Shaun Crowley (bio)

Based on my experience working within the publishing industry, here are ten things that I look for in a publicity designer that aren’t necessarily found in-house:

1. Design with depth
Marketing materials must grab attention. Flat, motionless design appropriate for books and magazines often fails to do this.

2. Demonstrate an awareness of message
Promotional designers must always find their inspiration from the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of the product they are selling.

3. Touch archetypal emotions
Great promotional designers create visuals that engage the audience’s deepest unarticulated needs.

4. Strive for simplicity and clarity
The most effective advertisements communicate one simple idea—both through copy and design.

5. Question an ambiguous brief
The best promotional designers contribute to and dissect their client’s brief, they don’t just absorb it.

6. Offer plenty of ideas
Design and copy go hand-in-hand to communicate a unified message. That’s why promotional designers should offer as many concepts for discussion as is expected of the copywriter.

7. Communicate a brand image with extra creative edge
Good promotional designers have an ability to turn a brand from something old to something fresh, yet still keep alive its familiar values.

8. Demonstrate a passion for advertising
Promotional designers take ideas from advertising around them. This means they are constantly evaluating recent advertising techniques.

9. Keep the objective in mind
Promotional designers should seek to find out what their design must achieve before they start work.

10. Think outside the confines of individual ability
Good promotional designers offer alternative suggestions for visual approach, and are ready to work with other freelancers as necessary; e.g. to render images in 3D; to provide photography, illustration, and animation, etc.

If you don’t already specialize in designing marketing collateral, it’s a big step to change direction from what you know to something relatively unfamiliar.

But is it possible? Sure it is. None of the above prerequisites are off your radar. Yet the rewards are clear. Revising your design-offer to work as a promotional designer can have a big effect on your turnover.

In fact, making the cross-over into designing marketing collateral is a text-book self-marketing activity. Self-marketing is the act of honing your service and targeting your most lucrative clients. That is what separates the successful from the ordinary.

Shaun Crowley has worked as a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant. He currently works as a communications manager for a major UK publishing company and is the author of The Freelance Designer's Self-Marketing Handbook and 100 Copywriting Tips for Designers and Other Freelance Artists.

© Shaun Crowley 2007