Graphic Design articles by the best and brightest in the field

• Don't Settle for Web Site Mediocrityby David A. Salinas
  A Web site has to accomplish only two basic things to deliver success for your business—and those two things are mission-critical. A successful Web site must be built from the ground up to attract and capture: first, the attention of your target audience and, second, the attention of the major search engines. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• 11 Tips to Align PC and Mobile Email Designby Loren McDonald
  The good news: More of your customers can read your email messages on their smartphones now, instead of waiting until they get back to a computer. The bad news: The email that looks so great on your PC may look like a garbled mess on the phone. These HTML cross-platform optimization tips can make your message render better on both PC and mobile phone. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Creative Redeemed: How to Achieve Measurable Difference in Online Marketingby Scott Brinker
  The power of great creative is that it over-delivers. It exceeds expectations. It signals that you care about and respect your audience—and it affects your brand when you need it most: the formative moment of a prospect's first impression of you. Measure precisely how much of a difference this makes. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Fundamental Design Rules for Email Marketing Successby Winston Bowden
  Good email design is a critical part of ensuring a high response rate. A major frustration within the industry is the lack of standards to guide designers when creating HTML email. Though there isn't one email-marketing design bible, there are fundamental design rules that should be applied. This article reviews some of the high-level design principles as well as more in-depth rules affecting some of the most common issues email marketers face. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Why Google's New Web Browser Chrome Matters to Youby David Felfoldi
  Last week Google released Chrome, its new standards-compliant Web browser. But what does that mean to you? Though Google offers a great comic that explains the big changes, it is a bit jargon-heavy and, frankly, long at 32 (comic) pages. Here's an introduction of Chrome for the layman. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Simplicity Is the Nature of Great Emailsby Gary Levitt and Rob Lubow
  The modern email inbox is a perpetual promotion machine of colors, styles, and sales pitches all fighting to be seen. In an attempt to break from the herd, many email marketers ironically adopt a herd mentality of more clutter, more content, more, more, more. This misguided pursuit of increased visibility merely leads to increased invisibility. Before joining the invisible ranks of the "clutter cult" of email marketers, consider that a huge body of marketing research demonstrates that the human mind is a sucker for simplicity and focus. The eye embraces that which can be easily digested. Less is more. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Three Ways to Take Advantage of the Email Preview Paneby Reggie Brady
  Do you have the preview pane enabled in your inbox? Many of your email recipients use this setting and some even read most of their emails this way. In short, the preview pane is important email real estate, and you can use it to your advantage. What readers see in this area can influence their decision to open your email to read more or to scroll down to see more. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• How to Make Your Email Program More Productive in 2008by Reggie Brady
  If you haven't done it yet, now is the perfect time to map out plans for your email program. Any changes you might make in the first few months of the year will stand you in good stead; any plans or changes that you implement in the first quarter should pay dividends for the balance of the year. Here are several actionable ideas. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Moving Madison Avenue: Finding Advertising Ideas Elsewhereby Martin Lindstrom
  What will happen when ideas become commodities just like everything else? Some people certainly buy ads from advertising agencies on the strength of the agency's own brand name, but is the value of those brands under threat? [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Repackage, Rebrand & Relaunch? Or Do We Need to Dig Deeper?by Ted Mininni
  Leading consumer-products companies are looking to rebrand, repackage and relaunch... often too frequently. Sometimes, the effort is merely putting a bandage on a deeper sore. It's far less painful to assess lagging sales in a superficial manner than it is to dig deeper into company practices, customer-service issues, and the actual product mix being offered—not to mention how customers are experiencing the brand and whether that brand is delivering on its promises. In fact, companies that really want to dig for the truth ought to seek answers to these questions... . [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Maximizing Your Web Site's Effectiveness: Q&A with Karen Breen Vogel, CEO of ClearGaugeby Mack Collier
  With the rise of social media and user-generated content, there are more factors than ever to consider when designing a company Web site. Throw in SEO and choosing the proper design/layout for your Web site, and it all gets very confusing... very quickly. Which means that Web site optimization experts such as Karen Breen Vogel are in very high demand. Vogel understands how to lead organic traffic to Web sites—but, perhaps more importantly, she understands how to give those users the content they are looking for when they arrive. Here Vogel cuts through the clutter and gives invaluable advice on how to build disciplined Web site optimization programs that build on strengths and business objectives. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• PowerPoint, Warts and All: Relearning to Communicateby Abhay Padgaonkar
  PowerPoint recently (and quietly) celebrated its 20th birthday. Why do some people love it while others passionately hate it? And how can we learn from its strength and its limitations, to be better and more effective communicators? [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Six Tricks for Creating Brand-Building, Sales-Ripping Creative Briefsby Steve McNamara
  Want to make your ads more effective? Project a stronger brand personality?
  
