| Logo Pitfalls |
| Invention Development Advice - Business Identity and Artwork | |||
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Many logos, even those produced by “professional” designers, are let down by their poor mechanical reproducibility.
Is it legible? Print it out on an A4 sheet of paper. Tape it to a wall. Stand on the other side of the room. Can you read it? Can you read it when it is shrunk to 1cm in width on your computer screen? Do you have a specially tweaked version of your logo for ultra-small implementations? Do you have a special version that lets you reproduce your logo on busy or textured backgrounds? What does it look like when faxed? Or when screen printed on a t-shirt? Do you have a one-colour version of your logo?
Is it printable? Logos with complex colour graduations, patterns or photos may not reproduce properly or professionally on different printing processes. Pantone colours are bright and vivid. But the more of them you use, the more expensive your printing. Get your logo set in CMYK colours. RGB colours are only good for on-screen use and may print weirdly. If your logo uses Pantone colours, get a CMYK version too so you can use your logo with standard four-colour printing jobs.
Do you have the right file formats for the best output across different media? JPEG and GIF bitmap files are good only for on-screen use; like in Powerpoint and the web. High resolution (300dpi or more) CYMK TIFF bitmap files are good for inserting into Word for in-house printing. They should not be anti-aliased to avoid fuzziness. EPS, AI (Adobe Illustrator) and other vector art format files are best for professional printing, including large billboards. These are the most flexible file formats as they can be converted to bitmaps on demand.
Is your name the most prominent part of your logo? Most businesses don’t have Nike’s marketing budget to really push a mark (the tick symbol) into the minds of customers. Often, a mark is superfluous. It is incredibly difficult to communicate unambiguously via a graphic alone.
By Zern Liew To find out how Zern can help you communicate or work better, visit http://eicolab.com.au/services/ and http://eidesign.com.au/services/ For more tips, tools and innovation thought-provokers, visit http://eicolab.com.au/blog/
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