Product launches in the design realm are tough. Designers are often asked to create launch material (advertising, product announcements, etc.) based on very early market testing or the package design. Unfortunately, this is often before a product’s personality or positioning has been determined and a successful launch requires these to stand out with confidence. The public communication of your launch should honor deep solution-oriented benefits. Expressing the need for your product and turning that into desire can be communicated with great design and the creative way you deliver the information. Your design agency should be brought in when the initial product personality and positioning is being formed. They can help you bring very creative ideas and trend-forward approaches to capture the attention of fickle buyers and targeted consumers.

The following are some strategies and tactics we like to employ:

Consider a pre-launch. These can be executed without alerting the competition and can cause some really good commotion about a secret new solution. There is some research that indicates you should be marketing toward the problem your product will solve before the launch.

We can also bring the product to social networks and capitalize on friends sharing information. There’s nothing like a great scoop to get people talking on Facebook and Twitter.

Some great product launches have really had fun with their approach. Mailings to buyers and store managers should be very “out-of-the-box.” They are a tough crowd and very, very busy. Simple, yet clever delivery techniques and stunning visuals can really get their attention.

Small budget? You can reduce all printing costs by going electronic.

Capturing the consumer will be much more targeted when your design agency knows the subtleties of your messaging. Samples that capture your consumer’s attention and drive them to action have a better chance when your agency knows how to communicate the essence of your messaging in quick and stunning imagery and words.

Another out-of-the-box approach is investigating the antonym, or opposite, of your goal. Artists will often turn a painting upside down to see errors or new compositional possibilities for their work of art.

At Go East we always look forward to opportunities to get involved early on so we can help our clients in telling their NEW story in a successful launch.

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I’ve always been a fan of letterpress printing, and recently it has become popular again. Despite my normal refined design style, I very much like the inconsistent “surprises” and “imperfections” the method creates. I also like the effects of layering different block designs and inking techniques.

As a fan of wood type and letterpress, the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin is a place I’ve wanted to visit since it opened in 1999. This past December, it hosted its first-ever hands on letterpress workshop — in conjunction with four individuals from Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee. Jim Sherraden of Hatch conducted the event with assistance from Jim Moran of the Hamilton Museum.

The weekend-long event not only allowed participants to use some of the wood type specimens of Hamilton, but some of the famous wood and titanium art blocks from the Hatch archives, too. After a quick “letterpress 101″ overview, we were allowed to play and make prints over the duration of the weekend. My co-worker Nicole Kouldelka and I produced dozens of pieces including these:

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Ty Pennington has selected Post-it® Notes designed by Go East for his “Decor Picks” in Ty Pennington at Home Magazine.

The notes are part of the 2009 Post-it® Specialty Notes EcoSmart collection, designer notes created in a palette of earthy brights and neutrals.

Go East has been designing Specialty Notes for about five years. Inspiring, quirky and pretty, the notes are a cornerstone of our product design practice area and we produce one or two collections a year.

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Many of us spend a good portion of our discretionary dollars celebrating the holidays. The Christmas season, particularly, is filled with items specially designed, by people like me, to prompt your impulse to purchase a little something new for the holidays.

Buying something new is a holiday tradition that draws upon fond memories of Christmas fairs, window displays, fanciful dioramas and visiting the department store or mall to see Santa. Picking up a little something special for this Christmas is one of life’s little pleasures.

As designers, we take into account contemporary design and holiday trends, visual nostalgia hooks and our own memories when creating new products for the season. Whether we are creating point-of-sale or impulse purchases, designing specifically for the holidays has its own special set of demands. The temptation to resort to clichés is strong. Clients often ask us to clearly communicate Christmas without religious imagery. Creating new characterizations of familiar holiday figures without overstepping copyrights is a constant concern.

At Go East, we try to create new takes on the holidays. Creating contemporary, fresh imagery and new ways of saying “Happy Holidays” are key to the success of a holiday design. When we worked with Amy Cartwright on the holiday illustrations for Post-it® Notes, we sought someone with a fresh style that would be a perfect match for the brand. The topics are nostalgic — Santa, Snowman, Penguin — but the style is fun and functional.

