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Creative Marketing | 24
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Creative Marketing
By Bruce Powers, ASLA
 
The first step in the process was to get updated photographs of key projects our firm has been involved with. A Kodak DC 120 Digital Camera was rented and a helicopter service was hired to fly over the target projects. The camera rental was $50.00 and the helicopter was $240.00 for approximately two hours of flight time. The design team loaded the photos directly into the PC from the camera because they were digital images, using Adobe Photoshop, an image editing software.
 
Marketing for design firms is always a time consuming and challenging task, often looked at as an unpleasant necessity. The task can be even more intimidating when you have no marketing material and a limited budget. Yet, by utilizing the creative nature of landscape designers and the tools on hand, a firm can develop a very high quality marketing package on a small budget. WAI, Inc. is a multi-disciplinary design firm that provides services to public and private clients in the Pacific Northwest. The challenge was to develop a new marketing package for the firm that promoted new services (Landscape Architecture and Land Planning), a new logo and name change.
 
From a marketing standpoint, the firm knew a high quality product with a lot of flexibility was necessary. Bold, colorful graphics would catch the eye, representing the firm's services and reflecting the new logo in a consistent format. Individual "cut sheets" were chosen, as they can be easily added or removed from the total package to fit the target market. The "cut sheets" were designed to maximize the visual by utilizing color digital images that filled the majority of the page, while minimizing the text to avoid clutter on the page.
 
After obtaining updated photographs of noteworthy projects (see above), the next challenge was to incorporate existing AutoCAD drawings into the final product. First, staffmember Wayne Iazzetti used AutoCAD R14 to simplify and streamline the drawings in order to increase readability for the target sheet size. AutoCAD has the capability to import images but the software package is not robust and flexible enough to handle desktop publishing. By printing the drawings to vector files, Encapsulated Postscript, and allowing lines to have different widths and other types of control, the team was able to import the images to Microsoft Publisher 98. Photoshop then converted the vector files to images that Publisher was optimized to print. Publisher gathered the various sources of information to produce the final marketing product on an inexpensive Epson Stylus Color 600 printer. Proofs were created on plain paper to adjust the design before the final prints were produced on high quality Epson photographic ink jet paper.
 
As you can see, the preparation of quality marketing information and "cut sheets" can be a rewarding experience when looked at as just another design challenge faced by Landscape Architects. By utilizing the graphic and creative nature of designers-- and the tools probably already on hand-- a design team can easily develop a very high quality marketing package on a small budget. lasn
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