Email signature faux pa?

I'm the kind of guy that prefers to receive plain text emails. I know, sounds odd right? You'd expect a creative-minded person to want to receive the all frills version. I'm more into getting to the meat of the email, and don't care to wait for the cute little images and backgrounds to load.

It's been a general email faux pa to use images (be it logos or that cute little animated bunny you're so crazy about) in signatures. The problem with email is that all clients render the email differently. It might look neat on your end, but what does the recipient see? Usually a mess.

As you can see, my plain text email signature is very clean. I like my clients to be able to get the info they need, and in an uncluttered, very clean way. This is not to say that I will not design someone an email signature with logos. It's very possible to get away with a little bit of customization, but just don't go crazy.

Another tip is to not attach the images that you use within your signature to the email. This is tacky. Make sure these images are posted on a web server, and you modify the signature code to point to these locations. This will speed up the download time, and increase your recipient's readability of the email. So have fun. Just don't go crazy.

This has been today's clarified butter.

The new breed of designers (and their practices)

When I first started in the graphic design business I was fresh out of my Junior year of high school. By chance I applied for a position with AlphaGraphics in their lasergraphics department. I was paid minimum wage, while they took in $75 for every hour I worked.

Now, mind you, this was several years ago... even before the advent of America Online. Customers would physically drive to our store, bring hard copies of logos, photos, content, etc. for us to paste up (I actually was trained by a seasoned AlphaGraphics employee who was very skilled in the lost art of paste up). We would advise them that their proof would be available within 24 hours, which would require them to drive back to the store to follow up. We would generally make changes while they waited, but this would depend upon the current customer load in the store at that time. Artwork would be provided to the customer or our printshop in hardcopy "camera ready" artwork.

Boy have things changed.

ProGravix receives orders via our website, email or other electronic method. Very rarely do we receive requests via phone (nor do we follow with changes via phone). Once the order comes in, we begin working on it as soon as our schedule allows. Generally within a few hours an initial proof is developed, and made available through our online proofing system. Changes are requested via email, with those changes being made within an hour, and made available for online proofing again. Once the artwork is approved, artwork files are made available via an easy to use download service. Certainly we can mail you artwork on CD (or DVD) if you prefer, and that service is free. A very small percentage of clients actually need artwork delivered via mail, and is usually indicative of projects where the final artwork files are several hundred megabytes.

We do not offer in-house printing like AlphaGraphics, but then again we are not a printshop. We are a digital design shop. This is a clear distinction that should be made. Everything we do is digital, which in turn allows us to provide artwork to printshops in digital form. Sure we work closely with a few printshops that we prefer, but that doesn't mean you must use them.

Obviously we create things that are intended to be shared with others, and when web design is not involved, sharing means physical media to physically broadcast. Brochures, letterhead, ads, etc. These all need to get printed. If you need helping in getting your print order rolling as well, let us know. We'd be glad to help. And oh, by the way, we don't make a dime in doing so.

This has been today's clarified butter.

Serve your community, and they will serve you

We have been tapped a lot recently to share our creative skills pro bono publico. I don't mind really, I find it as a great way to get our name out. Many may not know this, but ProGravix does not advertise. At least not in the sense you think. We have a purely word-of-mouth client base, and I personally enjoy that. This means that we get a client that wants to use us, and not just because they didn't know where else to turn. Sure, we get a few stragglers from Google now and then, but for the most part, our work comes from happy clients.

For example, we did a logo for Four Seasons Photography. She liked our work so much, she shared a link to our logo design promotion on a photography forum. The result? We were almost sick with logo designs for photographers. Certainly a challenge, but a few dozen extremely creative logos came of it.

Another client I have been working with for years now has decided to share our name with some of the most forward thinking companies in his industry. The result? Dozens of water industry manufacturers, magazines, and organizations needing a purified dose of our clean creative style. Nimbus, for example, has already tapped us for two website redesigns, several product logos, labels, brochures, white sheets, advertisements and product specification sheets.

So word-of-mouth is good. Oh, and so is pro bono work.

This has been today's clarified butter.

Save a slice for me

Okay, it was not my intention to create another post with a pie-esque slant, so forgive me.

One of today's graphic design projects was to create a fillable PDF. I'm sure you've experienced these before, the IRS has been using them for years to ease tax paperwork (and reduce calculation errors). They allow a user to enter field data in the form right on the computer, flushing the lost art of actual readable penmanship. The problem with fillable PDFs is that the end-user cannot save the form. They are limited to printing the form only, when using the free Adobe Reader. Certainly there is a solution, but it comes at a price. For Mac user's there is an easy (read free) solution. Since the migration to UNIX based OS X, every release of ten allowed you to print to a PDF file from any OS X application. Obviously you'd need to use Preview since Adobe Reader does not allow you "re-save" a PDF file, even if you are printing it. Your result will be a completed PDF file that you can send off via email. (Sorry Windows users, there is no such embedded solution for your platform.)

The question is, what kind of pie would a fillable PDF be? I'd guess Apple. And not French Apple either. Good 'ole American Apple Pie. Save a slice for me.

So yes. We create fillable PDF files, and you'd be surprised at just how cheap it is.

This has been today's clarified butter.

Meat and Potatoes

Having recently completed another successful tax year here at ProGravix, I decided to do a little in-house research. I was interested in learning more about the income trends of our business. Not to my surprise, web development lead the pack, with over 60% of all revenues. Now, surprisingly, next in line was video services. I had assumed for many years that graphic design followed a close second to web development. Quite honestly, the majority of our web development projects come from clients satisfied with the skill of our graphic design. With over 20% credited to video services, graphic design scraped the barrel, barely eking out miscellaneous fees (such as media and burn charges).

Now, in all fairness, I didn't lump logo design into graphic design. Seems that the majority of logos I do are for websites anyways. That's not to say that the web design category took advantage, they held their own piece of the pie chart, umm... pie. In addition to that, logos have always been a promotional item (going all the way back to $18 ebay auctions). Sure, their $50 now, but I still get people befuddled by the low price, worrying that it's too good to be true. Well, I can confirm, after thousands of orders, it's possibly the best deal out there. (I know, I know... but I need to plug a little.)

By the way... my name is Drew Lamont, and I am owner of ProGravix Digital Design. This has been today's clarified butter.