Explore topics, techniques, and tools for advertising, marketing, and design.
No Designer? No Problem! Proximity
How to use the design principle ‘proximity’ to improve your visuals.
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No Designer? No Problem! Balance
What is a balanced design and why does it matter?
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3 Keys to a Successful Multi-channel Marketing Campaign
Build a foundation for a great promotion with these tips!
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No Designer? No Problem! Visual Hierarchy
So you’re working on a new design. You’ve got a grid down, right? (take a look at our grid article if you need a refresher) The next step is to get the elements in a visual hierarchy. And while those might be some fancy words, the phrase really just means making it...
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No Designer? No Problem! The Grid
It’s the secret to all great designs, photos, paintings, anything that’s two-dimensional. Are you using it? And it’s actually a great way to avoid that blank screen stare down… you know, that feeling you get when you have to start a project, but the blank document on...
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No Designer? No Problem!
In listening to our readers and our clients, it’s clear there’s a whole group of people who may not have a design background, but need to create quality graphics. So we’re launching a series to help those who aren’t designers learn how to design, like a DIY Design...
read moreGuardian Credit Union TV Ads
Advertising Design Case StudyThe Challenge Guardian Credit Union in Montgomery, Alabama wanted to standout in the typical block of television ads while staying within their existing branding style. They also wanted to emphasize the local landscape, people, and...
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5 reasons why you should rename your accounts and loans
Looking to see growth in your financial products? Want to build some momentum in product usage? Need ideas to promote accounts and loans? Think about what you call them, think about how your target audience perceives them and you might just breakthrough a flat or...
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The Case For Peaches
The Challenge: Credit Union of Georgia was founded as a teachers' credit union and still maintains a strong base of educators in their membership. The demographics show this group as largely female and in their 30s and 40s. Like most financial institutions, this...
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Tame Your Marketing & Advertising Projects
Are you frustrated trying to keep up with all of your marketing projects? Heck just tracking the individual items in a massive multi-channel advertising campaign is tough. Need to show your management team the huge amounts of work you crank out? And then out of...
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WTH is Kerning? (and other designer jargon explained)
After so many decades in this business, we often forget that other people may not know some of the daily terms important to advertising, marketing, and design. As mindful as we are about cutting the designer jargon during meetings, emails, and calls, the occasional...
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Is a Hyper-local, Pre-recorded Talk Show a Viable Marketing Tactic?
Tearsheet.co recently came to Jackie for some analysis of an interesting marketing tactic being used by a community bank in New York. Rhinebeck Bank in Poughkeepsie creates a weekly video formatted in the style of morning TV talk shows. The videos are then distributed...
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Progress Bank Goes For Elegant Imagery
The Challenge: Progress Bank is a community bank headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. Only ten years into their charter and they are already giving more established area banks healthy competition. With a name like Progress, brand materials must be modern and with a...
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5 Graphic Design Tips to Make Your Marketing Pop!
Hiring a designer not in the budget? Here are a few graphic design tips to help those marketing and advertising pieces get noticed! With the influx of apps such as Canva, Adobe Spark and PicMonkey that quickly create text on images for social media, it's easier than...
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Sowing Seeds: Do You Know Your Sales Cycle?
We can get so wrapped up in our marketing and advertising campaigns, it's easy to lose sight of the larger picture and how this campaign, this design, fits into the sales process. So we gotta remember how this ad, logo, social media post, brochure, whatever it might...
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Just What Is a Style Guide Anyway?
In a sister post to this one, we discussed many of the benefits of a style guide: brand loyalty, cost savings, employee retention to name a few. In this post, let's look at what goes in to a great style guide, using examples from national organizations as...
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How a Style Guide Can Boost Your Brand and Save You Money
Can one little document really have such an impact? A well-crafted style guide can absolutely boost your brand, save you money and so much more. Just what is a style guide? Simply put, it is a glossary of your brand's core elements and how they are to be used. Some...
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Create Some Great Marketing Ideas!
You've just been asked to put together some marketing ideas by the end of the day to increase product sales. It's Tuesday. After a big lunch. It's raining. And that blank document on your screen feels like it's sucking you in to the depths of hell. Not exactly the...
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The Hidden Branding of Notification Letters
We often think about credit union branding as the sexy and exciting part of marketing and advertising: logos, corporate culture, retail environments, colors, advertising design and so on. Have you thought about the impact your credit union's notification letters have...
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Is it OK to use that image off the internet?
So you have a new product or service offering and you're anxious to get marketing materials out to your potential customers. Other businesses across the country might be selling it so there are quite a few photos popping up when you do an internet search. Feeling the...
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