the Bold Blog

Robin is an artist, working in watercolor and ceramics and participating in the annual Hidden in the Hills Studio Tour. During this event, Cave Creek-area artists open their studios to the public, displaying, selling and demonstrating their craft.

It has been Robin's dream to reach a wider audience with her art – especially her whimsical watercolors of animals – by featuring it on items people can use.

The art of design

She was referred to Bold Avenue by her sister (one of our t-shirt clients), and, while she had some ideas about what she wanted, she was unsure of the best way to make it all happen. 

The good news? Making it happen is kind of our specialty.

We worked with her to find products that fit the bill: sturdy and roomy canvas shopping totes, wide aprons, and the right paper for her greeting cards (as well as a cost-effective way to print small quantities of 12 different card designs!). When a traditional calendar wouldn't work, we designed a new calendar format for her.

For each product, we created designs that would keep the focus on her gorgeous artwork, while making it sure it fit each medium and giving it a finished look.

The biggest challenge came in making Robin's series of calendar art – watercolors of Arizona animals with lessons to teach for each month of the year – into an actual calendar. 

Calendars, of course, are dated. And Robin was concerned about not selling all of her 2012 calendars before the end of the year. We didn't want to do anything that would make the calendars less functional or her art too small, but we did need to make sure her investment would last beyond the next couple months. 

After meeting with Robin, brainstorming, and researching calendar formats, I came up with a way to feature Robin's art on a reusable calendar. The art pages are all on the top half, which (similar to a regular wall calendar) you flip over each month to see the new page. On the bottom is a grid for the dates, which is dry erasable. Each month, you just flip the art page over, wipe off the old dates and write in the new ones. You can use it month after month, year after year. 

As Robin's words on the cover say, it's made to "take to heart and keep forever."

Starting this weekend, you can see Robin's art (originals, as well as calendars, cards, totes and aprons), along with the work of 144 other artists, on the self-guided Hidden in the Hills Studio Tour (Nov. 18-20, 25-27). You create your own tour route at http://www.sonoranartsleague.org/hidden.php. 

This post is adapted from some thoughts I shared with a web design client this week. I thought others getting a site designed might find this useful as well. 

Web vs. Print

One challenge of web design is that you can't control the medium.

With print, you can be much more precise, controlling font sizes, colors, layout, etc. We can sit down with Pantone color books and choose the perfect shade of green. The printed brochure will look the same to everyone you hand it to, because they are all viewing it via the printed page. 

Web design, on the other hand, is viewed via people's screens, which you have no control over!

Things that will vary for your site visitors:

• Monitor size - People may view your site on one of those older, squarish monitors or a 27-inch iMac or a laptop or even a phone.
• Monitor settings - Color varies from one screen to the next and adjusting color and brightness settings can make the same site look completely different.
• Browsers - Viewing a site in Firefox may not be the same as viewing it in Internet Explorer.
• Size/Text settings - People can change the default text size for their computer and/or zoom in and out on browser pages.
• Accessibility settings - People with visual impairments may be using screen readers or Braille terminals. 

Flexibility

Do you need to worry about how to accomplish all this? No! If you have a good web designer, they'll know that the best way to deal with all these variables is to create a website design that is flexible.

Rather than trying to control every detail, we create a good design with the flexibility to work in a wide variety of situations.

So you can stop worrying about...

1. Exact text size. Don't think "14 pt." Think "large."
2. Exact color. Don't think of picking the perfect crayon from a huge box. Think of choosing the best fit from the 16-pack. 
3. Scrolling.* Don't focus on what you need to scroll to see, focus on the whole page and overall layout. Some people may not need to scroll to see everything; others may need to scroll even more than you do. 

In other words, you can stop worrying about controlling every aspect of your site, and think of the big picture: Is it easy to navigate? Does it communicate your message? Does the look and feel reflect your organization?

Once you've found a web designer you can trust, take a deep breath and don't sweat the small stuff. 

*You may have heard the expression "above the fold," which comes from the term for the top half of the newspaper page - the place for the most important headlines. Since web pages obviously do not fold in half like newspapers, "above the fold" in web design refers to the part of the page you do not have to scroll to see. However, as I mentioned above, there is such a variety of devices (and settings) that people may view your site on nowadays that you can really make the argument that there is no fold.

A couple months before the new Gangplank opened up in Tucson, I headed south to deliver their first order of Gangplank t-shirts in person, tour their space and tweetup with Tucson Gangplankers-to-be.

Gangplank Tucson's Grand Opening is today. While I'm unable to be there, I wish them all the very best, and I'm excited to see this new community grow!

More photos from our September #teesfortucson trip on Flickr.

For various reasons, including my blogging hiatus, there are some great projects from awhile back I haven’t posted yet. I’ll be catching you up on the work we’ve done for Alan Dayley’s Agile coaching business (Dayley Agile) in 3 posts. This is the first one.

One thing that sets Dayley Agile apart from many other Agile coaches is a focus on human interactions and communication. Teams are made up of people, and, therefore, helping them work together better is an organic process not a mechanical one. 

With this is in mind, I knew we needed to create a logo that would be organic and out of the box. It would need to appeal both to people familiar with Agile and Scrum, as well as those who had only heard the terms in passing, since Dayley Agile’s audience would include both groups.

