What You Need to Know About Color in Design

In a recent study conducted by KissMetrics.com, visual appearance and color ranked more important to consumers than just about everything else when viewing marketing materials. In fact, ninety-three percent of people who responded to the survey said that visual appearance (which color is a part of) was the most important factor they used when making a purchasing decision. Only six percent said texture, while on percent placed a heavy value on sound and smell.

Color and Marketing: Breaking it Down

Along these same lines, an incredible eighty-five percent of consumers said that color was THE primary reason why they chose to buy a particular product or service. It goes without saying that the right color design is the perfect place to start with your marketing materials.

In terms of your long-term success, one of the most valuable resources that you have available to you is and will always be your brand. It's something that lives on long after a purchase is made. It's the narrative and the set of strong, relatable values that are at the heart of your business. Additional studies have shown that the careful use of color can increase brand recognition by up to eighty percent, which, in turn, goes a long way towards increasing consumer confidence at the same time.

But What Do Colors Mean?

However, none of this is to say that your marketing materials should be jam-packed with as many colors as possible. Quite the contrary, in fact. Different colors have all been known to affect people on an emotional and psychological level in a variety of ways. Consider the following:

• Yellow is often associated with optimism and youthful enthusiasm. This is why it's often used to grab the attention of people like window shoppers.
• Red is almost always associated with a sense of energy and excitement. In fact, red is a great way to create a sense of urgency in your readers (and when used right can even increase their heart rate, too!)
• Black is considered to be very powerful and very sleek, which is why it is usually used to market luxury products.
• Green is normally associated with wealth - which makes perfect sense because money is green. It also happens to be the easiest color for the human eyes to process, which is why green is often used to underline important information in marketing copy.

To that end, it's important to use different colors depending on exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish. Are you trying to highlight an upcoming clearance sale and want to create a sense of urgency? Make sure those fliers and posters have as much red on them as possible. Are you trying to attract the attention of a more sophisticated level of clientele, or do you want to positively influence the overall impression that people get when they see your products? Try using as much black as you can.

Color is a powerful tool when used correctly, but it's important to remember that it is just one of many. But, provided your use of color matches up with both your audience and your long-term objectives, you'll find that it can be a terrific way to put your campaigns over the top and start generating the types of results you deserve.


To contact Chuck Gherman for more information about how Printing Arts Press helps organizations with their Marketing and Human Resource needs through print communications please visit www.printingartspress.com.


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Avoid These Common Print Marketing Mistakes for Visually Compelling Content

Compelling images are the perfect way to attract attention and create an emotional connection with your customers and prospects. Avoid these common mistakes as you design newer and richer content moving forward.

Mistake #1: You Didn't Keep It Simple

Why do you think audiences have gravitated towards visual print marketing content over the last few years? If you thought "because people are bombarded with information these days from nearly every angle," you'd be right! From the moment people wake up in the morning, their smartphones are sending them emails and push notifications. They're wading through dozens of blog posts. They're reading massive reports at work all day long. Information is everywhere, and it can often feel overwhelming.

Solution: Make your print marketing visually impactful, and easy to read and interpret.

Visual print marketing is an excellent way to relieve people from these stresses - or at least; it's supposed to be. It can allow you to take your message and wrap it up in a way that is easy to understand and a refreshing change of pace from everything else.

Think about it in terms of infographics. Infographics are an incredibly popular form of visual content because they take complicated ideas and break them down to just what you need to know and nothing more. Apply this same concept to your print marketing designs.

Mistake #2: You Failed to Account For Light

When you're leaning so heavily on your visuals, you MUST account for the number one factor that can destroy the feeling you were going for - light.

How that gorgeous new flyer or banner you're creating looks on a computer screen and how it looks in a store window in your neighborhood can be very, very different depending on the lighting quality of the area, the direction of the sun, and more.

Solution: Ask yourself how light will affect every decision you make, from the richness of the colors you're choosing to the specific type of paper (and finish) you'll be using.

Accounting for these simple mistakes will put you ahead of the game and on your way to stunning and compelling visual print marketing.

To contact Chuck Gherman for more information about how Printing Arts Press helps organizations with their Marketing and Human Resource needs through print communications please visit www.printingartspress.com.


