I recently read a thread of comments on Facebook in which Santa Fe localist,Vicki Pozzebon, was admittedly “ranting” about how useless a 6-panel business brochure was. She picked it up in a café, attracted to the image and color but after looking at 6 panels, she couldn’t figure out what they do, what they offer, or who they are for a few minutes! Does anyone have minutes to understand a brochure? Vicki is not a professional designer but she is a branding and outreach consultant to businesses and non-profits, attuned to communication success or failure.
More comments ensued, and I had to add mine, as a shout-out to Design Corps of Santa Fe, which was formed a few years ago to help address these issues and to bring great design—and the ultimate value of it—to the forefront in Santa Fe.
The next comment in the thread was from Renée Innis, co-founder Design Corps, with this mission statement:
The Design Corps was created to make visible the role of leading visual communication professionals in Santa Fe and to promote the value of design. Quality design and communication is essential for local businesses and organizations in any community, particularly one such as ours which is known for its creativity! #designwins
I understand how the atmosphere has changed everywhere and that people who never signed up to create marketing materials as part of their job are now given these responsibilities in addition to their original role. I feel for them because I wouldn’t want to be expected to prepare the company’s taxes as a designer. The important thing to remember in communication design is that a business will lose the attention of a potential customer in a matter of seconds if curiosity is thwarted by a confused or missing message. Our job as professional designers is to make the most of those initial seconds, resulting in a win for the client.
Eastwood Design 