Tag: commercial text

WINNING LOGOS & SLOGANS…

…For authors and artists as well as corporations!

What are the elements of your brand?

Design Dilemmas for Authors

While logos and slogans are usually associated with corporations, they can facilitate communication with the public and be key branding elements for any business endeavor, regardless of size or tax status.  And, yes, that includes professional writers wishing to facilitate communication with their readers, listeners, and/or viewers.  The memorable branding messages of successful authors echo the rich palette of words and images used by Fortune 500 companies! 

What comes to your mind when you think of a successful logo or slogan?  Perhaps the first is the iconic image of a cola company that has been in business for over one hundred and twenty-five years.  There have been many artists who have brought their own creative process to the company.  But while its logo has changed in minor ways, the bright color palette, signature font, and swirls of one type or another have remained ever present.  

In contrast, its slogans and other commercial text for their signature product have been altered periodically.   This is not surprising since marketing styles and considerable linguistic evolution have occurred within the same decades.  But with each change, the artistic vision of the company has been consistent—to provide a pleasurable sensory experience to the product’s target market.
Formatting Tips
In addition to any artistic icon, the color choice and fonts utilized in shaping the outward image of a viable brand must be memorable. They must also be appropriate to the product or service, as well as the demographics of the target market.  However, since a business can select a specific slice of their market to target, the style of two businesses within a particular industry can vary considerably.

Consider snack foods intended for children.  Generally, bright, happy colors, images, and simple easy-to-read—or even cartoonish—text fonts are appealing to that market.  But when the ingredients are organic, the use of colors associated with nature is the norm.  In addition, with growing concerns for the environment, recycled and/or recyclable packaging is becoming preferable…at least to parents.

When you know the demographics of your target market, your first decision in establishing your brand may be deciding whether to use your personal or business name without an accompanying image. This may be appropriate if your name distinguishes your business from others that offer parallel products and/or services.  However, the use of an artistic design element not only clarifies what you do, but demonstrates the style in which you operate.  Thus, a black, profiled outline of a woman with luxurious hair, standing in high heels against a deep plum color may convey an ideal image for an upscale salon or spa.  If the figure of a man in a tuxedo were added, an iconic image for a ballroom dancing studio would emerge.

Let’s now consider how we might design a logo for a company we’ll call Inner City Painting.  Beyond the simple use of text, one could use an upturned paint brush with a splash of paint for each of the i’s in the text.  At the next level of complexity, a simple line drawing of a home or a string of commercial buildings could declare the firm’s niche market. 

Aside from clean, non-seraphed text, three primary colors might convey a no-frills provider of basic painting services.  Conversely, sweeping art strokes, an elegant font, and an exotic color palette would suggest a more artistic enterprise.  [See DESIGN DILEMMAS FOR AUTHORS, Part 3:  COLOR, May 30, 2015, regarding the use of standardized colors to ensure uniform coloration in both print and electronic publishing.]

Several years ago, I was working with a local printer whose family had been in the industry in a large city for several decades.  Although the familial entity no longer existed, the branding artwork remained.  It depicted a happy cartoon character inviting the public through their doors.  The style of the figure, his attire and shoes all pointed to another era, but the idea of a friendly chap greeting customers was still a viable concept—especially in this age of impersonal mega-corporations.  With the help of a graphic artist, the image of your friendly neighborhood printer was updated and served to introduce the firm to a new generation of clients seeking full-service printing design and production.

Equally important to an effective branding program is the choice of a slogan, for both individuals and organizations.  Notice that I am using the single noun, S L O G A N.  Too often I find promotional decision makers attracted to complex images and multiple descriptive phrases.  This simply muddies the waters and presents a jumbled NON-MEMORABLE image to the public.

Consider artist John Smith.  He might present himself as:  John James Smith, portraitist.  In this case, his middle name separates the artist from other men named John Smith and the word portraitist specifies his specialty.  Additional, qualifying words and phrases can offer further information that will attract appropriate clients to him.  The following is a simple representation of Mr. Smith and his classic painting:

Portraits in Oil Offered by
John James Smith, M.F.A.

Another issue to consider in textual aspects of branding is punctuation.  Instead of shifting font or using italics, some promotional decision makers complicate a design by ending slogans with punctuation.   I suggest saving punctuation for actual sentences and paragraphs of descriptive text.  I find that the shortest path to memorability lies in simplifying your words and design elements.  

One way to ensure simplicity is by working with branding elements in the sizes you are most likely to see in print.  That means that although your graphic artist may be thrilled to present you with an 8.5 x 11 inch design, have them offer you samples in the sizes of dimes, nickels, quarters and silver dollars.  When you do this, you will quickly see that extraneous strokes and other details are lost in such dimensions and can even prove distracting to the message you are trying to convey with a business card or advertisement.  The size of fonts used for your name and any slogan will naturally have to be proportional to the size of the icon being presented.

