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Adding Life to Your Walls

Red Wall MuralYour home, office and property are places where you spend the majority of your time. These are also places where you spend time with people who are important in your life including family, friends, employees, clients and prospects. This is one of the reasons why many work hard to make sure that the ambiance of these establishments are well taken care of. Having a clutter-free and organized space is your way of showing the important people in your life that you care.

Your walls provide a great space to be creative and give life to your environment.  Some of us lean more towards simply painting the walls with plain colors but then there are others who take an extra step and add some designs and more color to make their homes and offices more appealing and welcoming. Your walls could be noticed by everyone. Consider giving them a unique touch and a more personal look.

  • Wall stickers can help you accomplish such a look and add a beautiful touch to your walls.
  • Patterns applied through the use of stencils or wall papers would be another option to consider.
  • Faux painting offering a mimicking or imitating design look such as marble or wood paint could also alter your space and achieve the right look and feel that you are aiming for.
  • Wall Murals would give an impressive impact through a totally creative and gorgeous design with intricate and fun details.
  • While some think of shelving as a storage solution, consider using shelves as elements of design to dress up your walls.
  • Arranged in a creative way, tiles, bricks, mirrors and frames offer endless options and design approaches to consider.
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Trade Show Booth Design – The Lighting Effect

Tradeshow_3The setting, design and effect of your booth constitute the first impression that you will leave on the attendees of a trade show.  All of these elements can be turned into more effective resources if your lighting in your booth is set in a way to catch attention and entice people to learn more about what you do.

–          Dim lights are mainly useful in settings with a tone of romance such as a bar or restaurant.

–          Bright lights work best in a retail environment in order to keep shoppers alert and engage them in a fun experience.

The lighting of your booth creates the experience for your audience and adds a factor of engagement. As you design your booth and trade show setting, keep in mind the role of light so that you tailor a satisfying and appealing experience for your visitors as you introduce your company and services. With the right choice of light, you can bring focus to specific products/services or simply highlight your booth details.

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Effective Design for Trade Show Booth

Tradeshow_2Getting ready for a trade show could be an exhausting task that requires a lot of planning in addition to the actual set up of your space or display booth. Here are a few tips to help make your job easier:

–          Reach out to the management of the event and learn all the details including size, wall space availability, access to electrical outlets, and more.

Your products/services need to be the center of attention. As you plan your display, make sure that you do not overdo and clutter your space.

Keep your message simple and to the point. Stay focused on your core message that will leave a lasting impression and try to avoid bombarding the attendees with tons of messages that will go unnoticed.

Consider including a video on a widescreen projection/TV screen that can capture people’s attention.

Think about the reasons of why the attendees will stop at your booth – is it the product/service? Is it the design? Is it your welcoming message and nice attitude?

Keep it simple but be creative – Focus on building your brand and creating awareness for your product/service.

Consider opening up your booth by eliminating the table across the front and eliminating any barriers that will prevent the attendees from “walking in”.

You may want to implement the use of large, clean and attractive images. Keep it simple but consider bold for lasting impressions.

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The Right Font for Your Business Signs

SignMaking the wrong choice might simply hinder such a process.

Keep your audience in mind and think carefully about them when you start your design process.  Can you get their attention to read a lot of text?  Where will your sign be located? Is it going to be at a busy street where drivers are rushing to get to work or next to a cash register where your clients will have time to read it?

With the thousands of available fonts, try to keep the following in mind as you are making decisions:

  • Serif fonts, such as Times New Roman, are usually perfect for brochures, newsletters and business plans.
  • Sans Serif fonts are easy to read with large size text.
  • Script and Cursive fonts are perceived to be stylish and used for invitations and place cards.
  • Text fonts are the most difficult to read.
  • Novelty fonts can work either way depending on how you use them.

Another element to think about is the use of capital or lowercase letters. The use of all capitals might project yelling. A combination of capital and lowercase letters should be the easiest to read.

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How Does Your Office Design Affect Employees’ Productivity?

wallmurals2Many studies and research have proven that our workplace environment does certainly impact how well we are able to work. Office environments are very crucial similar to store environments. Smart designs along with a mix of the right colors can result in a boost of creativity while minimizing stress and increasing productivity.

