We started discussions with Office Services over a year ago in regards to their advertising campaign. The idea was to put the Savannah company out into the public eye with a big push leading up to their 10th year of being in business. On top of that, they had a brand new showroom they were working on that they wished to promote to the architect / design community.
- The meeting space and teaming room for designers and creative professionals is one of our favorite spaces of the showroom.
Fast forward about 12 months – another meeting with Office Services. Got to take a peek at their beautiful HON furnishings design showroom. Great design details and workspace throughout. Turns out, they needed assistance for their 10th anniversary celebration. Do we offer event planning services? No, we sure don’t. But, after some support and “you’d-do-a-fantastic-job. we trust you” type conversations, we said yes. After all, there were invites, signage, collateral, and promo items to be designed (oh, and logos to put on custom cookies!). So, we employed the talented Tammy Ray of The Detail Department to help us pull it off.
We constructed a talented, experienced team and conquered something we hadn’t done before under the name Clark Creative. Services included orchestrating, developing and / or designing the following:
Invitation Design
Rack Card Design
Promotional Items (bags, cookies, notepads, pens)
Signage
Print Production and Management
Mailing
Budget Management
Event Planning (Catering, Guest List, Tent Rentals, Photography, etc)
Continuing Education Class for design professionals (working with HON)
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
Public Relations
- We were excited by the opportunity to use a diecut for the invite. We think it really caught attention of our target audience - design sensitive individuals.
In the end, the event was a success (and we have photos to prove it). The weather remained cool and dry; food was great; an elected official assisted with the ribbon cutting, which was a feat within itself since it was Savannah-Chatham Day at the Capital and most of the other elected officials were in Atlanta.; and the crowds showed as we all celebrated 10 years of business and a beautiful showroom.
Congrats to Office Services - and thanks for the “you can do it!” attitude!
- HON truck staged as the backdrop - driven to Savannah all the way from Chicago headquarters especially for the event.
February 18th, 2010
One of my favorite final steps of the design process is making color selections and determining the printing processes we’ll use. The tool of choice? THE Pantone book!
The Pantone Color Matching System, or PMS for short, is largely a standardized color reproduction system used by graphic designers, reproduction and printing houses for a number of years now. It keeps us all on the same page (or should I say guide?) when communicating color.
Pantone swatch books, CMYK chart and buckets of perfectly mixed ink
Pantone, as it is today, was founded in 1962, when the company—at the time a small business that manufactured color cards for cosmetics companies—was bought by Lawrence Herbert, who had been an employee since 1956. He immediately changed its direction, developing the first color matching system in 1963. He only retired recently from the company as CEO.
The company’s primary products include the Pantone Guides, which consist of a large number of small (approximately 6×2 inches or 15×5 cm) thin cardboard sheets, printed on one side with a series of related color swatches and then bound into a small flipbook. For instance, a particular “page” might contain a number of yellows of varying tints. One of my favorite guides includes all the tints of one color. This is super handy when working with limited ink colors (sometimes translated to small budgets). I’ve learned to master eye tricks with using one or two colors to create much more depth and interest by using this handy guide.
The idea behind the PMS is to allow designers to ‘color match’ specific colors when a design enters production stage—regardless of the equipment used to produce the color. Pantone recommends that PMS Color Guides be purchased annually as their inks become more yellow over time. Color variance also occurs within editions based on the paper stock used (coated, matte or uncoated).
Pantone colors are described by their allocated number (typically referred to as, for example, ‘PMS 130′). PMS colors are almost always used in branding and have even found their way into government legislation (to describe the colors of flags). In January 2003, the Scottish Parliament debated a petition (reference PE512) to refer to the blue in the Scottish flag (saltire) as ‘Pantone 300′. Countries such as the USA and South Korea have also chosen to refer to specific Pantone colors to use when producing
flags. U.S. States have set legislated PMS colors of their flags.
A great gift for any color addict
If you are color fanatic or know a graphic designer who is, these
mugs, inspired by Pantone Color charts, may be the best gift idea yet. Nice clean ‘chip chart’ packaging too.
December 12th, 2009