Consulting

Mar

2023

Multilingual graphic design matters

When asked to do a project for a repeat client, naturally, I said, “Yes!” My pro bono graphic design skills would allow my client–and the original author–to more widely distribute an important training manual. Welcome to multilingual graphic design!

The non-profit philanthropic organization in Melbourne, Australia came across an 80-page training manual written in Argentina and had it translated from Spanish into English. They wanted me to create the English manual with the same typesetting and layout as the Spanish version.

This introduced several challenges, also known as localization issues:

English sentences are shorter than Spanish sentences. This creates pages with less text and more “white space.”
Some typefaces/fonts are multilingual; others are not.
Graphic design and style naming conventions differ among languages.
The translation required the designer to recognize differences in spelling and word usage between Australian English and U.S. English.
The English translation required rewriting in a few areas to make the words sound more natural.
The original, Spanish manual looked good to those who are not trained in graphic design. Behind the scenes, the document needed to be set up with consistent typographic styles and colors.

Luckily, I have a working knowledge of Spanish and have written hundreds of English articles. I enjoy layout and typography. I was up to the challenge.

In this case, my mission was to make the English translation look like the original manual, published in Argentina. But what if my client originally envisioned a document that worked well in multiple languages?

Multilingual graphic design considers several localization issues:

Language differences—the translation and the use of common phrases.
Cultural differences—the use of acceptable images, colors and words.
Sentence length in different languages.
Languages that read from left to right vs. from right to left.
Multibyte languages with complex characters, e.g., Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Multilingual fonts—fonts that have all the characters, glyphs, and accent marks found in each language you want to use.
White space—embrace the use of white space when designing a document to be written in multiple languages; one line of text can look as elegant as two.

If you are not well-versed in multilingual graphic design, you can find a design firm that is. This was an enjoyable project with great results. My clients and the author of the original, Spanish training manual were pleased, and I learned a few new things as a bonus.

Jan

2023

Jill B Gilbert reaches a milestone with pro bono projects impact

Volunteer work benefits a range of educational, environmental, professional development, and philanthropic non-profits in the U.S. and abroad

JIll B Gilbert recently reached a milestone: she has provided over 800 hours of volunteer work, saving non-profit organizations more than $USD 100,000. And she’s not slowing down—currently working on her next project!

Gilbert provided marketing communications, graphic design, and web design services on two dozen projects—many were multiple projects for the same client. The projects ranged from a highly-customized presentation for a sister organization to a U.S. National Park, to branding and logo design for childhood education and Head Start programs and a new high school, to custom presentations and brand guidelines for healthcare organizations.

Gilbert began working with volunteer matching organization Catchafire in 2021, during the height of the pandemic. Technology advances in the past 5 years made it possible to complete all of this volunteer work remotely—even for clients in the Houston area—with client meetings via Zoom or Google Meetings. She provided project deliverables in electronic format, using Adobe Creative Cloud apps like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Acrobat; Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Apple’s Keynote slide software.

Gilbert remarked, “I have enjoyed working on projects with these non-profits. I am open to paid commissions and plan to continue volunteering marketing, graphic design, and web design services to worthy non-profits so they can spend their budgets to further their missions.”

You can read more about several of the pro bono projects in our blog.

"Jill is extremely organized and creative. Her commitment to advancing causes is genuine and inspiring. Jill goes above and beyond! It was a pleasure working with her."

Rosa

Bridges to Science

"I highly recommend anyone to work with Jill. She has a wealth of knowledge, is very kind, responsive, and did a wonderful job on our visual brand guide."

Heather

Wisconsin Association of Free & Charitable Clinics

"Jill knows design! She understands principles of good design and has in-depth knowledge of professional tools to make your designs look great!"

Kerry

Many Hands

Dec

2022

Case study: social media ad campaign for children’s book “P is for Pterodactyl

P IS FOR PTERODACTYL is the perfect product for a social media ad campaign. The English language is difficult to learn because of the many exceptions to spelling, grammar and pronunciation rules. This silly, fun read-aloud book by Rapper Lushlife (Raj Haldar) and Chris Carpenter teaches kids the ins and outs of spelling and phonetics. Adults love it, too!

