Branding Basic – Step 11

Now you have your name and logo, and possibly a tagline.
 
Now the challenge is to use these elements in a consistent and professional manner whenever you have the opportunity to display and promote your brand.
 
This can become difficult. Particularly when you’re under the gun.
 
The media salesperson, bless her/his heart, volunteers to “recreate” your logo for their ad so you won’t be late for the meeting. You give this Samaritan your business card as an example and thank him/ her with great sincerity. Until you see how they butchered the logo in the final ad.
 
Over time it gets worse. You mislay the repro sheets, or your assistant accidentally deletes the logo file for 2-color reproduction. You forget the PMS color for your logo. The recommended proportion for logo to tagline disappears. With more employees needing to imprint the logo and the brand “look” to more and more materials, one or two will take matters into their own hands and “redesign” on the spot with the resources they have handy. Your new graphics designer decides you should be using the type face Americana because it’s now all the rage.
 
All these “little” course adjustments add up and you find, like so many small businesses do, that they are sailing “off the edge”. Their brand has no consistent personality. Their brand has become unfocused and diluted.

I’ve taken four fairly long paragraphs delineating the problem because it’s so insidious and niggling.

The answer is relatively simple if you’ve taken my advice about hiring an experienced logo designer. A veteran designer will want to develop graphic standards for your brand.

A graphic standards document, usually in the form of a .pdf file, will display and describe accepted use and variations of the logo itself, identify colors for the logo for use in printing (PMS) and electronic applications (RBG), provide specifications for stationery, recommend compatible type faces, possibly recommend a color palette for promotional materials, describe the placement and proportion of the logo with a tagline and/or a descriptor, and finally, set down rules (policy) for all to follow – employees and suppliers alike.
 
Accompanying this document will be the files of the various accepted logo variations and formats, with recommendations for acquiring the preferred accompanying fonts. Make two copies, one on a CD, and another for day-to-day use. Also make copies of the standards and distribute them to all graphic arts vendors and tell them to use it. Make copies for your employees, too.

This would be a minimum, though probably all that’s required for a start-up company, to assure consistent and professional logo usage.

Martin Jelsema
303-242-5975

Branding related posts:

1. Branding Basics – Step 9
2. Branding Basics: Step Five
3. Branding Basics – Step Six
4. Branding Basics – Step 12
5. Branding Basics – Step 4