designers.

Emotionally Connect With the User

The best music isn’t just something you listen to – you get an emotional reaction. Of joy, of inspiration, of fist-pumping excitement, of reflection. The best music artists emotionally connect with you, the listener.

You don’t just hear, you feel.

And that’s what your designs should be able to do. So the viewer doesn’t just see, the viewer feels an emotional reaction. You go just beyond functionality or a pretty surface and emotionally connect with the user.

Visual and web designs are not unique cases. Any creative work can and should emotionally connect with the user. Whether it’s an incredible tune, or a moving painting, or an involving film, or a lust-worthy gadget, or a supremely elegant and joy-to-use website – the best work invokes an emotional reaction.

Make your design not just functional and visually pleasing, but a joy to use. Or so elegant that the user is blown away. Or add little details that makes the user smile when noticed. Whatever you do, just make sure to go above and beyond to emotionally connect with the user.

That will separate just a great design from a truly memorable one that’s worthy of passionately describing and sharing with friends.

Have a Clear Style and Direction

Practically all of your favorite artists have some distinct style. Or they have a clear direction they pursue. If it’s dark, it’s broody and atmospheric. If it’s futuristic, it’s cutting-edge and synth-based. If it’s fun, it’s humorous and cheeky. And so forth. There’s no clashing of styles, or incompatible vibes being combined. The style and direction is very clear.

And that should be no different when it comes to your designs.

Do you do more industrial, grungy stuff? Or slick, futuristic? Or clean and minimal? Or natural and Zen-like? Go full-force with that style. Make your style very clear. Otherwise, you’ll be middle-of-the-road with no distinct direction in your work.

Think about it: the most prominent websites and brands have a very clear visual style. There’s no mistaking an Apple webpage, ad, or packaging for another company. The same goes for the greatest designers and visual artists. Their stamp is made in the work they do – no matter how much they do tweaks for the client, the distinct style is subconsciously included in all the work they do.

Your style and direction shouldn’t be forced, either. It’s pretty simple: your style is the sum of your influences. You inevitably fuse what you like into your work. No need to over-think your direction: just break down any self-conscious barriers of what you think your work should be like and just create as if you were making it for yourself.

What would you get most excited by? Create like that, and then that becomes your clear style and direction.

Don’t Become a One-Trick Pony

You know those one-trick pony artists. The ones that find a trick or technique which works, and then they proceed to use it in every single tune of theirs. What was a fresh musical aspect quickly becomes repetitive and boring.

Your favorite artists no doubt keep it fresh. They don’t rely on some technique, or use a trick as a crutch, or repeat the same ideas over and over. That’s why they stay relevant to you and other fans, and why they remain exciting and vital.

Be the same with your designs: don’t become dependent on one trick or technique.

When you do find some clever trick, it’s fine to use it in your designs. But don’t rely on it to carry your design work for ever and ever. Your design worth should come from your skills, style, and ideas, not from some trick. And the other thing is others can copy that trick, after which you stop being as unique. Again, it’s the same with music: an artist discovers a technique, others copy, it becomes stale.

Focus on developing your skills, style, and ideas, not crossing your fingers that a trick or technique you discovered will carry you far.

Is your Company a Community or ? …

Many executives tend to think of their company as a vast machine that they need to control.  This naturally reduces employees into faceless cogs where nobody is indispensable, and everybody is as replaceable as a spare part. Individual initiative, goals, and desires are considered to be completely subsumed by the demands of the corporate machine.

Managers who like the machine analogy tend to create rigid teams with rigid roles and rigid functions. Managers and workers alike become convinced that change is very difficult, similar to retooling a complicated machine.

Such managers tend to think of themselves as “controllers” whose job it is to make sure that people follow the rules of the “system.” Employees are treated in dehumanizing ways while the corporation centralizes control at the top.  What’s worse, sales teams working for such organizations are constantly struggling to secure resources to help them sell.  They suffer on a daily basis to get the machine to respond in a way that matches the needs of the customer, rather than the needs of the corporate machine.

By contrast, when executives and managers see their organizations as communities of individuals, all of whom have individual hopes and dreams, they begin to find ways to connected those hopes and dreams to the organization’s purpose.

When employees really feel that they’re valued as individuals, they more easily dedicate themselves to the goals of the organization.  They’re more likely to truly enjoy contributing to their own success, the success of their peers, and the success of the community at large.  Anybody who has worked in this kind of organization remembers it as a wonderful experience for the rest of their life.  (Unfortunately, such experiences are woefully rare.)

