It's All Geek To Me - October 5th 2005

Do you Tattoo? by Ross Lasley When I was a young man, I didn't think tattoos were for me. That changed when I fell in love, though. My darling future wife had a serious "piece" on her back – a large colorful phoenix she had designed – and it was pretty appealing. When we traveled to Paris she suggested we get something to memorialize our trip, which is how I got my first and only Tattoo.

The Downtown Paris Tattoo shop was right out of a storybook – chain smoking Frenchmen in white coats sitting around waiting for the next customer. The important thing for us was that we have the same Tattoo and it be a reminder of our trip – so we did one of the most classic things you can do when getting ink.

We picked a design off the wall.

You know – that big wall covered with potential designs, just waiting for a customer to ask for “that Dragon” or “that Mom Heart” - this type of design selection is what is used by many graphic professionals.

If you go to your local print shop looking for invitations, they have a “wall” like this – a book to pick from. Sign makers usually have samples and photos of signs they have done in the past. The corporate branding, custom clothing department at Lands End has 18 fonts to choose from, and a dozen or so colors.

If you need to “get it done,” this type of Tattoo shop design process works very well. Simply select what you want from the samples and the item is produced.

This is completely different than having a logo done by a graphic artist. The actual final logo usually takes about 15 minutes to produce – but the real cost was the experience of the many versions, ideas, and the graphic designer’s time spent making the client feel comfortable with the concepts and final product.

If you’ve ever tried to get custom work like this done across the counter at your sign maker or print shop you probably know about the Tattoo Shop Problem. Just think about the young woman yelling across the counter at Staples about her wedding invitations – the clerk might eventually tell her that she needs a graphic artist to design the invites and to please come back when that is done.

A custom graphic experience is very different – and the attempt to get such services from a production line is always a problem.

You might be wondering by now what all this has to do with web design. This is one of the classic spots where web development projects go wrong.

KISS has never presented a series of design choices like a Tattoo shop – there is no need. The web itself is the biggest “wall” ever made – and more than once we have been asked to use something like the "round blue buttons" from one site, the "logo in the upper right" like another site, and the color scheme should be based on a corporate site the client admires.

This is picking off the wall, and for many people this is what they would do making a business card or letterhead for their business. The product is excellent, and many sites “designed” in this manner are wildly successful.

Most of the time when KISS makes a site, we are given a “brand standard” - the preexisting logo, fonts, and color scheme. We'll then match the existing corporate look and feel to achieve a uniform brand standard across all media.

There have been a few instances when KISS has created corporate identity packages – logos, fonts, and color schemes from scratch for clients.

A Web Development project goes wrong when the client gets confused about what they have purchased. It's the young woman getting upset in Staples when they can't make the silver bell on invitation #784 more curved. It's the sales guy being upset with his new “branded” T-Shirt when he simply selected font #12 and color #7.

I've seen all sorts of ways to sell graphic design – but a decent branding package will cost between three and fifteen thousand dollars. It is not a requirement of a successful website, but it is something almost all businesses do after a few years.

When building your site, be sure to understand the difference – yes, a web designer certainly can make “something” that will work well and be effective for you. In going this route you'll spend less money and get something wonderful – but it won't be a branding package you can use to have letterheads and brochures produced.

The job of a branding package is a different one, and while it is possible to buy both a branding package and a production job from one vendor, I’d recommend you save yourself lots of misery and keep the two tasks separate.