A Splashing Good Time!!!

In this season where rain drops unexpectedly on our heads, there is a huge group of people out there embracing the water with open arms. These participants of Waterfest simply love the water (more than the rain) and come rain or shine, they are present to participants in the myriad of activities which Waterfest 2008 presents.

TILT has the honour of being the Official Photographer for both Waterfest 2007 and 2008. For both seasons, we had braved the rain to capture Singapore’s largest and most exciting water sports festival spanning a period of 6 weeks.

With a vibrant line-up of activities such as swimming, sailing, wakeboarding, volleyball and Frisbee, there is something for everyone at WaterFest to dive into and explore!

So come on down and have a Splashing good time! There is an activity for everyone!

p/s: If you see us there, just grab us and pose for us. We will be more than glad to take a photograph of you all!

Design Matters: What’s in a tagline?

A tagline is a sentence that artistically sums up the solution that your company can provide. It is also the key message for your business and it may be the most important part of your promotional writing.
Getting it right, however, can be difficult. The shorter it is, the bigger the challenge it is to write it.

In one of our recent projects, FusionoPolis, we were discussing the FusionWorld Gallery Invitation Card design with the client. We suggested exploring having a tagline for the invitation card. After the initial resistance from the client, they decided to listen to our piece. Our reasoning for including the tagline was simple. After listening to the design brief, we felt that by including a simple and yet clever tagline, people will remember it and then forever associate it with the business.

Our proposal was “FusionWorld…a blueprint to the future!”
Client’s response…dead long silence….and then came the reply “Good. Let’s give that a try!”

From TILT’s perspective, we sure were glad that the client decided to consider such a tagline. This tagline is something which we felt captures attention. It encompasses everything that is related to the business and most importantly, it drives a point to the target audience. It is short and is positive! With it being easily repeated, the tagline basically fulfills all the necessary guidelines to ensure that it becomes one which is successful!

Stay tune in the future to see if the client gets that tagline passes through the committee and management. If you remember it in the future, then you know…what’s in a tagline.

simply reFRESHing!

We conducted a photoshoot of a restaurant, Fresh Origin, about a month ago. They had required stock photography to feature their location and just today, we received a feedback from them.

The pictures are great and are a very good tool to promote our place especially the upstairs terrace!

Aurelien Blanc

Here at TILT, we have always treated our projects like our babies. We research, discusss and deliver. The client’s satisfaction is testimony of our efforts and we certainly are pleased to know that our works are appreciated. This is the very motivating factor that drives us on.

View the rest of the photos here.

Design Matters: Let the Brochure Cover out!

Previously on this blog, we discussed on getting results following 3 simple steps to brochure design. Now we look a bit more at the cover.

What should we take note of when doing up the cover:

1) Logo Placement
This should be placed in a prominent location. The worst thing to happen is when people are attracted to the brochure, picked it up, took a quick read, put it back (or throw it away) and could not remember which company this brochure is from after just 5 minutes. The logo do not have to be big if it is put in a location where it does not have to compete with attention from other design elements.

2) Product Display
If product images are decided to be placed on the cover, it should be sparingly used. We leave the catalogue kind of placement to the content pages rather than make it look like a flyer with 101 products on the cover. Of course, certain kind of industries do use this to good effect but as a rule of thumb, one to three product images are the best we would recommend.

3) Tagline/Motto
Do you remember taglines like ‘Good food at great prices’ or will you remember ‘Fingers lickin’ good’? I will assume that the latter will be the more commonly remembered amongst us. Fingers lickin’ good works so much much at conjuring an image than ‘Good food at great prices’, isn’t that right?

Simple and easy remembered taglines are used in corporate branding to ensure that the identity ’sticks’ with the audience. Just think about Nike ‘Just do it’ tagline which they have used for decades and it is easily one of the most recognisable tagline. Even Macdonald’s simple ‘I’m Loving It’ is working real fine and people remembers it because it is short and sweet. People can use it in their everyday language and straight away, it conjuries the brand in the mind. A good tagline is therefore, imperative as it helps to reinforce the brand and ensures consistency in all the marketing collaterals.

4) Colours
The guideline is largely based on the corporate colours which have to be fine-tuned to suit the brochure intention. Colourful or pastel colours works in various ways to emphasise the product or provide that professional look. Both might work. Broadly speaking, there are a fixed set of rules to adhere most of us will follow. Luminous or bright colours should be carefully chosen and sparingly used. Other than this, the rest of the colours are up for grabs.

5) Images
Most clients would like abstract images to be used. Example would be closed-up shots of just coloured items or blurred objects.

We feel that this should only be used for background. You might feel it looks nice but it stops there. There is nothing else the image portrays. It does not lead you to remember the product nor the brand. After going through the brochure, the result of it is most likely to be one of you remembering that there is a nice abstract picture used which you cannot remember what it means. The meaning is lost. So background is the place for these type of imagery.

Typically, we will recommend images more relevant or direct if it is to be used on the foreground. It is not all the time that we manage to find a powerful image that fulfills the brochure requirements so most of the time, each of the above design elements have to work together to provide the intended look.

Conclusion
Though we have mentioned the above, that does not mean that we follow strictly by it as it really depends on the requirements and the intended audience. Wed do break the guidelines when the need arises. The important matter is for the brochure to serve its purpose well. We do not claim perfect brochure designs but we do follow a certain thought process before coming up with a design. The brochure cover has to look complete and be cohesive with the remaining parts of the brochure.

So the next time you look at a brochure, take more notice of the reason of being there for all the cover elements.

Previously on this blog
Brochure design results with just 3 simple steps

Design Matters: Logo Design Competition for the first Youth Olympic Games!

As most singaporeans might know, Singapore will be hosting the first ever Youth Olympics Games in 2010 with NTU Campus being the new location for hosting the guests and competitors. After all the collective effort and high spirits in garnering for the Games, it is finally ours!

For those who would like to contribute and stamp your mark in this landmark event, you can create a logo and submit it to Youth Olympic Games at http://www.singapore2010.sg/logo/!

The competition is open to all people globally. So unleash your creative juices and do your part for Singapore!

The Official Youth Olympic Games website is at http://www.singapore2010.sg.

Perspectives

TILT is honoured to be organising NDP’08 Perspectives Photography Competition. Ever since we were awarded the job, having the need to develop the logo design, the teaser posters, the advertisements for Straits Times as well as the full website, this had been a very hectic period.

We pitched for the project to DesignSingapore Council for the title of the competition of “NDP’08 Perspectives Photography Competition”. The idea behind the name of the competition came about from the company name as well. Very often, we have clients asking us about why the company is called “TILT”. This is due to our belief that in all design matters, it helps to take a step back and look at things from a different perspectives.

In the same similar manner, that was how the idea behind NDP’08 Perspectives Photography Competition was coined. As there are numerous competitions during this period, we hope that participants can take a step back and look at things from a different perspectives.

We will leave you thinking and searching for the different perspectives and hopefully, you will join in the competition. We wish you all the best!