Travel Guidebook Redesign Case Study, part 1

In 2004, I was given the task to do a complete redesign of the famous Sanborn's Travelog guidebooks. This redesign project would include covers, log entry structure and content layout. In this article, I will discuss the project’s problem areas, the research and the solutions I proposed. In my next article I will discuss, in more detail, my cover design and page layout.

Previous cover design

My cover design

Guidebook background:

The Sanborn’s Travelog is a famous series of six guidebooks that cover all of Mexico with incredibly detailed directions along with tidbits of history and humor. These mile-by-mile guidebooks take the traveler by the hand to his destination. Each book calculates mileage and offers suggestions for alternate routes, as well as lists customer approved hotels and restaurants.

The Problem:

The latest guidebook covers were designed in the early 1990s and had not been updated in any way. All covers had the same unattractive color combination, stale design and outdated logo. The only thing that distinguished one book cover from another, aside from the title, was a large map highlighting the books’ target region. The interior pages had little to no design elements, other than maps, which made the reading experience a bit bland. Also, the structure of the log entries were difficult to follow because they repeatedly jumped from the front of the book to the back, then to the front again.

The Research:

I spent several afternoons at bookstores watching anyone that approached the Travel section. I wrote down their gender and approximate age. At the end, I looked over each book and map that was picked up by, what appeared to be, seasoned travelers. Afterwards, I looked over other guidebooks that also grabbed my attention. I studied the front covers and noted images and color combinations. I also made many notes on features within the interior pages of all those books. To this I added several hours of online research, and at the end compiled all my notes and presented them to the president and managers of Sanborn’s Mexico Insurance.

The Solution:

The log entries would be restructured to follow known travel routes, where before they spread out from the center of each city. This would eliminate much of the traveler’s frustrations with repeatedly jumping from one end of the book to the other, than back again. Also, the interior pages would feature a side bar to clearly show where additional information would be featured and to also provide travelers with an area where they could jot down their own notes as they followed the routes, instead of flipping to the end of the book for a Notes section. The cover design would feature a large image showing a well-known destination, landmark or activity. I proposed that the cover background be a textured image that would represent the region each book was dedicated to. The map of the region would be moved to the back cover and made much smaller. It would show the routes that the individual book would follow. Each book would also contain plenty of extras, such as maps, featured articles, redesigned hotel and restaurant information, unit conversions and English-to-Spanish translations.

This guidebook redesign project took approximately one year to complete. In my next article I will go into more detail about my cover design and page layout.

Thank you,

Pete C.

Brainwerx Design

If you liked this article you may also enjoy:
Logo Design Case Study: Arriba! Mexican Insurance, Logo Design Case Study: Brainwerx Design

When good logos go bad, who's to blame?

The original logo design I created in 1999.

In 1999 a local coffee house, MoonBeans Coffee, asked me to create a logo for their new business. One of the main requests, by the company owner, was that the logo appear as if the company had been a well established franchise. With that in mind, I dove into my research and worked closely with my client while developing sketches.

At the end of the entire process, the client choose the logo that you see here. I developed a full brand identity system for MoonBeans that included stationary, disposable cups, menu boards, etc. I even painted a mural on a wall and helped design the interior of their original establishment.

After months of collaboration and hard work, the client and I slowly stopped working together. He concentrated more on radio advertisement, which is a media that I do not work with. Days became months, and months became years. On a rare occasion, the coffee house owner and I would get together and work on a small project but our business relationship never blossomed again.

Flash forward to 2 1/2 weeks ago (1-15-11). I walked into a local burger joint and saw that same logo I created 12 years ago on a T-shirt, but it had been (how can I put this kindly) revised. As soon as I saw the altered logo, my first thought was, "Somebody changed it, and it doesn't look good." Honestly, I would have had the exact same thought whether I had designed the original logo or not. Knowing what the original logo looked liked and seeing what it became, makes me think that "the change" did not improve the logo or my ex-client's business. It seems that whoever altered it had a very specific audience in mind. Or absolutely NO audience in mind.

Altered logo.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't feel bitter about this at all. No designer should expect their artwork to live forever without being adjusted after so many years. As a general rule, graphic designs rarely last more than two years, due to changing trends. Most well designed logos will last 8 - 10 years before someone changes "something" about them.

So who's to blame here? Me for not keeping up with the client? The client for allowing a negative change to his image? The designer who made the change for not having a broader audience in mind?

I've passed by the coffee house many times. Each time, I see the exterior light sign that still bares the original logo. That gives me hope that not all branding efforts are lost for my ex-client. Maybe it's time to stop by for a cup of coffee???

-Pete C.
Brainwerx Design

If you liked this article you may also enjoy: 

Gap's new logo (for a week),  Logo Design Case Study: Arriba! Mexican Insurance

Creative business card design

Everyone knows that marketing and branding go hand in hand. I'm a firm believer that every point of contact your business has should make a statement. It should say exactly what your business is about and it should be memorable.

When I began sketching design concepts for my business cards, I knew that emphasizing the gears (or one gear as it would turn out to be) would compliment my logo. It would also make a statement about my work process, which I touched on in my previous blog article, Logo Design Case Study: Brainwerx Design.

I wanted my potential customers to have an "interactive feel" to the card and "moving the gear" (opening the card to reveal my contact information) would convey that feeling. For this to work properly, I had to keep the gear graphic to a specific size so that the information below would still be at a legible font size. Doing this would keep the logo on the front of the card, smaller than most start up companies would care for. Many companies would rather have their logo or company name as large as possible. That's part of marketing and advertising. I wanted my customers to "feel" what my work is about. That's branding.



