Design

“Put Dog Shit In A Tube And I’ll Try It”

Garth Beyer

Words from a work colleague after my boss brought back tubed meat and tuna from Switzerland. (Yes, we joked about using it as toothpaste.)

Everything about the tubed food seemed and looked disgusting. I use past tense because they finished the tubes. Nothing new to talk about or cringe from now.

However, a bit of wisdom that managed to squeeze itself out of the tubed food talk is this: why is book cover design so lucrative if we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover?

Answer: Because we do anyway.

Apparently if you put dog shit in a tube and make it look presentable by design, my coworker will try it. It’s the truth, really. To some people canned tuna doesn’t make sense, but tubed tuna does. Consider yogurt and gogurt. Consider toothpaste in bottle verses in a container you dip your brush in. Design matters.

The first step in design (or for any effort to impact people) is to know your audience.

The first thing to know about your audience is they will judge a book by its cover; that’s how you get people to try something, consider a service, open a book, read your blog.

My one defense to this truth and favorite aspect of design is you often get more than one chance to make a good first impression. If the book cover doesn’t engage readers to open it up, then redesign the cover. That simple and most people won’t notice.

And my last design tip. Don’t forget the weird. Because there are weird people who will eat tuna out of a tube, and, yes, as disgusting as it is, there are people who could be persuaded to purchase dog shit in a tube. Maybe not eat it, but at least purchase it.

 

Stay Positive & It’s Actually Sounding Like A Pretty Good Gag Gift To Me

HT to Chip Kidd for being an idol.

A Little Added Design Won’t Hurt

A Little Added Design Won’t Hurt

Garth Beyer

Bt1NnveCMAEOU44.jpg-large

If you have a solid opportunity to add some design to something standard, take it.

Chobani has some text on their yogurt stating they are a proud sponsor of the olympics. Instead of stopping there, they decided to have a bit of fun with design. Sure, the design may only be noticed and appreciated by a few, but they are the few that matter most.

Plus, adding some design raises brand awareness with those who don’t care for greek yogurt. It has to be comforting to Chobani knowing you will now think of them when you consider giving greek yogurt a try. (Trust me, you eventually will if you haven’t already.)

The real beauty of design is it can be made to appeal both to your target audience and the masses in its unique way. Fun little design is universally appealing.

It’s the little things in life, ya know?

 

Stay Positive & Out With The Standard, In With The Design

 

When In Doubt Frankenstein Out

Garth Beyer

When you find yourself struggling to create some crafty content, Frankenstein your work.

That is, take pieces of writing in your journals or parts of your favorite photographs and stitch them together with thread of your own flare.

So often art is taking pieces of different puzzles and putting them together to create something new.

Stay Positive & Watch Your Work Come To Life

Hey, Your Humanity Is Showing

Garth Beyer

Noticing humanity comes natural, so natural to the point you may say you don’t even notice it.

You may think adding that extra characteristic of humanity, of vulnerability, of doodle, if you will, will take away from the formality, credibility and technicality of your business. It doesn’t.

I opened the Great Lakes philanthropy booklet today (what could be more human that this?) and the message from the president ends with his signature (ineligible). Following is his name and title in print (eligible).

You may see things like this and, as I have, wonder “what’s the point?” After all, you can’t read it, there’s almost no point to it.

On the contrary.

Would you believe just having a badge or ribbon-like image on a book cover makes it more likely for people to pick up and believe in? The text within the image doesn’t quite matter. It can say “runner-up finalist” or “enjoy the read.” The image adds a dimension of credibility to it just as the signature adds a dimension of humanity to the letter.

The same, I’m arguing goes for all small humanistic prints of ours: a signature, a typo, a hand written newsletter, a behind-the-scenes video or one-on-one unscripted interview of an employee. No one needs to ever mention the video to another or point out the signature; these marks don’t need to stand out, they simply need to be there. Every person notices them whether you or they realize it or not.

A final example: People love technology, but when you take all the humanity out of it, you’re removing what people connect to. When Apple talks design, they aren’t talking about how pure and inhuman the device is, they’re talking about all the human qualities they’ve put into it.

 

Stay Positive & People Connect Through Nonverbal Communicational Ques, Not Cords

A Riff And Reward For Reading (Self-Promotion On Twitter)

Garth Beyer

I use Twitter to interact with people and it peeves me when people use it to spam. I can deal with the links and self-promotion in my feed. What I can’t stand is when I get a direct message that is so obviously programmed. There’s a picture of a person, but the message is robotic. The latest is from Alex Mathers who is exceptionally smart and produces really sweet content, but his promotional methods are…questionable.

So impersonal

Occurrences like this remind me of my post about Pandora advertising its alarm option even after I had set the alarm up.

If you’re going to promote, then quit promoting once your customer does or buys what you’re promoting. Think of the last thing you sold to someone. Once the exchange was made, you didn’t keep telling them that they should buy what is now in their hands. Right?

Anyway, to thank you for reading this rant, I’ve taken the common questions asked by working creatives that Alex answered on his blog and have answered them in my way here.

1. How do I find my first clients if no one knows me?

Try making a better product or service first. If that doesn’t work, then you need to create something different. Skip all this hassle by figuring out what people in a tribe want before you establish a product or service.