Buyer demographics

Who would buy this book? P IS FOR PTERODACTYL is attractive to parents with young children, parents with school-age children learning to read, and to grandparents, aunts, and uncles. More females than males would buy the book. Relatives would buy this book as a gift. Buyers are more likely to be college-educated, often with advanced degrees.

Buyer persona

Digital marketing technology lets us target specific buyers, or personas. My marketing campaign targets a buyer called “90th Percentile Nana.” She is 55-65 years old, married or widowed, with two or more grandchildren. Her household income is in the 90th percentile of U.S. Households. She has an Amazon Prime account, a college degree, drives a luxury SUV, and has a designer Doodle dog. 90th Percentile Nana is in a book club and is tech-savvy, but prefers physical books to Kindle books. She is a foodie and an amateur chef who walks or exercises to stay fit.

Buyer's goals and challenges

Buyer’s goals:

Entertain grandchildren
Visually appealing book
Durable book, can be read over and over
Teach grandchildren the alphabet
Teach grandchildren to read
A New York Times Bestseller and/or award-winning book.

Buyer’s challenges:

Tired of the standard bedtime books
Finding a unique and interesting book
Finding a funny book with educational value.

Social Media Marketing Strategy

Goals and social media platform

The ad campaign goals are to create product awareness through advertising and generate sales leads. Facebook is a good fit for these goals, as it is the leading social platform with 2.7 billion monthly users; 54% Female, 46% Male. Facebook hits the sweet spot for 90th Percentile Nana’s demographics. Facebook has more users, and a greater percentage of users, in the target age and income groups than TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, or YouTube.

Social media scheduling

A key element of a social media campaign is timing. SproutSocial shows the highest Facebook engagement times are Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. (Figure 1). The American Marketing Association recommends skipping Saturday posts.

I developed a two-week schedule for Facebook posts and News Feed Ads (ads that pop up on your Facebook feed) targeted at peak engagement times. Content and design strategies include:

Each Facebook Post will be a Sponsored News Feed with one or more images plus text.
Many of the posts will be educational and informative versus “hard sell.”
Each Facebook Ad will appear in the user’s News Feed and will use images or graphics and limited text.
Using images of the book itself will help to build product awareness.
The ads will offer 10% to 15% discounts or free shipping and will ask users to sign up for emails and/or texts.

Metrics

Of the hundreds of social media metrics available, I selected a few to gauge the success of the P IS FOR PTERODACTYL advertising campaign:

engagement
impressions
mentions
tags
reposts
shares.

Marketing Collateral

Marketing pieces for the social media ad campaign use images optimized for Facebook. Collateral includes ads for desktop and mobile views, considering most people interact with social media accounts on smartphones—though 90th Percentile Nana might be more comfortable using a desktop or laptop computer. Marketing collateral also includes an original Acme Books logo for the ad campaign.

For further information on this digital marketing case study or to hire Jill B Gilbert for marketing communications advice or to design social media graphics, illustrations and ads for your company, please contact us.

Aug

2022

Clients clamoring for custom communication templates

The top three graphic design deliverables my clients request are new or updated brands, brand guidelines, and custom presentation templates.

PowerPoint has been around for more than 35 years. It still rules the roost as the leading slide presentation tool, despite the emergence of tools like Google Slides, Keynote, ZOHO Show, Canva, and Prezi. Organizations large, mid-sized and small use it to communicate all sorts of messages–sometimes well done, and other times not so well done.

With hundreds of free and paid templates available, many of my clients request custom, branded slide templates. Why? Because custom templates do a better job of communicating your brand.

Showcase your brand and ditch boring bullet slides

A custom template allows you to showcase your brand. Your brand is more than a logo; it is your company’s personality. Your brand is how others perceive, interact with, and build trust in your company.

