Wise & Young: The nuances of Gen-Y marketing, branding, advertising, trends, & more

Well if you haven’t read Seth Godin’s All Marketers are Liars, read it…now.

This great book isn’t technically about lying, but more about stories and the way companies craft these tales around their products so consumers feel connected emotionally and personally. However, I found it interesting to apply this concept to design.

Most people don’t realize that design can speak the same story, but hell of a lot quicker and stronger. Photos, colors, layout, and most importantly typography, all have an impact on the way the story is told to the consumers and since it is a visual medium it attacks the mind in a way a story would never be able to achieve. Furthermore, when walking around stores or surfing the internet, most products, services, and companies use typography so poorly that I’m surprised they are still around.

The companies that seem to have most problems are start-ups. It make sense to cut costs early on, so start-ups will skip design when instead they should focus at least a little time and money in that area to get some solid typography and maybe a concrete color scheme. One example of somebody that follow this model would be Flickr, who uses some clean, easy to read typography, but didn’t blow their whole budget on pulling it off.

Another example is a project we are working on here at Wise & Young, which is a confidential internet security company that affiliate markets all their services and products from their website. For each product and service on their website we branded them separately, but kept the entire look and feel connected to the overall company by using the same typography and color schemes. This created a sense that the company was a huge corporation with a huge staff and tons of technical support, but in reality it’s only three guys.

However, if the company is a success and doesn’t have the support, promises, or a great product, the whole thing comes crashing down. Design, especially great typography, just helps pull customers in right away by telling them a visual story which they can trust and feel confident about purchasing.