With the publication of Prospect For Murder, the first Natalie Seachrist Hawaiian Mystery set in Honolulu, I have been sorting through old files.  In examining the progression of my own branding, I see that for over a decade, I simply used my name and a few bulleted words to describe my work.  In 1995, I launched use of the word Imaginings in my business name while completing edits for an article I co-authored for Broker World Magazine.  Since I was moving from Honolulu to Tucson, it was part of an authoring strategy for introducing myself to a new locale for my physical business, as well as potential regional, national or even international audiences.  [You might find it interesting to note that at that time I was sometimes told that there was no such word as imaginings.]

Through the years, I have offered clients several products and services to enhance their physical environs, as well as their promotional representations.  While previously using merely a textual presentation of myself, a couple of years ago I decided to design an iconic image that would represent several elements of my career:  Commercial writing, design consultation, and floral art.  I knew that utilizing a pen would clearly represent the largest area of my work.  As I sometimes provided faux painting of accent walls to commercial clients, it seemed natural to also include an artist’s brush.  Finally, as I have offered floral designs to both friends and clients, some form of floral image was indicated. 

What are the elements of your brand!

This icon has evolved over time is used in myriad ways.  Some variations have been necessitated by hardcopy printing vs. electronic presentations:  Boldness and detail; portrait and landscape formats; framed and unframed; isolated or with text.  Despite these differences, the use of gold, blue and plum colors have been consistent and the icon is becoming recognized.

With my writing shifting from commercial writing to fiction, my personal name may become more recognizable.  Nevertheless, I like the elements of this image that sums up my work to date.  However, I think it’s time for the hand of a graphics professional to finalize my signature icon, so that I can empower my image as well as my words as an author.

Wishing you the best in your creative endeavors,
Jeanne Burrows-Johnson
author, narrator, design consultant, motivational speaker

Discussion of art is available at the following blogs:
Authors Design Dilemmas 1, April 2015
Confronted by a Fantasia of Fonts, May 2015
Rainbows of Color, May 2015
Winning Logos & Slogans, October 2015
Quality Book Production, February 2016
Harmonizing Branding Elements, August 2016
Book Promotion and Evolving Art, January 2017
Balancing Text and Space, February 2018
Successful Cover Art, December 2018

For further tips on branding, please visit my marketing website:
Imaginings Wordpower and Design Consultation.

To learn more about the Natalie Seachrist Hawaiian Mysteries, including Murders of Conveyance [Winner, Fiction Adventure-Drama, 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards], Island recipes and other projects, please visit my author website at JeanneBurrows-Johnson.com.

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ENERGIZING NARRATIVE PASSAGES

Is your pen always at the ready?

Are you an effective teller of facts? Professional or amateur, the most challenging part of a day of wordsmithing may be facing a blank piece of paper, or an empty page on your monitor’s screen…especially if you’re writing what feels like a dull narrative.

Writing Tips
The Art and Science of Writing
It may be surprising to you, but despite our electronic age, there are still writers who begin each project with hardcopy composition.  If this authoring strategy produces effective prose, it’s hard to argue with their writing process.  It’s all a question of the results that come from one’s practice of the art of communication.  In both fiction and non-fiction, when the writer’s inspiration produces a rich palette of words that maximizes their reader’s experience, their methods have been successful!

Regardless of your wordsmithing process, on days when you feel lacking in creativity and even editorial direction, I suggest you begin by capturing the images that first come to your mind as you contemplate the scope and goals of your project.  Work without concern for the structure of language, correct grammar, or the sequence in which the words emerge.  Within a short while, you should find yourself producing an unstoppable stream of verbiage. 

As your pace slows, you can pause to write a brief outline of your work to that point.  Confident that you will not lose direction, glance over your creative output for patterns within the images, dialogue, and activity that you have produced.  You can then begin empowering your words by strengthening the connectivity of fragmented text.

You should then be able to move back and forth between the creative and editorial processes fairly easily.  I stress the first category—creativity—because writers often lose images they have glimpsed by becoming too absorbed in initial self-editing.  Remember, editing can always be accomplished at a future time.  But if you lose your inspired thoughts, they may never be retrieved…or built upon as you initially envisioned.

Experienced authors often have an established writer’s voice on which they can draw.  This is true whether they are writing the fourth book in a series, or constructing a non-fiction piece reflecting their true voice and personality.  Whether you are in this position, or creating a wholly new voice, you may wish to take a few moments and reflect on the tone, sophistication of vocabulary, structure of language that is most appropriate to the current work, and images that will enhance the sensory experience of your audience.  [Please note that I am referring to your voice as the teller of facts or a story, not the voices of any characters you may be creating.]

