In a nutshell, The McNaughton Group is a graphic and book design studio, and marketing consultancy. Nice fancy words, but can we help your business grow the way you want and need?

Let's find out.

Please take a look below and select the scenario that best fits your current situation. We'll give you an honest answer as to whether we're a good fit for your particular need.

We're an established firm with a new product or service. We know exactly who our customer is but we don't know how to reach them - or we feel we could do a better job reaching them with some of your help.

Okay, see that 'contact' button just to the left? Click it. Click it Right Now. We can absolutely help you. We can work with you to refine your communications strategy and develop the best approach to reaching your customer in the most effective manner. We have experience that includes financial and law firms, high-tech manufacturers, publishers, landscape architects, and Great Big Surf Companies, so we're probably already familiar with the way to reach your kind of customer. We have ways of getting your message on the desk of the decision-makers that your competition hasn't even dreamed about. We provide full training support for your sales force, so they can use our promotional systems to win sales at your most-wanted list of customers. Let's get started!

We're an established firm with established product/service lines. We're doing well, but we'd like to do better and we think it's time to change our marketing strategy or materials.

We can absolutely help you. Even the most effective campaigns lose impact over time. Sometimes your creative partner closes or just loses steam. It happens. That's when bringing a fresh eye into the situation can really get things moving again. We provide a full range of creative marketing services, from targeted promotions, to logo/identity systems, to capability and product/service brochures. We can help you recreate your user manuals or small catalogs. Together we can craft a new public image for your firm to match and project the inner drive and talent that got you to this point. Please click the 'contact' button. We'll get you rolling along better than ever.

I'm an author, small publisher, or marketing service. I have a manuscript that needs to be turned into an eye-catching, quality book. Start to finish.

You've come to the right place. Our owner and creative director, Marc McNaughton, has been involved in book design and production since 1991. From initial design to final production and printing, we have the experience and design skill to set your book apart from the crowd of cheaply-produced 'publishing farm' titles that currently flood the market. In an industry where clients make their purchase decision before they actually read your material, visual presentation is critical. Our deep understanding of design, layout, and typesetting lets us design a visually captivating title, while our years of production experience allows us to maintain that design integrity while producing full texts quickly and efficiently, controlling costs in a market where margins can be very thin. We live and breathe book production here. We'd love to work with you.

We're a new firm and we know our product or service, but we don't know how we should market ourselves or our creations.

Want to make a big splash that will get your industry buzzing? We can do that. Want your sales force to go out with the confidence that your name and product is already on the minds of your prospective customers? No problem. Our targeted promotions will have their offices talking about you from day one. We also provide a full range of start-up services, from logo/identity systems to capability and product/service brochures. We can help you with user manuals or small catalogs. Together we can craft the public image of your new firm to match and project the inner drive and talent that's getting you started. Please click the 'contact' button to your left. Let's talk about making a bright future together.

I want to take my book to a big publisher. I want it to look good when they see it.

Publishing has changed. Radically. The days when you typed up your manuscript and sent it off to a publisher directly are over, and have been for a numer of years. Unless you're a celebrity or other public figure where outstanding sales are virtually guaranteed, publishers want to see an established track record for a book before they'll buy it and put their marketing resources behind it. You're probably asking yourself, "How do I get a track record if they won't publish the book?" The answer: Self-publishing. Amazon, Apple, and Barnes & Noble provide marketing and distribution systems to new authors, once they have a finished book to sell. Finished book, not manuscript. That's where we come in. We can take your finished manuscript and turn it into an eye-catching and high-quality book that maximizes your chances of developing an outstanding sales record on Amazon and the other systems. When your book racks up great sales there, you'll be ready to pitch the book at major publishers, and get on that Best Seller list!

I need a newspaper ad or local flyer.

Honestly, using us for a job like this is like using a Mack truck to drive to the store for groceries. You'll need a lot of groceries to make the trip worthwhile. If you need a placement or campaign in a national magazine or newspaper, we can do a very high-quality, cost-effective job for you. If it's something that's a limited placement in a local paper, we're probably going to be too expensive. Hey, we said we'd be honest with you, right? We still want you to accomplish your goals. If we can't help you, we'll get you to someone who can. Please contact us and we'd be happy to refer you to someone in your area better aligned with your need.

I need a package designed for my product. Do you do packaging?

Yes and no. Straight-forward boxes and formed-plastic packaging are right up our alley, including packaging with die-cut windows. Complicated shapes with fold-outs and recessed product bays require the services of a firm that specializes in that sort of work. We really don't do packaging to that level. We'd be happy to refer you to someone who does, and, if we're doing other work with you, collaborate with them to make sure this project conforms with and supports your overall marketing strategy. Please contact us and let's discuss how we can work together to make this happen for you.

We're a non-profit firm, museum, or organization. We don't have a lot of money. Can you help us?

Possibly. The world needs more people like you, but the harsh reality of business is that we need to make a profit in order to pay our own bills. If you're looking for pro-bono work, we have to be honest and tell you that we very rarely take on such jobs. That said, let's talk about ways we can help you and still meet our own needs. Perhaps we can structure the scope of the project to accomplish your core goals within a reasonable budget. Perhaps we can develop a base concept that you can then farm out to lower-cost, lower-experience firms for execution. There are usually ways to make it happen, but we'll need to have a detailed discussion about the project in order to use your limited budget to maximum effect. Please click the 'contact' button to your left. Let's talk.

I'm a small business. How much would it cost to…

Well, let's take a step back. You may be looking at this in a way that sells yourself short. Looking for the cheapest of anything usually gets you the cheapest in everything, including quality. That's not what you need to make your business grow. Take a serious look at your larger goals and consider what might be a reasonable budget for what you want to accomplish. Once you have that established, we'd be happy to talk to you about what we can do within your budget, always looking for the maximum value for your dollar. Maybe what you really need is a sell-sheet, and not a full-blown brochure. Maybe you need a better, more cost-effective catalog than a different website. Together, we'll figure it all out and get you to your goals. One thing we can promise you: if you have a particular short-list of target customers, we'll get your company in the door and into the minds of your targets in ways your competition only dreams about.

I need a website. Do you do web?

Yes, no, and yes. Confused? Let's spell it out: When it comes to putting the right information into your customer's hands, we do web with the best of them. We focus upon the entire online user experience to achieve your marketing goal, including clean navigation and an information architecture that guides your prospective client through the steps necessary to bring them to your sales force. (You clicked on "Ugly Little Secret" before you clicked to this page, didn't you? Yep, we planned that.) E-commerce sites, online stores, and similar direct-sales sites, however, are beyond the scope of our work. We bring the customer to your door, rather than build an online store for you. Hey, we're artists, not programmers, okay? So: Yes, we do web. No, we don't do e-commerce, and yes, you really should call us right now to build that winning site that will have your customers asking for more!

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