Get Personal with DirecType
While it's hard to think of many professions untouched by change, there's no doubt that designers are positioned right in the thick of it. Being reliant on highly-digital tools and delivery methods, you can count on something, somewhere, popping up every day that impacts the creation and distribution of graphic design services. So it was yesterday that amongst the usual torrent of ho-hum press releases flooding my inbox, an item from a German company for its DirecType product bobbed to the surface. (Thanks girls, you can lower those letters now.)
Personalization is hot, for good reason. If you can more directly engage people in the marketing material of your clients, whether in print or online, you're half-way to a more successful campaign, and nothing is more engaging for people than a unique, one-to-one experience. This approach is typically associated with big agencies and fat accounts, but if my understanding of the capabilities of DirecType is correct, this doesn't have to be the case.
While creating personalized mailings for database-driven direct marketing campaigns that insert the recipient's name or other such information as text within other text has long since become banal, DirecType inserts such personalized content as graphics within other graphics, to create a final personalized image for just about anything that can be printed or displayed. For example, one use would be for graphically personalizing HTML newsletters.
DirecType provides a number of approaches. The simplest is to use standard PostScript or TrueType fonts and fill them repeatedly with small image elements, such as coffee beans, before merging the personalized text with the background image. You can also define node points for each letter and image elements will be positioned along the resulting contours. A third approach cuts the letters out of the foreground. While the fourth method, using image fonts, assigns a separate image to each letter. That's the technique I used to generate the cheerleader and blackboard images, using the e-card area on the DirecType site. That and the wallpaper generator are good places to quickly try out the technology—as well as being potentially interesting applications for client sites.
Best to check out the DirecType site at this point, since it provides a good sense of how the system can be applied and the workflow involved. The software for making this all happen is available for Windows in Basic and Professional versions, with the latter providing database-driven capabilities. A demo is also available that provides all the functionality of the Pro version.
Chris Dickman
Editor, Graphics.com
This is definitely an interesting program. Where I work, they believe this to be a direct link to the customer. When they do mailings, they do a lot of pens that are personalized for each customer. Really drives the idea home. Of course this is one of those "big companies" that has the funds to do it for themselves. This programs is a great link to this idea for smaller businesses or independent designers.
People just love to see their own name on stuff. Makes them feel all important and stuff! It sure works.
I am currenlty looking for more literature, training manuals on direct type. Do you know where I can source?