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.

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.

I approached good friend and colleague Dan Banko to assist me in this exercise. Dan has a lot more experience in rebranding exercises and him and I like to work together whenever we get the chance.

We had a number of meetings with Cheryl and Simon to determine what they wanted out of this rebrand.

Ultimately, Dan and I came up with a list of about 30 potenial names for their new company which we shortlisted down to 4.

Cheryl and Simon picked “Epiphany!” out of the shortlist, which worked on many different levels. In a coaching experience, there are many aha! moments. Moments of clarity, of surprise, of inspiration.

As we started to move forward on designing the logo and collateral materials, I wanted every piece to capture that “aha” moment.

As I’ve mentioned before, I like to start with the type. If I can find a typeface that is expressive and works with the name, then in some ways I am already half way there.

In the case of epiphany, I need I wanted something bold and strong with an element of playfulness…

After I take a look at the name set in a number of faces that may or may not work, certain fonts really start to call out to me which I highlight to use as I move to the next stage.

I often sit down brainstorm/sketch visual ideas that are coming to me as well as other words that may lead to or be part of the final logo. Just like the font selection, every element that is part of the logo should express something.

We came back and presented four logo concepts to the clients. I present the logos in black so we don’t get distracted by colours. Like I say, if we can make it work in black, then adding a colour will be easy.

Simon and Cheryl laboured over the decision somewhat but came back with their selection. It was time to add some colour, which I knew would also keep in line with the original idea that every element and design touch should say “aha!”.

As I added colour to the logo and worked on the materials, I could feel it all coming together.

I applaud Cheryl and Simon for trusting in my abilities and letting me provide some solutions that were a little out of the ordinary. But as I showed them a mock up of their business cards, letterhead and envelope and explained how everytime they met someone and passed their card along, they would have the opportunity to tell their story. And watch as they go – “aha!”.

“Working with Idea Design was the best decision we made when deciding to rebrand. John took us through a thorough process that helped translate our work, vision and values into a new identity that we love!” – Simon Geoghegan

We started by establishing a word count so my colleague Sonya MacDonald (one of the top fundraising writers in Canada) could start to work on the copy. A word count is helpful to the writer and editor as it tells them how much copy they can fit on one page. I usually work with a 50/50 ratio. No more than half the page should be filled with copy, the other half is reserved for images, pull quotes and white space. Having any more copy than that will make the piece look very copy heavy – unless that’s what you are going for of course.

We settled on calling the newsletter: Inside the Rainbow. We felt that the newsletter would be giving donors a look at the going-ons and inside scoop on how donations are being used and making a difference.

I usually begin the design process by setting up my grid which helps to ensure that any element I have on the page will line up with any other element.

In the case of “Inside the Rainbow” I went with a seven column grid. I tend to use an uneven number because although using a even number will always allow me to keep things balanced, an uneven number means a little more design work to balance off elements – but the result is a visually interesting piece. Notice how everything plays off the grid.

Next comes the masthead. The masthead, for me, sets the tone of the piece and therefore I always work on it first. I wanted to it to have some visual impact, be bold and a little fun too. I also wanted to avoid over-doing the whole rainbow thing.

The font I selected is called Bau. Bau is a nice selection because of it’s tiny imperfections and little kicks, like in the “a”.

I tracked in in very tight (decreased the amount of space between each letter) so each character melted into one other – now they belonged and supported each other.

For the body copy I wanted to stay with a typeface that would be appropriate to the audience and selected Adobe Garamond, one of my favourites for body copy.

Once I have the copy typeset and masthead in place, I can start to design by adding images, colours and little touches that bring a newsletter to life.

As I was finishing the first draft I still felt it was missing something – an extra element of child-like fun. As I was preparing dinner the one evening I looked over at my daughters as they happily made a massive mess with paint and their hands. I think I knew what I wanted to add.

What a great way to end each article.

Laurie was a great client to work for and we both look forward to rolling up our sleeves as we get to work on the next project.