  In this follow-up to a MarketingProfs Classic—and one of our most popular articles ever—the author shares his experiences from some of the world's leading ad agencies. In his view, a well-written creative brief is the road map that will lead the way toward a stronger brand. Here's how. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• iPhone Debut Rivals Harry Potter Mania... But Will It Last? (Or, Why the iPhone Is Not a Phone)by Paul Paetz
  Does the hype of the iPhone equal runaway success? Is the game already won? Or will there be an equal and opposite reaction when possibility and excitement about the future gives way to reality, and inevitable issues arise with service, availability, bugs in functionality and unfulfilled expectations? [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• The Top 5 Best (and Top 5 Worst) Things About Landing Pagesby Scott Brinker
  Landing pages have become the Omega-3s of Web marketing: if you're not using them and optimizing them ad infinitum, you're squandering your online ad dollars. Or so the landing page optimization crowd would have you believe. In the spirit of probing the pros and cons of this popular post-click marketing format—and, okay, doing a little tongue-in-cheek myth busting—we offer our take of the top 5 best and worst things about landing pages, in contrast to multi-page landing paths. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Stop, Thief! How to Protect Your Site from Copyright Infringementby Stephan Spencer
  They say that "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Not if you are a Web site owner and you have a brand to protect! Stephan has seen designs copied, content copied... even entire sites copied. It's easy for someone to "View Source" and take whatever they like, without regard to copyright. Here's what to do about it. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Launching Your Product: Seven Marketing 'Musts'by Gwyneth Dwyer
  Whether your launch is for an entirely new product or for a line extension, these seven marketing communication musts will put you on the path to success. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Seven Steps to Building a Strong Nonprofit Brandby Laura Ries
  In the nonprofit sector, marketing is often considered a dirty word, a necessary evil that no one admits spending too much time or money on. But to build a successful nonprofit organization to help people, you still need to follow the laws of branding. Why? Because powerful nonprofit brands will raise more money, attract more volunteers and help more people. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• How to Be a Compassionate Designer for Passionate Customersby David Armano
  The value of creating passionate users is becoming clear to brands wishing to thrive in the "experience economy." Provide an experience that is useful, usable, desirable, and differentiated... and you will create demand for your brand and delight your customers. This article is not about just visual design. As designers of digital experiences, what are we doing to develop compassion toward the users we are designing for? [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design
• Ten Effective SEO Design Tips (to Impress Visitors—and Search Engines)by Barry Fenning
  If your visitors like your Web site, there is a very good likelihood that the search engines will, too. With this in mind, the following 10 tips focus on how to develop your site with your visitors in mind, and also effectively conduct search engine optimization. [Read the full story] Marketing Articles: Graphic Design

Graphic Design: See all 44 marketing articles

Graphic Design case studies, deconstructing real life examples and illustrating lessons learned

• How Weekly Reader Boosted Renewals by Altering Its Direct Marketing Package and CollateralWeekly Reader
• How Sherwin-Williams Used Digital Collateral for a Newly Launched Product to Engage Retailers and ConsumersSherwin-Williams Company, Krylon division
• A Niche E-tailer Sizes Up Glamour... One Customer at a Time, Boosting Sales with a Personalized Web Site ExperienceSydney's Closet
• How a Web-based Company Increased Leads 90%—and Sales 23%—via PPC-Visitor Profiling, Landing Page PersonalizationCompany: Continental Warranty
• How a Digital Input Device Manufacturer Increased Engagement With Customers, Upped Holiday SalesWacom Technology Corp.
• How an Online Business Increased Conversions (Sales) on Landing Pages by Up to 12%AutoAnything.com
• How a B2C Web Site's Landing-Page Tests Resulted in a 67% Jump in ConversionsBabyCenter
• How Garden Fresh Realized a Huge Gain in Web Traffic and Longer-Term Loyalty via EmailGarden Fresh Restaurant Corp.
• How a Swiss Co. Doubled US Sales by Convincing Consumers That Its Product Is Hip and Worth a PremiumSIGG USA
• How a Nonprofit Used Member Resources to Increase Brand Awareness Across Multiple MarketsOregon Sports Authority
• How an Insurance Company Web Site Achieved Significant Increases in Click-Throughs and ConversionsAmerican International Underwriters (AIU)
• How a Nonprofit Developed Marketing Materials That Spoke to Its Culturally Diverse Audience, Bringing in New MembersSan Francisco Health Plan
• How a European B2C Manufacturer's Web Site Re-launch Tapped the US Market, Encouraged CommunityDunderdon
• How a B2C Web Site's Landing-Page Tests Resulted in a 67% Jump in ConversionsBabyCenter

