Most of the emails I get offer webinars, white papers and services promising to help me create better email campaigns, develop more effective social media and search engine strategies and offer superior online tracking methods. Recently there has been an emphasis on the rapidly growing necessity for developing phone apps. All of these urgent offers promise to help me realize greater marketing ROI (gosh, am I sick of that term). Read the rest of this entry »

In this tough economy, many companies who have managed their own advertising in-house or relied on word of mouth are now fighting for survival. They have discovered that what has worked in the past is not going to sustain them now. They have to compete for every customer like never before, and that often means turning to an advertising agency for the first time. Here are some suggestions of what you should look for when choosing an agency to represent you. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the goals of our blog “HileItes” is to give people a way to get to know Hile Design staffers in a different way—less business, more personal. So how better to gain insight into each of us than to understand our musical tastes:

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Many retail companies envy the almost cult-like passion that Ikea’s customers direct toward the Swedish manufacturer of designer home goods. But the company wasn’t prepared for the worldwide backlash it experienced recently when it switched typefaces in its venerated catalog for the first time in 50 years, from Futura to Verdana.

For those type neophytes who don’t know their Helvetica from their Times Roman, Futura has been one of the grand masters of sans serif typefaces since it was first released in the 1920s. It’s prized for its clean geometry and simple elegance. Plus, it boasts an extensive family of associated fonts: Futura Light, Book, Medium, Heavy, Bold, Extra Bold, Condensed, Oblique, Light Oblique—and on and on. Read the rest of this entry »

I know it’s not a good idea to check my company’s Google Analytics web stats every day, but I can’t help myself. I’m forever curious about who’s coming to the site, from where, and what they are looking at. When we generate a new company promotion I like to see the corresponding spikes in site traffic.

For us, the good news is that our traffic has doubled since we launched our updated site last January. Visitors are staying longer and viewing more of our work. Statistics show they are most interested in who we are, whom we work for and what services we provide, pretty much in that order. All in all, we’re happy with the site. And yet… Read the rest of this entry »

Click on the thumbnails to see a larger image. Production notes can be found at the bottom of the page.

In the field of advertising, when you find a means of connecting with people, you take advantage of it. So considering that my previous blog posting, “Thirty Years of Illustration,” got triple the readership of any of my former posts, I decided to write another article along the same lines—that is, looking back over my career as an illustrator. I promise not to repeat myself (the film Rocky was good and Rocky II was palatable, but then Sly made the disasters Rocky III, IV and V). Read the rest of this entry »

Click on the thumbnails to see a larger image. Production notes can be found at the bottom of the page.

When I was in graduate school in the mid-1970s, I began illustrating to supplement my poverty-level student income. Because of my fine arts background I moonlighted as a magazine illustrator—secretly, since we fine arts students thought creating commercial artwork was prostitution. Even though we studied art history, somehow we missed the fact that all the greatest artists from Leonardo to Velasquez were, in effect, commercial artists working for paying patrons (usually the church or rich noblemen). After graduation and a few years of living abroad, I decided to become an illustrator full-time. Needing to earn a living trumped my grad school snootiness. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in late 1998 or early 1999 I got called by a marketing director from a newly launched search engine company named “Google” (founded in 1998). She asked me if I wanted to do an illustration that would be a playful takeoff on their logo for their homepage. If they liked it, she continued, there would be more assignments forthcoming, especially on holidays and other important dates. They had seen my illustration work in the Directory of Illustration and liked my style. Sure I’d heard of Google but I was far more familiar with their competitor Yahoo, which had been founded 4 years earlier and had a glitzy national advertising campaign (remember the hillbilly yelling, “Ya-hoo-oo-o!”).

At this point I should mention that I had recently pulled an all-nighter on a stressful advertising illustration for an unpleasant and demanding client. My energy level was running on empty and at that particular point in time my enthusiasm for my craft of illustration was negligible. Did I even want to be an illustrator? I wasn’t getting any younger and I didn’t know a lot of other people pulling all-nighters in their mid 40s. And then I did something I’ve only done a handful of times in my career. I passed on the project. Besides, the deadline was too tight and I was too tired. The company probably wouldn’t even be around in a year or two. Yahoo would probably buy them out or run them out of business.

Note to self: If Google ever calls again, take the gig.

P.S. After a good night’s sleep I was all about being an illustrator again!