Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

I have to admit, I am thoroughly sick of all the nonprofit branding talk, so when I saw “Branding Is for Cattle: What Really Matters to CEOs” in the MarketingProfs e-newsletter, I clicked on it immediately. The point of the article is that marketers who get all wound up in branding often forget why they are marketing in the first place: to reach the customers and to respond to their needs.

I am all for a unified look in nonprofit marketing materials and for updating that look every now and then. I constantly advocate consistency, so you won’t get an argument from me on that one either. What bothers me about all the nonprofit branding chatter I’ve been hearing is the near breathless anticipation that a cool color scheme, groovy graphics, and some Flash on a website will suddenly make people “get it” about an organization or issue. Anyone who makes you believe that branding will solve all of your communications problems is selling you nothing but Snake Oil 2.0.

Branding is good, but it’s only one part of the overall communications and marketing picture. You still have to know who your audience is. You still have to know what they care about and why. You still have to figure out how to reach them. Don’t give your branding (or rebranding) project more importance than it deserves.

I started noticing more tightly cropped headshots in both print and online publications about a year ago and now they are everywhere. These photos are so tightly cropped that part of the head is gone — usually some portion of the hair, but sometimes an ear or the mouth. In modeling/acting circles, it is called a “Hollywood Crop.”

At first I found this incredibly annoying. We have always teased my grandmother about chopping off heads in practically every photo she’s taken. To me, these tight crops looked like bad photography. It also seemed to be extremely popular with balding men who, it seemed to me, were trying to hide their hair loss. (Except for Seth Godin, who cropped his photo to nothing but his eyes and big bald head.)

I’m still annoyed by most of these cropped headshots, especially when the rest of the photo is not well cropped, but I’m starting to come around. I’m working with one of my favorite clients, the Center for Ecological Technology, on their annual report. I asked Susan Slattery, their director of marketing and development and a professional photographer, about this kind of cropping as we reviewed which photos to use. Here is what she said:

“It has long been said that the full head shot is one of the dullest photos to be taken. There is nothing visually stunning about it. Cropping makes shots much more dynamic. The eye fills in the missing pieces, and the cropping makes other things pop. Cropping pulls the viewer in . . .”

I can definitely see what Susan means. By losing the top of the head, for example, you bring the subject’s eyes up into the top of the photo and make them more prominent. Cropping from the side also creates drama, as my friend Rebecca Jamison and her cover designer did for her book on Grayson Hall. And why wouldn’t big forehead-ed people like moi want to trim that noggin, I hear cropping fanatics asking?

So what do you think? Here is the headshot I’ve been using lately, cropped in several different ways. Vote for your favorite and I’ll start using it as my avatar for MyBlogLog, etc. And be sure to share your opinions on “Hollywood Cropping” in general by leaving a comment.

I always advise nonprofits to include photos in their print newsletters. But what about images in e-newsletters? The answer is not as clear-cut and here’s why: a large portion of your online readers probably won’t see the images automatically. Worse yet, if you don’t watch your design carefully, these readers may see only a big empty box leading them to quickly delete your email without a second thought. You can learn more about why this is the case at Campaign Monitor and EmailExperience.org.

Given this reality, I say you should play it safe with your email campaigns and e-newsletters and assume that some portion of readers won’t see your images. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t include images; it means you should do so carefully. Here are a few guidelines you should follow.

1. Use small images. You don’t want to fill up the viewing pane with an image. Try to keep images under 200 pixels wide. If you use a banner image across the top as a nameplate, keep the height small (under 75 pixels). This will leave you room for your text to appear in the viewing pane.

2. Include great copy as close to the top as possible. Put some extra effort into the text that appears at the top of the message or newsletter. You need to grab your reader with those few words they will see in the preview pane if you are losing some of that space to a blocked image.

3. Always use the ALT tag. When you insert an image in HTML, you have the option of attaching words to that image with an ALT tag. Though it’s not a 100% solution, most readers will see this text even if the image is blocked. (More tips on writing good ALT text tomorrow).

