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Summertime, and the living is…well, here in New York City it could best be described as slightly less intense. That’s the tone we’ve tried to set for this issue of Communiqué, as well. There’s a story about a serious design makeover. Then we turn to summer reading and a few sunny notes on the website.
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Visit the DGA Partners website |
A complete set of well-designed marketing materials is greater than the sum of its parts.
DGA Partners, Inc., management consultants to the healthcare industry, needed a more cohesive approach to the design of their marketing materials. They had some professionally designed pieces, but each had been done independently of the others.
The company wanted marketing and presentation materials that conveyed both their 10+ year of company experience, and their collaborative and respectful style in working with clients. They asked Aaron Design to create a professional look that would tie together the company’s overview and website, as well as its newsletters, marketing kits, brochures and client presentations.
We started with the company’s logo, keeping their well-established and recognizable font treatment while subtly brightening colors and changing the tag line. The company wanted to highlight its consulting team without singling out individual members. We recommended black & white reportage-style photography to capture interactions and allow the viewer to see the story as she reads it.
The look was carried through the website and the main brochure, as well as a marketing kit that can be customized to varying audiences. Vellum cover pages, standardized templates and a new binding system create a sense of elegance for proposals and presentations. Still in process: a redesign of the company’s two newsletters, as well as small brochures for specialized audiences.
According to Dan Grauman, DGA’s founder and CEO, “The marketing materials Aaron Design has created are exceptional. They really capture both the professional and personal tone of the firm. It's exciting to have a look that fits so well with whom we are and provides a visual connection between everything we do.”
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For those of you who choose to work al fresco, point your laptop browser towards the lighter parts of our website for some summertime fun. Share the sunlight with your friends with our Happy Summer e-card, or chose our Clouds e-card to provide a shady moment on a hot day. Take a stroll with your mouse over Inside Our Head, a “map” of our design and cultural influences. Love NY includes some of our more amusing experiences in an Only in New York vein. We invite you to add your anecdotes to the site.
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By now you’ve probably devoured Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and had your fill of beach reading. So in lieu of our regular informative article about design and production, we’re offering you a list of favorite design and marketing books. |
 
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Paul Rand: Modernist Designer
Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo
My earliest memories of corporate identity are of Paul Rand's UPS logo (I would
wait for the truck to delivery packages my mother sent home from shopping trips)
and the Colorforms logo on my favorite game. In high school, I bought his book
Thoughts on Design. I still follow his principles for design that is simple
and compelling. Now, Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo offers an overview of his complete
body of work, but it's presented in a book small and light enough to travel
to the beach. I highly recommend this book on a pioneer of American graphic
design who developed his own distinctive visual language. A teacher, writer,
and design consultant for leading companies, Paul Rand was a major force influencing
business leaders, educators, students and designers worldwide including me!
His picture (in an Apple Computer Think Different ad) sits on my desk. His work
remains fresh and inspiring.
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Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Malcom Gladwell
Blink is about the thoughts and decisions we make in the first few seconds of encounting a situation. You could call it intuition, except intuition is an emotional reaction, gut feelings – thoughts and impressions that don't seem entirely rational. But what goes on in that first two seconds is perfectly rational. It's thinking – its just thinking that moves a little faster and operates a little more mysteriously than the kind of deliberate, conscious decision-making that we usually associate with thinking. I love the first example in the book about how several art experts could “feel” a statue was a fake within seconds of looking at it, despite scientific testing showing otherwise. As a designer I often can feel is a soultion is right without being able to articulate it.
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Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic Design
Michael Bierut, William Drenttel, Steven Heller and D. K. Holland, editors
A collection of the best recent writing on graphic design. A stimulating look at how design issues influence and are influenced by contemporary culture. |
 
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Don’t
Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Steve Krug
People won’t use your web site if they can’t find their way around
it. Companies are starting to recognize that website usability is a bottom-line
issue. In Don’t Make Me Think, usability expert Steve Krug
distills his years of experience and observation into clear, practical common
sense about website design and navigation.
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Those are a few of my recent favorites. Have you read anything
this summer that you would recommend? If so, send it to me and I may include
it in the next issue (after I read it, of course).
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Striking brand identities