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CREATIVE IDEAS FOR MARKETING,
Good design can improve the image of your agency and your marketing success. Consider a printed piece such as a seasonal brochure as your frontline sales force. What do your printed pieces and other marketing pieces say about your agency? Are you professional? Well organized? Helpful? Reliable? Fun? What follows are design do's and don'ts from the judges of the 2002 Agency Showcase, a program that selects the best agency communication tools including seasonal brochures, special facility brochures, logos and Web sites. Congratulations to the Agency Showcase winners, listed on page 48! The Seasonal Brochure • Use clip art to highlight important information and special sections. Lightly shade or screen clip art (not more than 15 percent of a solid color) for an interesting background effect. • Do not overuse clip art. The pages tend to look too cluttered, especially when there is a lot of copy on a page. • When choosing several clip art illustrations, make sure they have the same illustration styles. • Choose photos that can carry a strong theme for the cover and the special features inside the brochure. Reflect the same imagery or theme throughout the brochure.
• Do not use more than three different font families for a page layout. Sometimes it becomes too hard to read when there are too many fonts styles competing against each other.
Keep it simple with the typography and use a combination of color and imagery to enhance the page layout.
AGNES POLICAPRIO Logo Design • Keep the logo simple. Logos should communicate the personality of a brand, service, idea, event or organization quickly and succinctly. Logos that convey their meaning at-a-glance are the most memorable and effective. Logos that try to incorporate too many ideas are often confusing and tiring to the eye. • If a logo will appear with other elements, the control of its size and position are key. Otherwise, visual information tends to clash and compete for the reader's attention. • Avoid combining large type with very small type as this will greatly limit the scalability of the logo. Watch line weights.
• Consider the fundamental design principles of Dominance, Subdominance and Subordination to help establish a visual order of importance. Dominance is established through visual element(s) which function as the primary force in the design. Subdominance element(s) play a secondary role in the design.
- MARGARET ARMOUR
March/April 2002 47 MIXED MEDIA
Web Site Design • Home Page. Design a clean and concise home page; it's the first thing people will see, and it is often the most important. First impressions are everything. It's important not to load the page with graphics that distract the viewer from finding information easily and quickly. • Navigation bar. Create a manageable and easy-to-find navigation bar. Whether your navigation bar is simple text, complicated graphics or a combination of both, the key is to provide easy tools for Web users. Broad section categories may be difficult to use, as users may not be clear where to find their specific need. Lengthy, detailed navigation bars may overwhelm users. Try to balance the amount of information provided in the list for the average user. • Search tool. A general search tool for your Web site generally is a good idea, if it's designed well. This tool provides users an opportunity to type in their specific item to find related pages rather than navigating your entire site. • Online Registration. With more people using the Internet for finding information, scheduling and purchasing, online registration offers the Internet-savvy user an opportunity to complete transactions without ever picking up the phone, mailing a form or walking into your facility. • Photographs and Other Graphics. A Web site is a visual medium and therefore offers each park district the opportunity to show off their facilities, programs and staff. The key is not to bog down the site with many large, slow graphics. Instead, entice the user with bright, readable, pertinent images. Especially when describing park facilities, photographs of specific amenities or uses provide users with a better idea of what your park district has to offer.
-CINDA K. LESTER
Special Facilities Brochure Special facility brochures are an important way to generate additional revenues for the park agency. You can raise the agency's image with a well-designed and well-written piece. Some things to consider in creating an outstanding marketing piece include the following. • Highlight exterior and interior views of the facility, particularly if the facility is new and not many patrons have seen it yet. • A simple floor plan of the facility is a nice addition to a special facility brochure. Or, provide a list of physical amenities that the patron can expect to find when visiting the building. • Include the facility's hours of operation and a map showing how to reach the facility. • As with any marketing piece, even if the special facility has it's own logo and identity, it needs to tie-in with the agency's overall logo and identity. Curiously, with many of the special facility brochures submitted to the Agency Showcase, it was difficult to identify which park district owned the facility because an agency logo or name was not featured on the piece. • The most attractive special facility brochures were original, well designed (potentially with hired graphic assistance), colorful and inviting. The winning brochures made the judges want to visit this facility. •
-CAROL A. SENTE
Lynn McClure's regular column will return in the May/June issue of Illinois Parks & Recreation magazine. 48 Illinois Parks and Recreation |
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