Better yet, the more community-like a corporation becomes, the easier it is for sales professionals to get things done, because communities are naturally more flexible and service-oriented than machines.  Ideally, the community concept begins to embrace customers as well.

The “slow reveal” technique for music videos

Video Tip to Capture Interest in your Video:
We like to call it “onion peeling”, “slowly unfolding”, “slow reveal” – it’s a technique used to capture the viewer’s attention.
Music videos use them all the time.
Watch the video below. If the story of the welder was not strategically cut into the shots of the musicians in the studio, his story would not have been that interesting and we would click away or change the channel.
Instead, the editor creates question after question as the progress of the video slowly reveals the answers.
The message of the song even becomes clear- pulling the story along through it’s slow and steady beat.
Cut aways are at the most opportune times to keep you glued to the video for the answers. This video (Amy Grant) is loaded with slow reveals until the final impact.

Personal or Business Marketing, more than a Numbers Game…

Personal and Business Marketing Trends for 2011

Note: While we mention “small businesses” in this article,  the information we present is applicable  to anyone who is promoting themselves (Personal Branding), musicians, bands, designers, independent filmmakers, etc..

As the global economy struggles to correct itself, and social-media marketing becomes a strategic imperative, small businesses will have exciting opportunities to expand in new directions this year.

The need for trust, value and brand transparency, among other trends from last year, are just as important today. But the current shift to geotargeting, mobile marketing and online reputation management require that small businesses modify their plans to surpass competitors.

Here are 10 marketing trends that small businesses should incorporate now to be positioned for success from the start.

  1. Building reliable brand advocates. The idea that you need tens of thousands of Twitter followers, blog subscribers, LinkedIn connections and Facebook friends to build your business via social media is dead. Quality connections with those who are loyal to the business and the brand are far more helpful to spread your message than large groups of connections who disappear after the first interaction.
  2. Excelling in one area rather than being all things to all people. This will be a year for small businesses to focus on their unique niches and position themselves as the definitive source for information, products and services related to the specific places in the markets where they operate.
  3. Creating quality content as a viable marketing tool. Social media marketing and content marketing go hand-in-hand, and this is the year businesses will create useful content that adds value to the online conversation and to people’s lives. The Web is a cluttered place. Amazing content is essential to break through the noise.
  4. Moving more marketing dollars to social media. Statistics show that large and small companies are shifting budget dollars to social media and other digital marketing initiatives and away from print and radio advertising. Consumers spend more time online than ever and to reach them and stay competitive, small businesses need to have a presence on the social Web.
  5. Tracking brand reputations on the social Web in greater detail. Social media has given consumers a large platform to voice their opinions, and small-business owners are realizing the importance of actively monitoring their reputation on the Web. With dashboards and social media aggregators like Hootsuite and Spredfast, it’s easier than ever for small businesses to develop, nurture and track their stature online .
  6. Increase in branded online experiences to meet diverse consumer needs.Simply having a Twitter account or Facebook page isn’t enough this year. Small businesses must surround consumers with branded online destinations such as a blog, LinkedIn profile, YouTube channel, Flickr profile and so on. Consumers can then pick and choose how they want to interact with your brand. Of course, quality trumps quantity, so extending a brand across the social Web must be done strategically to maximize opportunities without compromising content and communications.
  7. Pursuing mobile marketing. There is absolutely no doubt this is the year of mobile marketing. While still in its infancy, it is the marketing imperative of the future. With mobile advertising, branded mobile apps and mobile marketing apps like Foursquare, consumers will expect businesses to have a mobile presence in 2011.
  8. Geotargeting and localized marketing will become a top priority. Local discount websites like Groupon and local review sites like Yelp make it easy for consumers to find deals and reviews about businesses in their neighborhoods and beyond. Creating targeted, local marketing campaigns using these popular tools will become the norm this year.
  9. Accepting that silo marketing is ineffective. Offline, online and mobile marketing initiatives create an opportunity to lead consumers from one message to another by integrating those strategies. You can drive a significantly higher return on investment by cross-promoting branded online destinations, discounts, contests and events.
  10. Co-marketing to boost returns and lower marketing costs. The economy is still struggling, which means small businesses can benefit from economies of scale by partnering with complementary businesses to develop co-marketing programs in 2011. Promotional partnerships not only lead to reduced costs but also can lead to increased exposure to new audiences.

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