DESIGN WHITE PAPER EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL. POP IS EVERYTHING.

Transcription

1 DESIGN WHITE PAPER EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL. POP IS EVERYTHING.

2 There is no such thing as No Design, only Good Design and Poor Design. Anonymous Pop Art is a one-stop resource for creative services, from illustration to branding to web, interactive, and print design. Our experience, attention to detail, collaborative processes and open communication philosophy ensure client satisfaction and top-quality design. Page 2

3 Design White Paper POP ART S ASSET- BUILDING APPROACH How We Work Pop Art is dedicated to building lasting value for its customers. Our development process supports an uncommon level of client involvement and collaboration. Also it is sufficiently documented to provide you with an end product that can be adapted and leveraged in future use. Although Pop Art account and project managers are often on the front lines of a project to ensure goals and deadlines are met, you have frequent opportunities to directly interact with members of the Pop Art creative team. Our tight-knit, crossdiscipline team applies lessons of efficiency and shared learning to your projects. Regardless of the medium (web, , print, etc.), Pop Art adheres to a number of key principles: Kick off. Kick the project off right by clearly communicating your business goals and target audience to each member of the Pop Art project team. We do this through the creative brief and use cases. We also actively cultivate partnerships with a growing network of agencies and freelancers (e.g., advertising agencies, public relations firms, copywriters, photographers and video specialists), who expand Pop Art s capabilities by offering highly specialized talent in a broad range of fields. Accountability. Ensure that all members of the design team understand and are held accountable to the scheduled due dates of project deliverables. Structured communication. Collaborate and communicate through a central forum: the secure, web-based project site Creativity. Exceed your expectations by proposing unique creative solutions to solve business challenges. Longevity. Retain original media sources (e.g., images, audio, copy and databases) for reference. Pop Art Design Services Web and Interactive Design Information Architecture Usability Naming, Identity and Branding Copywriting and Strategic Messaging Flash Animation Marketing Illustration Print Collateral Web Standards (XHTML/CSS) Design and Conversion Page 3

4 WEB SITE DESIGN Web site design is an interactive facet of visual design. Special considerations must be made when designing web sites so that they perform to the highest standards of speed, usability, creativity and style. At the same time, exceptional web design is grounded in solving business and marketing challenges, and in doing so, should offer engaging content and an appealing customer experience. Creative Brief After gaining sufficient insight into your business objectives, brand strategy, marketing guidelines and functional requirements, we begin visual design explorations. A creative brief, which serves as the foundation of each project, defines design parameters. It also addresses audience segmentation, content and the one big idea the main concept that anyone visiting the web site should remember and act upon. Based on business objectives and segmentation, we create use cases to align the project with target audiences. Use cases are realistic and representative needs that visitors from each audience require from the web site, based on your business and marketing goals. We test the site based on use cases at various stages of conceptualization and production to determine if the project is on track to meet the real needs of your audience. Layout and Structure After developing use cases, we create a site map to structure the information the site s content. The site map enables a rapid inventory of site content, section and page hierarchy and information flow. The site map helps establish navigation, define the number of required page templates and determine what kinds of content (and how much of it) is needed. Once the site map is complete, we determine page layout for key templates. Depending on the scope of the project, we may sketch on a whiteboard, develop interactive scenarios in PowerPoint or create wire frames in Illustrator or Visio. Best Practices: Web Site Design The creative brief should include audience segmentation, messaging guidelines and The One Big Idea. Use cases should guide project development to help determine success. Web sites should be developed using web standards (XHTML/CSS) for maximum accessibility in terms of audience and devices (unless there are compelling reasons otherwise). Page layout should display a clear hierarchy of information. Graphics should be optimized to offer maximum quality and impact without adversely affecting page load times. Analytic tools should be integrated with the site to track usage and campaign effectiveness. Page 4

5 Design White Paper Creative Direction To help establish the right creative direction, Pop Art involves you in various collaborative exercises. One exercise we often employ is mood boards. The mood board is a collection of images, type treatments, color palettes and other visual elements that contribute to the overall look and feel of your site. Mood boards elicit emotional responses from the audience to evaluate the effectiveness of brand communication. Another exercise we often use is Word vs. Word. In this exercise, we ask you if your business and/or web site is more like this or more like that. For example, Is your web site more traditional or modern? This is a fun way to help you and the designer establish a common language for the eventual design. Copywriting Copy and design work together to convey a point or emotion and to spur customers to action. Great writing does all that in your brand s voice. It s about choosing words that create subtle emotional reactions and driving them home with ration and logic. A pointed headline can grab a customer s attention much like a photo. Figure 1 PICA.org TBA Prototype But it s not all charm and intangibles. Pop Art employs hard, measurable analysis on content, like search engine optimization and readability tests. Readability looks at sentence structure, word length and syllable counts. Using research to guide us, Pop Art creates language to help you bond with your customer. In terms of process, copy and content cut across nearly all disciplines in interactive branding. They touch research, branding, information architecture, design, scripting, programming and quality assurance. This creates a collaborative spirit between your team and Pop Art, so you can expect several opportunities along the way to create, provide, review and approve copy. Graphic Compositions Figure 2 PICA.org TBA Events Landing Page After the site map, page layout and creative direction are established, we design graphic Page 5

