6 Awards Winning Visual Communications Specialist

Founder & CCO (www.yangrin.com)

Partner & CCO (www.dogma.co.il)

Worked with such international brands as:Microsoft, Volkswagen, Deloitte, SAAB, Baskin Robbins, RE/MAX, and many others

Shareholder and advisor of 4 start-ups in Israel and US

Member of:Design Council of AustraliaFreelancers Union of AmericaGraphic Designers Association of Israel

Official Team Member of SpaceIL

Supporter of: Greenpeace, WWF, The Prince’s Rainforest Project, Flying Kites

Branding• What is branding• Why it is important to go through a brand process• What is a strong brand• Why brand book is important

Research and analysis for design purposes• Why research is important• What to research• Color & human psychology in digital design

Budgeting• Why budget for design is important• Common mistakes companies do when planning a

design budget

Choosing the right design partner• Freelancer or Agency/Company?• How to find a good design partner• Common mistakes companies do in choosing a

design provider• Mutual excitement is key to successful and well-

designed end-product

Designing successful end-product (web/mobile)

• Why good design is important• How to achieve good design• Design process and time tables

Table of contents (subjects covered):

Branding

Is a common process of creating a brand, which is translated into a logo, slogan, name, and or design scheme representing a company, product and/or service.

Why it is important to go through a brand process?

Brand/Branding process is a core definition of how and whyyour brand will look the way it will look at the end of the process…

Brand process is in-depth research of your industry, targetmarket and your potential user/consumer.

Analysis of color and human psychology, end-usage of the logo,slogan and other brand materials for the future.

Designing your logo, creating your slogan and all corporate identity.

Writing and preparing a brand-book.

What is a strong brand?

Strong brand is a visual element that represents your business activity, your product and/or your service combined with a good product/service, good customer service/support, and well made marketing which will keep the brand in people’s subconscious.

Why Brand Book is important?

To make your life much easier in the long run!

Brand book is simply a manual to your brand, style and visual elements.

Brand book is a guide to usage of your brand through many differentoutlets of advertising, marketing, promotions, design, info-graphics, etc.

It will save you allot of money in going back to your initial design partnerfor them to explain to any other agency or company every time you’d like to run a campaign, promo, marketing efforts, etc.

It will guide future agencies you will work with on how to use your brandingin such a way that it will be only beneficial to your company and not harmful.

Why research is important?

Research will allow you and design partner to understand better the marketneeds and how to approach the visual elements of the company, productand/or service.

It will also allow you to understand which design agency will be best fitted for your specific needs and how to create the brand or any other designedmaterials.

It will save you money and time in your future approach to any advertising, marketing and sales materials.

What to research?

You should research the following:• Your competition• Your target market• Your demographic• Your end-user needs and/or desires• Your own team/partners desires• Yourself!

Color & Human Psychology – WTH?

Most people don’t understand what exactly that means…

That’s alright, most people are not supposed to understand what it means

This is science, this is the scientific part of the design process… yes, yes, there is also science in the creative field… I know, it sounds odd, but true!

People and/or agencies that specializes in this field and do conduct such analysis are more likely to deliver you the results that you need (note, I didn’t say “want”, I said “need”) this scientific process helps to understand how people may react to different colors in different mediums, whether it’ll be online, mobile or offline.

See, 99% of world’s population don’t really understand why they like a specific restaurant, company, brand,product or even house or just some random place… it is all due to carefully planned and mastered color palette.

Colors influence our daily life throughout our entire life, colors are always a major factor of our choices inclothing, product, food, leisure, etc. it dominates our choices in brands when we see them…

So if your brand, website, app, advertising, marketing materials, etc. are carefully planned and based on this science, then you have a much better chance to be remembered, chosen and even talked about.

Why budget for design is important?

• Your investor or financial dep. Will love you for it!

• It will keep you structured

• You will know exactly how much you can spend

• It will help you understand and manage well your yearly marketing and advertising budgets

• It will help you determine which design agency you can choose from…

• It will right away make your search for good design partner easier

• It will help a design provider determine what exactly you can get for the amount you have.

Common mistakes companies do when planning a design budget

NOT PLANNING IT!

Freelancer or Agency (Company)?

I think this is the most common question most companies ask themselves when they decide to design or redesign something…

Well, here is the reality of our modern days… there is endless choices both in freelancers and agencies, locally and abroad, and in our tech-wired world, you can work with anybody or any company you’d like…

However, here are some benefits and downfalls of both sides of the coin:

FREELANCER AGENCY• Low cost• Shorter time frames depending on freelancer’s work load• Working nearly around the clock• Might disappear at some point• No future support• Very risky• Can’t provide absolutely every possible service• Might charge deposit and never do the job…• Not always might be on time with deadlines

• High costs• Longer time frames• Working only business hours• Will always be there for support• Have a team of people to provide nearly every possible service• The only risk is, not liking the results• In 95% of the cases, strict on time with deadlines• Will also create a networking between clients

How to find a good design partner…

Well, I wont say its easy, but I also wont say that its impossible…

You should start by analyzing your friends who have businesses, look at their websites and ask who did their site and if they were pleased with the agency and the results they got.

