Practical tools to reward your audience with visual excellence · 2018-05-08 · Practical tools to...
Transcript of Practical tools to reward your audience with visual excellence · 2018-05-08 · Practical tools to...
Practical tools to reward your audience with visual excellence
A presentation by Ralph Michael Brekan,
Multimedia Producer, FLS International
Hi, I’m Ralph Michael BrekanI’m passionate about telling great stories that connect businesses with their customers.
I have over 20 years in visual communications, spanning a range of industries:
● Tech
● Education
● Real estate
● Fashion
● Entertainment
Employment history
IATSE Studio Mechanic
Universal Pictures, Lionsgate,
Warner Bros, et. al.
October 1997- September 2000
Design Coordinator
Star of India Fashions, Tempe, AZ
September 2000 - July 2006
Production Designer
Pasadena Playhouse, Lionsgate Pictures, 10K
Productions, Little Books, Little Films
July 2006 - July 2015
Multimedia Producer
FLS International, Pasadena,CA
July 2015 - Present
How many tools do you need, as a visual communicator, to surpass expectations on your visuals?
Just one! Your own imagination.(And a little help from your smartphone)
In 2018, with a little imagination, and the average smartphone, you can produce almost anything needed to VISUALLY COMMUNICATE corporate communications in a matter of minutes.
purposefully pause and notice thingschoose topics that you genuinely care aboutpurposefully try broader definitionsmake novel associationsexamine ideas that make you laugh
streams of thought and patterns of judgment are not inherently right or wrong; they are just what you think know, based primarily on patterns from your past
Make a deliberate effort to harvest, develop, and implement at least a few of the ideas you generate.
Attention - Escape - Movement
Free Tools:Adobe Spark Platforms: iPad, iPhone, World Wide Web
Piktochart: Platforms: Web (works best on Chrome and Firefox)
Google Street View: Platforms: iPad, iPhone, World Wide Web
Meet Alberto.
He recently joined FLS as an in-country
agent in Brazil, promoting study abroad
programs to potential students in his
home country.
Alberto knows the schools product and
value well, but fears the translated print
brochures and website do not fully
describe the study abroad experience.
Meet Marcos.
He recently was tasked with promoting
a new English language study programs
to agents and potential students.
Students who come to study speak
many different languages. Setting
realistic expectations to reduce
disappointment upon arrival is a
massive challenge.
Story for illustration purposes only
A language barrier left Alberto feeling frustrated and Marcos struggling to promote business.
Then, Marcos discovered
Adobe Spark
Marcos took video and photos of the
campus and classrooms with his
smartphone. He uploaded the video clips
and photos into the Adobe Spark app.
He’s able to create a branded landing
page, a promotional video and matching
social media post, all from his
smartphone, in less than an hour.
Web page
Video
Social Post
A simple solution
Alberto’s students were scared. What
was America like? They couldn’t fully
understand what to expect.
Alberto knew the the brochure was not
telling the full story, so he pulled out
his smartphone and showed the student
the Adobe Spark page and Spark video
Marcos made. He also showed the
student the matching Facebook post,
and subsequent student comments.
From newcomer to superstarThree out of four students Alberto enrolled applied to attend at Marco’s campus. He is able to show potential students the homestay accommodations and families they will stay with while they study in America.
The ease of visually communicating expectations has made Marco’s campus a favorite for Alberto to show new potential students.
Remember Marcos?
He’s been using Spark to promote the
new English language programs at his
center, and enrollments are up!
He sends a report to his supervisor back
at headquarters, so they can plan on
staffing operations based on enrollment
demographics.
Story for illustration purposes only
Meet Lucy
She’s the regional marketing director
for FLS at the headquarters in Pasadena.
Lucy plans and coordinates human and
material resources for each academic
term. She got the report from Marcos
that enrollments are up for the new
program. Lucy needs to show the board
members the value of the marketing
effort in the next board meeting.
A complex data set leaves Lucy feeling frustrated and to explain changes in business.
