Planning Ahead With Your Designer: Tips For Design Consistency With Your Logo And Brand Elements -

Home
>
Branding
>
Planning Ahead With Your Designer: Tips For Design Consistency With Your Logo And Brand Elements

Planning Ahead With Your Designer: Tips For Design Consistency With Your Logo And Brand Elements

While we recommend that you contract with the same designer or design team while creating your brand identity materials as possible, we know that this scenario is not always possible.

Whenever you work with a designer other than the original who created your logo, stationery and marketing materials, we suggest a few practices that will prove invaluable for ensuring a consistent look and feel across all of your marketing communications.

At a minimum, make sure that you have information on:

? The Pantone Matching System (PMS) colors used in the designs. These will come in the form of a number. For example, PMS #280 is a deep blue color.

? Fonts. Ask your designer what font is used in your logo, and what secondary and tertiary fonts are used in your stationery and other marketing materials. Having this information will save a future designer many font matching headaches.

? The type of paper on which your materials are printed. In order to duplicate and keep consistent with the look and feel of your materials in future print runs, you'll always want to have your items printed on the same type of paper.

? The printer who printed your materials. Knowing whether your materials were printed by a digital printer or a press printer can help to ensure that they are reproduced at the same quality in the future. In the case of press printing, this can save you money on additional films as well.

To make for an even smoother transition, negotiate for the original files for your designs. This can be a delicate matter, as some graphic designers do not sell the rights in the original files to their clients. If you cannot get the entire assembled files, we recommend that you negotiate for a minimum of the following pieces:

? An original file of your logo. This is typically known as a vector graphic version, which means that, if the appropriate software is available (Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand are the most common), you can scale the image up and down without losing image quality. If your logo was not created as a vector graphic (i.e., if it was created in Photoshop), then you need the largest, highest resolution file available. See our article on Logo File Formats for more information on which type of formats of your logo you should have on-hand.

? A file containing any specialized secondary graphic brand elements. Some designers will give you files containing special headers, backgrounds, illustrations, etc., so they are available for any future projects. Loss or lack of these elements keeps a new designer from knowing what original effects were used to create the design.

This information will ensure that your materials have graphics that are consistent across the board, and will save time on future projects.

About the Author

Erin Ferree, Founder and Lead Designer of elf design, is a brand identity and graphic design expert. She has been helping small businesses grow with bold, clean and effective logo and marketing material designs for over a decade. elf design offers the comprehensive graphic and web design services of a large agency, with the one- on-one, personalized attention of an independent design specialist. Erin works closely in partnership with her clients to create designs that are visible, credible and memorable ? and that tell their unique business stories in a clear and consistent way. For more information about elf design, please visit:

Logo design at http://www.elf-design.com

In The News:

table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd width=80 align=center valign=topfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifa href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://news10now.com/content/all_news/watertownnorth_country/129219/jcc-launches-new-identity/Default.aspxcid=1277228944ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNH_pzU10rAoToo3_0h0LSSBmU7dDQimg src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=r0RcREfV9-gJimgurl=images.news10now.com/media/2008/12/3/images/01jcc.jpg width=80 height=60 alt= border=1brfont size=-2News 10 Now/font/a/font/tdtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://www.newswatch50.com/news/local/story.aspx%3Fcontent_id%3D82c70ccc-1bb5-4d80-890c-f4baa8c6eb6ecid=1277228944ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNE8s0daresaPVloM9kRuxRy68pWeAJCC unveils new logo, tagline/abrfont size=-1font color=#6f6f6fNewswatch 50,nbsp;NYnbsp;-/font nobr7 hours ago/nobr/fontbrfont size=-1“We were gratified by the students’ interest in this bbranding/b process,” said Karen J. Freeman, Marketing and Public Relations Officer for the college. b.../b/fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20081203/NEWS11/812039991/JCC%2Breveals%2Bnew%2Blogo%2B%2Bmottocid=1277228944ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNH5EVYRgaXigIvju_csLxAKCA5iWwJCC reveals new logo, motto/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrWatertownDailyTimes.com/nobr/font/fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://news10now.com/content/all_news/watertownnorth_country/129219/jcc-launches-new-identity/Default.aspxcid=1277228944ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNH_pzU10rAoToo3_0h0LSSBmU7dDQJCC launches new identity/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrNews 10 Now/nobr/font/fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://www.wwnytv.net/index.php/2008/12/03/jefferson-community-college-unveils-new-marketing-campaign/cid=1277228944ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNGhEvdaIfjfoescf9mle7vYiCOGtQJefferson Community College Unveils New Marketing Campaign/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrWWNY TV/nobr/font/fontbrfont class=p size=-1a class=p href=http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclientie=ISO-8859-1rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-22,GGLG:enncl=1277228944hl=ennobrall 4 news articles/nobr/a/font/div/font/td/tr/table

table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2008/12/01/story7.html%3Fb%3D1228107600%255E1740158cid=1276551719ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNH8cy8pv-VfOhhomZ8ZdidD9NDzrgHurricanes#39; brand rises in study/abrfont size=-1font color=#6f6f6fTriangle Business Journal,nbsp;NCnbsp;-/font nobr20 hours ago/nobr/fontbrfont size=-1Most teams would find little success with that marketing strategy, and even the Cubs can’t pull off losing as a long-term bbranding/b plan. b.../b/fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://www.freep.com/article/20081202/SPORTS18/812020383cid=1276551719ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNGFtnU2dbPXUJakEut6vkTqKPIjvwIlitch rated top owner in sports; Ford listed as second worst/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrDetroit Free Press/nobr/font/fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://www.wyff4.com/sports/18179328/detail.htmlcid=1276551719ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNE_SB1IXQm8LdzdRiDPDcbdDcvfDAPackers Rank No. 1 In Local bBranding/b/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrWYFF/nobr/font/fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://www.citywebshopper.net/articles/includes/redirect.php?url=http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2008/12/01/story2.html%3Fb%3D1228107600%255E1740303cid=1276551719ei=IjQ3SdK8OsjcmQeY0fCrDwusg=AFQjCNGVJUSUc3BwV8pyJkHSNAoSm_3edQMN sports fans say Twins brand is best/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrTwin Cities Business Journal/nobr/font/fontbrfont class=p size=-1a class=p href=http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclientie=ISO-8859-1rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-22,GGLG:enncl=1276551719hl=ennobrall 160 news articles/nobr/a/font/div/font/td/tr/table

branding - Google News