Selling it with serifs

By Kris Travis | Nov 5, 2015

I’ll say it over and over: font choice is so important. It impacts our feelings about a brand both consciously and unconsciously. So is there an essential font to use if you’re trying to make something come across as expensive or luxury? Apparently so. According to Sarah Hyndman, who recently studied the relationship between font choice […]

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NFC Business Cards

By Kris Travis | Oct 12, 2015

How often do you hand out your business card? What kind of info do you include? I’ve designed cards chock full of contact information in teeny-tiny print, and I’ve designed cards with only a logo, name and email. It really depends on how you prefer people contact you (or how truly accessible you want to […]

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2015 Forest For The Trees Mural Festival

By Kris Travis | Sep 28, 2015

I wrote about this very cool project on the blog last year. Though I’m a little late on this post, I did want to mention this year’s Forest For The Trees mural festival, which took place August 23-29. You may have already seen some of the new murals around town, either in process or finished. The FFTT website describes the project: “Established […]

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Putting Unsolicited Advice to Work, er Wipes

By Kris Travis | Sep 10, 2015

This should strike a chord with any parent (especially those of you as sleep-deprived as I am). Sometimes I feel like a short walk to the park with my kids becomes an open invitation for “tips and tricks” from well-meaning advisors. I appreciate their intentions, and I’ve gotten pretty good at hanging on to the advice that […]

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Raster vs. Vector Images

By Kris Travis | Aug 20, 2015

If I’ve worked with your existing brand materials, chances are, I’ve asked you for some native files. And especially when it comes to logos, I asked you for a vector file. Here’s a quick primer on raster vs. vector images, appropriate use cases, etc. Raster A raster, or bitmap image is made up of pixels […]

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Visual Intelligence and Your Brand

By Kris Travis | Jul 20, 2015

Check out this infographic from WebDAM about the importance of visuals in capturing your audience. As you’d expect, all of us are reading a bit less and skimming a bit more, and visual IQs are on the rise faster than other types of intelligence. While I find this a little depressing (I love to read!), I’m […]

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Independence Day Shareables

By Kris Travis | Jun 30, 2015

With Fourth of July approaching, I thought it would be fun to pull together some shareable images–digital Independence Day “holiday cards” as it were. So please, share away! Whether you’re spending the weekend watching fireworks, barbecuing, celebrating with family and friends, or just sleeping in, have a very happy and safe holiday weekend.    

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Truth and Fiction in Typography

By Kris Travis | Jun 4, 2015

Designers are always thinking about the best font choice for a given project, and there are a lot of factors that go into that decision. Should the font be serif or san-serif? Modern or traditional? Serious or fun? Wide or narrow? Is legibility important, or can we push it on the style? What age group […]

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Beautiful Brand Guides

By Kris Travis | May 21, 2015

Brand guide for Clearly Business, by The One Off A brand guide is an essential tool for companies who aim to present a cohesive, consistent, and professional face to the world. A company’s brand guide acts as its visual communications “map” over the years, and also as documentation of the brand’s history as it evolves (as […]

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The Importance of Negative Feedback

By Kris Travis | Apr 30, 2015

In case you didn’t know, today is “National Honesty Day.” (It also happens to be “Adopt a Shelter Pet Day,” “Bugs Bunny Day,” “Hairstylist Appreciation Day,” “Oatmeal Cookie Day,” “Raisin Day,” “Sarcoidosis Day,” and “Poem in Your Pocket Day,” and while a number of those are terribly important—I mean, cookies!–we’ll focus on honesty for now.) […]

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Anticipatory Design: Robots vs. Relationships

By Kris Travis | Apr 16, 2015

This article in FastCo Design speaks to me; I will always call it “the cereal aisle effect.” I had just returned to the states after being in Nicaragua for two weeks, and stood dumb in the cereal aisle, completely paralyzed by all the choices. Don’t get me wrong—I was eager for a little variety after […]

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Photos for Life

By Kris Travis | Dec 16, 2014

Now this is a great way to bring some soul to stock photography. According to this fastco.com article, the communications agency Isobar Poland has partnered with the Rak’n’Roll Win Your Life! foundation to create Photos for Life, the “world’s first charity photo bank, which exclusively features cancer patients and survivors.” And the profits from the photos […]

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