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I recently came across this video about…

Twenty Tweetable Truths About Magazines

My general rule and belief is to keep a recognizable logo that has been used with the public in a recognizable fashion, the same, or at least similar in look and style. If your company has a logo that really does not tell your story of the services and products you offer or you simply don’t have a defined look used traditionally in the past, then you may have a good opportunity to “change” your brand identity. This change in such case would actually be developing a new brand or identity that people can relate to not necessarily changing it.

I believe it is a good rule of thumb to keep the recognized “look” and feel of ones brand similar to what has been already established. This will help keep stability and unity in all areas of your services offered and networking established. As well as keep name recognition among current and prospecting clients.

This being said, there is much validity in keeping your “business” current with the ever-changing market of business and technology. This meaning that a good “redevelopment” or “makeover” may be necessary and an essential exercise in keeping current with the business world.

There are many ways in which we could take an existing logo and simplify it (simple certainly can and usually is better) and/or update it to be more in line with the trends of today. My belief is keeping with a “foundation” that is recognizable already in the community, but energizing it with a new fresh approach. This would help create excitement, evidence of continued growth and commitment to change in an ever-changing environment.

I recently came across an article that defined areas in which to think about when looking at redeveloping a company’s logo.

It will happen many times over the lifetime of your new logo. You take a look at your business card, and the corporate identity design you were so proud of a few years ago, simply doesn’t have the same oomph. It looks a little tired. Or maybe it was created under a time (or budget) crunch that precluded a complete or thorough work up. Whatever the reason, here’s the bottom line – you’re sick and tired of your logo and want to change it. Bring it up to speed. Can this be done? Certainly. Are there risks involved? Absolutely. Do we recommend changing your logo design in mid-stride? Well, yes. And no.www.thelogofactory.com,

You should read the whole article.

I believe this is very important in establishing good relationships with current clients and possible prospects. I believe we should also keep in mind not to take “custom marketing” too far that it just becomes another form of mass marketing to a large audience. This ironically becomes non-personal in irrelevant to your audience. Its sort of a catch twenty-two. I have certainly been enlightened by our friends at Brandswag about making sure to provide valuable to relevant content and to foster strong relationships with personal interaction and dialog. Certainly a lot of this can be done with social media, but I also feel other avenues such as printed collateral… i.e. hand written notes, personalized letters or eBlasts – or even a good old phone call; can help bring personal touches to our relationships in business.

We so many times, myself included, get caught up in “telling” our audience what we are doing and/or can do – instead of spending some time “giving” valuable information, resources or ideas to help make their business more successful. I believe these relationships will help encourage loyalty, commitment and just plain excitement in collaborating and networking together in similar areas of business and interest.

Here is an excerpt from the article I read on pubexec.com

Marketers poured more money into branded content in 2009 than ever before, according to a study released by the Custom Publishing Council (CPC). The annual study showed that spending on branded content totaled $1.8 million per company, with 51 percent of that total being spent on print publications, 27 percent on Internet media and 22 percent on categories such as video or audio, which were measured for the first time this year. 2009 spending was double that of 2008 and the highest amount since the CPC began conducting the survey in 2003. Read More...

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Our ultimate goal though is to bring our clients useful information and understanding to our industry.  We don’t want to simply be your vendor for all things print (which is our greatest asset), but we want to be your partner in helping your company succeed.  This includes designing and printing business cards, stationery, brochures, etc; to helping find ways in promoting your message through postal services and/or electronic media.

One example of our re-branding efforts, was our business cards…  We embarrassingly had inconsistency when it came to things as simple as our business cards and stationery.  We have since developed a new identity with regards to our business cards that both complement all other areas of our branding efforts and bring class to our organization.

See for yourself…

I am actually facing the harsh reality that, I have some improvements to be made in establishing client expectations. This came about as our President/CEO of @EPGraphics, Tyler Kitt, and myself were discussing ways we could improve our relationships with our clients both in printing and design/marketing avenues.  He specifically kept coming back to the fact that we need to manage clients’ expectations from the start.  This will only eliminate any surprises and therefore take away in frustrates that may occur in our relationships with our clients.

Lets review just a few misconceptions…

1. “Can you use the image from the website for our brochure?” (via David Airey)
   Sourcing images can be very time-consuming. Many clients will believe that an image they find online is perfect for their print job. However, in order to look clear, web images must have a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi). Print work, on the other hand, requires images to have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Anyone responsible for marketing material / printed promotions should be familiar with a design guide for print.
2. Why does it take X amount of time?
   Many clients have the notion that designing a brochure for example should only take a few minutes, after all this is your skill and talent.  It is true that our knowledge, experience, skills and creative ideas help us to strategically execute and produce our work better and faster.  There are many more factors as well that go into designing a quality peice.  We need to research the clients’ needs, target audience and overall business model…  This will help ensure consistent branding and messaging.  We also face time hurdles in researching and locating quality imagery whether via stock art or customized photo shoots and development.
3. “Why does it cost that much? My neighbor only charged only ($X) for a logo.” (via David Airey)
   The client doesn’t often see the process involved when a graphic designer takes on a logo project. In fact, on most occasions the client will only see a few computer-generated designs. A designer will only use a computer at the end of the logo design process. Beforehand comes clarifying the design brief, research, brainstorming and logo sketching (yes, lots of sketching).
4. Can’t you just come up with the copy (content) for us?
   The misconception that clients may think copy development and editing fall in the same criteria as graphic designers is not always the case.  Many times we certainly can develop copy, catch phrases, repeated themes, etc. but many times there is a completely separate process in developing content for a brochure or publication that is outside of a graphic designers scope of creating attractive pieces.  A designer may have these abilities, but still would take additional time to develop, research with the client and execute on a different level than the actual time it takes to design graphically.  This is certainly a process that will need to be executed with some time from the client, because of course, who knows their business better than the ones doing it?

What issues do you find again and again when dealing with graphic designers and/or clients?

This tweet/article comes from CreativeCloud out of the UK and has really got me thinking about some issues that we at EP Graphics have been discussing and planning around for some time now. In this article, they give a good graphical representation of the “Proof That Social Media is Killing Print Magazines”…

I wanted to put these statistics out there to show the reality of the social media vs. print trend, but not to just scare those of us in the print and publication industry. I believe that this is an opportunity for companies like EP Graphics to provide even more quality services to their clients. We are continually coming up with new ideas and solutions to help promote and distribute our publisher clients’ content. This may come in the form of ezings, in which we help our magazine clients publish their printed magazines online for distribution and selling; or even new ways to promote existing content through social media and personalized contact.

Whatever the solution, EP Graphics is committed to finding new ways to help our clients move their content into the mainstream, even if that means its not just through printing it.

Let me know your thoughts on these statistics and how you think companies could better support their clients when it comes to printed collateral.

More ideas and thoughts on this subject will come in future posts.