My recommendations for holiday designs:

1. Embrace the traditions but push the design. While we celebrate the holidays in the present, the past is always top-of-mind, and the designer needs to take both into consideration. How can you recreate the North Pole? What’s a new way to say “Happy Holidays?” I like to mash up new trends and old celebrations, so I imagine a lot of Twitter tags on presents, Facebook holiday cards and “Bing” White Christmas take-offs.
2. Red and green have been done. Use other colors for a Christmas design that really say “21st-Century celebration.”
3. Know your audiences’ tolerance for “Christmas” versus “holidays.”  Some audiences are OK with Christmas trees; some want you to stick to snowflakes. The retail channel will have a lot of influence here and it is best to communicate any limitations early on in the project.
4. This season, it really is the little things that will count. Whether the gift item is small, the wrapping paper is more minimal or the cards are homemade (or just look that way), look to the small to say something big. From a design perspective that means simple by design, which is a Go East design principle. However, this season it’s more meaningful than ever — and isn’t that what everyone is looking for anyway?

What is your plan to socialize your brand this holiday season? Where will you be and what do you think your customers what to see? Let me know and I’ll friend/follow/group/contact/yelp/link-in you and see what you’ve come up with. I’ll be keeping tabs this holiday season and report back with my favorites at the end of the year.

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Designing for an upcoming season, whether it’s the holidays, back-to-school, a particular sport’s season or any other season, is a little tricky and sometimes nerve-racking. The cool thing about designers, though, is that we have the power to determine how the future looks.

Figuring out what the upcoming season will look like is a combination of observing the past, then combining or modifying those ideas and concepts, given current and other  forecasted trends. Back in 2008 you may have thought it was strange to see mushrooms on that back-to-school header, but in 2009, you’ve seen them everywhere; those mushrooms are hot, hot, hot! (In furniture design, too!)

Businesses spend millions — probably billions — of dollars and countless hours researching and forecasting trends. At Go East, we take that information, put it in the context of a client’s brand and let the two bounce around in our heads for awhile before creating our concepts.

The process should start as early as possible: six months to a year before the targeted season. We want an early start so that we have time to research what’s going to be “hot,” develop our concepts and have time to execute them well before they’re needed. I’ll admit that it is little strange going to work in June humming carols and dreaming of sugarplums when it’s 90 degrees outside, but it’s worth it in the end.

Remember, design is a process that takes time, sometimes more than you might think. In the meantime, take a break from the present and see what’s happening in the future at these sites:

• Trendcentral
• Smallbiztrends
• Trendwatching
• Google Zeitgeist
• Yahoo Buzz Index

What current trends are you crazy about? Which ones could you do without?

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Guidelines are the guidebook or owners manual for your new identity. They are critical to communicating what key players need to know in order to handle your new brand identity properly. The task of developing guidelines can seem overwhelming, though. So make it a little easier and consider these 10 questions; they should prepare you to go into the adventures of guideline development with confidence and ease.

(more…)

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National Geographic has created a map that replaces place names with translations of their indigenous names. I never knew that “Minnesota” means “slightly clouded river.” Nice use of typography, hovers and language.

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Go East recently repurposed and recycled the make-readies from a poster project we created. I asked everyone to take the make-readies and do something creative with them as our most recent Design Response. The results were stunning. 

What is a design response? 

For the past year, we have been holding an extra-ordinary, extracurricular creative exploration, called “Design Response.” Too often design work can become a rote execution of a brochure, a banner ad, a package or a sell sheet. To keep our creative minds and muscles stretched and strengthened, we started Design Response, a short-term creativity commission that poses a problem, project, or possibility to the entire company. Everyone is invited to participate. All responses are welcome. The intention is to encourage creative thinking, problem-solving and using design as a response to any situation that may arise in any venue, at any time. 

The results have been extraordinary. 

Despite demanding workloads, family commitments, and the myriad tasks everyone has, Go East colleagues have consistently brought exciting, surprising responses to each challenge. Each participation has encouraged us in our client work and in our lives. Each person presents their piece in an internal review and all have a opportunity to comment and collaborate.

Some highlights:

• The fourth most popular yard sign in the Walker Art Gallery’s “My Yard Our Message” commission was designed in our first Design Response. 
• Design Response : High Gas Prices elicited a stunning range of solutions from gourmet gas, iPhone apps, a lunch-run planning site, and guerilla activist stickers
• Pose a problem and a solution showed what individuals were wrestling with and how they might respond. From a treadmill workstation to color-coded medicine organizers for elderly parent care, we were impressed with the range of options. We had designs for a mass transit system in Minnesota that predated the current stimulus projects. One designer created a map of Twin Cities locations mentioned in the lyrics of a local band, which he is now photographing for a personal project
• Red Letter Day: favorite letter form, in red, and why
• Poster Campaign Make Ready Recycling: take the make-readies from a project and transform them into something else. 

Design Response has become one of the most inspiring parts of Go East. It encourages everyone to think creatively about life and work and opens our eyes to how differently each of us may respond to the world around us. And the world could use some creative, well-designed responses to a wide range of problems now.

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