Getting clients isn’t hard. Creating something people want is.

2. Should my style appeal to what is in demand or be about what I enjoy?

You know the answer to this. Both.

3. How do I earn more?

Easy things aren’t scarce. Hard things are scarce. Scarce things have value. By doing something hard, you’re creating something of value. The more value, the more you can earn.

4. How do I know what to charge for my creative work?

Charge what you would pay for it. It’s damn difficult to sell something for $1,000 if you don’t believe it’s worth that much.

5. How do I move from full-time employment to going freelance?

Slowly. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to work your ass off for it. Wake up earlier. Go to sleep later. Cut the little things out of your life until you make the transition.

6. How can I sell more of my stuff without being too pushy and ‘salesy’?

Read one book on sales. That’s all you need. They all say the same thing. After you read it, go take a job in sales. I did for a month and practiced what I read in the book. The only reason you don’t know how is because you’re not forcing yourself to figure it out.

7. I don’t have any time to spend on my creative career. What do I do?

Quit lying to yourself. We all have 24 hours in the day.

8. How do I network with people if I’m introverted?

 Watch this

9. Do I need to understand the basics of running a business to succeed?

Do athletes need to understand the basics of their sport in order to perform at the Olympics? That’s where you want to go, right? To the top?

10. How long do I need to spend working to become an expert at my craft?

If you simply won’t move forward without knowing, they say 10,000 hours. How long isn’t important though. What matters is how well you work to become an expert, not how many hours.

11. How do I balance my job, social life and creating in my spare time?

Understand that you’re on a teeter-totter and you’re on it with someone who weighs a bit more than you. No one consistently balances. Prepare for the constant give and take. It’s what makes it worth it.

12. Why can’t I get motivated about what I do?

You’re afraid of something. Figure out what it is and proceed to dance with it. (Also search “fear” on my website, I write a lot about it.)

13. How do I freelance without getting lonely?

By creating something that makes people feel less lonely.

14. I never get any jobs through social media. What am I doing wrong?

You need to use social media to make connections and meet people. It’s when you meet people that you get offered a job. More people get jobs from people, not tweets; they get them in person, not online.

15. How do I get more likes on Facebook?

First ask yourself if that’s where most of your revenue is coming from. If it’s not, then spend more time where the revenue is coming from, likes will follow from that.

If you do get most of your revenue from likes on Facebook and want more likes, then offer more on Facebook, showcase people who use your product or service by giving shout outs or uploading photos (people love sharing photos that they are in) and be entertaining. Most Facebookers go on to escape the real world. Ask yourself what you have to offer.

16. I have disrespectful, crappy clients. What do I do to change this?

Fire them.

17. I lack the confidence to share my creations with the world. How can I increase belief in my work?

There’s no solution to this. Don’t listen to people who say there is a solution, all they are setting you up for is an uphill battle. What you can do is start by not caring who believes in your work – so long as you do. Build it and they will come.

18. How do I get more traffic to my blog?

Ads work. More content works. Multimedia helps. Getting content published elsewhere will guide others to your blog. The two best steps you can take, though, is to connect with more people outside your blog and to wait (but don’t stand still, that’s not what I mean by waiting. People die standing still).

19. Is it better to be a jack of all trades, or a master at one?

People will ask you what you are an expert at or what your superpower is. Have one. Then know a little about everything else. Enough so you can make friends with people who are experts in all those other things. Now you’ve built a team. Now no one will ask what you’re good at. They will see you as a leader.

20. What is your single biggest tip for succeeding as a solo creative?

Know what success means to you.

21. How do I develop a unique style?

It’s a pain, but writing as much as possible helps. And try caring just a little bit less on whether people approve of your unique style. I laugh when someone calls someone else weird. They make it sound like it’s a rare thing. We are all weird.

22. Do I need a university degree to succeed in this game?

Not exactly in this game. But, in the game of life, it helps a ton.

23. There is so much competition out there. How do I stand out?

You don’t need a million followers to make a million dollars.

24. Why does no one follow me on social media?

Well, I would follow you if I’ve heard about you and like you. If this is the same for others, then either they haven’t heard about you or don’t like you.

 

Stay Positive & Follow Me @thegarthbox (but don’t expect spam messages)

Trendsetting To 2014

Garth Beyer

Design

  • It’s statistically proven that what people care more about in occupations than money is purpose.
  • Every day I read about people trying to find meaningful work, some finding it.
  • All the workplace infographics I come across point out that people want flexibility, space to grow into and a bit of freedom for how they accomplish their tasks.

These are the most significant trends of 2013.

Now nearing 2014 these trends are shifting. In 2014 they will be as follows:

– It will be statistically proven (blatantly noticeable) that people will not settle for an occupation that doesn’t align with the purpose they see for themselves.

– Every day I will read about people creating their own meaningful work. They will have quit searching for someone else’s box to fit in.

– All the workplace infographics I will come across will point out that people will construct their own schedules entirely (with some regularity near an average), they themselves will be the only roadblocks in their way, growth will be infinite, and along with their complete freedom to carry out tasks their way, they will have ever more pressure to be unique about it and accomplish more tasks throughout the year.

Which I have summed up to be 2014: The year of design.

 

Stay Positive & More On This As 2013 Comes To A Close

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit