THIS made me look bad. But I'm not dumb enough to fix it myself!
If you have taken the trouble to read a blog about graphic design and how you can look your best online and in print, you probably don’t need advice on how to look bad. That would be the furthest thing from your mind. But some people just need all the help and advice they can get.
In case you are having difficulty looking bad, here are some ways that you too can look as terrible as the other lazy marketers.
1. Print Your Business Cards Yourself.
Business cards are meant to be handled. Felt. And if they don’t feel good, who is going to want to do that again? Ugh, put it down, throw it away. And since they are so small, they really are quite personal. It’s like a paper handshake. So if you want your business cards to look terrible, print them yourself on that lowly $99 inkjet printer of yours and a sheet of perforated card.
2. Build Your Own Website.
Thanks to that internet thing that everyone is talking about, everyone can build their own website. Now, if you need a blog or a site in an instant, there are ways to do it. WordPress, Blogger and a stream of other companies offer free blogs and free templates. They never break, they always validate and they always look good in any browser. But if all that sounds like too much work, just build your own. Buy a program from Best Buy that makes websites for you for $129, type away, and voila, you are a web designer. A very bad, cliched, seen-everywhere-on-the-web web designer. And that is exactly how cheap your business will look.
And by the way, if you have no idea what that link on the word ‘validate’ took you to, then you really do need to step away from the HTML.
3. Design Your Own Print Ads.
Professionals only make it look easy. Why is it that you can thumb through your community newsletter and point out, from across the room, the ones that look cheap? Can you describe exactly what is wrong using print design terminology (no points for saying ‘I dunno, it’s just ugly!’). Take everything you want to say, use as many fonts as possible, and cram it all into that tiny square. There. Now nobody will call.
4. Download Photographs.
I have lost count the amount of times I have seen low resolution pictures used in print ads. It is now at the point where I can’t say anything or get upset about it. As it is, I have low blood pressure, but that won’t last long if people insist on stealing photos from the internet. Those pictures are not free! But if you want to look like a copyright infringing, cheapskate thief, then download away. Download away, my friend.
5. Spam – LOTS of spam.
Getting the odd email that you weren’t expecting cannot really be considered spam. If you walk down the street and see a billboard for something you didn’t want to hear about, is that offensive? Then what is so wrong with clicking DELETE once in a while on your inbox? When I talk about spam, I mean LOTS of spam. Thousands of emails at a time, usually sent from an offshore server. That, my dearly beloved, is illegal. Breaking the law isn’t cool, even if you don’t get caught. So if you want to really look like a quantity over quality merchant, crank out that 30,000 name mailing list.
6. Streeeeetch Your Logo.
If you had your logo designed by a reputable designer, you would have your logo in a variety of sizes and formats to suit different uses. Taking that little logo that appears at the top of your website and stretching it to fit your brochure will make it look like it was drawn with crayons. There are easier ways to make your advertising look like it was done by a child. Like getting your advertising done by a child. And probably cheaper too.
7. Buy a ‘Logo’ from Logos-R-Us.com
They won’t ask about your business. They won’t care about your business. And they certainly won’t be around in the long term. Websites that promise logos for $99 ($99 seems to be a good price for anything cheap) give you cookie cutter solutions to the most vital part of your visual brand. If you like looking like everyone else, then go ahead and get your logo from a vending machine. Twix, Pepsi or company branding? Decisions, decisions…
8. Write Your Own Copy.
Lots of people write copy. Lots of people should not write copy. Hopefully you know who you are. If you don’t, then check your copy for phrases like ‘all your ____ needs’, ‘go ahead and’ and ‘your number one choice’. Also check for typos (including homonyms that your spell checker won’t detect) and punctuation. Then make sure that your copy is actually saying what it’s supposed to. On second thought, don’t bother. Just type like you talk and print that on your brochure. People will know exactly how you do business.
9. Do It All Yourself
You have the time. Don’t you? You went into business yourself to provide a service, and that is what you should be doing. That is where your talent and abilities lie. So the best way to make your image look cheap, is to stay up late, save a few dollars and make believe you have all the experience and training of a professional designer.
10. Use an IT Specialist to Design Your Website
Did you notice the two conflicting terms in the title? While your friendly neighbourhood ‘puter (sic) geek may be great at swapping hard drives, installing redundant drive backups and destabilizing the back end warp field, she/he’s not a designer. Reciting off by heart every HTML tag that got deprecated this week doesn’t make someone a designer. But since most people judge sites according to how they look not how they are programmed, you need a designer to design your site. But you know, if everyone who visits your site is going to view the source and judge you by the enormous amount of bandwidth you have at your disposal, perhaps you will get lots of traffic.
Have you completed all ten? If you don’t have the time to do it yourself, consider hiring a professional. In fact, if you think you DO have time, hire a professional. Please!
Great advice. Some people don’t realize the small things they do to save money only lose them money in the long run. Thanks!
You have a very very very informative write up keep it up!Do You want to make money online?
Great post .. quite powerful writing thanks
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