Recession-Proofing Your Business

Reducing costs doesn’t have to mean losing your edge. Thinking strategically and creatively will keep your message focused on your target market and contribute to your long-term growth. Strategic spending will help you increase market share without increasing your budget.

Work with Justin Ray, owner of Factory on Fire Design to find your unique selling proposition that sets you apart from your competition and pinpoints your message to a specific audience. A distinctive strategy will grab the attention of your ideal customers, build your client base and prepare you for capitalization as markets improve. The cornerstone of an effective strategy is incorporating eye-catching design that will pique your audience’s curiosity and convey your business’s concept and message. A memorable image, a unique website or a one-of-a-kind logo will help to build your company’s brand equity and market position.

Justin has been certified as a professional designer by the Association of Graphic Designers of Canada and can help your business achieve success. By working with him, your business will be well prepared for growth in the face of the recession.

Call Justin for a consultation or project estimate at 604-317-1097 today.

The Creative Brief - Essential to a Good Campaign

Behind every successful design is a good creative brief. With a creative brief, both client and designer (or photographer, or creative director, etc.) should understand the company’s background and the purpose of the project, and share expectations about the creative direction.

Although it may seem tedious, writing a clear brief ensures that the client has a united clear sense of purpose, and helps the designer achieve desired results sooner. Writing a good brief helps a marketing team agree on what they want from a project, and may help them realize that a different approach is required; a creative brief can reflect any weaknesses in a marketing strategy.

I have provided our brief template for download. Please use it for any projects you may be considering. (more…)

United Way Brochure Design

United Way of the Lower Mainland, a non-profit organization, required materials for their Seniors’ Issues Forum. I designed the look of the campaign, and created web banners, signs, posters, and a brochure that was distributed to all attendees, and sent out in information packages. The brochure is still being used today.

Highlights:

• Sections are color coded to match Table of Contents
• Generous use of imagery, graphics and white space 
• Printed on 80 lb matte stock, suitable to the rich colours
• Layout can be easily modified for future campaigns

Click image for full view in a new window.

Success By Six DVD Brochure Design

Success By Six, a non-profit community program, published a DVD and wanted a brochure to accompany the DVD. The design of the guide needed to match the DVD envelope, and be suitable for laser printing to reduce costs.

Click for full view.

New Desktop Wallpapers

We now have a page for free, high-quality desktop wallpapers.

Currently, available resolutions are only 1680 x 1050, so let us know what other screen resolution you prefer and we’ll make them available. Lots more will be available in the future. Enjoy!

BCIT Ad Campaign - Direct Mailer

BCIT’s appeal is that it offers many programs that can be completed part-time. It’s a good vocational school for people who can’t commit to a full-time program. When asked to design a new direct mail campaign, Steve Tan and I decided to pair an interesting visual with a clear, intriguing slogan.

Our headline ”You were not born to do this” skewers cliched taglines by other local schools and websites. BCIT offers practical training for job placement, rather than selling “dream job” visions, so our concept targets people who are seeking practical training to escape dead-end jobs. We were careful to highlight BCIT’s core feature: practical studies you can complete when it suits you.

Here’s the “paper shredder” postcard design:

Oreo Special Edition Box Design

Kraft didn’t ask me to do this, but I had this concept in my head and couldn’t sleep until I made a comp. I wanted a simple and recognizable design that uses elements from the iconic cookie as part of the packaging. Viewed from the side, the box has the same sandwiched colors the cookie made famous.

The front of the package contains the cookie’s motif in a varnish, further drawing the eye as shoppers as pass by the shelf.

BK United dodgeball team logo design

BK United, a dodgeball team competing in Las Vegas at the 2009 NDL Nationals, were looking for a new logo for their uniforms. BK originally stood for Boogie Knights, so I created a shield graphic and settled on a royal blue and gold colour scheme. A simpler version would adorn alternate golf shirts.

By using only a single color, I kept printing costs low and simplified any future colour scheme changes. The dodgeball-clutching griffon is my favourite part, since I’ll probably never have another chance at drawing one.

Photoshop Cage Match - April 2009

Although I use Photoshop on a regular basis, I don’t often have the chance to do whatever I want, showing off my skills. Fortunately, iStockPhoto hosts Photoshop “Cage Matches” where you battle another Photoshop veteran, using their previous design as the starting point for your own. Extra points are awarded for interesting transitions, and reusing elements from the previous round in new ways. There is a time limit of 36 hours between rounds.

Here was my entry from the third round, which uses over 50 layers and the same face and hand position from a photo in the second round. I ’shopped in a picture of a monk, three space photos, and created the lightsaber from scratch. The temple arches are from an old woodcut illustration, with added texture:

My opponent kept the arches and added a torrent of fire, plus a character jumping out of the building. Too cool him down, I plunged him into the sea in the fourth round. To add a sense of depth, I used several sea life photos at various sizes and blurred things accordingly, for the illusion of depth of field. Variations in lighting and saturation add to the effect.

Opponent replied by putting a portion of my design in an aquarium, in a museum scene. For my fifth and final round, I chose a more specific theme around feminism. Lincoln would get the head of a woman from the fourth round. To ensure the concept was not lost on anyone, I added some classic feminist posters and distressed them slightly to fit in with the scene. The added engraving is translated “where no man has gone before”.

Still awaiting my opponent’s reply and judging, but I enjoyed putting my Photoshop skills to the test.

Nature’s Path Packaging Design

Last summer, while doing some packaging design at Nature’s Path, I worked on many cereal boxes. Due to a supply issue, the ingredients list needed to be updated and many boxes were to be redone on short notice.

The cereal lines were also undergoing a design update, and most just needed some simple changes, but one box seemed especially outdated beside all the other Nature’s Path product. With the Creative Director’s approval, I updated the nameplate and tweaked the “Spelt Flakes” box. With just minor graphic and layout changes, the box looks cleaner, is easier to read on the store shelf, and fits in with the other cereals nicely.

Although the design work was nothing extraordinary, it took so long for the production cycle to actually get the new boxes in the stores that when I saw my new box on store shelves today, I had to buy one and take a photo beside the old box.