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The ReImagining of SOFII

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

It was very early this year when I saw a tweet go out from Kimberley MacKenzie about SOFII.

I, like many others knew about SOFII. I was a registered user and once in a while would check it out if I had some time to kill. I LOVED the idea behind SOFII.
To have a online, living and breathing museum of fundraising that I could access anytime – FOR FREE! – was almost too good to be true. And in a way it was.

I found it largely unusable. [EDIT: To clarify this statement, I found that due to varying navigation and overload of links and images, SOFII, for me, was hard to use as a tool.]

Kimberley described SOFII to me as “a fundraising conference every day“.

SOFII founder Ken Burnett describes it as: “…an archive, a historical record, a repository of wisdom, tips and insights and also hopefully a stimulus to new innovation too. It’s much more than just a stimulus to new ideas though, important though that function is.”

SOFII is a great idea in theory but in practice, was it working?

Ken Burnett acknowledged it might be working, but it could work far better. A redesign and overhaul was on the table for 2009 and I knew I wanted to be a part of that.

Full disclosure – I knew to have my name attached to a project as important as SOFII would be fantastic. To be able to work closely with Ken to help redefine and re-imagine a site like SOFII would be a great communications and design challenge and, I hoped, would expose the work my firm is doing to fundraisers from all around the world.

I offered up the skills and experiences of my partner Mark Haak and I to Ken, and hoped they would let us help.

I knew that the most important thing, the make it or break it moment of the new SOFII would have little to do with design and more to do with its functionality.

The content on SOFII is, in a word, phenomenal. The problem is how to find it. There are so many links and graphics on every page it is difficult to know where to go to find what you want.

The current site also has a search function but it still requires a bit of work to find what you might be looking for.

So we knew from the “get go” we had to make the site functional, clean up the navigation and design and build in stronger search functionality.

The other thing I wanted to do is give SOFII a new logo that hopefully better represented the spirit behind the site.

I remember an early conversation with Ken. It was important that he knew we were both on the same page about what we wanted from the site, and to make sure he fully understood how we were approaching this redesign.

A philosophy,that obviously wasn’t ours, but we preach to our clients all the time is: WE put the donors at the center of everything we do – which means – we make sure whatever we are designing or writing or asking for is appropriate to that audience, will make sense to them, and puts their needs ahead of everyone else’s.

As I explained to Ken – we were approaching this rebuild in a VERY user-centered way. It needed to work for the user.

So starting with form of the site we broke it downtown into, what we felt were the most important elements of the site and presented this wireframe to Ken and Carolina Herrera.

We knew that most people were coming to the site to look at the exhibits and maybe catch up on the latest news.The search functionality was front and center – it had to be. We wanted people to find the things they might be looking for from anywhere they were on the site.

Trying to organize the exhibits in a way that might be obvious or intuitive to the user was largely one the biggest communication challenges. Especially as we started looking at how exhibits were classified. But ultimately, upon the relaunch and testing by users like you, we will know if we succeeded or not.

My brain was also working on the logo.

I remember I was sitting in a session by Kimberley MacKenzie at Fundraising Day in Toronto this past spring, where she was presenting a session about SOFII. And while listening to her talk and the feedback from the audience (about 95% of whom had never heard of SOFII), my brain kept repeating one statement.

Inspiration leads to innovation.

Of course, it says that there on the SOFII main page:

But to me, the inspiration needs to come first right?

I doodled a couple ideas at the conference which I later mocked up and sent to Ken to consider.

After circulating to some of his SOFII ambassadors, the feedback was that the light bulb just wasn’t cutting it.

The logo needed to say inspiration and without going into a long drawn out ramble about the process we came up with a few more solutions.

Which lead to the selection of the final logo.

So once we had our wireframe approved we moved onto the design. Again, our desire was to keep the site functional and to hopefully make sense to the user as to where they need to go to find the things they might need.

Ken really pushed us to make sure the images on the exhibit pages could be displayed as big as possible so we revised the layout of those pages.

Upon approval, it was time to move onto programming and migration. This whole site rebuild would not have been possible without the incredibly hard work and dedication of our programmer Dean Reeds from Open Web Group.

