Identity, Stationary, Business Cards….
A sampling of the naming, logos, and identities I’ve developed.
This is the advice I now give my clients: Buy very high quality business cards on heavy card stock — not those $35 Quick Print cards — because everyone you meet forms a “first impression” from the design and heft of your card. Your business cards are at least as important as the suit you might wear. But bypass the expense of using printed stationery. Instead, have stationery templates professionally designed and print your letters with a decent color printer.
Take the money you save from not printing stationery and use it to buy professional fonts (i.e. not Times or Arial). Get training and learn how to use the simple page layout capabilities of your word processing software so you can incorporate proper typesetting and photos. Furthermore, if you invest in a photo library — placed on your network server — you can incorporate your existing professional quality photos into your regular business letters.
Indeed this approach verges into “Print-On-Demand” territory because you can now “cut-and-paste” your brochure and catalog content directly into a custom, personalized letter. You can dramatically reduce the amount of print materials — catalogs, sell sheets, flyers, brochures — that you need to maintain. If most of your customers are internet savvy you can bypass printing (and mailing) altogether and email a PDF complete with live hyperlinks and multimedia. All it takes is a good designer (ahem) and perhaps a little employee training.