Courtney & Co Blog

Four questions designers get asked most

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:15:07 +0000

1. What do you do again?

It’s easiest to explain what we do by using the analogy of a doctor patient relationship. The patient, in this case a business, has symptoms that are causing him to feel pain. Symptoms like slow sales, poor awareness or an image that looks out of step. The patient recognizes something is wrong—can’t fix it on his own—and makes an appointment to see a doctor, in this case a Graphic Design professional. The doctor asks a lot of questions to get a better understanding of the pain the patient is feeling. The doctor listens carefully and using his professional education and experience comes to a conclusion called the diagnoses. After careful consideration, the doctor prescribes a path to recover. The prescription, if taken regularly and to completion will make the pain go away and make your business, I mean patient, feel better.

2. How can it help me?

On any given day a business leader comes to the realization that there is a communication challenge that they need to solve and it can’t be done in house. They need an outside point of view. A fresh perspective. A good graphic designer has worked with hundreds of business leaders in a variety of industries and can offer expertise advice and creative solutions that cut through the clutter and communicate more effectively. They can be that outside pair of eyes and ears to help you figure it out and offer a fresh solution.

3. What’s it going to cost?

Budgets vary and every communication challenge can be solved a hundred different ways. I’ve seen businesses solve problems with beautifully simple and low cost solutions, and others with expensive marketing campaigns. Clients that are experienced marketers have a budget in mind, and successful design firms can choose a solution that has impact for most budgets. A good creative firm know how to stretch budgets to get the biggest impact.

4. What kind of experience do you have in my industry?

It would be impossible to have experience in every industry, but the good firms have enough experience in a variety of industries to bring practical knowledge and perspective to each project and marketing challenge encountered. It doesn’t matter if it’s the brand identity for a 120 square mile island in the Bahamas to a brand identity for an international non profit, the problem solving approach and principles of design are the same.

1. What do you do and how do we work together?

It’s easiest to explain what we do by using the analogy of a doctor patient relationship. The patient, in this case a business, has symptoms that are causing him to feel pain. Symptoms like slow sales, poor awareness or an image that looks out of step. The patient recognizes something is wrong—can’t fix it on his own—and makes an appointment to see a doctor, in this case a Graphic Design professional. The doctor asks a lot of questions to get a better understanding of the pain the patient is feeling. The doctor listens carefully and using his professional education and experience comes to a conclusion called the diagnoses. After careful consideration, the doctor prescribes a path to recover. The prescription, if taken regularly and to completion will make the pain go away and make your business, I mean patient, feel better.

2. How can it help me?

On any given day a business leader comes to the realization that there is a communication challenge that they need to solve and it can’t be done in house. They need an outside point of view. A fresh perspective. A good graphic designer has worked with hundreds of business leaders in a variety of industries and can offer expertise advice and creative solutions that cut through the clutter and communicate more effectively. They can be that outside pair of eyes and ears to help you figure it out and offer a fresh solution.

3. What’s it going to cost?

Budgets vary and every communication challenge can be solved a hundred different ways. I’ve seen businesses solve problems with beautifully simple and low cost solutions, and others with expensive marketing campaigns. Clients that are experienced marketers have a budget in mind, and successful design firms can choose a solution that has impact for most budgets. A good creative firm know how to stretch budgets to get the biggest impact.

4. What kind of experience do you have in my industry?

It would be impossible to have experience in every industry, but the good firms have enough experience in a variety of industries to bring practical knowledge and perspective to each project and marketing challenge encountered. It doesn’t matter if it’s the brand identity for a 120 square mile island in the Bahamas to a brand identity for an international non profit, the problem solving approach and principles of design are the same.

Designers doing good

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:30:20 +0000

I’ve noticed the trend of more designers turning their talents to giving back. This might not be a new trend, but merely something I have noticed recently because my own interests have turned here. Nevertheless, there’s one design firm I particularly love to follow because their passion for design is equally matched with their passion for doing good. Tiffany Handshoe Bachman, a former Courtney & Co all-star, and her sister Leslie Handshoe Suter have started a design firm focused on creative services for companies who “work smart” and “give back”.

The firm called Handshoe Design Collaborative (http://handshoe.com), came galloping out of the gate in February with a successful t-shirt campaign challenging their clients, colleagues and friends to “Love what matters”. The campaign called “2010love” urges people to make a positive change in their lives and the lives of others. You can order a t-shirt (a portion of each shirt sold goes to charity) or read all about it on their blog (http://www.2010-love.com). Handshoe Collaborative has struck a chord and has successfully sold t-shirts across the US and internationally in countries like France, Norway and China. Congratulations!

Share Everything

Mark Courtney — Mon, 10 May 2010 13:15:40 +0000

It seems we’ve gotten over the fear of sharing personal details about ourselves over the web. More and more sites cater to the growing need for people to divulge every detail of their life to the world. Here’s an interesting article and several sites focused on this growing trend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/technology/23share.html

Blippy
(announce news of what you’ve bought)

Foursquare
(announce your location to the world through your mobile phone)

Skimble
(from basketball, cycling, to ultimate frisbee and pushups annouce your latest accomplishments to the world)

Community service in the South Bronx

Wendy Hu — Fri, 07 May 2010 13:15:54 +0000

Last Saturday morning Wendy Hu, a Courtney & Co designer, ventured over to the South Bronx to get a glimpse of the impact buildOn students are making in their communities. Over 150 students showed up early on their Saturday morning to sort items for a food pantry, paint murals, serve food, do arts & crafts with neighborhood kids and other community-based service projects.

