BrandDoozie has launched a Flash-based tool for SMBs that want to create marketing materials without hiring a designer.
The tool’s 3-step process leads to branded sales sheets, postcards, business cards, and letterheads that can be downloaded in PDF format, and soon, ordered from professional printers as well.
You start by picking a general design from a gallery that’s divided into style categories like Professional Services, Healthcare, and Travel. Basic header fonts and colors can be tweaked, after which you move on to creating a two-lined logo with its own customized fonts, letter spacing, and sizes.
The final step takes your customizations and generates the aforementioned business materials with them. Default photos can swapped in and out (from either the site’s stock collection or up to 25mb of uploads), and the copy can be changed to suit your needs (add your phone number and other details to the business card, for example).
I used BrandDoozie to create a postcard for TechCrunch. See the three screenshots below for an illustration of the process.
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All in all, this is a straightforward and useful publishing tool for small organizations that don’t demand much in terms of uniqueness and creativity. Anyone who’s remotely serious about creating a real brand, however, will need to look beyond BrandDoozie’s cookie-cutter approach.
Also see HP’s LogoMaker, which is a specialized DIY tool for creating logos.
A do it yourself design service created to take advantage of small startups ran by morons that think that anybody can do marketing and branding.
With morons as their demographic they should do well.
Great, the online version of CorelDraw enabling everyone to do their own desktop publishing. Now designers won’t be needed anymore
This is fine for anyone that has no idea what good design is. You might as well use Microsoft Words buildin templates to create your letterhead.
Design is overrated. See craigslist & google. Would people still use amazon or ebay if they werent as pretty? Absolutely, its how they got started.
Design != interactions, and interactions are best done in conjunction with users, its not like designers have some magic sauce or anything.
That looks real useful.I am thinking about making some business cards.
@ben #4, the magic sauce is making you think we don’t exist.
@Ben no it’s not, craiglist and google are examples of great design. So great you don’t think it’s been design. Simple
Ryan
lessons in brevity: http://www.mofata.com
in 2000, wired magazine profiled a program called the n-generator by an SF design firm. It was lightweight, modular, and randomised. It also produced some fantastic results. This looks like it’s bland half cousin, but I’m glad to see that someone ran with the idea that n-gen let die.
good design..:)
Do you want your marketing materials to look like they were put together by an amateur? Then this is the tool for you.
And let’s be honest, there is a segment of the market that wants that. For them, designers are only people that know how to make the magic software work, and any random shape and letters logo slapped on the same template half their competitors use is fine for them.
Let them have it. They’ll get what they pay for.
Good idea, terrible execution. I thought I’d design my own business cards but quit after about 10 minutes of struggling through figuring it out.
Looks up and see if we you spot the insecure designers
a) Design is more than the ability to create pretty graphics. Google, ebay and the rest were all *designed* and functionality and interaction is a part of that.
b) Branding is more than a letterhead with matching business cards. It’s the way people perceive your company and your product and takes years to build. No software will ever be able to emulate that. This website is using the term incorrectly (as most people do).
c) All that said, honestly, I think this is an excellent website for small clients that are just getting started or to companies that don’t care about connecting with general consumers and target demographics. Because *that* is what designers do.
While E-bay and Google are designed for functionality and interaction, It would behoove them to leave the design alone once it is delivered. It seems they change their design monthly and I find it very irritating. As for this product, who is to say amateurs out here couldn’t give it a go. You might be surprised what graphics might find a printer near you.