This is an opportunity for someone who is willing to go out on a limb and be part of a new campaign that uses all elements of cross media marketing including:

• Direct mail – yes, the printed stuff
• pURLs, gURLs, and any other “URL” we can think of
• Custom landing pages
• QR Codes/Microsoft Tags
• Email marketing

You want to help us expand into social media? Twitter? Facebook? Anything else you suggest? Fine, we’re all for it!

My client is a well-established, full service commercial and digital printer in Puget Sound who is looking for a very creative design partner.

The good news:

This could be a long term relationship with direct access to top tier regional clients.

The bad news:

You aren’t going to get rich.

The deal:

We’re looking for someone who is willing to barter services – there may be a small amount of cash available – but this needs to be approached as a barter.

What you’ll get:

• We’ll exchange printing/emailing/direct mail services dollar for dollar as a barter. You can develop your own portfolio of projects, create a direct mail campaign of your own, and we’ll support you and provide the printing.
• We’ll also give you portfolio copies of all the printed pieces and the right to display and refer to online elements of the campaign for you to use in your own marketing programs.
• As we get the campaign launched, we will introduce you to several thousand potential clients. We’ll make a real introduction and offer a testimonial/referral/personal message for you.

What we’d like from you:

• Joint campaign planning – this is expected to be a multiple thrust campaign across several months. We’ll need some time upfront to work through the overall strategy and the creative brief.
• Graphic design for print, web, and email marketing.
• Creative copy for all of the above.

Oh yes, and while this is a company that has been around awhile, there are young minds here eager to push beyond the usual.

Interested? Please call, email me, or use the contact form here and we can talk about the details.

The ash cloud that shut down British airspace, stranding thousands of people has produced an unlikely creative connection; a collaborative magazine.

The as yet nameless publication was the brain child of writer and editor Andrew Losowsky, who found himself stranded in Dublin.

Stuck with very little to do for work, Andrew put a call out online for editors, illustrators, designers, photographers and other creative people who were grounded in similar circumstances to take part in the project.

“To create a website would be something continually updated for a while but eventually it would wither away and die in a corner of the internet.

“To make a physical product means that it exists on your bookshelf that you can pick up and read and remember. It happens in a more serendipitous way in your life; it brings back the emotional resonance again.”

One must once again ask: Is print really dead?

As long as there is “emotional resonance,” print will have a long life!

The magazine will be produced using HP’s Magcloud publishing on demand service.

Read the entire story on BBC News.

Add your comment to this post »»

May 3, 2010, was the first day of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons first paperless annual meeting. Each of the roughly 3,000 medical attendees received a free iPod Touch in place of what used to be a 165-page program book and briefcase-size bag.

With the Touch, medical attendees were able to prep for the meeting in the months leading up to it via podcasts and use their iPod Touches to access every aspect of the AANS meeting, from social events and seminars to maps and social networking with other attendees.

Could have been an iPad instead! After all a third-gen iPod Touch (32GB) runs about $300 (the 64GB is $400) and the iPad starts at only $500. Then again, I imagine there were 3,000 deeply discounted iPod Touches available but Apple is certainly not going to discount the iPad when they’ve sold a million in the first month!

After all, the iPad has been documented as easy for any one from 2 1/2 to 100 years old!

We won’t even begin to discuss if the iPods/iPads are “greener” than a 165-page program book and bag!

Add your comment to this post »»