With these elements in mind, you can enter the realm of refining the vocabulary and organization of your piece.  As usual, I suggest you begin with the most obvious edits.  Personally, I have a tendency to employ overly complex sentence structure that begs immediate trimming.  Another pattern that many of us face is the need to flip first and last clauses, sentences, and even paragraphs.  Like everything else, practice makes better, if not perfect, form.  By the time you’ve reached the end of a couple of sections, your structure should have tightened with increasing clarity.
Writer’s Guidelines
My Editorial Process
Sometimes in the midst of mundane edits, I have a sense of the truly impactful changes I wish to make.  If working in hardcopy (often late at night in the midst of classic films or predictable episodes of television mystery shows), I’ll make marginal notes regarding a character’s appearance, vocabulary, motivations, or inner thoughts regarding other characters.  [This has proven especially important when working on books subsequent to Prospect for Murder in the continuing Natalie Seachrist Hawaiian Mystery series.] And when at the computer, I may utilize small sticky notes to record my ideas.

With obvious adjustments to structure complete, I move within the piece to maximize its overall flow and tone.  I usually begin by modifying nouns and adjectives.  In a previous blog on color theory [see Design Dilemmas for Authors, Part 3:  Color, May 30, 2015], I discussed various words that might be used in place of the word blue to enhance your color palette. 

Facilitating Communication
Likewise, consider how you might embellish a scene referring to a red sofa.  While inappropriate for a children’s picture book (and most contemporary fiction), the author of a dramatic historical novel might say, “The heroine entered the study nervously and perched on the garnet colored velvet chaise lounge.”  Here I wish the reader to feel wooed by the distinctive color, texture and shape of a piece of furniture. 

In my own writing, I frequently draw on the breadth of my writer’s palette to concisely depict the ambiance of a scene.  For example, “She heard the sharp sound of a gunshot” became “She was startled by the sharp report of a bullet slicing the air.”  Here I turned a matter-of-fact incident report to a description of my character’s response, which allows the reader to join in the heroine’s frightening experience which will enable your reader to feel they are present at the scene…and who knows how that may prove useful if your piece were to be converted to a script for a movie or television show.
Impactful Advertising Messages
Altering Punctuation
Consider the following examples of shifting vocabulary, word sequence, and punctuation that can alter a reader’s interpretation of a passage within commercial as well as fictional text:

~  Experience the unique luxury of a journey to the Orient aboard the majestic RMS Empress of Britain.  [Advertising copy similar to posters for the ship’s 1932 world cruise]

~  I journeyed from Hong Kong to Honolulu aboard the RMS Empress of Britain.  [A matter of fact statement appropriate for any type of writing]

~  Truly…I did enjoy my trip aboard the RMS Empress of Britain.  [A plea to be believed; perhaps for the dénouement of a murder mystery]

~  I immensely enjoyed my sojourn from Hong Kong to Honolulu aboard the luxurious RMS Empress of Britain.  [An elegant, almost fussy statement, appropriate to a romance novel]

There are many ways to strengthen your writer’s voice for each project you undertake.  Reading other works in the same genre by authors you like and dislike will provide examples to emulate, as well as to reject in your own work.  There are also reference materials that will broaden your ability to describe people and occurrences in an articulate manner appropriate to your genre.  You might begin by perusing your own reference library to ensure you have:  A couple of grammar-cramming style books such as The Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press Stylebook, which are standards.  You will also want to have a thesaurus or two, and a few dictionaries, including ones for foreign words or phrases you might use. 

Rich Palette of Images
Beyond these basics, consider how you can use Internet search engines and other materials.  One of the most interesting sources I’ve found is obituaries [see Shopping for Characters, May 12, 2015].  This is a great place to find physical descriptions of people, and to discover comprehensive biographic images and sometimes even the settings through which men and women of past generations walked.

Wishing you the best in your creative endeavors,
Jeanne Burrows-Johnson
author, narrator, design consultant, motivational speaker

Tips to enhancing your writing may be found in:
Empowering Your Words, February 2015
Creating Fictional Characters, March 2015
Sidestepping Writer’s Block, April 2015
Communicating with Every Sense, May 2015
Energizing Narrative Passages, September 2015
The Author Recycles, July 2017
Balancing Text & Space, February 2017
Book Series Adventures, April 2018
Drawing on Sense Memories, July 2018

To learn more about the Conversations with Auntie Carol, the Natalie Seachrist Mysteries, including Murders of Conveyance [Winner, Fiction Adventure-Drama, 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards], Island recipes and other projects, please visit my author website at JeanneBurrows-Johnson.com.

For more ideas to strengthen your Wordpower© and branding, please visit: Https://www.ImaginingsWordpower.com.

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Communicating with Every Sense

Sense Memory:  Words For The Eye and Palette

Are you communicating with all of your senses? The art of communication largely relies on visual and aural stimulation.
~  An author communicates with the written word.
~  A dancer creates a visual message with his or her body.
~  Actors and public speakers communicate with the spoken word and their bodies.

