Continuing our series of "What Is It's Purpose?" this post will deal with the Purpose of Letterhead and Letterhead Design. As we've mentioned before let me recap by saying, every design we create serves a purpose. Is it up to us to determine that purpose? Or does each piece innately have a purpose? I think there is truth in both. Our job is to amplify the innate purpose for each piece. Confused? Don’t stay that way, let’s examine one of the pieces we create on an everyday basis and the function they should serve.

Letterhead.

In today's digital society does letterhead even still have a place in the industry? I believe so. A traditional formal letter still has it's importance and uses. Businesses use letterhead for Thank Yous and other otherwise "form" letters that they must send out. It's also useful for subtly reminding your customers or constituents that you still exist and what services you offer. Wait? Can it really do this? Yes. Let's jump ahead and look at some of the things you might want to include on your letterhead: Remember, you can’t possible include EVERYTHING. So you’ll have to pick and choose:

The moment you've all been waiting for has finally arrived! First of all I'd like to thank you all for participating this year and making the competition such a great success. We got a lot of coverage online this year as the competition is growing in popularity. Enough about all that— let's get to what you REALLY want: this year's winners. 1st Place Goes to Ramond Walker for his designs for Launch Ministries! 2nd Place Goes to Sherman Merchant for his designs for Oops! Creative: 3rd Place Goes to Ramond Walker for designs for Revolution: Awards of Distinction Winners Listed Below: Austin Beymer Joy Franzen David Willis Chelsea Davey Shawn Bender

Following up an earlier article where we discussed some magazine layout principles, let's take a look at continuity in design.

Design continuity for a specialized marketing piece, specifically one that only makes an appearance quarterly or annually is incredibly important. Because the piece will only be in the viewers hand a few times a year, it's important to make a visual impact that the reader can easily remember.

How is this accomplished? When creating such a piece, it's important to keep some "theme" of consistency throughout the magazine. The theme will usually consist of similar graphic elements that appear on each spread, every page or at regular intervals within.

Here is a great example of how this is applied in a semi-annual magazine for the Alumni of the Communications Department at ORU. Knowing the advisor/designer personally I can clearly see her thought process as she carries the visual theme throughout the magazine.

Notice the "recording" lines around the dominant photo. These are repeated symbolically on the opposing page that begins the profile article. Later on, as we continue through the magazine, we again see the same elements repeat. The story is different and even the layout is different but the theme is the same.

To keep the magazine fresh and changing, we don't want to simply repeat the exact same layout over and over. Between these main stories the magazine is filled with shorter articles, sidebars and photos. But once we come back to such a spread, there is an immediate visual connection to what we've already seen.

Ways this can be accomplished:

1. Repeat. Simply pull a previously used element such as a drop cap, a rule line, background graphics, etc.

2. Duplicate a photo effect. Add crop marks, frames, distress or elegant filter effects to dominate photos to create a unified effect.

3. Mirror. To mirror a spread simply re-arrange the elements in your layout to appear as if they would if you literally printed it out and held it up to a mirror. (If you can't visualize the effect--print it out!) This is what has been done in the above example.

4. Reflect. What would your layout look like if reflected upside down? Please realize we're not referring to the text or headline, but rather the arrangement of the elements on the page. If your dominant photo is a square on the bottom left, another layout within the piece could have it placed in the top left instead.

5. Rotate. If your original design is solid, you can rotate your layout of elements in a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion to retain the 'feel' of the other spreads.

Keeping these tricks in mind with assist you in creating a unified magazine piece.  To download the entire magazine to see the visual impact of repeating elements click here.

Great images always inspire greatness. Thanks to Lamar billboards, advertisers are able to create stunning imagery.

We've looked at a lot of billboards and large format advertising. You've probably noticed that the advertising that have made it to our list are the ones that are incredible, startling and unique

I recently picked up a new client. A ministry in Michigan. Currently, we are in the process of converting all of her old cassette tape messages to CD series. This has given me  a great opportunity to do some rather challenging design work for them on a pretty quick turnaround basis.

Another challenge that I face working with ministries specifically is the abstract nature of the titles. It's always a stretching activity to come up with another cover for "Christianity, Faith or Healing."

Billboards may be one of the biggest advertisements a designer will ever be responsible for. With all that room what should actually be included? Resist the temptation to cram the space full of words, images and graphics. Instead stick to these 3 simple elements and your business will be a success!

Some of the most inspiring designs are big-budget billboards. These billboards jump outside the traditional boundaries of creation with elements that expand beyond the rectangular boundaries.

I LOVED these images found on Toxel.com. I hope you find as much inspiration as I did!

[gallery link="file" columns="2"]

Recently while mulling over a new design for a magazine layout, I once again found myself going through stacks and stacks of periodicals. I was looking at the current trends, what works and what doesn't. What I discovered was a growing popularity with split column design.

This new trend actually features columns set it different widths. Let's face it, symmetry is BORING. By creating a two column layout of varying widths, you can add visual interest to otherwise stuffy content.

Look at these examples below:

[caption id="attachment_217" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Equal Column Layout"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_218" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Split Columns"][/caption]