Welcome back to the 3G’s & MHO Checklist Series.
This is Part 7 in our series looking at logos and more specifically company logos, brand logos and product logos, for use wherever a logo will add value, including but not limited to your Facebook logo, Instagram logo, Twitter logo, LinkedIn logo, website logo, anywhere the business logo can be used to represent your business, ensure recognition, illicit positive association, and help drive sought after action.
Picking up from part 6 (which you can access at https://www.3gs.co.za/checklist-logo-logo-design-diy-or-hire-a-professional-agency-part-6/) and all other articles related to this series that you can access on our blog, a core function of your logo and collateral is to consistently represent your organisation.
So now we are looking at why and how do you ensure consistent use company / organization wide and so protect your logo and collateral. This is undertaken through a corporate identity document.
Corporate Identity (CI).
Your CI is the formal document managing your company / organisation’s brand.
Typically the CI is an all-encompassing document dealing with all forms and versions of your logo as well as where and how it is used in what is cumulatively referred to as branded collateral.
Why have a CI? Simply put:
- It ensures that your business / organization does not look inconsistent, untidy, unfocused. Things that can make it harder for your company / organization to be seen in a way that helps it achieve its goals.
- Consistency is often perceived to be indicative of the underlying quality of your offering – consistent quality of delivery on your offering / service
- Example, think about reaching into a cold drink fridge in a store and in so doing seeing an “off-colour” can amongst the other correctly coloured cans for the same beverage. Chances are that can will either be avoided, or possibly picked up out of curiosity, but both can be barriers to purchase (or just complicating the purchase process further than needed – note this is a different situation to when something like this is done deliberately as part of a campaign)
- The value of an organization / business is more than just the sum of its physical assets, contracts, stock, money in the bank, software, and license agreements. Added to this is the “pedigree” of the organization / business, its reputation, its history, its acceptance in the market, its ability to be recognized. Things referred to as Brand Equity
- Brand equity is a line item on company’s / organizations balance sheets
- It is part of what helps determines what the organization / business can be bought or sold for
- There are further “why” reasons, but for the sake of brevity, lets contain the why aspect to what has been listed above.
Now, for the how:
Repeating the sentence from earlier, typically the CI is an all-encompassing document dealing with all forms and versions of your logo as well as where and how it is used in what is cumulatively referred to as branded collateral.
- Though in certain cases there may be two separate documents
- CI which deals with the logo and its use/application in traditional media such as
- Adverts (print – billboards, flyers, magazines, newspapers etc)
- Brochures
- Business cards
- Letterheads (printed)
- Signage
- Vehicle livery
- dCI is a Digital Corporate Identity which deals with the logo and its use/application in digital media such as
- Electronic / digital advertising boards
- PPT
- Social Media
- Website
- CI which deals with the logo and its use/application in traditional media such as
- The CI covers colours, text / fonts, sizes, positioning, spacing, relative orientation, templates, and exception rules
- You can make your CI (or CI and/or dCI) available to anybody/everybody inside your company / organization to ensure that your staff / colleagues use it correctly when creating collateral themselves, or when they are briefing suppliers to undertake work
- You can make your CI (or CI and/or dCI) available to third parties such as suppliers (printers, corporate gifting companies, companies that are going to apply branding to your vehicles, social media agency, web developer to name a few) so they can plan, design (if necessary), layout / apply your branding correctly and consistently.
- You can make your CI (or CI and/or dCI) available to advisory organizations that will apply your logo and/or collateral to their outputs / documentation / collateral
- And of course to any party that you may co-brand with
For the purpose of this article click on the link to the CI document that is an example of a basic CI, encompassing the more general items that are (or have the potential to be) common to the broadest variety of businesses, organizations, products and/or services. This CI is an extract of the CI for Marketing Head Outsource, one of 3G’s collaborators.
Based on the variety of places your logo (and any other support elements) may appear, ranging from electronic, through paper, material, metal, vinyl, wood and plastic, it’s important to carefully think about how your logo and collateral design is protected.
So we pose our question again, what are your thoughts? Possibly considering some of these aspects of your logo applications?
Well, that was Part 7. For the next article, we will wrap up this particular series with some further examples of work that we have done.
You are welcome to access the balance of our articles and other posts. Likewise you are welcome to reach out to us should you want to engage directly with us on this.
You have put so much effort into creating your logo and brand. Now foster it!
And…….. Expect more from your communication
#3Gs #3GsDigital #branding #consulting #digital #design #development #maintenance #digicards #socialmedia #website #ecommerce #intranet #extranet #logo #CI #CorporateIdentity #MarketingHeadOutsource
