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

____________________

Advertisement: Honest Riches - Click Here!

Advertisement: Lost AdWords - Click Here!

Advertisement: Get $1 Million A Month In Google Pay-Per-Click Ads Free! - Click Here!

Advertisement: Who Loves Money? - Click Here!

Advertisement: SEO Elite, the GrandDaddy of SEO Software - Click Here!

---

How Will Your Visitors Remember You And Your Business? Brand Yourself From The Crowd...

Big and Yellow 'M' reminds you McDonalds... 'DELL' with oblique E reminds you famous 'Dell' computers...No matter somebody is a beginner or a well established business person,... Read More

The Role of a Visual Vocabulary in Brand Identity Design

Visual elements are a major part of your business's brand identity design. The keystone of that design is the logo, but in many cases, the logo isn't... Read More

Clouds Gather Before A Storm: Utilizing The Power Of Brand

How brand management can help utility organisations to create a 'difference'.Ever thought why are many consumers willing to pay more for a trusted name brand instead of... Read More

Brand Love, Part 2

Last issue, I talked about increasing your Brand Love-- meaning to increase the affection that prospects and customers feel toward your business.Why?Because increasing "affection" will build relationships.... Read More

Don?t Get Caught In the Trap: The BIG Difference Between Personal and Business Branding

When you're all alone in the privacy of your home office, surrounded by your computer, your phone and your business idea, have you ever asked yourself, "Where's... Read More

When Search Engine Marketing and Trademarks Collide

In the world of marketing, branding issues are always an important part of any campaign. Companies work hard for their name to be recognized as a quality... Read More

The Trust Issue In Marketing

One of the prime motivating factors in the purchase decision making process is "trust". A consumer will at some point for however long or short of a... Read More

Revealing the Roots: The Process of Building Brand

How is branding different than marketing?Branding is not so much different from marketing as it is an element of marketing. We think of marketing as a tree;... Read More

Franchisor Policies for Unlicensed or Sold Territories

Franchisors often have issues when they own a brand which has service vehicles; where franchisees wish to operate in non-franchise assigned territories. We had this as a... Read More

Brand Value Plan - Brand Identity Guru

Developing brand value is critical to every organization and when professionally executed, delivers a clear and measurable competitive advantage to your firm. It does so by helping... Read More

You?ll Bring a Parade of Business to Your Door!

Parades happen in every big city and many small towns. They are fun, relaxing and most people are there because they really want to be. Parades are... Read More

Understand Brand

Branding has been defined, explained and examined extensively. There are books, articles, publications, seminars, and groups all dedicated to exploring the meaning and use of brand today.Interestingly,... Read More

Profitable Partnering

Become your customers top-of-mind choice.Some of these snapshots of real life SmartPartnership success stories can be adapted to help your kind of business (or non-profit or government... Read More

Are You Brand Worthy? Are You Brand Worthy?

Branding is a one hot topic, although it is wildly misunderstood. To make things even more confusing, branding is often tossed in the same basket as marketing... Read More

All About Branding

In this article i will explain how you can make your brand an succes.Corporate branding...does not start at your logo and stops at your products. The corporate... Read More

Could Ray Kroc have founded McDonalds in the Era of Sarbaines Oxley?

Over regulation of our free markets is stifling our growth in America and killing the next superstar Entrepreneurs. Let's discuss just how bad it really is. Let's... Read More

Brand Strategy - Brand Identity Guru

If you could have the secret recipe and all the manufacturing facilities of Coca Cola but not the Coca Cola brand-or have its famous brand but no... Read More

The Importance of Branding - Can It Really Make a Difference?

As consumers, we don't really think about the importance of branding. We just seem to go with the flow of brand names that have become synonymous with... Read More

Brand Image ? Brand Identity Guru

Having a brand image is not a "have or have not" proposition. Everyone has one. The problem is that you might have more than one brand image,... Read More

What the Heck is Branding and Why Should I Care?

There's been a lot of buzz lately about branding. But what exactly is it, and who needs to do it? Simply put, a brand is what makes... Read More

A Lesson in Branding from Paris Hilton

I have never been a fan of Paris Hilton.I see her parading around in her odd-looking clothing choices, leading her loyal following of giddy anorexic schoolgirls around... Read More

Boston Web Design Branding - Brand Identity Guru

A branding company's website purpose is to design websites that will attract attention, give a professional image and support the message you are trying to convey in... Read More

Brilliant Branding Builds Business

Branding is more than product recognition or a simple logo. It is the overall intellectual and emotional impression people have when they think of your company and... Read More

Your Brand is Your Promise! (So What Are You Promising?)

When people mention the word "brand" they usually mean a well known, well defined company. That's why consumers frequently mention names such as Target, Rolex, Apple, BMW... Read More

Do What Works

"Can you hear me now?"You'd be hard pressed to find someone in the US who doesn't know the company behind that question.So why do big companies, like... Read More

How to Create Your Own Mail Order Products

Pick up almost any book or report on Mailorder Selling andinvariably you will find the same advice. When you select amailorder product, select one which: - appeals... Read More