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ESTABLISHING A STYLE

Here at Exsilio's Creative Department, we pride ourselves on our ability to approach any project with an original and unique vision. This is especially true when it came time to brand our own printed materials (including various case studies, offering flyers, and our all-up company brochure). Gathering references from both the Swiss-style as well as post-modernism, our team of designers looked towards the avant-garde aesthetic for both creative inspiration and guidance. It was here, that we developed a simple but elegant approach to our newly acquired collateral. By using basic geometric shapes and a limited color palette, we employed the most fundamental rule of graphic design... "Less is more".Through such a minimalist ideology, we were then faced with the challenge of how do we differentiate between the flyers; and more importantly, how do we speak to the content of each individual offering? This meant introducing some form of "personalization" in order to make each piece unique. A simple resolve was adding a collage of background elements to form an individual look & feel for each of the handouts.

RETHINKING THE APPROACH

When it came time to develop our own department's flyer, we saw it as an opportunity to display our creative talents. By doing something a little different and adopting the overall look & feel of our previous materials we demonstrated one of Exsilio's finest traditions - redefining what you thought possible! What better way to communicate such imagination and ingenuity than to implement some form of traditional art practice - in this case, a series of hand drawn sketches. If a graphic artist is to make an impactful design than it must not only be aesthically pleasing but it must also contain substance. From a theoretical standpoint these two applications (of both formal and contemporary design) posed an interesting challenge to our creative team due to the fact that they represent two competing forms of thought. Naturally, print design is based out of the contemporary approach to graphic art, which is the theory of "replication". Ultimately, this debate has divided the art community for centuries. The ability to duplicate a piece of art allows for reproduction on a mass scale - such has been the foundation of graphic design within the business model. Whereas, fine art including painting, sketching, and other traditional practices, prides itself on its inability to be replicable. Thus, we can clearly begin to see how Exsilio's innovative approach defied the norm and combined both forms of design into one successful piece of art. Below is an example of the Creative Services flyer as well as some of the sketches which did not make the cut.

Elizabeth Gilbert, the recently famous author of "Eat, Pray, Love," has a very insightful, and funny, oratory on the creative process and writers in her February, 2009 TED Talk. What I found most profound about Elizabeth's talk was how accurately she described the creative process and the idea of a etherial being of some kind which helps to inspire and shape work.

While I don’t consider myself a “creative” by profession, I did earn an English degree in college, and I’m using it (thankfully) more than I anticipated. I guess this sort of puts me in that creative arena; creative writing and copywriting are definitely part of my role as corporate marketing manager.
That said, I go through phases of how I feel about my writing; some days I feel extremely confident about what I’ve written—be it web or email copy, or a client presentation.  Other days I feel like I have no business ever writing again. The latter is an extreme, and won’t ever happen, because I truly enjoy writing.
Often times, I use writing as a way to express emotion and think through issues in my personal life. Actual handwriting…typing is far from therapeutic. If I’m struggling with something, I write about it—free form, and most of the time, I feel much better after getting it down on paper. 
I do have a specific writing style and voice, and sometimes it’s challenging for me to step outside of those—but this is often necessary, especially as I write for different audiences and purposes.
I came across a couple of validating articles recently which helped me to see that perhaps my struggles are normal for writers.
Ali Luke is a writing coach with a popular blog called Aliventures. She shares some inside information on the writing world, in her post “Eight Secrets Which Writers Won’t Tell You.” Ira Glass is a National Public Radio personality, famous for his involvement with This American Life. He offers the following about the creative journey:

This simple but amazing video walks through the evolution of the web from it's early days to today. Everytime I see this it gets me excited to create something. Take a look...I'm sure you'll like it: You can also download a higher resolution copy below: Windows Media File (55 MB) | Quicktime File (96 MB)

I can’t think of too many projects I’ve been involved with that didn’t interact with some type of content in one way or another. While it’s ideal to have the final content to use during development, that’s not always possible.  The content may not exist yet, or it may be confidential  - whatever the case may be I often  need to use sample content as a placeholder while developing.  While I could always copy and paste some text from a website to use as a placeholder there is a better way that gives me much more control and is just as quick and easy. 

In most Microsoft Office apps you can generate a block of sample content by typing =rand() and then pressing enter.   If you want more control over the content that is generated there are two parameters you can include.  The first parameter is the number of paragraphs to generate.  For example =rand(4) will spit out 4 paragraphs.   The second parameter is the number of sentences to include in each paragraph.  So =rand(2,5) will give you 2 paragraphs with 5 sentences in each.  

If you want to generate ‘lorem ipsum’ text you can use =lorem() instead.  With =lorem() you can also pass the two parameters control the number of paragraphs and sentences that are generated.

We're proud to announce Exsilio's creative team was chosen as the branding and creative partner for MIX11. MIX is Microsoft's annual web designer and developer conference, held for three days in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Visit the MIX11 website to see our work, and subscribe to the MIX11 e-newsletter to see more.

Our creative team provided the logo design, web and ad creative for the MIX11 event.

If you're interested in learning more about our creative services, contact Katheryn Baker, katheryn@exsilioinc.com