In 2004, Microsoft published a press release that indicated “nine out of 10 said the design setup of their workstation directly affects their ability to be most productive at work. More than 50 percent of those surveyed said one of the best ways employers can show their commitment to employees’ success is to provide them with the latest technologies so they can do their jobs more efficiently.” Read More

While all business owners make sure that their office space is meeting the health and safety environment as defined by the U.S. Department of Labor, it is important to also consider comfort and design in order to gear the efforts towards higher level of productivity. Some of the elements to keep in mind include: light, desks, chairs, temperature, noise level, personal space, and privacy to name a few.

When on breaks, employees should be able to see/think of their work environment as a place to take a time out and relax.  Also, offering your employees a lunch space that will allow them to stick together, have a dialogue while on their lunch break could prove to increase effectiveness and productivity because it will allow your team members to stay connected, discuss work-related and non-work-related topics, while being away from their routine work environment.

Colors also play in a major role in the feel that your office environment projects. In one of our previous blogs, we discussed the importance of colors and why they matter. Read More

Remember, the design of your office space matters!

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Colors and Purchase Decisions

interior_design4Regardless of whether you are a business owner, property manager or an office manager, you probably take a lot of pride in the environment you create with the help of architects and interior designers.

As you work towards building a more prominent presence in the marketplace, your branding strategy should help support your efforts. From customer lobby signs to car wraps and window decals, the use of colors say a lot about your brand. Even designs through custom wall papers and murals décor tell something about you and your business. The colors you use have a great influence on your visitors and customers. Decision making is affected a great deal by visual cues that depend mainly on colors.

While smell and texture play a role in buying decisions, visual appearance and colors have proved to have a bigger influence:

–          Multiple studies have proved that customers have named color as a primary reason for why they decided to purchase a specific item.

–          Consistency in color helps business develop brand recognition while increasing the levels of positioning with consumers.

–          Different colors have different effects and influences on different cultures:

  • Yellow projects optimism.
  • Red provides energy.
  • Blue reflects trust and security.
  • Green perpetuates wealth.
  • Black creates a sensation of luxury.

–          Different colors have different effects on specific customers.

While color has a major influence on decision making, keep in mind that it is not the only factor to be taken into consideration. Reputation, design and customer service are only a few elements to not ignore.

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Why Does Color Matter?

interior_design5Every design element involves shapes and shadows but most importantly it also includes color. The human eye can see a combination of seven million colors. While some colors have a soothing and lasting effect on the viewer, others can irritate the human vision. Using color in an appropriate manner can maximize the effectiveness of your design. Take the color into consideration as you plan the design of a new wall mural, wall paper or signage for your property, home, building or business.

While the following details some general facts about colors, keep in mind that some exceptions might apply where the use of some color combinations might generate stunning designs:

– Yellow could be considered the most irritating color. More light is usually reflected by bright colors which results in excessive stimulation of the vision. That being said, lighter shades of yellow can be comforting and cheerful. Yellow catches the attention of the viewer. So keep it in mind as a color but also consider the space/area and shape of your design.

– Red is another color you want to pay attention to.  This is a color that could fatigue the eye quickly.  With over 250,000 decoding cones, your eye uses 83,000 cones to decode the color red and become over stimulated causing the opposinginterior_design4 cones to kick in and shifting the way the red color is seen.

– Green is a color that might evoke the sensation of nature and the smell of grass.

– Pink is one color that could cause a sense of sweetness.

– As for the color grey, you may experience sensations related to smokiness.

– Using white and black to create contrast might also result in an excessive muscular activity which will fatigue the eye of the viewer.

A graphic design company or an interior designer should be able to help you figure out a solution enabling your designs to focus on the visual and aesthetics in order to create positive, productive and long-lasting impressions.

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How to Stand out at a Trade Show

Tradeshow_2Regardless of the size of your business, you have the option to consider multiple marketing approaches in order to spread the word about your services and/or products. It is true that your goal should be to stay top of mind, but you need to think about how you can do so while making sure that you are investing your marketing budget in the right place.

You might be surprised to learn that trade shows have proven to be one of the most effective venues to grow your business. Your company is participating in what has become a global marketplace. With social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, our global economy has shrunk providing new business opportunities to any and every kind of business, regardless of size.

If you have something to sell, you may want to consider attending a trade show.  Although they can be costly, trade shows offer a venue to help you stand out as you push your business to success and increase your reach to an audience of attendees who are seeking your offerings.

