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Dever Blog

Project Highlight: Going Global with “Adventist World”

October 31, 2016 by

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Dever Designs may be a mid-sized design house in Laurel, Maryland, but it’s exciting to know our impact can be felt around the world. Some 10 years ago, we designed a prototype for Adventist World, the magazine for the Seventh-day Adventist world church. Today the magazine is printed in seven languages, reaches five continents, is published online in 12 languages, and has a monthly circulation of 1.5 million.

Project Background
Adventist World is a 32-page monthly publication that reaches a diverse demographic spanning the globe. The publication has a warm, personable and aspirational look and feel. A traditional layout features evergreen content printed in multiple languages.

Fun Fact: We were initially asked to design a magazine prototype, which successfully evolved into a 10-year relationship designing the publication. In May, we designed a customized “Friendship” issue of the magazine which included 27 editions in four languages for 13 world divisions.

Challenges of Going Global
While Dever Designs has an exceptional background in publication design, producing a global publication is an extraordinary undertaking in many ways:

• It requires working with translators in several countries to modify the content before it is reconfigured into the design.
• Great design work means purchasing affordable art and rights across multiple editions.
• Keeping writers, editors, designers and other team members in the loop is challenging, so we utilize the cross media publishing platform vjoon K4 to keep everyone on track.

Why It Works
All great relationships require trust and respect. One of the things we and our clients find mutually beneficial is the opportunity for honest feedback.

“At Dever Designs, we’re neither divas who have to have it our way, nor are we doormats that say, ‘yes, we’ll do whatever you want’,” Jeffrey Dever said. “We challenge our clients to help them meet their goals. We’re not afraid to push back about things that can’t or shouldn’t realistically be done.”

Staying Passionate
One of the main things that helps us stay passionate, especially after 10 years of working together, is the excitement and passion of the client and just how much the client affirms our staff and our team.

“You can tell how they really appreciate everything my team does for them and that proactivity,” Dever said. “Having a client who really values the work we do keeps us engaged.”

See more of this project here.

Interested in learning more about our work? Visit us at deverdesigns.com or call us at 301-776-2812.

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7 Tips to Strengthen Your Marketing Campaign

September 19, 2016 by

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Two to four seconds. That’s about all the time you have to capture someone’s attention with your online or direct mail promotion.

That means before anyone even reads this sentence, they have already made a decision on whether or not to engage with your content.

With that in mind, we have compiled seven tips to help boost your marketing efforts.

  1. Swim Against the Tide. If you want to stand out against the sea of email heading to your audience’s inbox every day, consider targeting their mail box instead. Direct mail can offer an intimate way to connect with your audience as people open their mail and place it on their coffee table or refrigerator and share it with others.
  2. Variety is the Spice of Life. While direct mail is a great option, we know it takes several touches for a potential customer to take action. Because of that, approaching them through direct mail, social media, email marketing, etc., spreads the marketing to different areas and doesn’t overwhelm your audience in one medium.
  3. Less is More. People have short attention spans. They only read so much. The more succinct you can be in relaying a clear message and giving your audience that motivation to act, the better.
  4. Have a Clear Call to Action. The last thing you want is your audience wondering “So what do you want me to do?” Make it easy for people to see what you want, why they need you and why they should want to work with you or buy your product. How can you make their life better?
  5. Consistency is Key. The audience should be able to recognize a campaign as coming from your organization through consistent branding, graphic treatments, photography, and messaging. While the campaign should be a reflection of your overall brand, it can have its own sub campaign brand that complements the organization’s parent brand.
  6. All About Balance. Whether the duration of your campaign is lengthy or short, it takes multiple touches for someone to remember who and what you are. However, as you reach out to your audience, be cognizant not to chase away the very people you’re trying to attract. There’s a balance between multiple touches and overwhelming your audience.
  7. Track Your Response. Since you’ll have multiple touch points for your campaign, you’ll want to know which avenue is the most successful so you can channel a greater part of your efforts in that direction. When sending out email content, add tracking links so you can see who is opening your content and when. In a direct mail piece, provide a specific call to action that lets you know if people are engaging with your campaign.

Need help creating a campaign that stands out? Get in touch today to start the conversation.

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Can I Get a Little Help Here?

August 8, 2016 by

Imagine sitting in a small swimming pool filled with ping-pong balls and being asked to hold all the balls under water at the same time. Inevitably, juggling all the ping-pong balls becomes too much and they start popping up to the water’s surface.

The life of an in-house marketing/communication team can sometimes seem like this when several projects are coming down the pike at once, and there simply aren’t enough hands on deck to complete the work.

