Using materials unique to your project is a great way to stand out. I was reminded of this when I came across this poster created by Anthony Burrill for his Happiness Brussels project. He used actual oil found on the beach in the Gulf of Mexico to create his poster “Oil and water do not mix.” Hopefully this poster will gain some much needed support for this great cause.

His poster got me thinking about other examples I’ve seen of using materials unique to your project: squid inks used on books about the ocean, match heads used to spell out the word love, even Canyon has made advertisements using our client’s actual fertilizer granules (this came complete with a lot of glue and many stuck together fingers—I’m sure the design department remembers fondly).

Best of luck to the project by Happiness Brussels and Anthony Burrill, great work! I want one of the posters.

A good beat and I’m set. There’s just something about it. This got me thinking, is rhythm just organized chaos? And, with total locked-down control (the lack of movement, a flat sine wave) is there nothing (maybe a drone, but even in drones I can find rhythm)?

We need rhythm to exist; it’s in our cells, our pulse, and even in our communications. Rhythm is the closest thing we have to making something coherent from chaos. So let’s take this “far-out-dude theory” and apply it to what we do in B2B marketing and communication.

We live in an age of communication chaos. So, how can we communicate more in sync and more clearly? Maybe the answer is a consistent newsletter or e-blast? The consistency of these is good but we need to be weary of the “droning broken-dishwasher effect.”

Don’t be afraid to mix up your communications a little and give your audience some added movement. We need to know our audience’s rhythm and pace to communicate with them in the best possible way. If our audiences are expecting a short memo and we send them a six-page report, they may choke!

Ever been in a conversation that just seems awkward and rife with interruptions and pauses? Nobody likes that. We need to learn more about our audience’s rhythm and where they are in the conversation. I know I’m not the only one wondering about this, so chime in and help out this “dude” and me.

In my last blog post I discussed the importance of proofreading before submitting a project to a designer.

Let’s talk about planning ahead again. This time let’s take on the headline. I’ve coined a term here at Canyon and we see it come up from time to time. It’s the dreaded “paragraph headline”—a headline that was born a paragraph and destined for a really small font size.

A headline is successful if it grabs the reader’s attention and gets them to read the copy. It’s especially successful if it prompts a follow-through response on your call to action.

Designers can deal with headlines of any length. But, we like to have them nailed down before we start designing. That gives us time to figure out how to express the headline visually.

To quote a post from Ted Nicholas, “you should go to copywriting jail if your headline is longer than 17 words.” I tend to agree with Ted. If you’re guilty of this, don’t worry, I’ve heard that copywriting jail isn’t that bad, days are spent sharpening government pencils and weekends at home writing mandatory public service blog posts.

Some say a long headline allows the reader to qualify themselves and weed out the “tire kickers” from the get go. So sadly, the dreaded “paragraph headline” may not be as dreadful as I once thought.

But this post is really about “What to do BEFORE you design.” Designers can make headlines work no matter what length. Just figure it out before you send it to a designer so we can aim for that ever-awesome marriage of visual elements and words. For examples of this, see Renata’s previous post, B2B Advertising Can Be Sexy. Great ads!

In the next couple of blog posts I will be exploring some simple “insider” tips about what to do with your project before it gets sent to design.

Design, put simply, is the presentation of information. And, good design does this in the most pleasing way possible. For the latter to become a reality, designers need to have the project’s “information” in tip-top shape BEFORE the design process gets started. The last thing a designer should be paid for is proofreading! It’s not that designers are incapable; it’s just that we’d rather be DESIGNING.

Ensuring consistency in a project’s details before it goes to design is critical. This means em-dashes versus dashes, initial caps versus title case. We’re not just talking about spelling and run-on sentences. Taking the time with your project and information before it gets to design helps move it along at a more efficient and cost-effective pace.

Stay tuned for my riveting second blog installment, titled, “When it comes to copy, size DOES MATTER—dealing with the more-than-ever-prevalent and scary ‘paragraph-length’ headline (AKA “paragraph-line”).”

photo courtesy: www.flickr.com/photos/Nic’s events