Wagner Design Associates Blog

June 10, 2010

Graphic design and advertising firm, Wagner Design Associates, has announced the addition of a new team member. Nancy Miller joins the firm as office manager.

Miller attended Sanford Brown Business College in St. Louis, MO before moving to Ann Arbor. Her work experience is varied, including marketing communications, human resources, business-to-business sales and customer service. She also has banking experience and served as treasurer on the board of a cooperative preschool.

As Wagner Design’s new office manager, Miller’s responsibilities will include client care, accounting, clerical duties and copywriting.

Wagner Design provides a full range of creative graphic design and advertising services to organizations in the high technology, retail, health care, financial, and academic sectors. The firm has won recognition and awards for its work in print collateral, direct mail, electronic communications, web design, and has been featured in various design publications.

Contact:

Good advertising today depends heavily upon the quality of your Web presence. Creating effective websites that drive qualified traffic and lead to sales is the secret to success on the Internet. But, in reality, few business websites achieve this; simply building a site is not enough. This is because only people who know the name of the company or the website address will find it, so the company won’t generate new customers.

The key is to find the search terms people would use to find your product or service. For example, here at Wagner Design Associates we do graphic design, web design, and advertising in Ann Arbor. Try going to Google and searching for “graphic design in Ann Arbor.”  You’ll find our company on the first page. Can you say this for your product or service?  Would you like to be able to?

Good news.  We can help you with that. Wagner Design Associates offers a number of affordable and effective SEO packages that will help turn your web presence into a key sales and lead generation channel for your business.

Ann Arbor, Michigan ­ Marketing materials recently designed by Wagner Design Associates for the Lenawee Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) have been awarded first place in the 2009 MEDA Marketing Competition. Collateral pieces won in the category for “printed materials for the population of 50,001-100,000.” The print pieces included letterhead, LEDC’s identity package, capabilities brochure and first annual report.

MEDA, an organization whose mission is to lead Michigan’s economic development through education, networking and advocacy on economic development, sponsored the fourth Annual Marketing Competition for local economic development marketing materials. The competition provides Michigan economic organizations an opportunity to have professional reviews of their marketing materials. First- through third-place ribbons were presented at an awards ceremony, held in Kalamazoo on August 20th.

Lenawee Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to economic and business expansion throughout Lenawee County. In addition to business attraction, retention and start-up activities, LEDC provides services to support business growth including access to funding sources and talent enhancement.

Wagner Design provides a full range of creative design and advertising services in Ann Arbor to organizations in the high technology, retail, health care, financial, and academic sectors. The firm has won recognition and awards for its work in print collateral, direct mail and electronic communications and has been featured in various design publications.

Contact:

Kathy Roeser-Nordling
Wagner Design Associates LLC
T: 734.662.9500
F: 734.662.6590
E: kathy@wagdesign.com

Jim Gartin
Lenawee Economic Development Corporation
T: 517.265.5141
F: 517.265.6056
E: jim@onelenawee.org

“Keep it Simple, Stupid.” This is how I heard it. I believe I was in about eighth grade and it was English class with Mr. Morwick, and I had a run-on sentence, much like this one, with way too many adjectives and repetition, just like this one. You get the point. The principle acknowledges that in good graphic design, it’s not the complexity of the design that makes it work, but what remains when the accessories are eliminated. I didn’t realize in eighth grade that this was a design principle, crossing many design fields. It can be compared to Occam’s razor, and Albert Eistein’s Maxim, “everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Even Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus, urged his designers to “Simplify, and add lightness.” Disney animators follow the principle as well. Here at our graphic design company in Ann Arbor, we follow this principle too.

There are variations on the phrase, which weren’t familiar to me, but maybe you heard it one of these ways: Keep it simple and stupid. Keep it small and simple. Keep it sweet and simple. Keep it speckless and sane. Keep it sober and significant. But my favorite is, keep it super simple. But, if we really wanted to take out the complexity, shouldn’t we just call it Kis?

Wagner Design Associates, an Ann Arbor advertising and graphic design firm, received one Gold and one Silver ADDY in the Ann Arbor Ad Club’s 2009 ADDY Awards competition.

A Gold ADDY was awarded to Wagner Design in the self-promotion category for a wall calendar designed for University Lithoprinters. For each calendar day, the design featured Pantone color swatches chosen in seasonal colors.

The silver ADDY was awarded to Wagner Design for a self-promotion flash piece. The online card production featured holiday-themed headshots of the agency’s staff in a flipbook format.

Sponsored nationally by the American Advertising Federation and locally by the Ann Arbor Ad   Club, the ADDY Awards Competition recognizes and rewards creative excellence in the art of advertising. Beginning at the local level, in 200 markets nationwide, the ADDY’s three-tiered competition is the largest and most representative advertising awards program in the industry.

Wagner Design provides a full range of creative design and advertising services to organizations in the high technology, retail, health care, financial, and academic sectors. The firm has won recognition and awards for its work in print collateral, direct mail and electronic communications and has been featured in various design publications.

Kathy Roeser-Nordling
Wagner Design Associates LLC
T: 734.662.9500
F: 734.662.6590
E: kathy@wagdesign.com

And the winners are: Palace Blue, Lavender, Fuchsia Red, Salmon Rose, Super Lemon, Vibrant Green, Dark Citron, Lucite Green, Slate Gray, and Rose Dust.

Every year the Pantone Institute releases a Fashion Color Report with it’s top ten colors for Spring. These colors are among what will be considered trendy for the year.

I saw this list in Communication Arts, which also said that “blue is the new green.” Then Jill brought in an article from the Free Press that said the same thing. So, it got me thinking, who is Pantone exactly? I know they’re the color people, but what does that mean?

Here’s what their website had to say:

Pantone, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of X-Rite, Incorporated, is the world-renowned authority on color. For more than 45 years, Pantone has been inspiring design professionals with products, services and leading technology for the colorful exploration and expression of creativity.

In 1963, Lawrence Herbert, Pantone’s founder, created an innovative system for identifying, matching and communicating colors to solve the problems associated with producing accurate color matches in the graphic arts community. His insight that the spectrum is seen and interpreted differently by each individual led to the innovation of the PANTONE® MATCHING SYSTEM®, a book of standardized color in fan format.

I used to love playing with those color fans as a kid. I guess it’s no wonder I ended up working in a web design firm in Ann Arbor. I didn’t know I had Pantone to thank for all those hours I spent pretending to be an interior designer. Anyway, if you’re planning to repaint your dining room lavender, consider PMS 263. Or, if you’re designing a blue website or logo, think about using PMS 279, which reflects ecological and technical influences of our times. Or, if you’re looking for a new dress for say, the upcoming ADDY Awards gala, then set your sights on a hot little red number, like PMS 233.