I explored metaphors from nature, communication and Agile- and Scrum-related terms. I also looked at diagrams used to represent the Scrum process.

While there were a few directions we could have gone with the logo, the one that resonated showed the image of a vine growing out of a box. It symbolizes growth, organic processes, out-of-the-box thinking.

Besides just being the way vines sometimes grow, the loop in the logo is also inspired by diagrams used to illustrate Scrum sprints. It’s a subtle wink to Scrum practitioners, while being able to stand on its own for coaching clients new to Agile and Scrum concepts.

Last week AIGA (the professional association for design) held their national design conference here in Phoenix, Arizona. 

I left the conference with some new (and renewed) connections, a bag of swag and a lot of interesting concepts to ponder. 

How do we anticipate change, adapt to it, and even embrace it? 

Are designers the ones to help society through transition and tackle its challenges?

How do we design more sustainably and more responsibly?

Do things naturally tend toward order or chaos? Or both? Are both necessary for creativity?

...just to mention a few. 

And, on a lighter note, how do you sort through all the stuff - physical artifacts, as well as ideas and discussions - that you come away with after an event like this? Do you have a process to process it all?

More of photos of the AIGA Pivot Conference and Phoenix Design Museum Opening on Flickr.

When we started working with Wildcog, they already had a few of the ingredients for their t-shirt design, but they weren't sure how they wanted it all put together. In addition to their logo, they sent us the definition of cognition (which is what puts the “Cog” in Wildcog). They also mentioned that they liked the Gangplank t-shirts. 

Based on our conversation, I sketched out a few ideas for them and then presented them with 4 concepts that represented the look they were going for. 

In fact, they are so happy with the final product that they're already ordering more! 

I've mentioned Gangplank merch before. I've also discussed how we manage vendors to maintain our commitment to quality. But I still get a lot of questions about our part in the Gangplank t-shirts.

So, today, I thought I'd tell you the story:

Once upon a time there was a collaborative workspace in Chandler, Arizona called Gangplank. Gangplank had (has!) a lot of fans – the kind of fans who want to show their support in t-shirt form.

Long before we got involved, someone (I believe it was designer Matthew Butson) created a design for the future Gangplank tees.

The first printer Gangplank took the design to didn't work out so well. They weren't happy with the quality of the printing or service they were receiving. 

Since Bold Avenue was already supplying embroidered hats to the Gangplank store, Director of Operations Katie Charland shared her t-shirt challenges with me.

I did some brainstorming and offered Katie several solutions. She was excited to hear that we could provide quality screen printing on small runs of shirts for a reasonable cost.

And, thus, it came to pass that Bold Avenue began supplying the Gangplank t-shirts, as well. 

But that's not the end. 

The shirts went over so well that we also helped Gangplank choose the perfect women's tees for the store (super soft, lightweight Bella t-shirts), as well as men's and women's polos for Gangplank mentors. 

Gangplankers continue to order tees and hats via gangplankhq.com/store. Katie groups these into a monthly(ish) order. We handle the embroidery and printing, check quality and sizes, and deliver them to Gangplank.

Now Gangplank has a cost-effective way to get quality merch to their fans, and Gangplank fans have tees and hats they love. 

Everybody wins! (And, hopefully, lives happily ever after!)

As important as regular blogging is (even when we're busy), sometimes it has to take a backseat to other priorities.

Recently, I took a break from the Bold Blog. I wanted to stop talking about what we do for a bit and focus on how to do it better. 

I tackled questions like these: How can we estimate more efficiently? Keep projects moving? Make our clients' lives easier? Can all these individual processes fit together into one streamlined system? 

It was good to step back and look at the big picture. I found ways ways to reduce redundancy and improve customer service. While we're still transitioning, many of these changes have already been implemented. 

So even though this growth process isn't finished (is it ever?), we're on track to the point that I'm ready to blog again and resume my regular Wednesday posting schedule.

In fact, we might even throw in a few extra posts over the next few weeks to help you catch up on everything that's been going on. 

A.

Our project load generally fluctuates from steady to busy to crazy busy. Things are rarely slow at Bold Avenue.

But are we too busy to talk to you? Too busy to follow up with clients? Too busy to keep an eye on the details?

Nope, nope and nope!

We take care not to overschedule, so that we have time to answer current clients' questions, meet with people, keep current on industry trends, and maintain the standard of quality that defines a Bold Avenue project. That way, even when we're booked, we're still giving each person and project the attention they deserve.

On April 30, I partcipated in LaidOffCamp Phoenix as a volunteer, speaker and sponsor (providing volunteer buttons). The free, one-day event provides people looking for work (full-time employment or freelance) with information and resources to help them find it.

The event had a LOCPHX record of 330 attendees at the Chandler Community Center. The day's workshops were divided into 5 tracks: finding a job, starting your own business, community building/networking, surviving layoff, and tools. Attendees were encouraged to stay connected after the event via LinkedIn and Twitter.

I snapped a few quick photos with my phone (visit the set on Flickr to see my notes)...

My talk, "Branding on a Small Business Budget," was part of the small business track, but most of my points could apply to individual/personal branding, as well. There were several great questions from the audience after the talk, so we got to discuss additional branding and design issues that were on people's minds.