§ Contents 
Glossary Articles Books Software Typeface Webmaster Links
Horses for courses
If you were going to build a house, you'd consult an architect rather than a marketer. If you were going to market a product, you consult a marketer rather than an architect.
And if you wanted to invest in multimedia to help market your product, you'd probably consult someone, or read a book written by someone who understood the topic.
Wouldn't you?
Not necessarily. Apparently, even if you know almost nothing, you can still write a book, throw a CD-ROM together and put out a computer-expert shingle.
Curtis B. Charles and co-author Karen M. Brown (who share two patient, understanding daughters) haven't a clue about their subject, though they seem to know how to find a publisher.
They've already written one book called "Computers in the Professional Practice of Design". Now they've had another go and delivered "Multimedia Marketing for Design Firms".
But beware! This is one of those clever marketing ploys where the title and a specious back cover blurb is used to sell what ought never have been published. During the brief time it took me to read it, I kept feeling it was a draft that had slipped by without proper editing.
I'd like to dissect this book word by word. But there isn't time, so I'll have to content myself with the title.
Multimedia
"Multimedia is a mixture of text, graphics, audio, animation and video in an interactive environment". Now you know!
Each chapter is devoted to one aspect of multimedia, providing the sort of detail you'd expect from someone who says something like that. DTP incorporates text and graphics into striking marketing documents (people are not required).
CADD is really useful, but most architects will still use a napkin. Video is a high-impact medium. The Internet! The Internet!
Digital delivery media includes diskettes, CDs, laptops, kiosks and the information superhighway. The information what? I thought that term had disappeared from the vocabulary of serious computer users!
One of the chapters contains what is laughingly called "Tips and Tricks". The first four pages show product boxes with captions like "Adobe Dimensions is used to create specialised 3-dimensional effects". Then we are treated to a series of pages that show how to create a drawing in Illustrator and then transfer it to a PageMaker layout.
Other chapters contain galleries of screen dumps from various packages, with captions that talk about what the authors did when they were working for so-and-so. Now that's clever marketing.
Marketing
Um... well, yes there are two chapters that deal with marketing. Not surprisingly, the first is about the World Wide Web. Not to be confused, they tell us, with the Internet.
They don't seem to know much more than this themselves: there's no mention of hypertext, HTML or FTP. They constrain themselves to a puerile description of email and a few pictures of web sites. Then there is a brief paragraph about web browsers that states: "you need what is called a web browser".
The second marketing chapter is an interview with an "award winning team" of architects who state in the first paragraph that they don't use true multimedia: they use PowerPoint and hire a video production company for important work. As for marketing, the word is not even mentioned. (It only rates a single mention in the index too, where it refers to the chapter on the Internet!)
Actually, I am being a touch unfair. What this book does achieve is an enormous tongue in the backside of several major software companies. Although IBM, Apple, Philips, Strata 3D and others are credited, the CD-ROM contains demos of almost every Adobe application available for Mac and Windows. One or two other demos are thrown in for good measure because Adobe hasn't yet brought a version to market.
For Design Firms
The last three words I'll take in one hit. I must admit I was attracted to the title without realising that this was a book aimed at architects. Not that it matters: the book might as well be aimed at the K-2 age group for all the relevance it has for business people seriously considering the return on investment of multimedia purchases.
Multimedia Marketing for Design Firms
Curtis B. Charles and Karen M. Brown
ISBN: 0-471-14609-9
RRP: $14.95
John Wiley & Sons, 1996
Written by Geoffrey Fletcher
Tell us 