After a lot of reading, a couple of conference sessions, and viewing countless online examples I decided that:

A digital story is a short film that combines a narrated story, song or poem with a series of images, video clips, transition, sound effect, music and written words.

In the (way back) past, storytellers would be accompanied by drumming, dancing and flickering fires. The experience was all-encompassing and tugged at heartstrings in a way that simple narration (or reading) could not touch. Digital storytelling is the modern expression of this mostly lost tradition.

Now that the term digital story is defined (for our purposes) we may wonder about its value. And to this end, I can argue that digging into the mine of digital storytelling will yield diamonds and gold.

We’ve all received fundraising letters in the mail from various causes. They are standard practice in traditional development plans and contain a letter of appeal (sometimes with pictures!), a donation form and a return envelope… and they usually end up, unread, in the circular bin. Not very effective.

On the other hand, a digital story delivered to current and potential donors (via an email newsletter, website, blog, facebook page, etc) are probably more likely to be viewed and – more importantly – shared with friends and colleagues via social network and direct email avenues.

It is evident that digital storytelling is growing to be an important, even necessary, part of the future of marketing and development. To this end, the skills set needed to create these short films need to be incorporated into the educational system.

It’s in this vein that I’ve volunteered to collaborate with a class of 30 fourth graders on the creation of digital stories. They are working in pairs and together each has written a legend that will be the narrative to the digital story they create.

To begin, I made a digital story based on a legend they had read in class. The film was presented in three stages (narrative, images/transitions, sound effects/music) and we discussed how each juncture created further depth to the narrative. You can watch it here.

Now, two mornings a week I work with each pair to choose images (we had a great lesson on creative commons and what copyright means!), practice their narration and oration, tutor in iMovie, etc etc. The kids are having a wonderful time and the process is fun and exhilarating for us all. I’ll report more as we move forward and would welcome your suggestions and comments.

Let’s start with your logo.

To succeed in social media/networks and it is imperative that your logo work in ways you may not have previously considered.

Over the past year we’ve witnessed the re-design of several well-known logos. In the world of design, each reveal seemed like nothing more than fodder for grumps, groans and practical jokes. GAP, iTunes, MySpace, Comedy Central, and, most recently, Starbucks are among the big names that dared alter their well-loved emblems.

Take a closer look.

There’s a trend:  the simplification of the mark. Logos now need to work across hardware that range from smart-phones to televisions to 3D theater. A logo, no longer a stagnant 2-color illustration in the corner of a business card, must do so much more. In addition to being flexible in terms of color and size, the 2011 logo needs to dance – or at least be open to the concept. And to this end, simplicity is king.

So, as you (re)design your logo for the new decade keep these thoughts in mind: will it work in a PowerPoint presentation projected onto a 12-foot board? Will it look equally beautiful scrolling across the bottom of an iPhone app as it does hovering on the teeny tiny screen of an iPod nano? What about as a facebook or twitter avatar?

Refining your logo to meet the requirements of modern technology will pave a smooth road as you venture into social media.

Time to get started marketing the widget and why it’s best to buy it from YOU. Traditional marketing campaigns are great – direct mail, advertisements, press releases, coupons, etc. – but it’s time to jump into web 2.0 and see how new media can help your widget survive and grow. Here are five steps I suggest – in the order presented:

1. Finalize your logo or type treatment and create a succinct tagline
2. Build a website consisting of four basic pages: landing/home, about the widget, about YOU (the owner) and contact/order information. The landing page is your portal to new media channels (see #3)
3. Set up social media channels including twitter, facebook, flickr, youtube, blog, etc and use them to research and communicate with your customers. (I presented an example of the “right” way to use social media  here.)
4. Design and print (hard) business cards, brochures and other relative marketing collateral for distribution
5. Upkeep (at least): 3 tweets/day; 1 facebook status update/day; 1 blog post/week. PLUS daily monitoring and responding to social media activity. It’s also nice to post flickr pictures (of people using your widget) and youtube videos (if appropriate.) Updating should happen at least twice a month.

Walking through these steps gives you an opportunity to keep the widget’s identity consistent. The logo will go on everything that comes after it; the website and new media channels will be printed on all hard collateral; actively participating in upkeep guarantees you get to know WHO your customer is and – because information about your widget is all over the internet – can easily point them to your product.

The process, as outlined above, prepares a strong foundation on which to build a tailor made social media marketing campaign specifically for your widget.

For years I’d driven by the Hotsy Totsy Club and marveled at its retro neon sign. Was it a strip club? A dive bar? Either way, it looked kind of dark and I wasn’t much tempted to stop and check it out.

Then, a few months ago, appearing in my twitter feed, was: “the @hotsytotsyclub has to be the best bar ever.” Really? The author of the tweet was someone whose taste I respected. And hey  – @hotsytotsyclub has a *click* twitter page…. Twitter page has a link to the *click* website … WOW! they offer mixology classes once a month; the *click* menu is inspired. The website informs me of their *click* facebook page which I *click* “fan” (which announces my new affiliation to my 500 friends.)

