The image above is an example of what I was talking about in this post from earlier this week.

All four of the placeholder images in the border areas of the mock-up are the same image, placed into Photoshop as Smart Objects instead of pixels. Placing them in this fashion allows me to resize them without losing resolution as long as I don’t try to make the image bigger then the original placed file.

By playing around with the crop of each image, I can imply a final page design with placeholder images in place without having to spend hours hunting for 4 separate images to fill all four empty placeholders. Efficiency-wise, the cost in time to track down images 2, 3 and 4 is not worth the gain. Faking four images by experimenting with the crop of my placeholder images gives the same effect at a fraction of the time.

As you can see, even with a fairly simple image like the one I have used, several different, well-composed crops are available. A more complex image will give you even more options.

Remember: if you’re aware of what I’m doing here, it’s obvious. The goal, however, is to present a mock-up to a client so that he or she can take in the entire design and not get hung up on irrelevant issues that have nothing to do with the design. Placeholders just show where images will go. Their content in the mock-up stage doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t distract the client from the rest of the design.

Chas has a great post up that encapsulates what all logo designers think but can not say. The best part of it, of course, is the following sentence:

Anyone who’s worked with me probably realizes I don’t mind offending people (and I barely consider graphic designers to be people) in hopes of improving the work.

This moment of candor explains so much…

Glossary:

Cafe Degrasta: One of Notre Dame Food Service’s brands that operates out of the first floor of Grace Hall. Cafe Degrasta serves breakfast and lunch to the somewhat captive audience of Notre Dame employees whose offices are in Flanner and Grace Halls on the north east side of campus.

Twitter: A social network web application for micro-blogging.

Micro-Marketing: Marketing that targets your most likely customers on a direct, personal, hopefully permission-based level in the manner in which they most wish to be targeted.

Dear Cafe DeGrasta,

I had a stuffed pepper with mashed potatoes last Friday. You cooked said stuffed pepper and served it to me. It was very tasty, and I would definitely return to order more stuffed peppers in the future. Unfortunately, I don’t know when you serve stuffed peppers, and the only way I can find out is to go up to the Grace Hall lobby and read your specials board, hoping against hope that today is stuffed pepper day. Clearly…what we have here is a failure to communicate.

Now, I could, I suppose, go out to the NDFS website every day (presuming that your menu is posted there), and check the specials. I’m sure I could also remember to pick up a xeroxed copy of your specials for the month (just like my elementary school used to do for lunches in 1988!). Let’s think about that for a minute though, do you really want to base your sales on my ability to remember to do this?

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a quick, easy, free way to send a tiny message (say…140 characters or so), to me every day around 10:30 a.m. that tells me if stuffed peppers will be available that day? What if I could choose whether or not I wanted you to send me this information, so you’d never have to worry about direct emails being deleted or ignored, or (worst of all) actually annoying me, a valuable client, potentially influencing my future decisions to patronize your establishment?

So here’s the challenge, Cafe DeGrasta…I want to follow you on Twitter. I want you to update your status once a day to let me know what you’re serving and I want to know this information before AgencyND’s daily waltz of the “where do we want to go to eat today?” starts around 11:15 every morning.

I do enjoy your food, and even without this tiny little investment in time (and literally no investment whatsoever in dollars), I do make the trip to the lobby just to be surprised by what you’re serving. Imagine how much more frequently you could have my business if you made it impossible for me NOT to know what your specials are from day to day. Even better still, there are at least eight or nine other twitterers just like me, right here in the same building who you could reach at no extra charge simply by trying to sell me a stuffed pepper or two. Heck…I bet if you put a little “follow us on twitter, username: degrasta,” sign next to the cash register you might even attract the attention of more people like us…and attention, my dear degrasta is the cradle of sales.

Most sincerely,

-oAk-

@oaknd1 Indiana has flipped to light blue with us as well. Look out below, falling red states http://www.hubdub.com/election_map

This is the text of a direct an @reply message I received in Twitter yesterday from a user named Nigel Eccles who I do not know, do not follow, and as far as I can tell, does not follow me. Not being the sort who randomly clicks on links sent to me (but intrigued that I appeared to be directly targeted in the message), I checked out his user page. 

Most of Mr. Eccles posts are targeted at other users and include links to HubDub, just like the tweet I received. Turns out, HubDub is a prediction market game site that allows users to bet play money on news events. Much like Inkling, a site that a couple of my friends and I played voraciously for a few weeks in 2006 before burning out on the lack of new investment markets on the site (a perhaps unavoidable consequence of being a recent start-up with relatively few users. But I digress).

HubDub strikes me as very very cool.

So how did Nigel Eccles, the CEO and creator of HubDub (according to Google) end up targeting @oaknd1?

It’s because, earlier in the day, I had posted this tweet:

Wow. Intrade.com has Indiana as a very light blue state. It was pink last week.

Intrade is an Irish prediction market site that allows users to buy futures contracts on current events with real money. Among other things, they are heavily involved in predicting the results of the upcoming election. It’s an interesting way to hedge against real investment risk. If you have most of your money in stocks, you could buy contracts on a recession and make some money while the rest of your investments look like Ike Brovlovski doing his impression of David Caruso’s career.

(South park…episode one…anyone…anyone…)

(Crickets)

Anyway…clearly, Nigel is following the names of his competitors with a Twitter filter and taking the opportunity to send targeted, timely direct messages to users like me who demonstrate an interest in services similar to his own.

How can this help to enhance your marketing?

Well…let’s say that you’re trying to increase the Q-rating of your business, or blog, or web app, or non-profit children’s summer camp: Search for your competitors on Twitter. Chances are, the people talking about your competitors are your potential customers. (Especially, if they’re complaining about your competitors).

Why this is potentially pretty cool

I think I’m impressed by this because I didn’t receive a tweet from “HubDub.com.” It came from the the CEO of the company. Is it really the CEO, or just some sort of bot? I have no way of knowing, but that’s where my interest was piqued enough to check out the link.
I use twitter primarily to interact with my network, but I’m not against the idea of well crafted, targeted, permission-based marketing based on what I’m twittering from time to time. In this case, it directly resulted in the discovery of a totally new (to me) site. The only way I can think of that I would ever have found this site would be if it was mentioned in a Bloomberg podcast or an article in the Wall Street Journal, the way I first heard about Intrade.

Why this potentially sucks

If I ever find myself referring to wearing a Band-Aid, or going to McDonald’s in one of my tweets, do I really want to receive a flood of tweets from Burger King? Or Brand-X Adhesive Bandages?