Every so often, we have projects where an envelope needs to be designed to match a letterhead or an invitation. Other parts of a design project can be free from rules and regulations, but the design space on an envelope is much more rigid. The Post Office is very particular about the layout of envelopes due to machines doing most of the processing and sorting these days. There are certain areas on an envelope that needs to be clear of background color, graphics and type. This can be a real challenge for a designer.

The envelope is the first piece that is seen and needs to compel a person to open it, yet space is so limited to convey a message other than a logo and return address. The San Diego Museum of Art Art Alive invitation envelope is a great example of keeping the branded look and feel of this years’ Art Alive, yet still meeting postal regulations. The pink area indicates the space that is off-limits for type and design.

For information and templates on envelopes, go to USPS.com. You can also find the Mailpiece Design Analyst contact information where you can send an envelope design to see if it meets mailing regulations. Do this before the job is printed and rejected by the post office. It will save you lots of time and money.

We are served advertising continuously in so many forms. But whether advertising gets our attention or not can depend on an undervalued element: white space. This is the areas between type and images in a magazine ad or web page, etc., that is blank.  And when it is used well, white space can automatically increase the design aesthetic.

White space provides a balance in the design, a place for the eyes to rest, and accentuates the product and messaging in the layout.

This VW campaign was launched in 1959 by ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach and uses white space brilliantly. Some advertisers want to fill every square inch of purchased space with type and graphics because they have the inaccurate idea they are getting the most bang for their buck. Trying to wedge too much content into a layout can lead to advertising that gets little or no attention, basically a waste of ad dollars, since building brand awareness and moving people to buy products is the goal in advertising.

We’ve seen that it takes creativity and courage to say yes to white space but that it can pay off. Sometimes less is more.

Creative work has begun on The San Diego Museum of Art’s primary fundraiser Art Alive, which will be held April 29 through May 2. We are revamping last year’s ideas while staying within the tight, non-profit budget. Below are a few tips for producing something wonderful when financial resources are low.

Tips for a low-budget photo shoot

• Keep the ideas simple. Extravagant ideas are usually expensive ideas. To make it simple, go with a clear concept and minimal props.

• Plan ahead and be very organized. This will help you be efficient with your time, which can be costly to your client as well.

• Use the heck out of interns (they live for it and an intern with their own camera is a big advantage). Interns often have fresh ideas, are hungry for the experience and best of all, cost little to nothing to the client. With the direction of an art director or designer, they can be a huge asset to the photo shoot process.

• Go with wholesale purchases of props. For this shoot, we went to a wholesale florist to get all of our props. It will save you a bundle.

• Do the photo shoot outdoors. We chose to shoot in my front yard where we could use the plants and flowers already there as additional props.

• Take an abundance of photographs (more than you think you’ll need) so there are plenty of options at the end.

• Do most of the creative production in Photoshop. This is where you have the opportunity to make a low-budget photoshoot look like a multi-million dollar production.

Some of my co-workers were not even born when I first picked up an exacto knife and started doing pasteup on my Junior High year book in 8th grade. I have a boat load of traditional, old school, graphic design experience which comes in handy, even in this era of computer/internet everything.

Here, at Bailey Gardiner, a San Diego advertising agency, it seems we are focused primarily on everything internet, however, not all of the work we do is about cutting edge social media and advertising on the web. There are creative projects we produce for clients that are more traditional in nature. The technology to produce them has changed, but it still takes time and experience. One of these projects is the Membership Magazine for The San Diego Museum of Art. Here’s the process I used for designing the magazine:

The magazine is 22 pages plus a 4 to 8 page Program Guide insert. The content is written, edited and provided by the Museum. I take the copy and images and design each page. I have a certain amount of graphic content and room to arrange it on each page. This part of the process is like working on a very large jigsaw puzzle and takes about 30 hours to complete. I also make design suggestions for the background colors of each issue. As I am creating the design, I set up the magazine mechanicals to be printer ready. This includes:

• Working within short- and long-term deadlines
• Building mechanicals in InDesign to correct size with bleeds
• Formatting the type to follow the design format
• Eliminating True Type fonts
• Sizing, cropping, color correcting and retouching photographs
• Formatting all content from RGB to CMYK
• Deleting all extraneous colors
• Proofreading. (The magazine mechanicals go back to the Museum for at least 4 rounds of proofreading by over 20 people)
• Making revisions which sometimes includes redesigning pages
• Making print outs and actual dummies of the magazine to check design consistency
• And, finally, after a sign-off from the client, I output the job by doing final proofreading checks, pre-flight checks, gathering files and delivering to the printer

The entire production process takes about 10 weeks from start of writing to the mail house delivering the final pieces to the 12,000 members of The San Diego Museum of Art.

I use a computer instead of an exacto knife these days and it still takes skill and dedication to produce a traditional graphic design print project.

Speaking of creativity, this Häagen Daz web site caught my attention for its clever cross pollination of advertising ice cream and generating public awareness on the alarming disappearance of the Honey Bee. You can also create your own animated Honey Bee to email. Here’s my creation. You can make one too. Oh, and I’m really craving a bowl of Vanilla Swiss Almond ice cream right now. Darn it.

  This morning I attended my first (ever) Toastmasters meeting with my co-worker Jamie. She was inducted into Toastmasters today and gave her first speech to the group which is called an Ice-Breaker and despite her anxiety she did very well. Actually she came away from the meeting with the Best Speaker blue ribbon. Thank you, Jamie for inviting me to step out of my comfort zone into the world of public speaking. I really enjoyed the group energy and did not feel anxious or intimidated even when I was called upon to introduce myself and use the word of the day – magnanimous – in my introduction or when I was tagged to spontaneously speak about the Table Topic. I did well, too. I was given Best Table Topics award. By the way, saying magnanimous (partial meaning is to be generous or forgiving) is like speaking with marbles and cotton in your mouth.  

It’s very simple. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These are ink (pigment) colors. When they are all mixed together they create black (subtractive color model). CMYK relates to printing. RGB stands for red, green and blue. These are colors of light. When all 3 colors are mixed together they create white (additive color model). RGB color is used to display images on television, computers and theatrical lighting.