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Try, Try Again   by John Redhed

During the years we had been doing Christmas cards for Hall & Company, we received numerous inquiries from companies around the country, asking if we could design a similarly creative card for them. Because I didn’t think the logistics and economics of long-distance photography would work out, I always had to decline the requests. I now chalk that up to a failure of imagination.

A week before Christmas, 2008, I got an e-mail from a man named Jim Farnham, of Insurance Claim Advocates in New Hampshire. His company was on Hall & Company’s mailing list, and he had received a copy of the ‘cookie decorating’ card. He was wondering if I could help him create a New Year’s postcard, to send out to his existing clients.

My first impulse was to decline as usual, since he was 2,500 miles distant, but this time I decided to give it a try. Since Jim would be the only person on the card, it would be a relatively easy test case. I explained to him that I could do everything except take photos of him, and he assured me he could handle that part.

Jim didn’t have any particular ideas for the card; he just wanted something that would be eye-catching and include a picture of himself, since all his clients would recognize him.

The next day, I did some searching online for ideas, and found a few stock photos I liked, including the one at right. I figured I could composite a picture of Jim into it, perhaps with him lighting one of the candles himself. Using a stock photo would greatly reduce production time, a big advantage given that New Year’s Day was less than two weeks away. Jim liked the idea, and gave me the go-ahead.

I sent him some guidelines for photography (lighting tips, camera settings, prop suggestion, etc.), as well as a mockup (at right) I created using a Poser figure and a stock photo of a lit match. I told him not to limit himself to the pose on the mockup, but to take pictures in a few different positions, and we would decide later which to use. I also suggested he use a humorous expression, because humor (or other emotional element) is usually what people remember most about an image.

To Jim’s great credit, he followed my instructions carefully and sent back these three photos, all very usable.

Jim told me to use the photo I liked best, so I did. Below is the draft composite.

Of course, every project has a hiccup or two, and this one had a doozy. When Jim showed the above image to his friends and family, several of them pointed out that it wasn’t terribly appropriate for a person in the insurance business to be sending out a card showing him lighting something on fire — after all, many of his clients had suffered through a house fire.

For Jim, it was a head-slap moment. “Of course! I should have thought of that!” He gave me a call and told me the bad news. We had no choice but to toss out that image and start over.

With the new year rapidly approaching, we chose one of the other ‘2009’ stock photos from my initial search, and Jim got to work taking more photos of himself. At the same time, he decided to include his dog in the picture, a nice touch I applauded for the cuteness factor alone.

Below is the finished composite.

On the back of the postcard, Jim wanted his contact information and some space to write a personal note to each client. I grabbed some confetti from the stock photo and used it to make this:

Because Jim had a mailing list of about 200, it didn't make sense to get his cards printed at a traditional offset print shop, where setup costs make quantities under 500 uneconomical. Instead I arranged for the cards to be printed digitally (high-quality laser) at a shop close to Jim's office. Compared to offset printing, the quality was a bit lower, and unit cost somewhat higher, but the overall cost was reduced and with a quicker turnaround time.