Brands. Recognizable even upsidedown and backwards.

The name of your company is or should be a unique tie-in to the heritage, identity or other meaning of your business. It is the very first identifying mark of your company. In other words, our name establishes not only a brand identity but a corporate vision as well.

Why Brands are Important

A brand is a set of attributes that—in the minds of customers—distinguish one company’s offerings from those of its competitors. A brand identity is the visual and verbal expression of that set of attributes. A cohesive, distinctive and relevant brand identity is an enormous asset in the marketplace. The very name provides added value and—in many cases—can command a price premium. It is necessary to establish a direct and unbreakable linkage between the attributes of the brand and the way they are expressed. A strong brand is one with immediately recognizable characteristics that set it apart from the crowd. When current or potential customers see or hear that brand name, they form a positive mental picture, based on its well-established attributes.

Why Consistency is Important

The consistent display of your brand enables your company to benefit from the success of itself. You will also realize savings, in terms of both time and costs, in the development of communication materials, products and services, not to mention the increase in professionalism your business with take.

Growth Demands Discipline

As your company expands, your communications needs to become more complex. We will be introducing yourselves to many new audiences, and first impressions are very important. The consistent use of your brand identity will enable us to establish your company as a forward looking, professional provider of products and services. That is why each and every communication describing those offerings must bear the unmistakable mark of your brand identity.

Building Your Company’s Brand

It is important to understand that your guidelines provide for considerable flexibility. You shouldn’t want all your communications to look exactly alike. That would destroy their effectiveness. Instead, the main goal is to present a consistent “look and feel” that is unique to your company. This will enable you to continue to build your masterbrand, which will, in turn, enhance public recognition of every part of your company.

Have you ever dealt with a frustrated client before? I know I have. There have been a few times where a client asks me to make them something pretty, I work for hours to make it for them only to see them say “But that doesn’t really do what we want it to.” I then proceed to hit my head against the wall very firmly. Yes, we have all dealt with this problem, hopefully nearer the start of our careers instead of later.

When you’re dealing with a design project, it’s vital to write a detailed list of expectations at the very beginning. There are two main reasons for this:

• Firstly, it ensures that you, as a business owner or in-house manager know exactly what you want to achieve from your project.
• Second, the brief acts as a point of reference for designers, giving them key points to focus on. This eliminates “back and forth” communication a lot of people find annoying.

This is called a Creative Brief.

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There are lots of different preferences when it comes to text and how it is used. You may be familiar with how some of the tools are used because simple word processors may use them. Sometimes you want to justify the text to make the columns appear nicer and remove the raggedy edge (this is called the rag), and other times you want to edit the spaces in between the words, lines and even the letters. This is where InDesign stands out in comparison to other word processors.

Here are a couple tips on how to wrangle all that stray text for your next project.

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Today I am going to show you how to set up a new document in InDesign which will outline the steps I took to get a 7 panel accordion fold brochure. For those of you who do not know, an accordion fold is also called a “Z” fold because it zig zags in on itself. This is useful for large brochures with the need for either large surface area or multiple panels or pages in an interesting format. Brochures and maps are very common accordion folds.

A simple 3 panel accordion fold

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It is often the case that designers are competing for projects, and the client is selecting who to work with based on experience, rates and other factors. At the same time, designers should be deciding if the client is a good fit for them. While there are many ways to determine this, there are some classic red flags to look for… things a client might say that are a sign of only more trouble once the project is yours. If you hear any of these red flags, it certainly doesn’t mean you should automatically end the relationship. Use your judgement and the look at the situation as a whole before making decision.

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