Understanding the brief
We once made a statement about how important it is to understand a brief before commencing the job. It was: ‘we maintain the principle that any design solution is driven by an understanding of the problem’. We stand by that statement all these years later. The cornerstone of good graphic design is that it must work, be functional (attractive, yes, but as part and parcel of the end product not the be-all and end-all), cost effective and, above all, fit for purpose.
From brief to completion
‘Finish what you start’, they say. So that’s exactly what we do at Cradduck Design Co. A stunning design has no value unless it can be put into production – printed or online – and we have the expertise to take your work through that process from concept to delivery. We use our skills and experience to place the production of a project in the most appropriate and cost effective way. For instance, it does not make sense to get a web printer with enormous print presses to produce 1,000 printed flyers. A fairly obvious example, granted, but a trickier question might be ‘would you know when it becomes more viable to print a full colour brochure by offset litho rather than digitally?’. Or, ‘what makes an embroidered logo expensive, the number of colours or the number of stitches?’.
One-stop
Look at the variety of different items we produce for an equally varied clientele and it becomes obvious to many clients that Cradducks do more than just one thing; in fact, we are frequently invited to design and produce something (a flyer for example) for a company, then hear the comment ‘oh, you do websites/brochures/POS/banners as well, do you?’ or ‘we may well use you for loads of other items – why go to half a dozen different suppliers when we only need to go to one?’.
Expertise
With a combined experience of around 130 years in the graphic design industry, there’s no doubt about it – we are experts in what we do. That’s not to say we know everything (who does?) but if we don’t know the answer straightaway we will find it out. That way we all keep learning something new every day and that makes us fresh, even more expert and able to help our clients more at the same time. We listen to our clients and what they want to achieve.
Of course, some clients will be professional print buyers in their own right, in which case they do not need us to see a job through to production for them. But the majority of our clients like the ease of picking up the phone or sending us an email and knowing that the job will not just be designed to look good but that they can rely on it becoming printed reality, on budget and on time. The same principle applies to website design, that where required we build what we design and bring in third party help and expertise if necessary.