In the past, the sense of touch helped to share the message of written words, as finely tooled leather-bound tomes invited the reader’s fingers to trace the lettering on a book cover.  Even the sense of smell may be involved, as the carved leather fostered anticipation of the remarkable thoughts within. 

Today, all five of the senses of the writer’s audience may be involved through the communication tools of our multi-media civilization.  Beyond the realm of streaming radio and audio books, there are audio messages being sent into space that may not be heard for thousands or even millions of years.  We are also at the brink of attempts at smell- or taste-athon forms of entertainment. 

The goal of any communicator is to ensure that their readers, listeners, and/or viewers will respond positively to their message.  Sometimes the process for achieving this is straightforward, even mechanical.  At other times, the gathering of ingredients for connecting with one’s audience seems happenstance if not magical.

A successful advertising campaign is an example of how this process can work.  Most of us are accustomed to extending our minds beyond a limited promotional image and message to the full experience enjoyed when actually partaking of the featured product or activity.  Whether viewed in a full-page magazine ad or television commercial, the sight of a glistening golden turkey on a platter is expected to invoke memories of holiday feasts shared with our loved ones…rather than the reality of a studio of near-strangers focused on taking pictures of an artificial bird glued to a platter and painted with an oily brown glaze.

Sadly, the perception of truth can be more important than truth itself.  For example, I recall being instructed about the art of opening doors, shaking hands and kissing on stage.  I quickly learned that the natural ways of performing these tasks were irrelevant. The actors had to adjust their movements to make the audience feel comfortable with the actions necessary to theatrical performance.

To ensure our audience will be accepting of the images we have created, the artful wordsmith must do more than employ accurate vocabulary.  This is one reason that translation of text from one language to another is so difficult.  In fact, in addition to being an editorial process, it is a fine art.  Merely selecting a word that correctly describes something does not make it a successful choice:  The descriptive word you eventually choose must evoke the most appropriate image to both your genre and your audience.

Consider how you might employ the following words and phrases:  Azure, blue, and sapphire; highlighted, revealed, and shone down upon; bright, luminescent, and sunny; juicy, moist, and succulent; boar, ham, and pig.  Depending on the scene being described AND your audience, the text you compose from these words will differ.  While the word blue may be appropriate for an advertisement, a children’s book and a romance novel, the same cannot be said for luminescent, azure, and succulent.

As adults with sophisticated English vocabularies, we may envision immediately the magical sparkle of a luminescent sky and the moist deliciousness of a pork loin described as succulent. However, these word choices would be inappropriate for a children’s book intended for a beginning reader.  Our creative process may draw on a rich palette of images within our mind’s eye, but it must be tempered by the realities of the genre in which we are working.

Refining our writer’s palette is one of the most important authoring strategies we can employ, regardless of whether we are working on fiction or non-fiction projects.  In my work as a practitioner of the art and science of writing, I seek to create a juncture between language and the sensory organs.  I do this by striving to balance carefully chosen nouns and modifiers within an appropriate structure to provide my targeted audience with a rich sensory experience that they will accept within the current genre.  

There is, of course, no right or wrong decision in the scenarios you create as a writer.  The options are many.  The choices are yours.  But as you work on any project, consider the demographics, as well as the expressed responses of members of your audience.  In the end, your word selections should be guided by determining the effect you wish to create in each passage…

Wishing you the best in your creative endeavors,
Jeanne Burrows-Johnson
author, narrator, design consultant, motivational speaker

For examples of sample color palettes, please visit:  https://www.ImaginingsWordpower.com/color/plays_on_color.html

Further discussion of the nature and impact of color is provided at:
https://www.imaginingswordpower.com/wearing/wearing_your_brand.html

Tips to enhancing your writing may be found in:
Empowering Your Words, February 2015
Creating Fictional Characters, March 2015
Sidestepping Writer’s Block, April 2015
Communicating with Every Sense, May 2015
Energizing Narrative Passages, September 2015
The Author Recycles, July 2017
Balancing Text & Space, February 2017
Book Series Adventures, April 2018
Drawing on Sense Memories, July 2018

To learn more about the Conversations with Auntie Carol, the Natalie Seachrist Mysteries, including Murders of Conveyance [Winner, Fiction Adventure-Drama, 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards], Island recipes and other projects, please visit my author website at JeanneBurrows-Johnson.com.

For more ideas to strengthen your Wordpower© and branding, please visit: Https://www.ImaginingsWordpower.com.

FOLLOW ME:
Facebook
Amazon
Apple Books
Audible
Authors Den
Barnes and Noble
Blogarama
Book Bub
Cozy Mysteries-Unlimited
Good Reads
Hometown Reads
Midpoint
Smashwords