Chris K Designs

All through design school it’s drilled into your brain to have a target audience for each project you create. It’s a simple rule that should be step one in every design project, however it falls to the wayside as deadlines loom closer and executives push harder. As a designer you cannot falter from the path of your target audience.

There are three things you should keep in mind for every bit of work you do:

1. Never use Papyrus as a font (hehe)
2. “Doing X made it look better/pop/just work.” is not an acceptable reasoning for a decision
3. Define and don’t change our target audience.

In this example we’ll just assume that the work you are doing is for an advertising campaign, to keep things simple. You can break down your target audience into any combination of things like age, sex, education, income, or political views (just to name a few). These are examples demographics and your bosses are always worried about the demographics. Can I tell you a secret though? These don’t always fulfill the target audience quota.

The problem you run into with demographics is that they are based on statistics. You may have to search deeper than the numbers to hit your target audience. A great example of this is Charles Schwab’s “Talk to Chuck” advertising campaign. I’m pretty sure you all know this campaign but you can find an example of one of the commercials here. (sorry for the link. the embed was disabled)

Did you go watch the video? Good. Notice anything besides a tight animation sequence and a guy with a somewhat odd voice? It’s simple and you probably won’t even realize the effect of it. They changed one thing, Charles -> Chuck. Yeah, big deal, cute, I know. This simple word change is the entire basis of the campaign. The idea is to bring investments down to people who don’t invest because it’s thought of as a product for people named Charles or have 2 previous relatives with the same name, causing them to be ‘The 3rd”.

Choosing your target audience and tailoring to them isn’t about numbers, it’s about people. Next time you go to start a project don’t narrow down your target to ‘Males ages 23-30 with a college degree’. Think beyond the standard demographics and into who the product, company, or event you are working with can affect people who typically wouldn’t be considered the target audience. After all, the more people who find the product accessible, the better the return on investment will be. There’s a number to give to the execs.

Visit the Charles Schwab website
View the Charles Schwab YouTube Channel

Recently many newspapers have been closing their doors and ceasing all print media due to pure costs of print overhead. It simply costs too much to print and distribute physical editions these days. Aside from cost, there are some that claim the print media is a burden on the environment as well.

There was a rumor online that Wired Magazine is looking to cut the web content in lieu of keeping the print media alive after a large amount of layoffs. Not only is this counter intuitive, but it’s counter culture right now. While web content reigns supreme due to it’s cheap overhead cost, this publisher is going to keep their costly print edition going. This got me to thinking, what happens to a graphic designer or layout designer when print media is reduced or dies?

Most people will argue that a graphic designer can still work in a web-based world, and while this is somewhat true there are parts of print media that you cannot replicate digitally. Graphic designers always have one very important thing that web-designers do not…medium control.

You can write all the code you want and test your design or site in every browser, but nothing is going to guarantee that your viewer is on a computer that supports the site, that has enough screen real-estate, or that their screen is calibrated for color. Graphic Designers in magazine, news paper, or other print mediums are typically given specific dimensions into which their design is effectively placed to create an emotion or feeling. Web Designers can never feel this sort of control for the success of their work. So what happens to all of these designers? Here are the questions I pose to you, my designer readers and friends:

• Are we all to just fold and start working digital only?
• Is the print media even salvageable in this economic downturn?
• With ‘sustainability’ being such a buzz word, is print doomed for being too wasteful?
• Do you still subscribe to a print edition of anything?

Let me know what you think in the comments. I’m very curious to see what discussions arise.