Following the same blog theme – we
will now look effective visual content for company documents, reports, manuals
or promotional literature.
Tip 3: VISUAL COMMUNICATION
The real message here is that you
could have a real competitive advantage if you are able to break down the
service or product visually.
Images of your product do much more
to communicate than lots of words – as long as they are relevant.
Always try to appeal to the visual
(emotional) as well as the written (logical) senses.
When Direct2Print started operation
in 2003 we tried to visually convey the concept as the “Direct2Print Cycle” order
process on our promotional materials and on the web site.
What’s Your Budget? - Internal or
External Communication?
The previous
two postings related to the importance of a headline and the copy and how it
should be applied across both internal and external printed
communications. We are now at a point
where budgets play a key part in decision making for the visual options for all
printed materials.
Budgetary
constraints are more common with internal literature, like training manuals or
forms than the more “glamorous” external communications like brochures,
newsletters, annual reports or leaflets.
And yet,
research consistently shows that effectiveness of all forms of printed
communications is considerably improved with the use of colour, charts,
photographs, and histograms.
Whatever
your project – visual images and the use of colour can assist in the
effectiveness of your communication.
PowerPoint
slides are particularly colour intensive and yet the same slides lack the same
clarity and impact when printed in mono.
Because
printing from PowerPoint is so toner thirsty – online document printing was
given a big boost because it reduced the printed page cost and the speed of
printing sets of presentations for both internal and external communications.
The Impact of Colour Choice
Colour within
documents can often be the difference between success and failure. Whether used for a sales proposal, a tender
or simply to convey a message. Colour
improves clarity and retention of the information.
Research by
Xerox concluded that colour improves impact and recall by up to 80% for all
types of printed materials. Training
materials in colour can accelerate learning and improve recall by up to
78%. In direct mail alone it has been
shown to improve response rates by up to 23%. Even in the area of financial
communications, colour has been shown to contribute towards the faster payment
of invoices.
One thing to
avoid is the overuse of colour in a document because it will lose all interest
value. Another point is to remember who
is likely to be reading the material. Restaurant menus are difficult to read in
low lighting and remember that 8% of us have some form of colour blindness –
most commonly red and green together.
Colours need
to work well together. There are no good
or bad colours. Hue determines the basic
colour. Saturation refers to the amount
of grey in the colour. Luminosity refers to the whiteness or intensity of the
colour.
Blue has been
the most popular colour in the logo design and business printing we have
supplied over the last 30 years.
Blue has the
qualities of appearing as business-like, strong, trustworthy and authoritative
and yet at the same time can also appear as cold, depressing and gloomy. Yet, when combined with a second colour,
like yellow or red, it can work well because it adds some warmth to the design.
Every colour
can have a negative or positive effect depending on the context and how they
evoke responses. The table below acts a simple guide to some of the other
primary colours.
COLOUR POSITIVE NEGATIVE
White
|
Clean, Innocent, Pure
|
Cold, Empty, Sterile
|
Red
|
Strong, Brave, Passionate
|
Dangerous, Aggressive, Domineering
|
Yellow
|
Happy, Friendly, Optimistic
|
Cowardly, Annoying, Brash
|
Brown
|
Warm, Earthy, Mature
|
Dirty, Sad, Cheap
|
Green
|
Natural, Tranquil, Relaxing
|
Jealous, Inexperienced, Greedy
|
I remember
when I entered the printing industry in 1992. Branding played a big part of the
decision-making process. First impressions are often based upon the impact of
colour.
In my case,
the choice was between the orange of Prontaprint or the blue and red of
Kall-Kwik. The orange appealed more at
the time.
Yet, within
a few years it was decided that this was not an effective “digital” colour and
at great expense a decision was made to re-brand in red and blue. Whilst at the same time two of the most successful
early digital brands Orange and Easyjet launched with a very effective “digital”
orange corporate branding.
So it is
never clear cut. Colours are capable of much variation – some combinations work
and some just don’t – for whatever reason!
As a
compromise I currently use orange in my Direct2Print document and digital
printing website (www.direct2print.net) and blue and red in my Direct2Print
Business Centre Retail (www.direct2print.co.uk) and blue and light blue in my offset
litho print Direct2PrintOnline (www.direct2printonline.co.uk) websites!
The Impact of Photographs
Some say a
photograph can be worth a thousand words. But some pictures don’t say one word
– never mind a thousand!
Does your
customer really need to see your flashy new office or an expensive piece of
machinery to make an informed decision? Does
the photo add anything to the message?
Your
audience is only interested in relevant content. If you want them to visit your
office and look over your machinery in the factory - then fine! But always think about the purpose of the
photograph before including it within the design.
With modern
cameras and software even novices can be really creative with special effects,
for example, the use of zoom for exploded views of a product.
When we are
supplied with photographs for printing we are sometimes surprised that the
quality can be so poor.
Common
errors include:
- · Very poor resolution – usually RGB screen resolution of 72dpi rather than CMYK print resolution of 300dpi.
- · Very little contrast or colour saturation – supplied without any cropping or enhancement software editing.
- · Often a lack of interest – even showing people who are actually using the product, enjoying themselves would add to the image you are trying to project!
- · Trying to include lots of tiny images rather than fewer, better quality and larger photos. This is particularly important for a “cover” photograph on a brochure.
For some
services or products there may be no alternative than to turn to the services
of a professional photographer. For
example, we printed a brochure of a building product that was used the protect
the inner wall surface of chimneys – to get a meaningful photograph the
professional was required and needed to supply special climbing equipment and
lighting to get the right sort of images we needed.
If you can’t
provide your own quality photographs or afford a professional then there is a
wealth of available image stock libraries for virtually anything you would ever
require at a very reasonable cost and free of any copyright.
Using low
quality, pixelated images downloaded from a web site or from a camera phone may
not always reflect the type of image you are wishing to project.
We will
cover photography for printing in a later Blog Article.
The Impact of Charts, Maps and
Histograms
I worked
briefly for one of the world’s leading (and most expensive) strategic
management consultancies on a Pan-European project for one of the world’s
largest companies. English is the business language but no text reports were
allowed.
Every
printed presentation had to be converted into a visual format in the form of a
flow chart, bar chart, histogram or pie chart.
Lots of words would have just ended up in the top drawers of the senior
executives, who were all busy people.
Colourful
diagrams all tend to point the reader in the right direction and aid
memory. One of the best pieces of design
is the London Underground map. It bears
little resemblance to a true map but it is symmetrical and memorable. It was designed over 50 years ago and it is still
easier to understand and follow than most other public transport maps from around
the world!
Conclusion
There is an
old adage that says we make decisions emotionally and then try to justify them
with logic.
Considerable
research has been made to determine the relative importance of emotional or
logical factors in our comprehension and decision making.
There is no
doubt that emotional senses are influenced by appearance, colour and
photography.
Like good
copy – your visual presentation should have a logical flow and re-enforce the
message.
Never judge
a book by its cover? Maybe not, but it
influences whether you pick it off the shelf to give it a chance.
Chris Jepson Google+
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