“Recently John designed a newsletter for Reach for the Rainbow and the entire organization is overjoyed with the look, feel and effect. With precious little guidance from our overburdened team, John designed a bright, crisp, enticing and effective newsletter that we are proud to send to our constituents. John’s design clearly portrays our organizations’ values with simple, but impactful elegance.

I look forward to enlisting John’s expertise on many future projects. The children and youth who rely upon Reach for the Rainbow’s services will enjoy a happier holiday season as a result of his excellent work.” – Laurie Pringle

Thanks Laurie!

The problem I have is that it seems all charities want to (or can only afford to) mail are white #10 envelopes – and ‘lets slap some sort of tagline on it’.

I know I’ve said it before – be appropriate. If you have something inside that will be of some use to your donor, tell them, unless it’s something lumpy – then you don’t need to – they’ll open it any way.

Nothing says “I’m junk mail” more than a #10 with a boring tagline on it.

If you can only mail out a #10 – do something interesting with it. Use a different colour stock, use a first class stamp, use a label, make it closed faced, use some handwriting on it, use 2 windows, don’t (gasp) put anything on it… Some of these ideas will work better in prospecting than with your house file or vicea-versa…

As they say over and over – test it. And then test something else.

I don’t know if the envelope should be plain or if it should be bold, but as I’ve said before, if everyone else is letting their donors eat vanilla – send them chocolate.

Speaking of chocolate, I received this envelope the other day – talk about standing out. I had no idea what the American Power Conversion was but I was definitely going to open this thing.

And I promise this will be the last post about #10’s I do for a while!

Next week:

I have a special mid week blog planned. I was invited to be a part of a special Post2Post Book Tour hosted by Idea Sandbox. I will be interviewing the authour of “Jack’s Notebook”, Gregg Fraley.

The tour will be as follows:

Site: Education Innovation by Rob Jacobs – Monday, July 14

The Naked Idea by John Lepp (that’s me!) Tuesday, July 15

Marketing Fresh Peel by Chris Wilson Wednesday, July 16

Innoblog Thursday, July 17

The Brand Chef by Andrew Clark Friday, July 18

Hope you will join me for that.

So here are the four options that went to the client for presentation:

Again, these are the final 4 options that I presented to the client (I’ll show what didn’t make it another time).

I wanted the idea of “comedy” to really come through and felt, just before I needed to present them, I hadn’t really accomplished that.

I picked the brain of ubr-creative Kim McMullen for a quick brainstorm to see what we could do to make them just a bit better.

I had already designed the option 2 – “talking mouth” Mary Walsh, but didn’t feel like it was working, but with the addition of the right kind of copy, and typeset properly, it started to work for me.

Option 3 was my attempt for big and clean design. Nothing getting in the way of the messaging.
Option 4 had started out as another big and clean design poster – but tried to liven it up with a bit of scratching, sketching around the mic. Kim suggested I go all the way – it was a comedy show after all. Show – I got to totally deface Mary Walsh. I have to admit, I did think to myself “I can’t do this to Mary can I?”

But I did. It was appropriate and added that touch of whimsy that was really missing.

Next time: What the client choose and the options that didn’t see the light of day. Any predictions? Let me know what you think the client choose.

I was excited by the project because I had been in discussions with Joanne and TRO for some time about a redesign and I could finally get to work.
Looking at their old logo – I liked the idea of using the trillium – which helped symbolize where TRO operates but the logo itself provided no clues as to what TRO does and who it helps. The type face and colour were quite dated as well.
The hardest part for me, as it is with most logos, is – how do I represent “visually” what an organization does? It doesn’t need to be literal, or – what I like to call – ’smash you over the head’ obvious – but it needs to provide some clues to the viewer.
I believe this is probably more important in the charity sector then the commercial sector.
My one concern was I was moving forward without a written creative brief from the client but after some back and forth emails, it was time to proceed.
So – where to begin? Research. I spent time understanding who TRO helps, how they help them and trying to find some visual ideas that I could use to communicate that. I then brainstormed on paper – words and visual ideas.

