Communication Isn’t Just for the Birds

Every year about this time we get birds lining up on the wires. In August, it’s barn swallows. In September, its mourning doves. They sit on the wires and chatter, chatter, chatter away. When my kids were young, I told them the birds were discussing their migratory route.

Communication isn’t just for the birds. When you’re working with a graphic designer, how the two of you communicate makes all the difference. Poor communication can bomb the project. Good communication makes it soar.

Lately, I’ve been working with NewWay Global Energy and the folks there have done a super job communicating.

Right from the get-go, NewWay’s Carrie, Cory, Dave and Mona knew their product, their audience and their marketing objectives. Together we brainstormed the logo and website they wanted me to create, and they showed me samples they liked and didn’t like.

Here are some of the things we discussed:

• Because NewWay is a subsidiary of JWR, Inc., logos for both companies need to share a commonality. We did this by taking JWR’s swoosh, reversing it and putting it in front of NewWay’s name.
• NewWay’s product is a cutting edge waste-to-energy system. Their logo and website need a confident, clean, natural, and earth-friendly look. We chose a bold typeface for the NewWay name; a contrasting, very round type for Global Energy; and a clean, san-serif type for the website content.
• Carrie, Cory, Dave and Mona wanted the logo done in green and blue. But not just any green and blue. They had specifics for me, which was so helpful because, after all, my idea of green could easily be different from theirs. We could have wasted a lot of time going back and forth before hitting it right.

So what colors did they like?

Mountain Dew green and Chex Mix blue. Way to go, Carrie, Cory, Dave and Mona!