Once I began freelancing, things changed significantly. Suddenly I found myself in situations where I didn’t only have the freedom to give my expert opinions, I was actually hired for them. Tennessee Industrial Printing had acquired a new digital press in early 2008. I was hired to develop a small advertising campaign to run in various local publications. I was amazed at how natural the whole process was. I sat down with the folks at TIPs and just listened to their needs. I was also very interested in hearing the message they needed to get out. It was quite simple: they had a new digital press that allowed them to turn around large print jobs quickly. They now had more direct mail capabilities as well as variable data abilities. Simply put: fast, mailable, high-volume, quality. 

After the dust clears from such a meeting, the most important details rise to memory. I sat down and began typing the copy for what we planned to be a three-ad campaign. I chose the three most important attributes, applied quality to each, and developed three distinct concepts. After scouring hundreds of photos that visually communicated these three concepts, I developed the headlines and eventually came up with the illustrative designs (target, clock, and ruler). Putting it all together was the fun part. 

Developing the TIPs campaign was a blast. After keeping my mouth shut for so long, I began to see experience and observation paying off. TIPs is a great home-owned group of folks to work with. If you’re ever in need of some great high-quality, fast turn-around, high-volume printing or variable data, direct mail services, check them out.