Design Has A Shelf Life

(image via the great site Modern Mechanix)

Design is a funny thing in that today’s perfect design solution can become outdated or in need of replacement in short order. Over the years I’ve seen companies and organizations cling to their expired logo/website/brochure because the VP’s son designed it, or because they spent thousands of dollars on it 3 years ago and are stubbornly trying to get 5 years of life out of the project. To the company’s detriment, the design that was originally created to help that company be profitable (insuring they stay in business), does the opposite and starts to cost them money (lost business, perception as an industry laggard, etc.).

Design has a shelf life. Your business, markets, and life are in various states of flux, but that’s no excuse for settling for off-strategy or expired design/branding.

What Happens After You Hit ‘Publish’

Wired has a great infographic illustrating what typically happens right after you hit ‘Publish’ on that blog post you’ve just finished writing. (link)

From Wired:
Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software agents, where it is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web. Within minutes, if you’ve written about a timely and noteworthy topic, a small army of bots will get the word out to anyone remotely interested, from fellow bloggers to corporate marketers.

Shapoopi: When was the last time someone was excited to see your ad?

While watching TV last night I ran across King 5’s Evening Magazine. They were running a piece previewing new Vern Fonk Insurance ads that will start running in February. (If you haven’t seen Vern Fonk Insurance’s low budget and goofy TV ads before I linked to a few below.)

And yes, you read that right, Evening Magazine was doing a story on a local business’s ads that haven’t even started running yet. No, the ads don’t appeal to everyone (they’re not supposed to) and yes they’re so bad they’re good. It’s that one-two punch that makes the ads a pretty good case study. They attract and qualify the ideal group of prospective customers while entertaining a few others along the way.

You might not like the ads, but when is the last time someone was excited to see your ad? Or better yet, told a friend about your new ad?

Shipoopi!

New FLIR Work: St. Luke’s Foundation Annual Report

A Sincere Question For You

Is the Better Business Bureau still relevant?

Have you used their services or filed a complaint with them recently?

Do your customers care if you’re a member?

As a consumer, does seeing the BBB seal displayed in a business give you any reassurance?

Apple’s Advertising Creativity – part 2

A while back we wrote how we loved seeing Apple use the traditional banner ad format in a more creative way. They’re doing it again with a new ad we saw on the website today. Click here or on the image below to see it in action.

Focus Groups

So much could be written about overvaluing focus groups and their group dynamics when it comes to evaluating new ideas and design. Lucky for me though, these videos do such a good job I don’t have to write much at all. (Love the part about color in the first one.)