I’m intrigued enough to get in my car and go to the bar. While there I check-in on foursquare, which announces to my 1000 twitter followers that I’m at the @hotsytotsyclub. I get “@” responses: “I’ve always wondered about that place!” “I used to go there! It’s still open?” I’ll bet each of these people clicked through to the Hotsy Totsy twitter page and clicked again to explore the web page. Maybe they’ll be drawn to make the visit and spend the money on a drink. Either way, they just told each of their 1000 twitter followers about the bar. It’s word of mouth on steroids.

The Hotsy Totsy Club does not rely on this media for hard sales. Instead, it engages with followers and fans (ie customers). When I tweeted that I was thinking about the cocktails I would order if I were at the bar they RESPONDED to me with

Just a few words. Took them maybe 10 seconds to type but it made me feel valued. And I went back with a different friend and ordered drinks. He loved the bar and proclaimed it a perfect second-date destination. (Don’t ask.)

Beyond their social media network, the Hotsy Totsy Club nurtures the “real life” community by cooperating with local vendors. Allowing a taco truck to park in their lot and partnering with  cupkates truck for monthly pub crawls feeds the bar’s customers, while sustaining local businesses. It’s a win for everyone.

The Hotsy Totsy Club is a great example of what new media – when used correctly – can do for a small business. Aside from the time required to type out a few daily tweets (5 minutes), respond to @ messages (5 mins) and updating facebook page statuses (5 minutes) the marketing is FREE. Is it worth your 15 minutes a day to get 50 unique customers walking through your door each week?

Is it?

Just as you’re settling into writing next year’s marketing plan the phone rings. It’s the designer. “Hi, the images you sent are 72 dpi at 100%. Do you have higher resolution images? And do you have a vector file of your logo?”

Huh? Can you translate that please?

1. What are dots per inch (dpi)?
When shopping for sheets you’ve probably noticed that the higher the thread count the higher the price. High thread count fabric is denser and feels silkier. It’s the same with digital pictures except instead of thread count we are looking at dots – dots per inch (dpi), specifically – the more dots per inch, the higher the quality of the image.

2. What do you mean by 100%?
Simply, 100% is equal to the size you’d like the image printed. To print an image at 5 x 7 inches we need a file that is  300 dpi at 5 x 7 inches  (or 150 dpi at 10 x 14 inches; or 72 dpi at 20 x 28 inches).  Why 300? because that’s how a press works. (Something to be covered in a future blog post.) To look nice on a computer monitor, however, images need only be 72 dpi at 100%. Want to grab your 5 x 7 inch image from your website? That’ll be fine if you want to print it at a 3rd of the size you see it on the site. If you want it bigger, it will pixelate.

Pixelate?

Going back to the sheet: let’s say you decide to buy a beautiful floral twin (top) sheet at 300 thread count. When you get home, your bed has magically turned into a king size! Fabulous! But you still have this twin sheet that you want to use. So you go ahead and spread it over the mattress. It doesn’t fit. Someone suggests you try stretching it. So you get four friends together and you all take a side and pull. It stretches! As you pull harder and harder small openings between the threads appear – you can see mattress through the fabric which is getting thinner and flimsier, the floral pattern is  becoming blotches of color. By the time it “fits” the king-size bed it is down to 72 thread count and is so flimsy and abstract as to be rendered useless.

The same is true for images – stretching a low dpi image to fit a large space reduces it to visual mush.

3. Higher resolution?
Resolution equals dpi. The higher the dpi the higher the resolution. As mentioned, for print, images need to be 300 dpi at 100%. For web, they need only be 72 dpi (which is why you can’t print with images grabbed from your website.)

4. What’s a vector file?
A vector file is most commonly created in Adobe Illustrator and has .ai or .eps at the end. Instead of dots (like .jpg and .tif files) it is  made up of points and lines filled with solid or gradient color that the computer understands mathematically. The image can be altered by moving the points and changing the fill color(s). This means that the computer can be told to move the points proportionately and equally, hence, enlarging the image.

Imagine a bottom sheet – it has elastic all around the perimeter. The elastic stretches to fit around the mattress and the fabric fills in the space between without distorting or puckering. The difference is that, unlike the sheet,  vector images have no limit to how big (or small) a space they can accomodate.

• • • • •

The best time to keep these rules in mind is when you are first gathering elements to be used in the printed piece. If you have any doubt about an image or file ask your designer. She will be happy to work with you on finding the best image files for your document; after all, the piece is as much a reflection of her design skills as it is of your organization. And we all like to sleep in nice sheets.

However, with the advent of social media and my increased interest in using it to help clients with marketing, it was imperative that I bring the site into the 21st century.

While planning I realized that most of our relevant information was already available on the web – LinkedIn, Facebook (fanpage), flickr, twitter, etc. – contained everything a prospective client or partner needed to see. Why waste time re-writing the book? Instead, I gathered the information scattered about the web, and herded it all to the new site – creating, in effect,  a hub with easy access to all the social media I already use and some that I’m excited to begin – including this blog.

One of the best things about setting the site up this way is the opportunity created for conversation. Do you have something to say about one of my portfolio pieces? You can comment right there on flickr. Want to know what I’m doing on a daily basis? Follow on twitter. Care to see current recommendations? Check out my LinkedIn profile.

My goal for the site – or the peripheries of the site – is that they not remain static. With daily updates and participation I envision a forum in which clients, prospective clients, colleagues, partners and friends can comment on and partake in the process of graphic design and learn to understand its value to good marketing.