As we often do, as we started migrating the content from the existing site into the new site, Dean made many video tutorials of the “how-to’s” so he could train Carolina on how to insert new exhibits and articles moving forward, and fortunately due to Dean’s hard work, that process is as simple as creating a word document.

Here are a few more screen caps of the site:
Site map:

Create exhibit:

Articles:

So what’s next?

SOFII has been on a bit of a fundraising drive because there are costs associated to running a site like this. And if you have a moment take a look at this video and then contact Kimberley if you would be able to give something to keep a resource as important as SOFII up and running and moving forward.

We are hoping to relaunch just in time for the new year. I was speaking to Sean Triner this past week about a selecting a few of the current users to act as beta testers to find any cracks that might still exist when it goes live and after the testing is complete, and we’ve made our final tweaks we will be releasing SOFII 2.0 out to you and the world.

A site like SOFII has a lot of potential for growth, and we have some ideas already for version 3.0 which will continue to make it a one of a kind and massively important resource for any fundraiser in the world.

Obviously, if you haven’t already, go to sofii.org and register as a user. Then send it to 10 people you know in our sector and ask them to join.

The success of this site will always require the support of its users. Users like you.

Thanks for your help and support.

Posted in Basic Design, Case Study, Inspiration, Two Cents | 8 Comments »

Attention all lawyers

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Attention all lawyers,
Great case for you newer grads or those lawyers looking to pad their experience list.
We are a small firm who wants to sue Microsoft and its board for being responsible for producing some of the crapiest software through the years for mac users like us.
We need your help to prepare our case and file for action.
The lawyer who comes up with a solid case and pulls together all the facts and papers and such, the best, we will pay $100.
Good luck and tell all of your best lawyer friends to respond as well!
Love, Idea Design.

No, I jest. This isn’t for real. In “real life” we would never ask a pool of lawyers to do work without proper compensation would we?
This is a issue that I feel really strongly about. The issue of spec work. (I written about it here before as well.)
Sadly, I hear about this issue far too often in our sector and as a creative person who values what I, and my creative colleagues offer to this sector – I take exception.
And let’s not confuse pro-bono with work being done on speculation.
I do a lot (too much) of pro bono work – where I either offer my services at no cost to the charity or I am asked to offer my services for a specific task.
Compare that to a charity or business looking for designers, or writers or whoever, to provide a service for free and if they like it, maybe they will pay for it.
I really want to ask you – please do not do this.
That means no “contests” for new logos, or “open calls” for web site redesign ideas…
This is a great site called NO! SPEC which I invite you to check out for further education and reading.
Poster by Chad Behnke.

EDIT: I posted this post over at the Communication Arts group on LinkedIn and have been astounded at the comments that have been pouring in. The consensus seems to be it would take an industry of people to say no to see this type of work go away but sadly, I think that there will always be those who try to take advantage of those desperate for work. I plan on posting this in some of the Fundraising groups in LinkedIn. I don’t expect the same level of commenting but would love to hear from you about this issue nonetheless.

I leave you with: (some of this sounds way to familiar to me…)

Posted in Basic Design, Two Cents | 2 Comments »

Direct Mail Tips from @johnbethel

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

I’ve been following copywriter John Bethel for a short while on twitter and recently he has been randomly publishing a bunch of direct mail tips for your next appeal – take a look.

Direct mail letter tip: Tell a real story & weave it throughout your entire letter.

Direct mail tip: Mixing typeset w/handwritten teasers on outer envelope can boost response.

Direct mail tip: For your next No.10 envelope mailing, test using No.11 or No.12 against it.

Direct mail tip: Place the name of the person signing letter above the corner card on carrier envelope in courier typeface.

Direct mail tip: When using No.11 or 12 carrier envelopes, make sure you also use larger carrier window.

Direct mail letter tip: “You” & “Your” most important. And type “I” instead of “we” most of the time. Keeps it a 1-to-1 communication.

Direct mail letter tip: Occasionally use 1-sentence paragraphs for emphasis. Even 1-word paragraphs are great.

Direct mail letter tip: Hook your paragraphs together with “connective” words – ex: And But Then Why – to build & keep reader moving.

Direct mail letter tip: Try using “handwritten” marginal notes in blue or red ink.