4. Include captions. To keep a caption with your image in an HTML email, create a small table with one column that is the same width as your image and two rows. Put the image in the top row and put the caption in the bottom row. Insert the whole table (image and caption) into your email wherever you want it to appear.

5. Never send image-only messages. I’ve seen event invitations sent via email that are nothing but one solid image. With images off, I see nothing but a big empty box. Bad idea. Never use this approach. Always include text in your emails.

Two magazines from two nonprofits I belong to came in the mail last week. One fits the image the organization is trying to portray, and the other doesn’t.

The Sierra Club’s magazine is printed on recycled paper. This is actually a fairly big deal in the publishing world. Lots of magazines write about environmental issues and have terrible in-house practices themselves. (See Marc Gunther’s Fortune article on not-so-green magazines). The Sierra Club’s photography in Sierra is often breathtaking, but they use only a matte coated paper that gives the photos a little shine — no heavy gloss. The design and printing choices reinforce the message: conserve and save the planet.

On the other hand, the Public Relations Society of America’s magazine, The Public Relations Strategist, has a high-gloss cover. It is so slick and smooth that you can’t stack much on top of it because the pile will slide off. I suppose that this is meant to say, “We are high-class.” The problem is that several articles inside the magazine complain about how the public relations profession is derided as being — one guess, here — SLICK! If you don’t want people to call you slick, why is your magazine the slickest thing on my desk?

This same issue comes up with nonprofit newsletters and annual reports all the time. Nonprofits fear that if they make their print publications look too nice, donors will think they are wasting money. My advice is to find the middle ground. You can look sharp and professional without looking glitzy. And make sure the look and feel of your print materials matches your message.

When I teach newsletter classes, I always like to show examples of good newsletters as well as examples of ones that have big problems. The most glaring errors, because they are so easy to see, are those involving photos. Here are a few newsletter photo horrors you’ll want to avoid.

Photos at the wrong resolution. Print newsletters need photos with at least 300 dpi at the correct size. Online newsletters need photos at 72 ppi at the correct size. That’s a big difference and it means you can’t use the same file for both print and online newsletters. If you put an online version into a print newsletter, it will look pixelated (you can see the little boxes in the photo) or blurry. If you put a print version into an e-newsletter, it will be way too big or take too long to download, depending on how the photo is rendered by the program reading your newsletter.

The Solution: If I am using a photo for both a print and email newsletter, I’ll end up with three versions of the file: the original, which I always keep as is; a print version that I have resized when set to 300 dpi; and an online version that I have resized when set at 72 ppi.

Photos that make people look bad. Unless you are specifically trying to humiliate someone, you want to make sure that the photos you include in your newsletter make the people in them look good.

In my pile of bad examples is a newsletter by an organization that works with disabled adults. It includes a photo of a disfigured woman. This is not bad in and of itself. What’s horrible is that the photo is clearly vertically skewed, so the woman’s face is much more long and narrow than it should be, making her look really bad. I suspect the person who designed the newsletter was trying to fill up some space and dragged the corner of the photo down without also dragging it across horizontally.

The Solution: Make sure you keep your ratio of horizontal to vertical constant. Depending on the program you are using, you’ll usually want to hold down the shift or control key when resizing photos.

Photos that are the wrong color. You also want to avoid printing your newsletter in certain colors if you use lots of people photos. People pictures generally look horrible when printed in bright pink, yellow, orange, or red for example.

The Solution: If you print your newsletter in one or two colors only, pick a color that will make people photos look good. These are generally darker colors, like dark blue or purple, for example, that produce a look that is closer to the black and white we are all used to.

If you are interested in more common newsletter mistakes involving more than just photos, sign up for my free 5-day e-course, “Avoid These Five Newsletter Blunders.”

