Letters 03|06

What our readers have to say

SHOW US THE MONEY

Enjoyed your article on Hawaii's top financial advisers (February 2006). Surely the best way to rank advice is by the results it achieves. There is no mention of clients' portfolio returns. It would be interesting to showcase the advisers with the best performance – perhaps a better justification for "Midas" status and offering greater insight into their clients' satisfaction.
It is well known that high fees and loads severely damage investment performance. Ranking by revenues incentivizes advisers to recommend the most expensive financial products such as annuities and high load mutual funds, often when a better and cheaper alternative is available. Perhaps the Midas affect applies to the brokers growing net worth rather than their clients? I am sure most of the advisers on your list have the best interests of their client at heart, but it would be nice to focus on the most important metric – how much money they made for them.

Veryan Allen,
Honolulu, Hawaii
Via email

SOMETHING'S DIFFERENT IN 2006

I just wanted to compliment you on a nice January issue. I will admit that it got so crazy at the end of the year that I didn't read the last 2-3 issues of Hawaii Business. I finally picked up the January issue and read it (almost) cover to cover. Something about it is different since the last time I read it … new design? Something about it was easier to read than usual and I can't place my finger on it. Anyway, good job!

Melissa H. J. Chang
Marketing Manager
Aloha Tower MarketPlace
Honolulu, Hawaii
Via email

MARKETING VS. DESIGN

I read this article by Bob Sigall and as a practicing graphic designer I found some things in this article that are misleading.

Sometimes a "marketing" approach to design issue has its drawbacks. It's nice to have a "blanket-catch all" formula for collateral, but every client is different. Every piece is different.

Formats of brochures or any other collateral for that matter should be based on the needs of the content. All because a brochure is 8.5 x 11 tri-folded, it doesn't mean its just "common". I've seen beautiful pieces that are letter sized. I even collect some of them. Most of the time its just practical to produce. What's common is bad design.

I've seen "oversized" pieces practically vomiting with graphics and color that become instant pieces of trash. It's just a waste of paper. Sometimes oversized pieces work very well – when the DESIGN makes sense and content dictates the format. This all goes back to design.

What also makes a good piece is understanding and applying good typography. Just using "large" type is a gross generalization on how to use type. Large font sizes are great for headline graphics. For body copy, it doesn't necessarily work. What also makes text readable is the spacing between lines, the spaces of the characters (leading and kerning). Obviously font choice and its scale and proportion to the overall size of the piece creates movement on the page.

I don't know where you'll find a decent designer to do a nice brochure for $400, unless they're students or you have a friend that'll do it for that much. $200 - $400 would probably be good JUST for production work and inputting text in a rudimentary beginning layout. In that case you can probably go to a copy shop (Kinko's) and have them do the layout for you @ $65/hr.

You still have to be creative. There are no absolute rules in designing anything. Whether its brochure, catalog, business card, etc.

What is common is thinking there are.

Mike Cueva
Graphic Designer
Honolulu, Hawaii
Via email

CORRECTION: Herbert Shiraishi went to work for John Hancock in 1988, not 1998 as was reported in February's story on the Top Financial Advisors. Hawaii Business regrets the error.

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