Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

#TBT The Value Of Creative Design

Thu, May 5, 2022
by Drew McManus
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A perennial problem that is particularly vexing for opera and theatre groups is how to approach event graphics when production photography for most events won’t be ready when season announcements roll out.

One of the best options is to invest in quality graphic design to provide visuals until principal photography is available. Recently, one of my newest clients, Opera Festival Chicago, put that approach into motion for their three events this summer. In addition to the individual event graphics, they had their designer create similarly branded graphics for page headers that will ultimately be replaced by photos.

The end result provided just what they needed at both their new primary website and their UpStage ticketing site.

It made me recall a post from 9/13/2018 about how powerful creative design is to a maximizing the impact of your marketing and communications efforts.

Here’s Some Creative Design Inspiration To Recharge Your Week

Insider Tip: if you decide to go this direction, be sure your graphic designer provides a layered vector file in .ai or .eps format of the final deliverables. You’ll thank me later.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

View all posts by Drew McManus | Website

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Adaptistration by Drew McManus LLC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://adaptistration.com/about/terms-of-use-and-permissions/.

PROFESSIONAL DISCLOSURE

Given the author’s position as an arts consultant and technology provider, he does not publish articles examining or focusing on current clients without first obtaining the client’s written permission.

EDITORIAL COMMITMENT

In order to ensure accuracy and provide a comprehensive perspective on any topic, I allow any individual or person officially representing an organization that appears in any Adaptistration article to submit a response which will be published, unedited. Responses are limited to 200 words and must address the issues at hand and the individuals and/or organizations must also be willing to maintain an open dialog for continued discussion.