Your organization’s personality really shines when you ditch a deck of boring “bullet” slides for a mix of text and graphics. Use a custom template to consistently communicate your brand. See the template above, created for The Venture Mentoring Team. This template fits the organization’s mission, vision, and values, and takes advantage of their logo style and colors. It is a complete package that truly changes how they can communicate from now on.

Primo presentation pointers

Use the template throughout your organization for a consistent message.
Provide guidance on usage of your logo, color palette, typefaces, and fonts (bold, italics, regular, etc.).
Find a style that works for your organization, whether playful or serious, bold or subdued, geometric, minimal or corporate.
Use a single style for graphics and illustrations; don’t use cheap clip art with a first-rate template.
Provide a variety of infographics, photo, and text layouts for different purposes.
Make it easy for others to use the template, providing instructions and training as needed.

If online presentation tools don’t meet your needs, if you want more than the built-in templates that come with your software, or have trouble finding a template you like, then a custom template may be for you.

I have designed dozens (hundreds?) of templates for PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Keynote (for Mac users). If you need a custom, branded presentation template and don’t have the know-how to do it yourself, then consult a pro!

Jul

2022

How we helped the Wisconsin Association of Free & Charitable Clinics upgrade their branding

The Wisconsin Association of Free & Charitable Clinics (WAFCC) is an advocate for the State’s ninety free & charitable clinics. The organization provides state advocacy, education opportunities, consulting services, and telehealth services to clinics. WAFCC fosters collaboration, networking, and resource-sharing. They selected Jill B Gilbert for two branding initiatives–brand guidelines and a custom presentation template consistent with these new guidelines.

Brand Guidelines

Brand guidelines are the rules an organization–large or small–follows to ensure their brand is consistent across various digital and print communications. These guidelines typically communicate the organization’s voice, style, logo, type, and colors.

They show the accepted use of the logo, any color variations, and placement, including very important “Do’s and Don’ts.” If an organization uses specific graphic styles, icons, or illustrations, the guidelines contain these, too.

Brand Guidelines are meant to be flexible, changing as the organization grows and changes. The WAFCC Brand Guidelines are a living document, soon to be updated with examples from the new slide presentation template.

"I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ANYONE TO WORK WITH JILL. SHE HAS A WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE, IS VERY KIND, RESPONSIVE, AND DID A WONDERFUL JOB ON OUR VISUAL BRAND GUIDE."

Heather Ule

WAFCC

Presentation Template

The most common methods of communication are email, PowerPoint (/Google Slides/Keynote/Other) presentations, and social media.

Branding is important in slide presentations, because it sets the tone for your organization’s message. Consistent style and message are key!

Jill B Gilbert designed a template that was a great match for WAFCC’s message and style needs.

"This was my second project with WAFCC. I enjoyed working with Heather and building a relationship. We plan to work together on more projects in the future."

Jill B Gilbert Graphic Designer

Jun

2022

Jill B Gilbert selected to advise Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety on Learning Management System

The physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety (PPAHS), a New Jersey non-profit organization, provides Continuing Medical Education (CME) to nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, and other medical professionals. Over 30,000 individuals subscribe to their service.

PPAHS needed advice on a new learning management system they plan to launch later in 2022 and selected Jill B Gilbert to help.

Jill pulled several tools out of her tool kit to help–experience designing and building websites, expertise in graphic design and typography, and, most important, the ability to assess PPAHS’s needs and create a plan for the new LMS website.

PPAHS was thrilled with the results, and plans to use Jill for future projects.

Jill is an absolute delight to work with. Truly a guru of design! In addition to help with this project, we learned so much from her about fonts, colors, headings, etc.

Michael Wong

Executive Director, PPAHS

Jul

2021

Questions to ask if you want a new or refreshed brand

A couple of weeks ago, a client selected my design firm to help with getting their brand on merchandise to sell at events and in their online store. I asked if they had their brand in various layouts and file formats for digital and print purposes. If the answer was, “Yes,” they were ready to go.

