Creative Ideas that inspire

Personal Note

It's All Good!

We've been busy (not that we're excusing CreatiVerve's hiatus). In April, AdvantGroup was an exhibitor at the annual Education Day for the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Orange County. Then early this month, we reprised our act at a business expo.

Right now, we have some nice Web-site projects in the works, one for a chiropractic office and two for local insurance agencies. When those sites go live, we'll have practiced what we preach in this issue's feature article—that less is usually more!

Cheers!

Project Focus

Visual Relief

Consumer debt is a serious subject, but Kazlow & Tucker Debt Relief wanted a Web site that made prospective clients feel welcome and hopeful. That's what we created.

See this solution and more. >>

Debi Calvet
Principal

Chris Calvet
Principal

Feature Article

More or Less? Less Is More!

Robert Browning's 14th-century painter said it in "Andrea del Sarto." Architect Mies van der Rohe and his contemporaries made it their design philosophy in the early 20th century. "Less is more."  

Today, a less-is-more approach to print, Web, and identity design—or Milton Glaser's "just enough is more"—is almost always best. "That's fine for exciting products and services that sell themselves," you might say, "but businesses that aren't so exciting need lots of graphics and headlines to get attention."

Not necessarily. In fact, adding paragraphs to print ads and image galleries to Web sites to make what's being promoted seem more interesting can actually have the opposite effect. That's because the excess just clutters the space and clouds the message, which causes readers to lose interest and move away from the site or ad.

Instead of more images and words in visual communications, what businesses really need is a combination of well-chosen words and images that, working together, drive home the message. To help you achieve that in the future, here are a couple of guidelines to keep in mind:

• Copy is critical to the effectiveness of your marketing materials and Web site. Work on the copy until it's right, removing errors and ambiguities and trimming the "fat." Do that as many times as it takes to achieve a clear, succinct, and appealing message.

• Design, images, and graphics—still or motion—have one purpose: to support your message. Instead of decorating your Web site or marketing pieces with graphics that distract or annoy the reader, use images and animation sparingly and purposefully.