Notes from the point Newsletter 33

I was reading an article the other day that was discussing the design of a font. Unless you’re a type geek like myself this may not seem that important. But this particular font was designed to increase retention in the reader, to increase what they remembered. Once again, maybe a little yawn here. There are fonts that are more legible and fonts that are less legible and one would think that retention would increase more with legible fonts. But that’s not what this article said. This particular font was designed with some characters being less legible and as a result requiring the reader to think a little bit harder. They discovered a 7% increase in remembering what was written by changing the font in ways that were less expected such as some characters being broken, and a backward slant to it.

I have long felt that design and marketing is more successful when you can engage someone to think, to explore, and most importantly, to discover. Marketing messages that work on a number of different levels allowing the audience to see and comprehend more than one basic message engage the audience and allow them to feel pride in their observation of these more subtle levels. I know, that’s very general statement. To give you some examples, it might be a logo design with a second or third interpretation, it might be a layout that has a subtle image in the background, it might be a concept that requires the viewer to make a connection between the headline and a graphic, it might be a message that is delivered overtime or over a number of pages on a website, or numerous other options. At axis, we have always believed that engaging a target audience to think and learn is a much more effective way to position our clients and get them the results they desire.

Axis visual has been around for 22 years. Okay, cue the fireworks and start the band playing. But really, what does that say? From our perspective, I can say that we have a broader level of experience. Having worked in this industry for this long we’ve seen trends come and go, we’ve seen the “hot” software in one day and out the next, we’ve worked with large and small clients, every one of which has taught us something that we’ve brought to our next engagement.

I think, like aging in general, one goes from having a smaller world to seeing a larger and larger view and observing how (and why) the pieces fit together. In the design profession, experience teaches us not to be too attached to something just cause we like it. It teaches us that one approach is not correct for every client and that we have to have a broad range of capabilities (in style and technology) in order to create the right branding and marketing for each individual client, product and target audience. If you haven’t recently, take a look at our website, please do. You’ll see a very wide range of styles and approaches. The reason for this is simple, each and every client that we serve has a different need, a different feeling about their brand, different likes and dislikes, and most importantly a different audience.

Experience, and time spent exploring and learning does two important things. First, it teaches us a broader range of visual languages that can be drawn upon when working for the different clients that we have. Second, it allows us to be more efficient. By knowing what will work and what will not work we spend less time and effort following paths that are incorrect for a specific project. In the end, experience is a win-win… win. More effective design and marketing for our clients, efficiency in the creative process… and it just makes it more fun for us too.

For the past few years I’ve been on the board the Arts and Cultural Council of Bucks County. Our goal is to support the artists in our community and to teach the public that art and creativity is a critical component of our culture and of a healthy society. A piece of art can be something that one likes or dislikes. But more importantly, art makes people think. And when people think they learn. And when people learn they grow. In recent years for the ACCBC, we’ve completely redone our website (AXIS designed), created a number of events for membership such as art shows, music performances and member appreciation events. We just recently started the new event called “Arts & Drafts” (also AXIS designed). The intent is simply to get artists together and talk. Artist can spend so much time alone with their work. We felt that a casual meeting at one of the many breweries in Bucks County would be a welcome break from their work. And a glass of quality beer doesn’t hurt either. We’re planning on bouncing this meeting around to Northern, Central, and Southern Bucks County… depending on which breweries look interesting. Our next arts and drafts event is scheduled for April 25. The location will be posted on the ACCBC website shortly.

There is always something new going on at Axis visual. And we like it that way. The more diverse and different areas that we can apply our creativity to, the better. The project below is a proposal cover campaign we created for Acurian, a full-service patient enrollment provider for clinical trials. Since they work with a wide variety of medical indications and therapies, they needed a series of proposal covers, each focusing on a different health issue. Axis visual created a distinctive style for the covers – 28 in all – each for a different indication. We have also worked with Acurian to create concepts for patient advertising.