Part 1: Focus on your logo
Every company should start out with minimal corporate IDs or branding – logo, name, tag line (value proposition), design templates and color palettes. There should be a template developed that shows how these items are used (in larger companies, a brand book is created that spells out exactly how sizes, placements, colors etc. are to be used ).
This is the core of your company’s identity. Like a skeleton, it supports your body. Do it early, and do it correctly. And especially don’t skimp on the fees to get it done. It’s a lot more difficult to correct a brand identity mistake or direction than to establish it the first time – to make a correction, you will have to re-ID your company, and then spend countless dollars and time on PR to explain why the company has changed its basic identity and to overcome confusion created by this change.
I’ve seen a lot of results from websites where designers bid for the logo work. Some of it is okay. Okay is not good enough for your company. A lot of the results are derivative of other logos, and leftover designs an artist hasn’t sold. Remember, you are going to pay for the result. Pay one time and get it right and it won’t cost you dollars and time down the road.
So invest the money into a designer or firm who gets you.
When it’s my money, I look for someone who is intuitive about what my client or my company is and what they are trying to do/say to the marketplace (how do you know they are intuitive? Check out what they’ve done for other people…you’ll get a feel for if they have a feel for their clients). My designer is one of my company’s secret weapons to success.
An interesting take on designers is expressed in this link:
http://www.manta.com/TOTD/marketing/20131004?referid=16483&su=MT1000787066&uu=511dac7431f24625b3909f94
Sandra Holtzman teaches CEO 035: Licensing.
She is the author of Lies Startups Tell Themselves to Avoid Marketing.