Copywriting tip: Read your draft copy ALOUD & anywhere u stumble, revise & smooth it out.

Direct Mail letter Tip: Write about a real live person — NOT just your mission statement or programs.

Direct Mail Tip: When using hand-written copy — be sure to keep it short (hard to read otherwise).

Direct Mail TIP: Giving a deadline date for reply can boost response, but give a believable reason for it.

Thanks John for these great tips. I look forward to doing a part 2!

Posted in Basic Design, Testing, direct mail | 6 Comments »

Just Go Font Yourself

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Oh – maybe that sounds worse than it was I meant it to. Wouldn’t be the first time I suppose.
I wanted to tell you about a great guy who does great things and has helped charities like yours likely raise some serious money. And you’ve probably never heard of him.
His name is: CHANK. Chank Diesel. (#24 on the coolest name ever list.)
Years ago when I was working at Stephen Thomas, we encountered a problem over and over. We wanted the direct mail packs we were doing to look more homemade and handwritten without having to hire or find a bunch of volunteers to spend countless hours getting wrist cramps and writing out donors addresses on outer envelopes.
ENTER CHANK.
Chank creates fonts for a living. Not only that, but Chank has helped me create a number of fonts to use for clients like you!
Check these out:

Having your handwriting turned into a font allows me to create art that looks like it has really come from the hand of the ED or whoever you want.

I’m sure you are starting to get a sense of the possibilities.
And Chank has been gracious enough to make a special deal (only $149 US) for my readers and followers right here: https://www.chank.com/gofontyourself/
Thanks a ton Chank! And keep up the amazing work.
Hopefully once you have your font in hand, you’ll come to me to show you how to use it most effectively!
(And by the way, check out the rest of his font design too!)

Posted in Basic Design, Inspiration, Testing, direct mail | 1 Comment »

Does design matter?

Monday, August 31st, 2009

I’ve been reading with great interest for the past few days about all the brouhaha surrounding IKEA. In case you missed it, you can read it all here. But allow me to nutshell.

IKEA, famed makers of cheap Swedish furniture change font on their catalogue from Futura to Verdana. Thousands of designers moan everywhere. IKEA basically tells them to shut the hell up and stop being such babies because most “normal” people, aka non-designers could give a rat’s butt about what font they use.

Hm.

So who cares right? I’ve argued this point before – no one really cares what size your logo is, what font you use, that you are rebranding your business (did I mention I am doing that?) or that you have a brand new website.

Do you know what your donors, clients, customers care about? How are you better for me today then yesterday. How are you better, cheaper, faster, more relevant than before?

Hm.

So the designers – why are “we” getting all worked up in a sweat? Because we like to think stuff like fonts matter. Futura is sleek and elegant – Verdana is 100% PC ugliness… no class, no nothing. How could a worldwide company like IKEA who obviously see the importance of clean, elegant and – sometimes cheap – design, not see why so many would be up in arms.

So – the question remains – does design matter?

I say yes, of course it does. But it only matters SO much. And it matters when it is relevant and appropriate.

Case in point. Direct Mail: Designers HATE direct mail. Especially for charities. Why? We know that more often than not, boring, white #10’s with a logo and maybe a return address work. We know that courier will still whup some serious butt when in a letter. We often know that using two colours over four is just as good. I remember being chastised at a gathering of “art directors” when I mentioned I designed direct mail for charities. Like I was lesser of designer than they were.

It’s HARD to be this good -if I may… By understanding the rules of what makes the medium of direct mail successful makes me a good designer. And it makes the design I do matter. It makes the pack do better. But it only plays part of the role as we know.

Design matters – but only when it’s done with your audience in mind. And how many designers can say they design with the end user in mind? I hope you can.

