Business essentials and marketing strategies to help your firmsurvive and thrive . . . As a design professional running your own small firm, you expect towear many hats--designer, office manager, project manager--all in aday's work. But strategic marketer? No one prepared you for that!Marketing Basics for Designers is a long overdue resource fordesigners who need to become expert marketers fast. It providessolid practical advice on how to market your services, build yourclient base, and keep your customers coming back for more. You'll learn how to establish your design niche and develop yourown marketing plan to reach potential clients. You'll findtechniques for networking and using your contacts with otherprofessionals. And you'll find inside tips from 30 leadingdesigners who have had to develop their own marketing methods tosurvive. Positively packed with all the details you need, MarketingBasics for Designers helps you ensure your firm's future successand shows you how to: * Increase your firm's visibility within your community * Use past successes to generate future business * Perform beyond your clients' expectations * Utilize a show home to market your talents * Establish competitive and appropriate prices * Work successfully with other professionals * And much more If you are recently out on your own, planning to start your ownpractice, or already managing your own small firm, this is one ofthe most important books you will ever add to your professionallibrary. Marketing Basics for Designers What makes running a small design practice so much more challengingthan working for one of the big firms? You have to attract your ownclients and keep them, you're working with limited resources andpersonnel, and once you finally pull yourself away from yourdrawing board to concentrate on marketing your services, where doyou begin? You can't just sit there wondering why you didn't learnmore about marketing in design school. Here's a book to help you out. With a clear, no-nonsense approach,Jane D. Martin and Nancy Knoohuizen address the full range ofmarketing problems and solutions from the unique perspective of thesmall design firm. They understand that you often find yourselfshort of the time, money, and know-how it takes to advertise yourservices effectively. Drawing on their own experience as well asinterviews with more than 30 successful designers, Martin andKnoohuizen show you how to overcome these limitations and developan effective marketing campaign. This incomparable guide will help you put together your marketingcampaign, map out your strategy, and attract the attention ofpotential clients. Not everyone is a born salesperson, but Martinand Knoohuizen let you in on trade secrets that really work andoffer suggestions that will help you feel more comfortablemarketing yourself. You'll learn to build relationships byeffective use of referrals and word of mouth. You'll master thesubtleties of clinching the deal and discover how to keep yournewfound clients coming back for more. You'll also receive sound advice from those who have been therebefore you. Charles Gandy, B. J. Peterson, Mark Hampton, and CherylP. Duvall are among the illustrious designers who share theirwisdom, tips, and recommendations. You'll find out how these majordesigners have coped with many of the same problems you face now,and you'll learn from their mistakes as well as theirtriumphs. Whether you're just starting out in the design business, yearningto break free and become your own boss, or trying to create growthin an established firm, Marketing Basics for Designers helps youdevelop a successful marketing strategy based on your own needs,capabilities, and expectations.

An invaluable source of inspiration for anyone involved with or interested in the design of interactive brands Digital design plays a crucial role in how customers experience a brand. However, corporate websites and online shops are only one part of interactive brand identity. The importance of mobile apps for smartphones and tablets has grown exponentially in recent years, while interactive touch points and billboards are increasingly found in the real world. The interface is now the brand. Branded Interactions is a practical handbook for professional digital designers and those just starting out. It is designed to guide the reader through the process of digital brand design in five key phases: discovering a demographic, defining an action plan, designing an interface, delivering a quality product, and distributing the design to the marketplace. All the sections are packed with real-world examples, case studies, and interviews with experts from leading brands and interactive agencies. A wealth of design documentation and diagrams helps to build a solid framework for any project, incorporating brand strategy at every stage while remaining flexible enough to incorporate change and creativity.

Effective creative strategies and campaigns for business owners or marketers Whether it's on the Web, in a book, or live in-person, the most effective solutions are those that unexpectedly grab our attention. David Langton and Anita Campbell identify eye-catching and thought-provoking marketing and PR tips, ideas, and creative "stunts." This compendium of winning ideas will inspire small business leaders, creative professionals, and students. Award-winning visual communication designer David Langton has worked for a range of businesses from Fortune 500 leaders to small businesses. Anita Campbell, an internationally known small business expert, reaches over 2 million small business owners and stakeholders annually. Through case studies, photos, and illustrations, Visual Marketing displays creative marketing campaigns that brought attention to small businesses in unique, compelling, and unexpected ways. Online visual marketing solutions may include apps, interactive games tools and modules; infographics; HTML emails / e-newsletters; widgets; YouTube videos; flash animation; social networking campaigns; websites, weblets, mini-sites; blogs; podcasts / MP3s; projected signage; PowerPoint / keynote presentations In print solutions may include brochures, flyers; annual reports; books; direct mail, post cards; newsletters; invitations; letters; press releases; infographics On-site, giveaways, exhibit, and tradeshow solutions may include live events and performances; signs; billboards; exhibits; banners; tent cards; posters; plasmas screens; kiosks; giveaways: tchotchkes, t-shirts, tote bags, etc.; floor graphics/vinyl graphic wraps With Visual Marketing, you'll discover 99 powerful strategies for capturing the attention of your potential customers.