Graphic Design: See all 14 case studies

Graphic Design online seminar broadcasts from the best minds in marketing

• Social Media 1.0: What B2B Marketers Need to Know About Video, Widgets, Blogs and MoreAttendee rating:  - Apr 11, 2007
• e-Newsletters: Get Attention and Build LoyaltyAttendee rating:  - Feb 22, 2007
• Crash Course #6: Direct Marketing Creative SavvyAttendee rating:  - Jan 25, 2007
• Best Practices in Web Content: Beauty Doesn't Matter (much)Attendee rating:  - Dec 7, 2006
• Killer Web Content: Make the sale. Deliver the service. Build the brand.Attendee rating:  - Dec 6, 2006
• Crash Course #3: How to Craft a Compelling Direct Marketing Offer and Call-to-ActionAttendee rating:  - Nov 30, 2006
• Email Marketing Success: 10 Campaigns Examined for Better and for WorseAttendee rating:  - Aug 24, 2006
• Demystifying Website Usability: Rapid Research for MarketersAttendee rating:  - Jul 25, 2006
• 12 Creative Campaigns Up Close: Analyzing Direct Marketing CommunicationsAttendee rating:  - Jul 6, 2006
• Behind the Wheel of Web Redesign: What Drives SuccessAttendee rating:  - Oct 6, 2005

Graphic Design: See all 10 seminars

Graphic Design mini articles distilling bite-sized advice (from our Get to the Point newsletters)

• You Look Mahvelous!Customer Behavior
  Let's face it: as consumers, we're not that good at judging the volume of a product (eg, how much liquid is actually in that bottle or glass of juice). Moreover,...
• OMG, that looks good!Email Marketing
  If the popularity of the 3G iPhone is any indication—Apple sold over one million units during its first weekend on the market—the smartphone is here to stay. According to Loren...
• Cut the Mystery Man ActCustomer Behavior
  Is it more effective to tell customers your brand name right away in advertising? Or is it better to create a little mystery, and reveal the brand name only at...
• Do You See What I See?Email Marketing
  It would be terrific if email marketers had universal standards for the creation of all their html messages. In the absence of such comprehensive guidelines, Winston Bowden offers some fundamental design rules...
• On-the-Fly CreativityMarketing Inspiration
  You spend most of your day trying to be creative, but do you ever stop to ask yourself what creativity is? With a white board, a few markers and a...
• Give Me a Digital SignNew Media
  The days of static billboards, posters and traditional advertising signage are numbered. Marketers can now reach their audience in new places. Digital signage will be a $2.6B business by 2010....
• Do You Really Want a Logo That Only Costs $100?Small Business
  In a post at his blog, David Airey discusses the strange phenomenon of companies that think they can get a great logo on the cheap. Among the not-unusual postings he...
• Be a Shape-ShifterCustomer Behavior
  Did you ever notice how many products or packages are rectangular? Think tissue box. Think cereal box. Think books. Think paper bags! The list is endless. Apparently, there's a good...
• Looking Good, Fancy FaceCustomer Behavior
  OK, we're a shallow society. We admit it. Image does matter. And now, researchers are showing that even the typeface you choose for your ads can affect a consumer's experience and behavior....
• Get in the Mood to ShopCustomer Behavior
  Stores invest a great deal of time and attention in determining the best way to design floor space and shelving to create the optimal customer experience. Research shows that understanding...
• Green with LoveSmall Business
  In the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, candy aisles across the nation usually take on a distinctly pink, white and red palette. But this year, notes Drew McLellan of...
• Give 'Em a Good TeaseEmail Marketing
  Whether your email campaign's audience is B2B or B2C, most recipients use a preview pane to decide whether they want to read the message or hit delete. Reggie Brady suggests...
• How Saying the Least May Achieve the MostCustomer Behavior
  Clearly the things you say and show in an ad can convey something about your product. But how about what you don't say or show? A study has revealed that...
• Where's the Best Place for Your Ad?Customer Behavior
  Before you place your next ad, think carefully about its location. Research at Northwestern University and the University of Iowa discovered that where and when your advertising appears may influence...
• Burdened with a Bland Web Site?Small Business
  If you outsource your Web site design to a firm that uses templates as a quick, inexpensive solution, your site probably has the standard layout: content in the middle; a...
• What Makes a Great LogoSmall Business
  Logo design is a critical element in the success of your brand’s image. While a great logo enhances perception, a poorly designed logo can potentially damage your brand. So, when...

Graphic Design: See all 16 quick reads

Graphic Design marketing downloads for the busy professional

• Lead Generation How-To Guide
  Great product, great sales team, great marketing collateral - now what? People to sell to, of course. Put your lead generation tactics under the microscope with this enlightening how-to guide. Get more and better qualified leads, faster today.

See all marketing downloads