With most logos, when I finally sit down at my computer, I start looking at fonts/typefaces. All fonts communicate. Some are funny, feminine, angry, powerful, delicate, historical, etc. I wanted: Contemporary, slightly playful, soft edges (more feminine) and sans serif. If I could find a font that communicated those things for me – then I was in good shape when it came to the rest of the logo. I then find fonts that I think will fit the bill and typeset the name of the organization and see what works with the name and what doesn’t.
The next step for me is to chose a few of the samples that seem to be working for me and start to add some of my visual clues in. I liked the idea of the trillium and I wanted to give TRO a possible solution that kept that but I also wanted to explore another avenue. I wanted to use hands as well – I felt that hands could represent a lot of different things: healing, togetherness, community… So after trying a number of options, I presented these three logo concepts to the TRO:
After some review, the Joanne wanted to add the tag line as well before she took it to her board.
I always design logo concepts in black and white. Again, because every element can add or detract from another – colour is usually the biggest distraction. If I can get a logo working in black and white, then it should really shine once I start adding colour onto it. As well, with charities, so often we are designing with 1 colour or 2 colours so the black really needs to work.

So after board review, it was felt that we were off the mark. The hands weren’t working for them. I believe the feeling was that it didn’t address the “recreation” aspect of TRO. So – back to the drawing board.

The lesson here is the importance of a clear creative brief – which should be kept brief (more on that another time). A well written creative brief that both parties sign off on keeps the focus on the end product.

I went back to their site and some of the other Therapeutic Recreation sites that exist. What I failed to realize the first time through was it was ‘therapy through recreation’. That was key. Once I got my head around that – both the client and I agreed to move forward with that creative direction – I came up with these:
The ball easily covered the recreation aspect and I loved how it gave the logo some life and movement. I do believe the feedback was unanimous. The first option just had everything going for it and wasn’t too quirky or fussy. Now if I could just find a way to fit in that trillium…

Above is the final logo and below, intergrated within the new web page that created by i4:

The new site and logo are to go live sometime this year and I think that TRO now has a more up-to-date and contemporary identity.

More or less of this sort of thing? Any other comments? Please let me know!
John

As part of my process I sat down to do the appropriate research on what the Hospice is, who it helps, who supports the Hospice and how they support it. They were in the process of wrapping up a capital campaign to help build a new hospice.

It came time to sit down and take a look at their newsletter as it presently was.

My first thoughts were considering the audience, the typeface/font seemed dated and appeared too small and condensed vertically.

There was nice white space around the paragraphs and around the headline so there was some room to play with. My other concerns were with the generic name and small images. They were also paying for printing 4 colours (cmyk) so I wanted to utilize that a bit more.

So what did I do? I started with the name first. The newsletter was going to supporters and donors and I wanted it to have a more uplifting name. “Hospice News, Hospice Bulletin, BK Bulletin, Kemp News”… none really inspired. But “Hospice Hopes”- we were getting somewhere. I felt the dark blue was a little cold and lifeless so I played with greens and yellows – colours that are alive and vibrate with energy… The use of the logo, which also may be updated at some point in the future wasn’t really helping – but I liked the idea of metamorphosis and life. A small visual of a butterfly gave it that bit unique-ness that it needed. I chose a contemporary and clean typeface for the masthead called “Abadi” and “Adobe Caslon” for all body copy.

I wanted bigger visuals – which have more impact and also help to make the newsletter not seem so copy heavy. So this is what I came up with:

A closer look at the body copy:

One other thing I did, was leave the double spaces in between the sentences. Depending on the piece, sometimes I leave them in or remove them. At smaller font (point) sizes, having the double spaces also help with readability, even though from a typographic point of view it is incorrect.

With the inside pages, I pushed for a less in more approach. But we had some great content so cutting copy was not easy. I opened the margins up as much as possible, bleed images off the sides and tried to give each element it’s own space to breathe.

Thanks to the Hospice for allowing me to help with their newsletter and congratulations on reaching their goal for their captial campaign.