The best time to consider reaping extra benefits from your project—if not during the design process—is the moment you're done. At the end of a project, the content and design details are still fresh—for both you and your designer—reducing design time and errors. You also save money by grafting the original design concept, the most expensive line item in your design bill, to additional materials. But most important, you extend the life of your design and makes it available to a wider audience by adding additional avenues of delivering your message. If you're ready to coax some extra life from your projects, use the five ideas below to keep your content fresh and flowering.
Create a large-format color poster with an eye-catching image or essential message from your project. A colorful print of your home page or newsletter's cover can become a focal point on the wall in your reception area, as an element in your trade show display, or on an easel at your next corporate event. Have your poster mounted and laminated to extend its life at home or on the road.
Most design files are easily converted to PDF or Portable Document Format. These small cross-platform files preserve your original design's look without requiring special software, or original fonts and graphics. Not only are they a convenient way to archive your project, but a pdf of your new sales sheet can also be posted to your website, emailed, or burned to a cd. PDF files of web pages are often more printer-friendly than the original pages they're made from. They also provide a way to post detailed information without extensive web programming.
In addition to pdf proofs at each stage of your design project, WTW Design Group provides a pdf of the finished design as well.
When the job is done, make sure you have digital archive versions of text, images, and art—separate from the design files. Easy access to the individual elements of your design allow you to provide consistency through other channels and make you more likely to multiply your impact. For instance, add that bit of text and an image from your recent newsletter to a powerpoint presentation and a press release.
Each picture may well be worth 1,000 words, but where resolution is involved an image is usually only suited for one specific purpose. With web designs, make sure you get high-resolution process color versions of images if they are available. If you use them in a print project, they will look much better than their web counterparts. Print images should be sized to screen resolution and color, and saved in a web file format.
Even if you design your printed materials in a budget-conscious black and white, or black and one color, make sure to request color copies of all the images used in the design project. It is likely many of your images start out in color, and are converted to black and white during the design process. A little extra time from your designer can provide you with images that will look great on your website or in a digital slideshow.
So as you open that first carton of brochures or watch the hits on your website increase, think about these simple ways to harvest more from your designs and make them work harder than ever before.