Also it is a good idea to find your leading competitor online, scroll down to the footer of the site and in 95% of the time you will find a logo of the agency that did this website.

Once you did your research, found about 10 or so agencies that you think can be a good fit, start meeting with them, talk to them, tell them about your project, and look at their portfolios, very important is to look at what they already did, and see if they are any good at what they do, see if they have big names in their portfolios, trust me, big brands wont choose a crappy agency, their look is way more important to them than spending less…

Once you narrowed down 2 or 3 final agencies, talk to them, explain in as much details as you can, what you need to be done and what is your budget, the combination of knowing your needs and budget will help agencies determine if they can deliver on your budget or not… and don’t forget, meet with them in person, see if there is personal chemistry…

Common mistakes companies do in choosing a design provider

1. Going for the cheapest option2. Going for my friends cousins nephew3. Going for good sales pitch without even looking at the agency if they are ay good… anyone can promise you

mountains of gold, there are only few who can actually deliver it… 4. Going for anybody or anything because it is too urgent and no one cares about anything, just a hype to put a site

online or app on app-store5. Thinking that print designer can design a website or mobile app, sorry people, car engineer cannot engineer a

bridge just because he/she called an engineer… 6. Thinking that a designer is just this dude who downloads images from Google and puts them around in

Photoshop, which should not take very long, so lets do it quickly and cheaply… 7. Thinking that there is no difference between a $50 template and a $50,000 website... They both have images and

buttons… 8. Thinking that design agencies are a factory that just charge too much on something that costs them peanuts9. Not listening to professionals10. Thinking that you know better

Mutual excitement is key to successful and well-designed end-product/result

There are several types of agencies… the ones who are just about business and making money and the ones who build their success together with their client’s success…

Always, and I repeat again, always choose the ones who are as excited as you are, or at least will put their efforts for you to succeed eventually, and wont leave you hanging alone when you really need them.

I know its hard to spot such agency, but you have to try… yes, all agencies talk well, and sell the dream in a nice pink packaging… yet, ask them if there was even one client that they took from start to finish that achieved any success due to their specific work, or help or advice…

Worse case scenario, you can always hire for just a few hours a professional designer with credentials, who can help you find that one agency that will be excited with you!

Why good design is important…

We all live in the hype of 21st century, no one has time anymore to just sit down, enjoy art or design and try to understand it as it used to be in early 20th century, today, we want everything to be delivered to us in timely manner, we don’t want to think too much, we want to see and make a decision as quickly as possible.

BE WARE OF USERS!

Users are all too quick to judge… all they need is 1.5 – 2.5 seconds to identify if they like it or not, this is the exact time you have to capture attention of your potential user/customer/client.

So, that should say it all… your website, web application, mobile app, advertising, etc. must be high quality, appealing and stunning! Otherwise, you risk to loose your potential to your competitor especially if you’re a new and young brand on the market.

Also, keep in mind that simply beautiful design is not enough, it might be great in your eyes, but your eyes are not the target, your potentials eyes are the target!

A great design is not necessarily must be beautiful, but it must be done in such a way to appeal to the majority of the crowd, otherwise that was a waste of time and money…

Another rule, you should keep in mind, no one cares about your personal taste when it comes to designing your website or app or ad, professionals care about creating something that will drive your potential customer/consumer.

I know it sound heartless, and maybe even just bad to say to you as a client, but, at the end of the day, if you have a website or app that you absolutely love how it looks but does absolutely nothing to your business growth, then trust me, with time you’ll come to hate it… yes, you may get involved and express your opinion and likes, however, if a designer considers it as not good, be fine with the fact that it will not be used.

How to achieve good design:

1. Find a good design partner2. Research & analysis3. Good planning for the project and knowing maximum of potential bumps on the road ahead4. Color & human psychology analysis5. Knowing your customer/consumer 6. Putting your ego aside7. Understanding that design must be functional8. Keeping in mind that design must appeal to the majority of the targeted public9. Knowing your market10. High attention to details

Design process and time tables

The biggest mistake allot of companies do when it comes to their project, is taking lightly the actual design process and miscalculate the actual time tables…

Just so you understand, design process is a creative thought process and not as you expect of a designer to sit in-front of the computer for hours upon hours and create and over create and recreate… it doesn’t work that way…

In designing something, is always about 80% of the time is spent on just thinking about it, researching, analyzing, imagining, creating broad pictures in the head and trying to understand if they will work or not… another 15% goes into actual work time, sitting in-front of the computer designing and trying various options that previously was drawn in designer’s head… and the final 5% goes into finishing the last touches, adding some minor details, polishing and finalizing the end-result.

Time-tables: BE REAL ABOUT THE TIME TABLES!

You can’t expect facebook to be done in two months… be real, understand that things take time and you can’t do things in a rush, otherwise it will be screwed up and wont be as planned…

Also, your feedback times on the design is also taken into consideration, if you don’t respond fast enough and it takes you months to decide on something, do not expect your project to be done on time!

This lecture was prepared by Yan G.For the lecture at Startupbootcamp (Haifa, Israel) – January 2013

For more questions, consultations, or other needs, you may contact me:

- yan@yangrin.com- yan@dogma.co.il