Posted in Basic Design, Case Study, Two Cents, branding | 4 Comments »

Blue Beauty

Monday, August 10th, 2009

About two months ago, I advertised that fact I was giving away four free hours of studio and design time to any charity, anywhere that needed it. To say I was overwhelmed with the response would be an understatement.
At one point I had it in my head that we had, in Canada, over 60,000 registered charities and nfp’s. But according to Imagine Canada, we have over 161,000… that’s incredible. We all know about the big ones of course, they act big, they spend big, and well, they are big. BUT, using the 80/20 rule we can assume that the majority of those 161,000 charities are small. They are run by volunteers, they have no budgets, and are being run by people just trying to do the best they can.
I’m not pretending to be some sort of charitable Robin Hood, as striking as I would look in a leotard, but I take great satisfaction that I work with some of the best agencies and fundraising consultants in the world, and every time I work with a new client, especially the small ones, I can bring all the knowledge and resources I have to the discussion. If they want it.
Mark and I have discussed many a time, that we would love to be able to donate all of our time, resources and knowledge to charities anywhere for free – basically operate as a nfp design studio – but we need to make a living somehow right?
So – anyhow, back to Blue Beauty.

As I went through all of the emails that I received, one was from a woman named Candy Silvasy from Cincinnati.
“Spa4Diabetes is partnered with the United Nations’ Int’l Diabetes Federation, we raise money and awareness for the global diabetes epidemic. Our BlueBeauty initiative seeks to encourage recognition, prevention and self care as the pink ribbon does for breast cancer.”
Candy needed some help coming up with a professional identity for the Blue Beauty initiative.
The problem for me is that it is impossible to design a logo in the course of four hours. I’ve discussed my process before here and here. But I liked the challenge, the cause and Candy had a real passion for what she was doing.
After reviewing her answers to my questionnaire that I use for new logo design projects, I sat down and got to work.
Two key things that stood out to me were Blue Beauty’s target market and demographics. She was targeting spas, beauty manufactures, upscale hotels and women who would generally partake in Blue Beauty spa treatments or buy the products. Age range of 18-35, upper middle class.
Candy explained: “BlueBeauty has taken off so rapidly that companies, including beauty manufacturers, are contacting us to participate. We need a high impact, recognizable logo for BlueBeauty that will motivate companies to create and customers to buy BlueBeauty branded goods. I want it to be the young, fresh, modern look of diabetes. Someone told me recently, that diabetes is not a glamorous disease – the pink ribbon, the Red Dress campaign of the American Heart Assn. have done that for their causes. Though no disease is glamorous – I want this logo to put our BlueBeauty Initiative on the map as the way that diabetes stays top of women’s minds and gets them excited to do something about stopping it.”
So the challenge was clear.
Doing some research was in order.
Candy was right. Breast Cancer has the pink ribbon, Heart and Stroke has their heart, Lung Association has their cross… what does diabetes have? What sort of visual clichés did that section of the sector use to represent themselves.
Well the colour blue kept coming up (which was going to work well considering the name) and the circle also kept popping up. I also discovered that the International Diabetes Federation has started a global campaign to come up with a symbol for diabetes.

So that was settled. I knew I couldn’t ignore it for the sake of being different. As a logo designer I have acknowledged that fact that visual clichés are clichés for a reason. It would be stupid to ignore it. The challenge is always using the cliché in a new, original way.
But there was second piece to this. Giving the logo a upscale spa look.
We’ve all seen those before.

I had the colour blue. I had the circle. I had striking type. I had water.
Now what? Well as usual for me, I started with the type.
There were two faces that stood out pretty quickly. One was called Sparrowhawk and the other was called BauderieScript. They had the qualities I was looking for. Soft and feminine shapes, uniqueness, upscale but not perfect.

Ordinarily I would present two to three ideas, all in black. But in this case, Candy and I knew that we would always have to use the colour blue, so using these two faces I presented Candy with two concepts:

The first one I wanted to keep keep that idea, or cliché of calming water, as well, the roundness of the characters worked to the round circle of diabetes. It was striking and upscale.
The second one, I really wanted to do the blue circle but – not the blue circle. The type was great because it was imperfect. It had flow, it was natural… and I wanted it to feel like it was part of a pool of water.
Candy decided pretty quickly that she really liked option number two and I went ahead and finalized the art direction and cleaned up the concept to work in a number different formats.

“John created the logo for our non-profit’s main initiative. What impressed me so much, was John’s thorough and enthusiastic interest in what we’re doing. His research and creativity meshed to produce the ideal logo that’s not only aesthetically beautiful, but also on target with helping Spa4Diabetes reach it’s goals. Thanks so much John and we look forward to working with you in the future!“

Posted in Basic Design, Case Study, branding | 2 Comments »