Fortunately, an experienced outside design firm is a great resource for handling any overflow work that pops up.

Since in-house design teams are typically small, it can wreak havoc on scheduling when a staff member is on vacation, experiencing a health emergency or out on parental leave. Utilizing an experienced design firm is a great way to alleviate that stress. Even if your full team is present, having a major design project coming up on top of your regular work schedule can seem overwhelming.

A seasoned design firm can jump in and help with the following:

  • Large projects (e.g., conferences)
  • Evolving brands
  • Annual Reports
  • Special One-time Projects
  • Exhibits
  • Membership Campaigns
  • Media Kit

In addition to providing relief, a design firm can serve as a consultative partner. An expert design team has experience from which to draw, so you can be confident in the work they perform and the advice they offer. They can anticipate potential issues (helping you keep all your ping-pong balls under control) and bring a depth of experience to everything from specialty reports to conference packages.

If there’s anything we can help you with, reach out to Dever Designs at 301-776-2812.

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Dever Designs’ Exhibit for Seventh-day Adventists Wins MarCom Gold Award

May 16, 2016 by

Dever Designs’ exhibit for the North American Division (NAD) of Seventh-day Adventists recently earned the MarCom Gold Award in the Trade Show Exhibit Category.

“Just the distinguishing size of it, the scale of it, and the multiple internal sub-clients we had to coordinate with really set this project apart,” noted Jeffrey Dever, owner of Dever Designs.

Dever was approached by the NAD two-and-a-half years in advance to conceive, create and produce a major exhibition that would feature the religious group’s diverse range of ministries across North America.

The end result was a nearly 30,000-square-foot exhibit that reflected the theme, “Reaching North America—With Hope and Wholeness.” The exhibit was showcased in 2015 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas, and featured elements such as a 30-foot rotating tower illuminated from within. In total, there were over 60 separate exhibit displays representing more than 40 internal clients.

 

MarCom Award winners Dever Designs and the North American Division of SDA

Left to Right:  Jeff Dever, President/Creative Director of Dever Designs; Kim Pollock, Senior Designer/Project Manager at Dever Designs; Debra Brill, Vice President for Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists; Brad Forbes, director of AdventSource.

 

“Just the enormity of it—it got pretty hairy at times,” said Kim Pollock, Dever’s project manager. “From a logistics standpoint, this was very challenging. To be able to say that we pulled it off from concept through installation and things went smoothly is pretty significant.”

“This exhibition hall drew people from all over the world, so we wanted to represent the United States and Canada well and create an appealing exhibit,” Dever said. “The NAD wanted to illustrate possibilities and new adventures—to engage the world church in what the North American Division is doing.”

In designing the exhibit, we used a combination of off-the-shelf modular components from various exhibit manufacturers, totally original pieces and a hybrid of partially customized elements. To save money, special consideration was given to specifying and purchasing key modules for re-use at later dates. We presented the MarCom statuette to the NAD during a May 4 meeting.

“The response to our exhibit has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Brad Forbes of the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists. “From estimating, vendor sourcing, and regular project updates to traffic flow, signage, and graphics, no detail was overlooked. Once again, Dever Designs has proven to be an invaluable partner. ”

About the MarCom Awards
MarCom Awards is a creative competition administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP) open to individuals or companies involved in the concept, writing and design of print, visual, audio and web materials and programs. The 2015 awards featured 6,000 entries from 34 countries. Winners range from individuals to media conglomerates and Fortune 500 companies.

Can we help you with your exhibit? Visit us at deverdesigns.com or call us at 301-776-2812.

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Beijing International Contemporary Metal & Jewelry Art Exhibition – BICMAJA

November 30, 2015 by

BICMAJA images

 

It turns out our President/Creative Director has another not so secret life. After Jeff’s work appeared in the “LOOT” show at MAD, the Museum of Art and Design, in New York last fall, he was approached by the Executive Organizers of China Millennium Monument World Art Museum. They invited him to participate in the third “Beijing International Contemporary Metal & Jewelry Art Exhibition” BICMAJA. Though communication and coordination was tedious at times, after careful vetting through the international art jewelry community, he ultimately agreed to participate—his first international exhibition. Jeff says “I am so honored to be included among this talented pool of international art jewelry artists.” The exhibition ran November 8-22 2015, in Beijing China, and here are a sampling of images from the shows varied events. If you’d like to see more of what Jeff does in his spare time under the moniker Jeffrey Lloyd Dever, just click on the link below and enjoy.

jeffreylloyddever.com

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