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It doesn't matter whether you are placing a
small order for imprinted products...or licensing a product
line for sale to your chapters and affiliates...or mounting
a national multi-channel retail program. Whatever the scale
of your intentions, this fundamental reality remains constant:
Once a product is out there in the hands of end-users,
it is forever beyond your control. Yet that product will affect
your brand equity in ways that are helpful or harmful as long
as it survives.
That's why you must respect and enforce your organization's
graphics standards when ordering products. Not doing so is a
form of occupational suicide!
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Once
a product is out there in the hands of end-users, it is forever
beyond your control. Yet that product will affect your brand equity
in ways that are helpful or harmful as long as it survives. |
| Faithful reproduction of logos and other marks is
a cornerstone of effective brand management. Forget everything
you know about printing on paper. It doesn't apply here. Product
surfaces are endlessly variable, so a number of different printing
techniques are used. Even so, consistent quality of imprints is
often an elusive target. So the printer or the promotional products
vendor needs firm guidance from the client. |
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graphics standards policy is the imprint recipe for reproduction
of a specific logo or branding element. |
Most organizations understand this and develop a graphic standards
policy. It's the imprint recipe for reproduction of a specific
logo or branding element. The policy is stated in printer-speak
and designer-speak. It clearly defines permissible imprinting
outcomes for a specific graphic and provides examples. The typical
policy also declares standards for such things as color, font,
spacing, proportion, location and juxtaposition. Where applicable,
it mandates legal indicators required by the organization's
lawyers - trade mark ™, copyright ©, service mark.
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Graphic standards
become especially important when marketing people want to produce
promotional merchandise or fund-raising premiums with more than
one logo. Good policies deal with matters like the visual conflict
between different colors, image densities, fonts and space ratios
and as well as the horizontal/vertical aspects of combined logos.
The search for answers to dual-logo issues begins with the
policy that states what the organization will permit and what
it expects. The answers provided by the policy guides production
of products used when events are co-sponsored by multiple organizations...
when national corporate and nonprofit organizations operate
disbursed networks of offices, chapters and affiliates... and
when universities attempt to get their quasi-independent academic
units and auxiliary enterprises to support a common institutional
identity. All of these - and so many similar situations - require
the guidance of a Graphic Standards Policy.
Don't be intimidated by your organization's Graphic Standards
Policy. But don't ignore it, either. It's a wonderful tool.
Use it! |
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