Neil Tortorella
Neil brings with him over 30 years experience as an award-winning graphic designer, writer and marketing consultant.
Tortorella is a co-founder and management team member of CreativeLatitude.com, a popular web site and resource for creatives and the clients they serve. Neil is also an avid writer on marketing, promotion and business topics. His writing has been widely published on the Internet and in HOW Magazine, a leading graphic design trade publication. He authors a popular blog, “Inside the Marketing Mind.” His writing can also be found on BoDo – Business of Design online, where he’s a founding team partner and author of the Marketing Minute.
Tortorella is featured in the book, The Savvy Designer’s Guide to Success, by Jeff Fisher, published by HOW Design Books, Cincinnati, OH and in Creatively Self Employed, by Kristen Fisher.
This started out in the plural tense, with a lot of "corporate speak." After
looking it over, I decided that it just wasn’t me. Since I’m an
individual practice, the “we” had to go. The "corporate speak" was
axed as well, since using a bunch of big words generally just clouds the
message. With that said, here’s some background.
Tortorella Design started in 1986 in an effort to provide solutions to business
marketing and communication problems. Prior to that, I worked as both a photographer
and a freelance graphic designer. I also held a few corporate and ad agency
positions prior to going it alone. These included Corporate Art Director
with Alo-Cosmetics, a suburban division Marketing Manager with Knight-Ridder
Newspapers and Director of Production & Promotion with Thomson Newspaper's
Ohio Week Magazine.
So, what do I bring to the table?
Glad you asked.
My strength, and the key benefit to my clients, is my ability to integrate
marketing and public relations planning along with high-caliber graphic and
web design.
I also have a pretty good working knowledge of Internet technologies
and help my clients make sense out of a bunch of techno jargon that has
"headache" written all over it.
My design philosophy
I believe well thought out design helps to solve marketing and communication
problems and that graphic design must go beyond simple decoration to provide
a higher level of functional value. I believe in gaining a solid understanding
of my clients’ company and their marketing environment in order to develop
a design solution that works hard and provides value. I believe in asking
questions, probing the issues and looking from different points of view.
The solutions may take the form of a a website, corporate identity program, brochure,
a company sponsored publication, direct response packages, or a combination of
media to achieve the necessary result. I believe that action must be based on
facts, not just whims or personal likes and dislikes.
Ultimately, the audience must be served by providing quality information in a clear and memorable manner.