These high school students consistently volunteer and serve their neighborhoods every week in a genuine and whole-hearted manner, believing they can and will change the world. Wendy asked them questions such as, “Why did you get involved with buildOn?”, “How does service make you feel?” and “Do you believe you are making a difference in people’s lives?” Their responses were refreshingly honest and inspiring. We think you’ll agree.

Courtney wins pitch for Five Acre Farms

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:43:43 +0000

We recently won a pitch for the identity, packaging and marketing campaign for Five Acre Farms. Five Acre Farms is developing a national brand of produce and dairy products using local farmers. The brand will be centered around the local food movement and will be brought directly from farms, no more than 300 miles away, directly to your local grocer. Supporting local farmers and giving them marketing support and new distribution channels is something we support whole heartily. We look forward to developing packaging, a web site and in-store promotions in the upcoming months.

Early logo designs for the brand

Wendy helps buildOn blog from the field in Nicaragua

Mark Courtney — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:00:14 +0000

Courtney & Company designer, Wendy Hu, traveled to Nicaragua with buildOn’s founder, Jim Ziolkowski, to capture stories and progress from the field. Wendy art directed photo shoots and video shoots, edited in the field and posted remotely to Jim’s newly launched blog. The efforts were part of a larger campaign to provide buildOn volunteers, donors and partners real-time stories of buildOn’s work in action, from the field, as it’s happening. Over 20 stories, photos and video clips have been posted from the trek, which included 11 students from various Detroit high schools. They traveled to a remote village in Nicaragua to break ground on a school.

Additional video’s from that trip as well new updates will be posted from buildOn’s ongoing after school program work here in the states.

http://buildonfromthefield.org

We moved to offices in SOHO

admin — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:12:16 +0000

We Moved. Our offices are now located at the corner of Spring Street and Sixth Avenue. We’re excited about the change from midtown to downtown and are looking forward to discovering how the creative vibe of SOHO will impact our client’s work.

Stop by for a visit. We’ll show you around and catch up over a cup of coffee on the terrace.

Courtney & Company, Inc.
145 Sixth Avenue
New York, NY 10013

Can Wall Street Change its Image

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:59:43 +0000

The top 38 firms are on pace to award $145 Billion in bonuses for 2009, up 18% from 2008, and just over the all-time high set for bonuses in 2007. Goldman Sachs’ part of this bonus pool is roughly $700,000 per employee.

While most of us are struggling to keep our job and pay our mortgages, it’s easy to get angry at the executives who run these companies. Here’s the tough pill to swallow–Wall Street is one of the largest, most successful industries in this country, as well as the entire world. It employs 150 Million Americans, and is 20% of our GDP. Despite what politically motivated individuals think, Wall Street and Main Street need each other and it’s in our economic and national interest to make sure that it continues to flourish here in America.

Wall Street has started to be more vocal. Morgan Stanley’s Chief Executive made a statement saying, “I do think the behavior is improper. We regret the consequence that people have lost money in it.” The banks that received bail out money seconded this sentiment when they met in front of the Financial Crises Commission, last week. However, the same executive later defended the firm’s actions as “exercises in risk management.” Do they really get it? Is it too little, too late? I believe it’s never too late, and here are three strategies I would get started on straight away:

First. Explain what you do.
Admittedly, we the general public, do not completely understand what or how you do what you do. Most of us were brought up believing, “If you can’t explain it, you can’t trust it.” Please, explain in layman’s terms how the financial system works, your role and the significance it has on our life, so that we can all have that ‘Aha’ moment.

Second. Put a face to the industry.
Unfortunately for Wall Street, most Americans imagine it being run by characters like Gordon Gecko, walking around in wingtip shoes and six thousand dollar suits, slapping each other on the backs saying, “Greed is Good”—with nothing but self interest and short term profits as the status quo. How about replacing this image with real people, real families, and real values.

Third. Communicate your values sincerely.
For the most part, Wall Street’s image problem is self inflicted with much of the after-the-fact Public Relations seeming disingenuous. Press conferences, news media, and weekend talk shows are a start, but more is needed. Why not rally the entire financial community, and publicly sign a code of conduct with ethics and values that the industry will hold themselves responsible for, and show how you plan to enforce it.

If there’s a lesson to learn here, it’s that the best time for a communications program, is before you need it. The damage caused will take Wall Street years if not decades to rectify and cost untold amounts of money and time. Perhaps, if they adopt a sincere, coordinated and creative communications program, Wall Street will be able to turn the tide of public opinion. Lets hope so, for the future of this vital American industry.

A snapshot of the past decade

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:17:30 +0000

Along with my usual New Year’s resolution to eat less and exercise more I added a new one this year–to blog more frequently. Today is a new decade and anything is possible.

Here’s an interesting graphic created by Phillip Niemeyer for the New York Times online opinions section. It’s fun to look back over the past decade at the people, companies and topics that dominated our conversations. Enjoy and here’s to a happy and prosperous 2010.

buildOn improves image of Global Gala ‘09

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:44:29 +0000

800+ people attended this year’s buildOn Global Gala held at the Hilton in Stamford, CT. Courtney and Co lead the Gala Committee and produced all communications including invitation, program, environmental installations and graphics.

New to this year’s Gala was two 3-dimensional museum-quality installations where guests could purchase selected items like a chalkboard, brick or day of community service to help fund the US and International programs. A 20′ foot Discovery Wall was constructed that included 20 questions about buildOn and nudged viewers to interact with the piece to reveal the answers.

Our team traveled to Connecticut to volunteer and help set up the installations, and then stayed to attend the event. The biggest fundraising event of the year, the event raised over 1.2 Million Dollars for buildOn’s domestic and international programs. A huge success!

Here are a selection of photos from Bryan Cary.

To find out more about buildOn and how you can help go to buildOn.org.