Creating a brand identity is a fascinating and complex challenge for the graphic designer. It requires practical design skills and creative drive as well as an understanding of marketing and consumer behaviour. This practical handbook is a comprehensive introduction to this multifaceted process. Exercises and examples highlight the key activities undertaken by designers to create a successful brand identity, including defining the audience, analyzing competitors, creating mood boards, naming brands, designing logos, presenting to clients, rebranding and launching the new identity. Case studies throughout the book are illustrated with brand identities from around the world, including a diverse range of industries – digital media, fashion, advertising, product design, packaging, retail and more.

Universal Principles of Design is the first comprehensive, cross-disciplinary encyclopedia of design.

The founders of a respected Silicon Valley advisory firm study legendary category-creating companies and reveal a groundbreaking discipline called category design. Winning today isn’t about beating the competition at the old game. It’s about inventing a whole new game—defining a new market category, developing it, and dominating it over time. You can’t build a legendary company without building a legendary category. If you think that having the best product is all it takes to win, you’re going to lose. In this farsighted, pioneering guide, the founders of Silicon Valley advisory firm Play Bigger rely on data analysis and interviews to understand the inner workings of “category kings”— companies such as Amazon, Salesforce, Uber, and IKEA—that give us new ways of living, thinking or doing business, often solving problems we didn’t know we had. In Play Bigger, the authors assemble their findings to introduce the new discipline of category design. By applying category design, companies can create new demand where none existed, conditioning customers’ brains so they change their expectations and buying habits. While this discipline defines the tech industry, it applies to every kind of industry and even to personal careers. Crossing the Chasm revolutionized how we think about new products in an existing market. The Innovator’s Dilemma taught us about disrupting an aging market. Now, Play Bigger is transforming business once again, showing us how to create the market itself.

Innovation and technology have forever changed what it means to be a business. Some businesses now exist only online; increasingly, companies are being built with new technologies that require new skills; and customers are routinely accessing businesses via interactive visual and audio experiences–through web pages or apps, computers, and mobile devices. These experiences are based on design, which has never been so important to the business world. Customers interact with designs by looking, clicking, typing, listening, speaking to, and touching them. These interactions largely occur where and when the customer chooses: alone on the couch at home, at work, at social events, while traveling on an airplane, and elsewhere. When people say they “read an article,” “bought a friend a gift,” “watched a video,” or “booked a hotel,” they’re talking about engaging with businesses by interacting with their designs. No matter how great a business idea is, or what technology it relies on behind the scenes, a company needs to express itself visually in a way customers will understand and be able to interact with easily in order to be successful. The number of ways to translate an idea into a design is infinite, but which designs will also drive customer value? Michael Krypel’s Refining Design for Business answers this key question, showing you how to build a successful online business by creating engaging and measurable customer experiences. In this book, you will learn how to: • Change the standard design process most companies follow to enhance accountability for generating business and customer value, while creating new opportunities for collaboration and innovation. • Understand customer goals and build a strategic marketing plan to continually realign the business around them. • Use A/B testing and segmentation strategies to personalize experiences across a business. • Develop new approaches through “visual business cases” that show how different companies have solved problems, including before-and-after examples of what the online businesses themselves actually looked like.

What is your brand? As a designer your success depends on how you brand yourself and the service you provide. This book will help you explore, develop, distill, and determine a distinctive brand essence, differentiate yourself, and create your visual identity. Build Your Own Brand is a guided journal designed to help you sketch, write, design, and conceive the way you brand yourself. More than 80 prompts and exercises will help you develop your: Personal brand essence Visual identity and style Resume and elevator pitch and much more! Whether you're trying to land a new job or launch a design business, let this unique guide light the way. You'll find helpful advice, interviews, and prompts from esteemed psychologists, creative directors, brand strategists, designers, artists, and experts from a variety of disciplines. Build your own brand today!

In the world of web design, if one wants to create a successful web site, one needs an effective content strategy. Return on Engagement shows web designers and developers how to implement an effective content strategy and how to stay ahead in the rapidly changing industry of web design. It presents best practices in terms of web design through a marketing function: content strategy, SEO, social media marketing, and success measurement to help web designers implement a strategy that ensures success for the site they are building. Return on Engagement shows web designers and developers how to not just design an aesthetically pleasing, functional website. This book shows those professionals how to implement marketing strategies and analysis into their website, thus ensuring its success. Nearly 3 years since the previous edition published, new best practices have been formed. Tools in which web developers use to analyze website metrics have advanced. New social media networks and communities have cropped up. New research in how audiences read and receive content has been done, subsequently refining best digital marketing practices. Return on Engagement features a step-by-step breakdown of how to use new tools, techniques, and technologies. The new edition also includes updated case studies of industry leaders who implement best practices on projects. Return on Engagement also features a regularly updated companion site that offers readers sample content, easy sharing tools, and web-based resources to help measure marketing viability of web properties.

A revised new edition of the bestselling toolkit for creating, building, and maintaining a strong brand From research and analysis through brand strategy, design development through application design, and identity standards through launch and governance, Designing Brand Identity, Fourth Edition offers brand managers, marketers, and designers a proven, universal five-phase process for creating and implementing effective brand identity. Enriched by new case studies showcasing successful world-class brands, this Fourth Edition brings readers up to date with a detailed look at the latest trends in branding, including social networks, mobile devices, global markets, apps, video, and virtual brands. Features more than 30 all-new case studies showing best practices and world-class Updated to include more than 35 percent new material Offers a proven, universal five-phase process and methodology for creating and implementing effective brand identity