In order to keep the Pitch Bible Blog from being more than a collection of "war stories", I will from time to time, invite experts in various fields in as Guest Bloggers. Today I'd like to introduce HEATHER SHAW, a graphic designer with many years experience in creating presentations for both the TV and film industry as well as the corporate and financial sectors.
Heather has put together most, if not all of my pitches. She creates my logos and we've been married for more years than either one of us would care to admit. Without further ado -
Hello. My name is Heather and in addition to being Steve's wife, I also partner with him in developing pitch bibles. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (BFA) in graphic design and I have worked in the financial services sector for over 20 years in various capacities including communications (graphic design, copywriting and technical writing), product development and marketing. I am currently working as an Assistant Vice President developing and implementing marketing strategies.
Steve has asked me to contribute to the blog and I thought I could share some graphic design tips with you.
Hi Everyone - Steve here. Blogger won't let me cut and paste in the text, nor will it accept hand typed text. I'm not sure what's wrong - I've posted Heather's notes in the comments below. I'll fix it later when I have time.
Hmm. This got cut off. I'll play with it later and get it right. Bare with me... Or is it Bear with me?
ReplyDeleteI think it's 'Bear'.
ReplyDeleteIf you're using a Mac, try bringing everything into Text Edit and copy pasting it back from there. That always works for me with Wordpress or Joomla, especially when bringing it out of a Word file.
If you're not on a Mac, I'm sure any standard text editor would work. I'd try Notepad. That's probably the closest equivalent to Text Edit.
Looking forward to reading this when it's fixed!
Hello. My name is Heather and in addition to being Steve's wife, I also partner with him in developing the pitch bibles. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (BFA) in graphic design and l have worked in the financial services sector for over 20 years in various capacities including communications (graphic design, copywriting and technical writing), product development and marketing. I am currently working as an Assistant Vice President developing and implementing marketing strategies.
ReplyDeleteSteve has asked me to contribute to the blog and l thought l could share some graphic design tips with you.
Regardless of what your position may be about intellectual property legislation, unless you have a sizable legal department on retainer, you need to be careful about the content you use in materials you use to promote yourself. After all, once you send it out to a prospective buyer, you have very little control over what happens after words in terms of when it is forwarded and how it is used. For this reason, it's important that you are very careful will the content. For example, don't pull images off the internet from say, a Google images search unless you have permission to do so. If you aren't using your own art or photos, use royalty-free stock photography or art. I personally like to use Shutterstock (www. Shutterstock.com). They have recently come out with very affordable pricing for 5 photos ($49 USD) or, you can purchase a time period, such as a month, where you can download a quantity - l think it's 25 photos - each day. For pitch bibles, the low-res versions are probably sufficient unless you are using art blown-up as part of the background. If the file is too high-res, it may it may create printing problems or may be difficult to email - more on that later.
Now, if you do use your own art for photography, you need to be careful about adding copyright notices to protect your work. I know that Steve also recommends filing the work with the Writer's Guild.
Another tip is to think about the format you deliver your work in. You want it to be in a format that is accessible and readable but you don't want it in a format where someone could easily alter your work or even, copy it for their own use or misrepresent you. I suggest that you publish your work as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. The PDF format is very accessible - most people have readers installed. PDF files are usually compressed and you can also use different security settings to restrict copying and printing. The PDF format is also preferable because it is usually more reliable in terms of the print settings (if you do want to provide the recipient the option of printing) and should closely represent how you want the file to look.
ReplyDeleteEven with a compressed PDF file, the file may be very large if it includes a lot of graphic images. Another tip is to use a file transfer site (FTP site) to store and deliver the files. There are several advantages in doing this. First, the FTP sites can usually hold very large files. Many email systems have a maximum size restriction between 5 and 10 Mb. The FTP site I use can store and deliver files that are several Gb in size and also provide security and encryption. Another advantage of this site is that it includes role-based security and reporting that can also serve as a receipt showing who accessed the file and when. You can use this to keep the files only for those intended providing log-in permissions to access the site or to provide a link to the files from an email. The FTP site I use is called ShareFile. I pay a small monthly fee for this service. There are other sites - some are free - but I find some of them a bit dubious, difficult to use or not reliable. To me, reliability means that there are never difficulties uploading, downloading or accessing the files. I have worked with some sites that look great but may take a lot of time to upload the files or pose other issues.
I want to be clear that although I'm mentioning specific products and services, such as Shutterstock, FileShare and Adobe Acrobat, I'm not receiving any compensation or benefit from these companies. They just happen to be products and services I like and use. Feel free to mention other sites and tools in your comments. As well please let us know if you would like additional graphic design tips and tricks. In addition to the writing and content, I believe that the presentation of information is equally important and also conveys the tone of the show you are pitching.
Hi there! Just found your site and think it is amazing! I am slowly going through it from the start.
ReplyDeleteQuick question: what should a person budget for help from a graphic designer if one needed that kind of help to complete a show bible for a pitch?
Hi Daryl,
ReplyDeleteWell, it's like this - How much is a haircut? It depends on what you want done and how much you're willing to spend on it. You can go to Magic Cuts and get your mop mowed for $10 or you can go to a salon and pay hundreds of dollars. Or, you can do something inbetween. It all depends on you.
Now the sales pitch. Along with the writing services, we offer graphic design and character/background/layout design.
For Graphic Design, we can do everything from a simple logo to a complete graphics package. I can't post any of these, because they've all been optioned and are in development. However, if you write to me at "steve dot schnier at rogers dot com", I can send samples privately and quote on your project.
For art, we have the services of a number of world class designers, people who have worked on multiple film projects for Disney, Pixar, ILM and other.
Our prices are surprisingly reasonable, we're quick, easy and fun to deal with.