I have great relationships with several printers whom I rely on to make my clients’ written materials look great. Here’s how you can develop a great relationship with a printer too.

1) Expect outstanding customer service. You deserve to be treated well. The printing industry is very competitive, so if your printer’s customer service people are rude or condescending, move on to someone else. Most jobs can be handled successfully online, which means you can use out-of-town printers, or even overseas printers, if you are so inclined. I FTP files to printers out-of-state all the time, and we overnight proofs back and forth to each other. It works out just fine. If you need to do a press check for some reason, then you obviously need to pick someone closer to home.

2) Be a good client. Once you find a good printer, keep up your end of the relationship by being a good client. Don’t expect miracles when you turn in sloppy digital files (or no digital files) or expect your job to go on the press immediately. If you don’t know how to preflight your files for printing, ask an experienced graphic designer to help you, or ask the printer for some guidance. They may charge you for the lesson, but it’s time and money well spent.

Build enough time in your schedule for printers to do their jobs well. I usually budget two weeks, which is usually enough time for the printer to get my files, produce a proof, make any last-minute changes I need (and pay for), print the piece, let the ink dry, fold or bind it, and get the copies to me or to the mailhouse.

3) Deal with Problems Directly and Honestly. If you aren’t getting the kind of service you expect, politely explain the problem and ask what can be done. A good printer will welcome feedback, as long as it is presented in a friendly manner. Printers live for repeat business, so most will do whatever they can, within reason, to address your concerns. At the same time, you have to be willing to accept your role in creating the problem. Ask what you can do differently next time on your end to avoid the problem.

When you and your printer work as a team, you save money, time, and frustration, and your print materials look much better for it.

I get this question all the time when I teach newsletter courses. It’s a very common question because (1) the nonprofit staff asked to “do the newsletter” rarely have any graphic design experience and (2) all they have on their computers is the Microsoft Office Suite, so they start with Word or Publisher and quickly suspect (wisely) that those programs don’t easily produce high-quality newsletters for offset printing.

While many printers will begrudgingly handle Word and Publisher files, they still strongly prefer that you use desktop publishing software considered to be industry standards. That means working in one of three programs:

• InDesign (Adobe)
• PageMaker (Adobe)
• Quark Xpress

These programs play nicely with the software that printers use to create the files they need on their end to run the print press. Microsoft products do not play well with others.

Unfortunately, these three programs are not cheap. They all cost several hundred dollars. So what is a nonprofit to do?

The best option, if you can’t afford the software outright, is to get it from a source that supplies discounted copies to nonprofits.

Adobe offers discounts of around 50% to nonprofits through selected members of its educational resellers network. Tech Soup can help you get even deeper discounts, but you have to meet specific criteria and they are currently out of stock on the titles I’m talking about. Quark also offers nonprofit pricing.

If you still can’t get your hands on a copy, ask your printer if he’d prefer a PDF and then convert your file to a PDF. It may save the printer a step in the pre-press process, which could save you a few bucks on your printing bill, but only if your PDF is set up correctly. This solution works best for black and white jobs. Talk to your printer about the settings you need before converting your documents and sending them to print as a PDF.

I get this question all the time from clients who are trying to update their publications. I am nowhere close to a font expert and will usually scan one of the online font directories looking for something close. Those days are over, as I just learned about a cool feature at www.myfonts.com. Click on “What the Font” and you can upload an image of a word. As a test, I tried it with a client’s logo where I knew the font. It didn’t return the correct font, but two of the three choices it did return were so close that I couldn’t tell the difference. And it only took about two minutes. Much better than endless scanning of font directories!

Another font ID site is www.identifont.com. I’m less crazy about this site, but if you don’t have an image you can upload, it could work. It asks you a series of questions about the font you are trying to identify. It asks about the way specific letters look, so you need a good sample of text to make it work. I tried it with the same client’s logo, which contains only three letters, and gave up after answering about 30 questions, because it kept asking me about letters I didn’t have in front of me.