Client: Myself; A business I created, The Helpful Press™, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Category: Publishing
The Helpful Press™ (THP) was a multi-media design, development and publishing firm that I founded and operated in Ft. Lauderdale. Its mission was to create, publish and market innovative, high-value informational media and resources for the general public.
Some of THP’s products & concepts included:
- A premium-quality magazine-directory for an affluent beachfront community in northeast Ft. Lauderdale (here)
- A fold-out merchant mapping and discount directory for this same community
- A printed graphical tool for seriously-ill patients and their caregivers, to schedule & record medication intake, and document effectiveness, symptoms and side effects (here)
The particular challenge that I faced was that many new/small publishing companies in South Florida have very poor reputations, most commonly for over-promising and under-delivering. It is a highly transient community, and at one point in the early 1990s it became known within law enforcement communities as “the birthplace of all scams.” The scams were started and refined in the area, then deployed elsewhere.
I defined my mission as being to create a brand name and logo that would convey the quality standards and accountability measures I instituted, and distinguished my company from its competitors. In short, my intent was to create an identity that represented the proud, “stand-up” company I was forming, which would be able (if not eager) to withstand even the most comprehensive scrutiny, to demonstrate that it lived up to every one of its promises.