6 compositions. These comps are static representations of how the actual web site pages will appear. The comp should incorporate copy so that the overall messaging can be evaluated along with the arrangement of visual elements. Usually, we comp the home page first and then revise it based on your feedback. Once you sign off on the look and feel of the revised comp, we proceed to comp additional page templates. Sometimes the very first comp is spot on, and other times it takes a round or two to get everything just right. Like other stages in the development process, comps are a collaborative exercise and your honest feedback is very important. But, unlike previous stages, this one is very literal. What you see is what your final Web site will look like (Figure 2). It s important to review this deliverable very care-fully and acquire approval from all key stakeholders within your organization. Production Once you approve the comps, we enter the production phase. Pop Art creates all web sites using web standards best practices. This means that the content (XHTML) will remain separate from the presentation (CSS). This style of web development: Optimizes the site s visibility to search engines Provides greater accessibility to people with disabilities Is great for mobile devices such as phones Makes the file sizes of each page much smaller Makes it much easier to make global changes to the web site in the future without having to redesign the whole thing Figure 3 Screen Sketches from the M2totheMax.com Storyboard Page 6

7 Design White Paper At each phase of production, Pop Art promotes open discussion between you and the creative team to maximize the value of feedback and to align activities with producing a top-quality site that meets your expectations and goals by facilitating a great user experience. Color, Photo Editing and Optimization Successful web sites include engaging photos and illustrations optimized for web delivery. Pop Art designers determine how much compression to apply to photographs to obtain the best quality while maintaining a manageable file size for quick download times. Because visitors will view your web site on a wide variety of computer monitors, all with differ-ent settings, Pop Art designers also take greatcare to manage the saturation and brightness of photos during the editing process to ensure optimal appearance. By following these best practices, our designers ensure the best quality color across all browser platforms and operating systems. Interactive Design and Animation Flash is the medium of choice for engaging interactive experiences on the web. It delivers high-impact graphics with minimum file size. It is especially valuable for instructional pieces within a site and for campaign-driven web sites (microsites) that must immerse the user in demonstrations or movies. Pop Art uses its standard creative process to develop Flash animation, whether it s incorporated into a web site or is a standalone microsite. Because Flash has the additional attributes of time and motion, we use storyboards (similar to motion picture planning) Figure 4 Final M2totheMax.com Screenshots Page 7

8 to illlustrate how the animation will transition and how the user will interact with the content. Given that Flash development requires substantial programming resources, it is important to obtain your feedback before investing time in a specific direction. Once you sign off on the final storyboards (Figure 3), they serve as our development roadmap documenting the creative direction, functionality and user experience (Figure 4). CORPORATE IDENTITY & BRANDING Brand Pyramid: Focus a brand becomes stronger when you narrow the focus. Brand Focus: Walter Cronkite Brand Personality: Emotional Benefits: Rational Benefits: Attributes: Functions: Pop Art develops corporate identities, leading you through the process of creating an identity that powerfully reflects your brand essence in the hearts and minds of consumers. After we determine your brand s core values and your communication goals, we develop a powerful logo and then incorporate it into business cards, letterheads, envelopes and any other materials necessary for establishing your business s mark in the world. We also handle activities essential to the maintenance of brand awareness through onand off-line marketing. Figure 5 Brand Pyramid Figure 6 Logo Sketch Print Integrating your online presence with traditional forms of marketing and advertising is essential to increasing brand awareness. When print is the most appropriate form of delivery, Pop Art delivers a set of solutions that can include Figure 7 Final Logo Page 8

9 Design White Paper print ads, brochures, folders, catalogs, menus, postcards and posters. Pop Art has extensive experience in print design and production; our designers explore custom options such as varnishes, metallic inks, specialty papers and die cuts, and then prepare complex print jobs accurately and efficiently. Pop Art ensures that all print projects are completed on time and to the client s satisfaction by partnering with only the most reliable and quality-conscious vendors. Pop Art vendors take great care in managing the proper press, paper quality, bindery configurations and schedules to ensure timely delivery of quality products. MAKING IT ALL COME TOGETHER Figure 8 U Threads Homepage Integrating all of your marketing and communication initiatives to convey a unified visual style and message platform is key to strengthening your brand and attracting new customers (Figures 8 and 9). The Pop Art creative team offers the perfect balance of graphic design services and marketing expertise to guarantee successful results for your projects. Our extensive partnerships with other professionals and industry vendors assures you that no matter which direction your project takes, Pop Art can deliver the goods. Figure 9 U Threads Direct Mail Page 9