Identity Kitchen » marketing

The hole will get bigger

Ellen — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:10:54 +0000

I got a call from my dry cleaner this week. A dress I had sent over (one of my most coveted) had a tiny hole where I had cut out the tag. “The hole will get bigger” is what the dry cleaner explained, you might want to wash this by hand. She also explained that the fine layers of silk would be best preserved by hand washing. Now, I do not send out to the dry cleaner often, and I do not particularly favor one dry cleaner over another. But this extra care given to my dress, and the willindness to forgo a sale and save my dress – brought about a new loyalty to their brand that will surpass price or inconvenience. Made me start thinking about the entire brand experience, and where we can improve. What are the services you’ve added or streamlined to create a better brand experience for your clients?

Hello Holiday Cards

Ellen — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:17:23 +0000

We recently added photography holiday cards to our répertoire, expanding Identity Kitchen to Identity Cafe. We are offering a 20% off through November 6th. Use code: IDENTITYCAFE20. Our Retro Collection is inspired by a simpler holiday time–of sugar cookies and peppermints and beautiful handcrafted cards. Your clients’ photos can easily be integrated into the template, and colors and inscriptions can easily be changed. There are 6 designs in all. Enjoy!

Photography by: Justine Ungaro

An Expensive Pair of Jeans

Ellen — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:10:21 +0000

I had the absolute pleasure of working with Amy Lynden, and helping her develop her brand. Amy is a fantastic photographer with a successful portrait business in Northern California, that is about 1/2 families and children and 1/2 seniors. She wanted a brand identity that spoke to her seniors a bit more. She wanted something that felt urban and unique. Like “an expensive pair of jeans that everyone has to have”. The final logo was a grungy taglike mark and we also developed a secondary A to work as a watermark. They offer a nice juxtaposition to each other.

The best part of this project has been seeing where Amy took everything. I supplied her with the two logos and colors and business card design and she developed her packaging, her website and blog. Thank you Amy!

If You Don't Believe Me…

Ellen — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:02:49 +0000

A client of mine was kind enough to forward this article from Seth Godin, author of some of my favorite marketing books, like The Purple Cow and All Marketers Are Liars. I’ve known this to be true for a long time, but it is nice to see that someone else shares my opinion.

Check out more of Seth’s marketing genius here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Return on Design

Return on investment is easy to measure. You put money in, you measure money out, divide and prosper.

But return on design? (Design: graphics, system engineering, user interface etc.)

Design can take money and time and guts, and what do you get in return? It turns out that the sort of return you’re getting (and hoping for) will drive the decisions you make about design.

I think there are four zones of return that are interesting to think about. I find it’s more useful to look at them as distinct states as opposed to a graduated line, because it’s easy to spend a lot of time and money on design but not move up in benefits the way you might expect. Crest might have a better package than Colgate (or the other way around, I can’t remember), but it doesn’t sell any more units…

Negative return. The local store with the boarded up window, the drooping sign and the peeling paint is watching their business suffer because they have a design that actually hurts them. Software products suffer from this ailment often. If the design actively gets in the way of the story you tell or the utility you deliver, you lose money and share.

No impact. Most design falls into this category. While aesthetically important, design in this case is just a matter of taste, not measurable revenue. You might not like the way the liquor store looks, or the label on that bottle of wine, but it’s not having any effect on sales. It’s good enough.

Positive return. We’re seeing a dramatic increase in this category. Everything from a bag of potato chips to an online web service can generate incremental sales and better utility as a result of smart design.

The whole thing. There are a few products where smart design is the product (or at least the product’s reason for being). If you’re not in love with the design of a Porsche 911, you would never consider buying it–same as an OXO peeler. The challenge of building your product around breakthrough design is that the design has to in fact be a breakthrough. And that means spending far more time or money than your competitors who are merely seeking a positive return.

Knowing where you stand and where you’re headed is critical. If you have a negative return on design, go ahead and spend enough money to get neutral, asap. But don’t spend so much that you’re overinvesting just to get to neutral. Watching a local store build an expensive but not stellar custom building is the perfect example of this mismatch.

If you’re betting the whole thing, building your service launch on design first, skimping on design is plain foolish.The Guggenheim in Bilbao would be empty if they’d merely hired a very good architect.

Poor Neglected Blog

Ellen — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:50:40 +0000

In the midst of developing a new blogolicious product for photographers, so I have let my poor blog sit idol. But some beautiful photos from Hillary Maybery have inspired me to post. In fact, in the new few days I’ll be posting on a ton of new projects I’ve been working on in the last few months. Gorgeous letterpress notcards (on 220# lettra…yum), and…are you ready…11 new brand identities. Plus a few marketing and packaging projects to boot. Phew. Check back here as I’m going to be posting them. Was going to wait for the new site reveal…but then again why wait?

Ok, first up. Hillary Maybery is just so positive and energetic. After a super awesome initial consultation with her, she decided on doing a logo refinement and asked me to design some packaging for her.

This was her logo before, and while it reflected her strong love of color, see her gorgeous work here she wanted something a little more sophisticated and a stronger brand image.

We decided to design an umbrella brand for her studio and a separate brand id for her wedding and kids division. Think Gap and Baby Gap.

This is is how that was realized.

This is how the studio business card and promo looks.

And then on to her packaging and how to pull together these separate looks. For her wedding packaging we used chocolate tissue and beautiful matte bags as well as custom ribbon printed with her studio logo (like Hermes..ooh la la). The whole this is secured with a little sticker made up just for her weddings.

Next up was her Kids division brand and packaging. We decided to think outside of the box…literally. Why should your kids portraits be delivered in plain photo boxes or bags? We found these chalkboard boxes (top slide off to reveal 8×10 prints), they were less than $15 each. Then we developed these little tags that can be customized with a tiny shot from the session to get her clients excited about what might be inside these little boxes. Yes, those are little tiny clothespins.

Cute eh? The best thing about working with Hillary was that she pretty much gave me Carte blanche, so we were really able to have some fun with this. Plus, her work is so inspirational.

Here’s a one more so you can see how it all works together. Thank you Hillary for the photos (you should see the ones I tried to take…eesh)

New Year a New You!

Ellen — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:53:27 +0000

We have officially started accepting jobs for the New Year. While this is a busy time for everyone’s businesses, this is the perfect time to think about marketing. January can be a slower time for some, which opens up some breathing room to assess your brand. Are you happy with your brand and identity? Do you feel like it represents the kind of work you are doing? Are you thinking about raising your prices in the new year and are looking to appeal to a more sophisticated market? This is the perfect time to do that.

Here is your incentive. We are offering a special discount to anyone who signs up for branding or marketing work in 2009. Spots begin mid January. Remember those year end write-offs. Think about how much you will enjoy the holidays knowing you’ll be starting 2009 with a fantastic new look and marketing plan. Contact me ellen@identitykitchen.com for more information.