It turns out that what they really wanted was a new or refreshed brand, as they felt the current one was outdated.

If you want a new or refreshed brand, find answers to the following eleven questions before you speak with your graphic designer.

Arm yourself with plenty of information before you start the design process. If you don’t know where to start, seek advice from a graphic designer in knowledgeable in design, business and marketing issues and trends.

1. What are your business goals?

Believe it or not, a brand is more than a logo or graphic design; it is about your organization’s message, and how you communicate that message verbally and visually. So, it follows that business goals are connected to your brand. What is your organization’s “big picture?” Are you expanding into new markets? Are you planning new products, services, locations, or methods of reaching out to current or prospective clients?

2. What do you want this Brand to accomplish?

Think about how the graphic design of your brand fits into your marketing plans. If you have an established brand, you might want to update it to capture new markets. If you plan to launch a new brand, how will you generate brand awareness in the marketplace?

3. Who is your target audience?

Do/will you use digital marketing–social media, email, blogs to communicate with current and prospective clients– or traditional print, TV, radio and merchandise marketing methods? Where and how will you display your brand?

4. What marketing channels will you use?

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5. How Do you want your brand perceived?

What 3-5 adjectives describe your brand’s personality? For example, “youthful, urban, and edgy,” “corporate, seasoned, and traditional,” or something else? Do you see your brand as casual or formal; modern or traditional? Where do you see your product or service positioned in the market?

6. What are your brand/company values and mission?

If you closely tie your business model to your values and mission, then your brand design may reflect them. A preschool might want to incorporate a school or students. An environmental organization might want to use a tree, a leaf, something green, or something related to the earth.

7. Do you want to avoid certain topics, themes, imagery or colors?

Images and colors mean different things in different cultures. You may think that all firms that cater to your target audience have brands with similar elements, and you want your brand to stand out. Or, you simply might not like the color orange or purple.

8. Who are your key competitors?

What do you like or dislike about your competitors’ brands? Your graphic designer should create a brand that stands out from the competition, at the same time keeping in mind that you are going after the same audience.

9. Which existing brands do you admire or want to emulate?

If you are a tech startup, do you admire the designs of Apple, Dell, or Microsoft?All of these are quite different, yet recognizable worldwide–and each has gone through a transformation over the decades. What do you specifically like about the brands you admire?

10. What do you like and dislike about your current brand?

Knowing what you like and dislike is valuable information that will help you to launch your new or refreshed brand. You may think the colors or typeface are outdated, or you may think you want to start over with a new design. Either way, this is a great opportunity to enhance your overall brand strategy.

11. What is your decision making style?

When you embark on a branding initiative, your graphic designer will ask you to make a series of decisions, from design choices like brand style, images, color and typography (fonts) to technical choices like file formats, resolution, and the size your brand will be displayed. Where you are on the scale from Decisive to Indecisive will impact your ability to meet project objectives, scope, schedule, budget, and timeline.

Do you make decisions quickly? Do you make decisions based on feelings or facts? Do you get bogged down in “analysis paralysis?” For a description of business decision making types, read more here.

When I say, “You,” I really mean “you and your key stakeholders in this branding effort.” I recommend that you seek input from your key stakeholders before reaching key project milestones, but I do not recommend building your brand “by committee.”

Spending time to answer these eleven questions–including input from key stakeholders–can better position you for success in your branding initiative. Credit to 99 Designs for their original post; I added my perspective to their eleven questions.

Is all this effort worth it? Clients who understand the importance of branding say it is. If branding is new to you, So You Think You Need a New Brand might provide some insight.

As always, if you lack the internal resources to do a branding project, seek outside help. And, if you don’t know where to start, seek advice from a graphic design professional that also understands business and marketing issues. You will be glad you did.