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Craft More Compelling, More Emotional Presentations Today

The major goal of any piece of marketing collateral is to connect with your audience in a deep, meaningful way. This is true regardless of the specific type of marketing you're talking about - from that terrific new flyer you just designed, to a banner, and beyond. Presentations are a particularly valuable format in this regard as they give you a nice opportunity to really dive a little deeper into certain subjects in a way that other mediums don't allow.

However, the format is only a means to an end. If you really want to make sure that you're crafting the most compelling, emotional presentations possible, there are a few key things you'll want to keep in mind.

Find That Theme

Because presentations tend to be long form documents (at least in comparison to something like a flyer), you always want to make an effort to keep your "eye on the prize," so to speak. Every presentation has a topic. That topic should be reinforced again and again by your primary theme. This is the main idea you're trying to get across or the idea that you're trying to help someone understand.

Once you've settled on your theme, EVERY component of your presentation needs to feed back into it. This will form the basic spine of your piece. Anything that isn't directly related to that theme or the topic at hand has to go - no exceptions.

It's a Visual World; We're Just Living In It

Another essential step you want to take in your quest to craft more compelling, more emotional presentations involves including as many visual elements as possible. Remember that a presentation is not a white paper or a blog post - it is a medium that is perfect for relevant images and other visual content.

Human beings tend to be visual learners.  We can't help it; it's just the way our brains work. One study revealed that once someone had heard a piece of information, they usually only remembered about 10% of that content three days later. When that same information is paired with a relevant image, however, that number jumps to 65%.

In terms of presentation success, it's hard to find a tip more valuable than relying on visuals. Visuals give people something to latch onto, something to break up big blocks of text and (more importantly) are naturally engaging. People even follow directions better when the content they're reading is filled with pictures, so this is one of those major tips that you definitely don't want to avoid.

These are just a couple of the major tips that you can use to craft more compelling, more emotional presentations. Remember that one of your top priorities as a marketer is always to get the right content in front of the right people at the right time. However, doing that is only half the battle. Making sure that the content is as striking and as engaging as you can is another major component when it comes to getting people to make that ever-important sale.


To contact Chuck Gherman for more information about how Printing Arts Press helps organizations with their Marketing and Human Resource needs through print communications please visit www.printingartspress.com.


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Learning to Listen: The Hard Way

In the 70s, Italian aid worker Ernesto Serelli learned to listen to clients the hard way. His amusing tale of how he "helped" a village in Africa grow tomatoes, only to see the harvest consumed in a single night by the local hippos, is a powerful and popular TED talk. While you won’t want to miss this dynamic speaker, some key takeaways are outlined below:

Hippos and Tomatoes

Italian aid worker Ernesto Serelli tells the tale of one of his first experiences working in famine-plagued Africa in the 1970s. Bustling with good intentions and plenty of energy, he and his team arrived in the village they were to help and promptly began planting familiar varieties of vegetables in the fertile soil.

The local residents watched the process and despite efforts to engage and teach, did not take the aid workers agriculture lessons seriously or commit to growing. As the plants blossomed and bore amazing fruit, the workers celebrated the harvest and looked forward to showing the native people how much agriculture could do for them.

The night before the harvest, a herd of hippos swept ashore and ate every plant that had been so lovingly cultivated. The locals then revealed to the aid team that hippos had always eaten the crops planted in the verdant, riverside soil. When asked why they had not given the aid team this information weeks before, the answer was “No one asked us.”

By rushing ahead and putting a plan in motion that they thought would solve the villager's problem instead of asking questions and discovering what had been tried in the past, the well-meaning aid workers totally missed the point. They also wasted weeks of time and plenty of resources that could have been dedicated elsewhere.

The Power of Listening

You may not be helping a hungry village in Africa, but the lesson of asking your prospect or clients the right questions to truly meet their needs applies to every interaction you have.  Learning to listen is an important component for anyone in business. Fail to ask the right questions, and you could face a disaster.

Take the time to remember the hippos and tomatoes next time you speak with a new client about their needs, and make sure you take the time to ask the right questions before you charge ahead.

This TED Talk is an enduring favorite and an excellent reminder of why we need to stop and listen to what our clients are saying and why we need to take the time to understand what they’ve tried and what they need.

To contact Chuck Gherman for more information about how Printing Arts Press helps organizations with their Marketing and Human Resource needs through print communications please visit www.printingartspress.com.


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