Now, there are hundreds of ways that I could have dealt with the main gear graphic in the front of my business card. I could have used metallic inks, foils, even casting actual metal, but all those options are quite expensive. Anyone that has ever created their own business cards and wanted to do a custom die cut (the use of a metal template to cut away a specific shape) has found out that this is a very expensive process. So what's my big cost cutting secret? That's simple - having a very steady hand.

When I had decided to treat the gear graphic as a die cut, I knew that I could do the cut on my own for a very low cost. I bought a 1/4" hole punch, a 1/2" hole punch and very sharp X-ACTO knife, all for approximately $20.00. Whenever I have some free time, I sit down in front of the television and cut and hole punch the cards. I've never thought of it as a tedious project since I enjoy being constructive away from my computer. Plus it reminds me of my final semester at the Art Institute of Houston, preparing my final portfolio presentation.


 Pete C.

Brainwerx Design

If you liked this article you may also enjoy: 

Looking for a "Creative" advertising agency,  Marketing your business starts with a Marketable Name

A Print Designer's First Website

A few weeks ago I met up with a potential client that needed help with his website. Let's call him Joe, shall we? He mentioned to me that his website was ranked extremely low in Google’s search results.
 
Visually, the website looked as if it had been designed over 10 years ago. Black background, dark gray body, bold white type. Also, the images took too long to load, and I noticed that several of his links were not active.

I won't go into ALL the gory details, but once I saw his site's mark up code, I was shocked. There was absolutely no META data on any of his pages! Search engines, like Google, use this information when adding pages to their search index list. So when you type “Apple computer” on Google’s search box, Google goes through its list of websites, and uses that META data to show you all the websites that are related to that phrase. Joe’s website had none of this coding. How were robots and spiders supposed to help determine his page ranking without these extremely vital codes?

Down and Dirty
A few days later, I meet Joe at his office to discuss my findings. After reviewing all his web files, it became VERY clear that his website was a print designer's first attempt at web design and construction. Joe's website only had 6 pages, one of which was never completed. However there was about 50 .HTML files in his server; some dating back 2 years. Some of the images used were saved at resolution of 300 dpi (Great for printing! Horrible for web design.) and sized at 800 x 600 pixels. Quite an over kill, since all static web pages should use images at 72 dpi, sized to 300x400 pixels, on average. His image file sizes were over 3x what is actually needed for this kind of website. No wonder his photos took so long to load.

Whoever created his website, also did not understand how to use DIV tags and style margins. The previous designer used tables (much like in Excel) as spacers to place all objects where he saw fit. He also used individual tables for each paragraph of body text, instead of creating cells.

Finally, I also had to break the news to Joe about his site’s lack of META adata, and why it's so important for search engines.

To help Joe better understand about robots and spiders sifting through this website, I re-created his home page using .PHP, proper DIV tags, 2 include commands and a CSS style sheet. What does all this mean? Well, .PHP coding is just another language for writing/constructing websites. DIV tags produce the same effect as tables, but without unnecessary codes. The include command works similar to links on a web page, but for web coding. Say I’m building a website with 30 pages. Instead of writing the code for the main menu, on each individual page, I’ll create a “link,” this being the include command, to the file the contains the code for the main menu. This code is saved separately from all the other pages. So when Joe decides that he wants to switch the order of his menu, I won’t have to do it 30 times. I’ll do it once, save it, and the change will show up on every page. (Voila!) CSS coding works much the same way, but for styling text, borders, backgrounds, etc.

The results? What took the previous "web designers" 146 lines of code to create, I accomplished in 35. (Below are images of the two codes, for all to compare.)

So what's going to happen with Joe's website? After showing him how inefficient (and ineffective) his web pages are, he signed up for a total website redesign. His new site will grow from 6 pages, to approximately 25.

Keep following my blog for further updates on "Joe's" new website. Also, look for my follow up article on website construction, where I’ll discuss why I prefer to use .PHP coding, DIV tags, include commands and CSS style sheets, in more detail.

-Pete C.
Brainwerx Design

Brainwerx Design website has gone live!

Hello!

My professional on-line portfolio, www.brainwerxdesign.com, is now alive and kicking. This portfolio features just a few of the graphic designs, logos, illustrations and advertisements that I've created over the years.

I have 15 years experience in branding and logo design, along with an extensive background in marketing, advertising and website design.

Some of the graphic design work you'll see in my website has been honored with advertisement awards by the Valley Advertising Federation, a division of the American Advertising Federation, and other noteworthy organizations.

Please, feel free to comment on any of the graphic design work this portfolio contains.

Also, be sure to follow this blog, dedicated to all areas of graphic design and advertising. Here, I'll be posting my design work and sketches, as well as feature others' work in my "Wish I'd Done That!" post. Stay tuned in for graphic design tips, tidbits and inspiration!


Thank you,
Pete C.
www.brainwerxdesign.com

My website has been delayed!

I was hoping to get my website up and running this weekend, but it looks like it's going to take me a bit longer. I've been extremely busy working on several projects.

 Keep checking www.brainwerxdesign.com, I'm not too far from finishing my professional graphic design portfolio.

Brainwerx Design Blog Coming Soon!

Hello, I'll be starting a new blog soon. My blog will be dedicated to all areas of graphic design. I have 15 years experience as a graphic designer working in advertising agencies, sign shops, newspapers and magazines.

My new website will go live within the next two weeks, so be sure to check out www.brainwerxdesign.com and follow this blog for tips, tidbits and inspiration!