This sounds really familiar

We just read a fascinating post this morning over at Cincinnati’s Business Courier about Procter & Gamble’s “radical change-up” in an article called “In radical change-up, P&G streamlines how it promotes brands.“

Here’s a pull-quote that we found especially interesting:

The brand leader captains a team of people from the various firms and, in conjunction with P&G, they develop a brand message that can be implemented across the various media.

The line was interesting because it is exactly the thinking D&A Design has deployed for our clients from our beginning several years ago. Rather than become a niche design firm specializing in one particular media such as web, interactive, packaging or traditional print, we opted to take an approach that many of our peers did not think would work. We believed (and still believe to this day) that design is design, no matter the media. We simply design for the media we’re asked to design for, and then work with the best vendors when it comes to production.

A good example of this is our work with Dinovite. D&A Design works in tandem with Dinovite on all of their product brand identities. Once a brand identity is complete we then work on the consumer packaging for that brand, and the packaging can be anything from simple labels for rigid containers, squeeze tubes for liquid product, form-seal film for bags (think: vending machine potato chips bags), or some other structure in need of consistent branding. We work with the best vendor – printers, web coders/developers, packaging structural mfgs. – that produces each of these very different packaging needs.

Our work continues when the packaging is complete because the same brand consistency needs to be carried over to marketing. D&A Design works with Dinovite’s web vendors to create supporting graphics for sales and promotions. We create branded graphics that are used for broadcast email campaigns, as well as the occasional sell sheet. We create the branded graphics that are used to literally sell the products on the e-commerce web site. In some cases we even create the branded materials needed for events such as trade show booth graphics and apparel. All of this work is done in tandem with the very best vendors, allowing designers to be really good at design, and vendors to be really good at production. The biggest benefit, however, is consistency and cost efficiency. Just as the article pointed out, in the past businesses like P&G – and even much smaller businesses – outsourced their web site to a firm that only did web work; their packaging to a packaging firm; print work to a print firm. D&A Design saw the inefficiency of working this way when we formed our business model, and the benefits our clients continue to enjoy (and talk about!) is our measure for how well this philosophy is working. In short: So far, so good.

Point is, P&G’s new, “radical” approach is the approach D&A Design has found success for our clients. We certainly didn’t invent this process, but out of all the different ways to handle design and banding work, we find that the businesses we serve simply want one design source that can handle their design and branding needs. D&A Design is certainly not a trend-setter, but it is nice to read that the world’s largest consumer goods maker has arrived at the same conclusions we have.

Kid Snack Food Brand Gets New Identity

Creating a brand identity for a new line of healthy snacks for kids is a venture into understanding the minds and buying habits of two audiences: Kids and parents. The kids are the key influencers, the ones who we first needed to make “healthy” look not so serious. We needed it to look fun and unguarded. But “healthy” is precisely the most important aspect of these new snack foods from the parents’ perspective, so we opted to make “Healthy” the larger of the two main words for the identity, so that parents would know that these snacks are actually good for the kids.

Not only that, but good for the parents, too! Many parents are not just the buyers of kids snack foods, but consumers as well. Healthy Attitudz wanted to play off of that, and for future consumer packaging we will be playing with these aspects of the brand to a greater deal.

In the meantime we are working on other points of touch as Healthy Attitudz builds a strong brand.

Latest Happenings

It has been nearly a month since we posted, but for good reason…

Summer 2008 has been very productive for D&A Design, as we are enjoying new collaborations, and helping create measurable ROI for existing relationships.

• We are working on a new website and sales collateral for Eastgate Graphics, a rigid packaging decorator, commercial ink supplier, and graphics/pre-press services supplier. Like so many businesses who are constantly growing and thriving, their website has not been a focus of attention for a while. D&A Design began working with Eastgate Graphics when Eastgate was tapped to be the supplier for a separate packaging project for a shared client. After working for a short period of time together, Eastgate Graphics asked us to redesign their website and a set of downloadable brochures that further explain their services. Launch is expected September 2008.

• D&A Design also began collaborating with TSG/Empire USA, a retail grocery food broker and strategic marketer of food purchasing data (among other things). We are redesigning their website, and doing so in tandem with their web development source (coding, etc.) to create a skin for the site that works with the content management system (CMS) they will implement to deploy and populate the site. We are collaborating with TSG/Empire for design direction and new branding, and then working with their development source to make sure the CMS skin we provide aligns seamlessly with their work-flow.

• A stone and masonry business we met at the Cincinnati Home & Garden Show, The Stone Source, has asked us to breathe life into a logo design they sketched out on a scrap of paper, which we are happy to do. We provided them with exactly what they asked us to do, and then also supplied one of our ideas at no additional charge – just to show another way of looking at their brand that they might not have thought of. When this is finished they will have seen their idea come to life, and we’ll supply them with all the various file formats and color configurations so that they can easily get their brand on every point of touch their customers experience.

• A new consumer packaging project with The Printing Plant has once again allowed us to tap one of our very talented illustrators and designers. We are working on both the consumer packaging and product development for this project, all while keeping an open dialogue with The Printing Plant’s production folks to make sure what we create goes into production with no snags. We can’t say too much about this project just yet, but when it is ready for consumers we know it will be a hit!
• Soon a new website will launch for Epcom International, a company working with law enforcement and security resources to help them get the equipment they need to do their jobs. Since Dan (D&A’s co-owner) has a brother in law enforcement – K9, specifically – this project is especially interesting, as he feels he can “talk shop” with his brother (though not really).

• The summer has seen the emergence of a very successful email marketing campaign for Dinovite, and the results continue to be measurably profitable! We work with Knowledge Marketing for the email blasting, and they are one of the most helpful suppliers we have ever worked with. As a result of the ease-of-use for the email design and development, coupled with the strategies developed by our client, and tasteful timing of emails, the bottom-line is that our work is (and continues to be) profitable for Dinovite.
• We helped develop a brochure and insert for Bear Creek Capital’s Kenwood Town Place development. D&A Design handled both design and production for this project, managing the design, production schedule, printing, quality assurance, and delivery of the brochure and insert.
• We are in the early stages of designing and developing the 2009 Ross County – Chillicothe, Ohio CVB Visitor’s Guide. This year we are opting to manage the entire project, rather than using a publisher. We decided on this direction due in part to the commoditization of commercial printing, and our years of experience working on these kinds of projects. So far we have worked with a paper source on the booklet size and page-count, paginated the 2009 guide, and met with the CVB Marketing Committee for approval of direction. We also determined the number of ads, sizes, and cost for each ad so that the guide can be self-funded. RFQs for printing go out next week, and then design begins – which will not be too complex since we have built this brand from the ground up. More info to come as it delvelops – we really are tackling a lot on this!
• Later this month we will launch an update to d-a-design.com, showcasing some of the work mentioned above, as well as new photos of new consumer packaging projects! Check in soon!

A few other projects are at hand that we will write about soon. Until then, please check back for a slew of new photos of more of our consumer packaging work that was made public last week! It will be a bit of show-and-tell.