Lucy uses Piktochart
In the past, Lucy would labor hours
exporting sorted data from Excel to have
her designer create charts, graphs and
other visual representations of data in
Adobe InDesign.
After discovering Piktochart, she’s able
to create a branded charts, graphs and
other visual representations of data, all
from her laptop or smartphone, in less
than an hour.
Piktochart
Google Slides Powerpoint
Keynote
A simple solution
Lucy was on limited time and resources.
Her designer was working on next
seasons brochure and she wasn’t skilled
in InDesign.
With the meeting scheduled for the
next morning she quickly utilized
Piktochart to visually communicate the
data sets and market changes.
Remember Alberto?
He’s the new in-country agent in Brazil,
promoting study abroad programs to
potential students in his home country.
He’s been doing pretty well with the
assets Marco created in Spark, but
potential students are unfamiliar with
US geography and need assurance they
won’t get lost and they are choosing the
right environment to learn. Fear of the
unknown is a massive objection to
overcome.
The potential students fear of the unknown present a difficult objection for Alberto to overcome.
Google Street View
Alberto knows a picture is worth a
thousand words.
He’s able to pull up the campus location
on Google Maps and show the student
not just where the campus is located in
the USA, but give the potential student a
360° virtual tour, that Marcos created
with the Google Street View app for his
campus using his smartphone.
Google Maps
Google Cardboard
Desktop/Mobile
Google Street View
An interactive solution
Alberto’s students were really scared.
“What was America really like?” they
think, “these videos and pictures are
cool, but where exactly am I going?”
Alberto knew the the marketing
materials were compelling and the
student was interested, but he was so
scared of the unknown. So Alberto
pulled out his smartphone and showed
the student the Google Street Views.
Where both video and text are available on the same page, 72% of people would rather use video to learn about a product or service.
Source: http://www.insivia.com /
Online video accounted for 74% of all online traffic in 2017. Video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more.
97% of marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service. Video content holds attention and
evokes emotions
Spark is a one-stop shop for creating sleek graphics, web stories, and animated videos is incredibly easy to use. - CommonSense.org
Adobe Spark makes creating professional-looking social posts, webpages, and presentations a snap. - PC Magazine
A useful set of tools for creating graphics and visual stories for social media, Adobe Spark delivers nice results pretty easily. - CNET
Adobe Spark has been an alternative, mobile-friendly solution to using Adobe’s powerful editing and creation software for free, without resorting to piracy. ~ The Verge
Spark creates branded web content on mobile devices
Piktochart makes it seem very easy with its beautiful templates for every context. The infographics I design on Piktochart help my content be more relevant and creative. - G2Crowd
Piktochart gives you the heads up on how to use infographics effectively. - Huffington Post
Piktochart provides tools that are geared towards empowering designers to create impressive, web publisher-ready infographics. - financesonline.com
The design is fantastic, with modern, charming icons and fonts, and it's not too difficult to make seriously high-quality infographics with Piktochart.
- commonsense.org
Piktochart provides data visualization
Because modern phones and tablets have a whole host of sensors inside, Street View can leverage them to provide a uniquely-immersive experience on mobile devices. - AndroidCentral.com
The app also contains a private gallery where shots taken with the app are located. The images stay private unless the user decides to publish them on Street View. - ZDnet.com
The new (Street View) app will allow "people all over the world to contribute their own published photo spheres through a seamless world map of landscapes, landmarks, business interiors and more."
- Charles Armstrong, Google Maps product managerGoogle Street View hosts
interactive 360° media
What you can do nowUse your smartphone to take 360° panoramas of your business, product or event venue to create virtual tours at Google Street Views.
Use Adobe Spark and encourage your colleagues to create and share content via websites, email and social media.
Import datasets into Piktograph and watch them come to life as stunning visuals for print, presentations and the web.
Need more tips & free resources? Feel free to connect with me online:
www.RalphBrekan.comLinkedIn.com/in/BrekanArts
Facebook.com/RMBrekanTwitter.com/RalphBrekan