ad design, design consultant, in-house creative
Uh Oh!
If you have an ad agency whose fees are right, whose work is effective,

reach into your computer and tear out this page. You don't need design classes or a design consultant.
Your job is to build sales.
But if you have both
an advertising agency and
an in-house desktop publishing
capability,

you may well have continuing problems that keep you from building sales.

Ask yourself:

Do ad agency and in-house desktop publishing duplicate each other‘s work? (Example: agency does ads, in-house does brochures for the same project.)

Do they neutralize each other‘s work? (Example: design styles or writing styles, are different on those ads and brochures.)

Do they try to share artwork and computer files? (Example: one uses a first-generation drawing, one uses a revised version.)

Do ad agency and in-house desktop publisher need separate, time–consuming meetings that demand extra staff time?

Is the agency going left while in-house goes right? (Example: the agency wants a bold new concept, in-house is timid.)

Life should be simpler.
Management should be simpler.
Advertising should be more effective.
Fees should be more manageable.
Time should be more manageable.
Time should be saved.

And if messages and styles do diverge and, worse, conflict, how do you measure results? Ask us to consult and help.
What an ad agency
should do:
Be retained for broadcast creative, radio and TV.
Or for online creative.
Or for major print media four-color work.
Or quality control on work done in-house.
What freelancers
should do:
Be hired for specialized creative talents like photography, illustration, hand-lettering, financial writing. For technical skills like fine-tuning HTML code. For retouching. To fill in for a sick staffer or when there's a crunch. And if you can find it, for a typesetting typographic expert. .
What you the ad executive should do:
Your real job.
Not have to coordinate meetings
with ad agency,
with in-house desktop publishers,
with freelancers.
Not have separate meetings with each.
Not have to untangle knotted misdirection.
Not have to hold their hands.
Not have to keep vendor siblings from mutual mayhem.
Not have to nursemaid creative egos.

Can we make your life easier, more efficient?
A way to solve this problem.
Retain Listen, Write, Design, .
To coordinate the in-house creative staff.
To coordinate agency with in-house staff.
To coordinate both units with freelancers.

Tough love and persistence, experience and persistence, mutual respect and persistence, fun and persistence, are our coordination and collaboration tools.

Tough love. Good humored honesty. And the ability to decide which direction works best.

What makes us effective is, while our loyalty is for you, our sympathies are with the creative people. And they will sense it. It may seem a mite mutinous perhaps, but we all end up the better for it.
Wouldn't that
make things easier
and more productive
for you?!?
To coordinate means
your creative groups share a common design language. They build on shared concepts. They work to meet common business goals. They share the same computer database or files of prices, logos, artwork, ad copy (with probable help from your IT, FileMaker, or Excel specialist).

To coordinate means
your advertising design, brochure design, Web design, style of copywriting — and people — all work together.

Fragmented they cripple your message.
Together they reinforce your message.
A turnkey creative solution.
On a part-time, consulting basis.
Listen, Write, Design, will coordinate the groups for you.
We report to you.
Everyone else reports to us.
Simple.
Take two and call me. Headache gone. 980.245.2323.

Ask us to become your Design Consultant, your Consulting Creative Director.

We'll make sure creative work is high quality, and that it is designed to meet business objectives.

We may run the numbers to see if you are better off with staffers or freelancers (our CPA may powwow with yours).

We may tie in to your in-house creatives via desktop software that lets us share their desktop, from ours. Your ad agency will also report to us. (OK. That may require a little arm-twisting.)
How else will
we help you?
We'll make sure the creative work is properly prepared for printing so you don't get nasty last-minute surprises (with possible help from your production head and consultation with your printer.

We'll make sure it's properly proofread. (Many of us don't know the difference between its and it's, between criterion and criteria, or where the period goes when you close parentheses.) Yes, there, if the parens enclose a complete sentence.)
It's a turnkey system. Clean. Efficient. Fun.
Listen Write Design logo
Contact:
Phone 980.245.2323