oh, write

October was fantastically busy both for us as a company and for me personally. Furthermore, November doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of letting up. I guess some of this is driven by companies wanting to compete for business more, and thus needing effective communication materials. As a small business owner it’s crossed my mind that the financial issues the economy is facing might present us with issues, but at the same time I see it very much as an opportunity.

In my line of work everything essentially boils down to forming a relationship with the end user. This is true (and easy to see) when we’re talking about a website design, but it’s also just as pertinent for print, application design, signage, identity and so on. Our customers come to us because they think they want a new website or a refreshed brochure etc, but what they really want (in nearly every case) is to convey an idea or message to their existing customers or attract new customers. The end game is a call to action—to buy something, to provide feedback or to engage in some other way with the company and/or the product and services it is involved in providing.

So actually the brochure or website is all about creating dialogue between the service provider and the service user. Graphic design, fundamentally, is about facilitating that dialogue; opening new channels, approaches and mechanisms to enable the communication to flow. The trick to being a good designer is getting to the key messages and objectives, and presenting or representing these in an aesthetically attractive, fresh and engaging manner.

Every designer wants to be original, creative and unique. The best designers (in my opinion) are those who manage to take all the communication and dialogue requirements and wrap them up in a perfect package of typography and graphics in such a way that the design aesthetics (although fundamental) are forgotten temporarily as the piece engages the user or viewer in a moment of dialogue. I think that if we, as designers, can acheive that, well then we’ve done something right that day.

So, as companies are competing in the deteriorating market conditions generally, so they’re going to be increasingly wanting to differentiate themselves, engage and enter into dialogue with their customers, retaining and building relationships. Given that’s what we’re here to help with, even in troubling economic times, there’s a wealth of opportunity out there to capture new clients.

One of the things I’m hoping to make use of is the fantastic wordpress iPhone application that allows you to post on the move, including photos, which seems a bit of a wheeze to me. This post is just a test, but hopefully this little app will increase the liklihood of regular posting frequency.

I’ve been threatening to create a new blog for a while now. I’ve got others dotted around the place, but I never really established their flavour; they either represented one specific topic/activity that I was working on at the time, or they existed purely because they could rather than because they should.

So, this is my new blog. This time around, it’s me. I’ll be writing about anything and everything related to what I do in/at/for work and pleasure, as well as noting stuff that tickles or excites me, frustrates or annoys. The odd bit of politics might slip in, but mainly I also plan to use this blog to keep track of my article writing and illustration work. I lose track very quickly of what I’ve submitted where. So far this year I *think* I’ve written 27 articles across 6 magazine titles. If I can get permission, I’ll post up copies of the articles so this acts as a central repository, if not I’ll probably just note them as existing.

So that’s it then, the start of a new journey.