May

2021

Mississippi Park Connection selects Jill B Gilbert for graphic design work

Mississippi Park Connection needed a custom, branded presentation template to convey its mission and message. They selected Jill B Gilbert to design the template. “The challenge was to understand Mississippi Park Connection’s needs, and find a style to complement the organization’s three pillars—habitat restoration and tree planting; paddling the Mississippi River; and youth education,” says Gilbert. MPC is thrilled with the presentation template, which includes over twenty customized illustrations that will appeal to diverse audiences, from prospective board members to volunteers and Park visitors of all ages.

the nonprofit partner of Mississippi National River and Recreation Area

Jan

2021

Should you build your own website, or hire a professional?

If your organization’s website needs a major refresh, you can hire a professional or build it yourself. After all, thousands of free and paid website templates are available, and website building tools are better than ever before. TV and social media ads make it look so easy to build a website! Let’s look at some of the questions to answer before you make a “build or buy” decision.

Website “build vs. buy” questions

What are your objectives? Why do you want to change your site? You may want to refresh your site because it is outdated, because your company is growing or adding products or services, to start a blog, to add the ability to sell products or services online, or for other reasons. Think about the technical and financial objective you want to achieve.

What types of changes do you need? You might be thinking of a total new look and feel, a change to the website structure, or both. Maybe you need a media library to easily store and retrieve images, videos, etc. You might need entire new features, e.g., a blog or e-commerce capabilities. You simply might want a new website that is easier to maintain in-house, rather than hiring a web professional to make changes each time you need them.

How is your current website built? Is it written (coded) in HTML + CSS, or is it built on one of the new platforms like WordPress, SquareSpace, WIX, or other? If it is an HTML site, you will need to know how to write code. If it built on one of the newer platforms, you may be able to build your own site; it may look professional but, depending on your HTML know-how, the site can be a mess behind the scenes. Yes, you read that right! This is because you cannot refresh these sites just by applying a new theme. Many of the current “drag-and-drop” website themes have widgets, code blocks, and other complexities. These site elements may not work in the new theme without a lot of tweaking.

How tech-savvy are you? If you are a lover of things tech, and the first of your friends to get the latest electronics, and you are committed to doing site updates yourself in the future, then building a website may be for you. If you use computers, social media and smartphones every day, but rarely update your electronics or software, this is a warning sign that you should speak to a web designer. But read further…

What is your timeline? If you need it quickly and can effectively plan and build a website, then do-it-yourself might work for you. Just keep your project objectives in mind, spend adequate time planning, get advice as needed, and go for it! If you need it quickly, don’t even consider slapping something together quickly to get a new, improved website up and running. This will do more harm than good. If you have a reasonable timeline, then you have plenty of options, both do-it-yourself and professionally-built.

What will it cost? First, think about the value that the website updates will bring to your company in terms of new clients, more business, and better market penetration. Second, consider the total cost to your organization. This is a cost-benefit issue, not the price tag to get the site up and running. If web development or computer coding are not your core business, you may find yourself spending hours updating the website yourself, at a significant cost to you in terms of lost revenue, missed marketing opportunities, missed new clients, etc. Third, what are the ongoing maintenance and update costs for the next three to five years?

Congratulations! If you have read this far, you now have more questions than answers! At the least, you understand some of the “build vs. buy” issues, and the many choices available to you. If you still have questions about what is best for you, please consult a professional. A short discussion could save you hours of time and a stack of money.

Feb

2018

Experience imparts value

As a consultant, it is interesting to see if prospective clients want a “second set of hands” or if they want advice to help them address a business need. In my past life as a management consultant in the software business, I sought the second type of assignment. The more problem-solving, the better.

In my role as a freelance creative professional, I still seek, and truly enjoy, “value-added” assignments where I can solve problems. I am still a consultant. The difference is, now I have lots of business and marketing expertise plus I have an eye for, and possess, Web and graphic design skills.

Image credit: Freepik

A beginning consultant brings skills, an experienced consultant brings value.”
–Jeffrey Zeldman

Web design guru Jeffrey Zeldman says that an experienced consultant brings value. To survive as an independent consultant at any age, and to remain meaningful in the digital design world, you must bring something different to the table. You must bring value.