A trade show will allow you the opportunity to stay on top of the latest in your industry as you learn about the latest and what is trending in your world; in addition to being able to connect and start conversations with individuals whom you want to do business with, which might lead to possibilities of expanding your business.

A trade show is also a place to network with your supply chain of partners, manufacturers, prospects, sales representatives and anyone entrenched in your industry. Keep in mind that people would rather do business with individuals whom they have met… individuals who they trust and know they are credible.  By exhibiting at a trade show, you are not only growing your exposure but you also are projecting commitment to your business and industry while presenting the value of your offerings.

As you are considering specific trade shows, make sure that your focus is mainly on the quality of the show where you will be able to reach decision makers. Also think about your brand and how you are being presented. Your signage at a trade show, colors, graphics and text play a major role in the impression you leave and in how you attract attention.

Setting up your booth with colorful and appealing signage while lining up your promotional items, in addition to collateral material and handouts are some of the steps you need to put in place as you get ready for a trade show. You may also want to think about reaching out to the trade show’s management seeking assistance with the development of an appealing booth and marketing campaigns. Furthermore, consider spreading the word to your clients, suppliers, and partners months prior to the trade show. Take the timeline into consideration so that you have enough time to be prepared and be able to attend to any last minute needs.

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11 Eco-friendly Solutions to Consider

If you are a green company and deeply committed to more environmentally friendly printing and signage solutions, you may want to consider the following tips for eco-friendly printing:

  • E-Communication – replace paper communication with emails.
  • Double-sided – if for some reason you need to print handouts, and cannot use an electronic file, consider printing/photocopying double-sided documents which will save, not only the trees, but also money, space, and cost.
  • Overprint – sometimes it is best if you take time to know more about how many copies you need, instead of overprinting and causing waste.
  • Proofing – make sure the content and graphics of your to-be-print piece is proofed for any possible errors to ensure correct information before printing pages and pages of non-useful output.
  • Energy Star – do you use Energy Star equipment? If not, this is where you want to start.
  • Switch off – it might take some getting used to, but something as simple as switching off your equipment can bring you closer to running an eco-friendly operation.
  • Sleep mode – almost every technology has some kind of a sleep mode which will allow you to set your equipment to the lowest available setting that matches your needs.
  • Maintenance – proper equipment maintenance keeps your machines at a high performance level with efficient delivery.
  • Recycling – do you recycle internally? If not, you may want to consider doing so by placing recycling bins around your office to dispose of paper and recyclable products.
  • Electronic waste – make sure you have a process to get rid of your electronic waste.  It might take years and years for such equipment to break down in landfill. Reach out to your local waste management company and talk about options.
  • TakeBack Programs – ask your suppliers if they offer a takeback program that will allow you to keep upgrading on your equipment on an as needed basis without the requirement to fill the landfills with unnecessary waste.
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Steps to a Successful Design Process

Logos, signs, wall murals, vehicle wraps, and the list keeps going… all are pieces that require a successful and diligent design process in order to stand out while reflecting your brand and message. Many think that once the idea is put together, the design piece is almost completed. Not necessarily so!

Design is a process that offers solutions to specific problems. You want to strive for the best solution and focus your efforts on hiring a company that can meet your needs, and solve your problem, while creating designs that will leave a lasting impression on your target market.

Design is subjective and does not always come easy. There is no exact “how-to” manual for the process. Each designer develops his/her own process as he/she builds on experience. Your goal should be to identify a company that has a vast portfolio of designs and that could offer insights on the following:

  • Design approach for online versus offline pieces
  • Budget restrictions
  • Color versus black and white
  • Recommendation on size

These are considerations that will clarify your expectations while giving graphic designers a clear understanding on parameters within which they can work as they develop the design piece.

The design piece has to help your audience take notice of your message while supporting the sale of your product or service.  You also want to make sure that the company you are hiring will:

  • Be familiar with your industry
  • Be clear on who your target audience is
  • Understand what you are trying to accomplish through the design piece (sell, promote, announce…)
  • Provide you with many samples
  • Offer design adjustments
  • Be flexible if your needs change
  • Deliver in a timely manner to meet your deadline

Like many fields and industries, the design process requires a specific set of skills and knowledge but the most important place to start is by being clear on what you, as a business owner, are trying to accomplish through the design piece that you need:

  • Are you selling a building?
  • Are you announcing availability at a new property?
  • Are you revamping your office decor?
  • Are you running a promotion?