A Logo is the company’s graphic symbol, a ‘device’ which captures and conveys the essence of the company, its values and its vitality. The Logo can be and usually is used on all Marketing & Communications vehicles a company employs, such as brochures, website, stationery, emails, etc.. A Logo can be purely graphic, purely symbolic or any combination of those qualities. It may be a single graphic device; a more complex device, with several elements; a graphic device combined with words; or words alone. When words alone are used as a Logo — for example, the company name — and displayed in a specific type font, look or style, the Logo is called a ‘Logotype’. Regardless of which type of Logo device a company may use, the Logo can stand alone; can work in conjunction with the company name; can work in conjunction with a slogan; or the Logo can work in conjunction with the company name and also a slogan. Determining the best approach for any particular situation, company or set of elements can depend on many factors and considerations. As minor as the decision may seem, making the right choice can have profound, positive impact on the company’s immediate and long-term marketing and success. Making the wrong choice can have an equally profound, immediate and long-term, negative impact on the company’s marketing & success. And that positive-impact / negativeimpact dilemma may be the best argument anyone can make for working with a professional, skilled Branding & Design firm.
Brochures, a very familiar Marketing & Communications tool, are often used to present general information about a company or product, or to focus specifically on the company or product’s “benefits and features”. A versatile tool, a brochure can be used as a “Door-Opener” or as a “Leave-Behind Piece”. It can be used for Direct Mail campaigns, whether designed as a “self-mailer” or as a folder stuffed and mailed in an envelope. It can be used for support during a sales call, handed out at Trade Shows or displayed at a store and offered to customers, clients and prospects who ask. There are several ‘traditional’ brochure formats and an unlimited number of variations and creative possibilities. Regardless of the size or shape, graphic design plays a critical role in the success of every brochure. A strong, clean, fresh, dynamic design will ‘engage people and draw them closer’, while a poor, weak, ‘heavy’ design may alienate people to the point where they turn away — from the company or its products and services!
At LITMUS BRANDING & DESIGN, our brochure designs not only attract and engage people, they are also communicate effectively and strongly. And they convey or reinforce the sponsoring company’s identify, image, sense of quality and other important, intangible considerations. To achieve that, our Design Team may incorporate the work of skilled, talented concept pros, award winning copy writers, inspired photographers or other creative professionals.
Generally speaking, Branding is a Marketing strategy which uses various Marketing & Communications tools and techniques to create a strong, distinctive, positive identity for a Company, an independent Operating Division or Subsidiary, a Product Line, or an individual Product or Service. Branding can also be used to market, merchandise and promote an individual — for example, a Corporate Director, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), a distinguished authority in a particular field, a published author, etc.
Graphic Design, in all of it’s forms and applications, can play a very important, dynamic role in establishing, reinforcing or reinvigorating a Brand. Graphic Design can also be instrumental in launching a campaign to create a new Brand Identity for a company, product or service.
Corporate Identity
Corporate Identity - ‘Branding’ has become very voguish over the past five to ten years, but the concept of Brand Identification as a Marketing technique actually began several decades earlier, say, in the 1960s, when Marketing began moving up to a more sophisticated plateau, following the introduction of what may be described as “Modern Marketing” in the mid- to later 1950s. Branding’s foundation actually began with efforts to market ‘Corporate Identity’ instead of marketing, advertising and promoting the benefits and features of its products. The principles of “selling the company’s identify, image and quality” are still used today to position a business, company, corporation, organization or institution in order to compete with, or rise above, the competition. We employ all of our branding and design knowledge, talent and skill for ‘Corporate ID’ assignments as well as more contemporary ‘Branding’ assignments.
With every letter, formal note and business card circulated, Stationery becomes a very visible and important ingredient in a company’s overall Marketing & Communications effort. Because of that visibility, stationery can make a positive or negative impression, or be so neutral that it makes no impression — which, in itself, would be negative. We are very concerned about that, especially when your stationery provides the ‘First Impression’ your prospects will encounter. Whenever you introduce your company or its products or services to someone new through formal, written communication or with something as familiar and seemingly simple as a business card, you owe it to yourself to have a dynamic stationery package leading the way.
Of course, stationery design — including typography, layout, color or colors of ink, and even the choice of paper — can be sophisticated and formal, light and whimsical, or any combination in between. The challenge is to find the most appropriate look and feel for your company. All of the variables involved can have very real impact on the impression the stationery makes, and that can have an even greater impact on the impression your company makes.
Of course, Packaging Design and the actual Packaging itself are extremely important factors in terms of Marketing, product recognition and consumer preference. If you are considering packaging design or packaging for a product, whether you will be introducing a new product or reintroducing an existing product, the Design Team at LITMUS BRANDING & DESIGN offers vision, skill and talent in the full, broad spectrum of individual disciplines involved, including background and experience with consumer packaged goods, typography and layout, colors which stand out against the clutter of competition in retail stores, and the physical requirements of printing and diecutting all packaging must address. We can take you through the entire process, from initial concepts to final art, printing and delivery, anywhere in the world. From our point of view, designing successful packaging involves more than just creating layouts for labels, boxes and other, related elements — it involves creating an appropriate, effective, dynamic Product Identity and a point-of-purchase “presence”. And that’s an assignment we take very seriously.
Websites begin with the same challenges as every other element in a company’s Marketing & Communications arsenal, but Websites also have challenges which are unique to the Internet, not the least of which is the rapid pace of change in ‘Web Marketing 2.0' and ‘Web Marketing 3.0', which is already beginning to establish its own place of prominence. Websites must: Attract, engage and impact visitors — and hold them long enough to communicate, persuade and promote. Those challenges and tasks are anything but simple, especially in today’s world, with many possible variables — for example, Streaming Video, Flash and other “moving parts” — and new variables being created and introduced every day. Added to that, a Website’s “Downloading Rate” itself becomes a motivating factor, in the face of an ever-increasingly impatient prospective audience! Complicating that reality, the traditional rules of effective Marketing still apply to Websites, just as they do to all other Marketing and Promotion media.
At LITMUS BRANDING & DESIGN, we have experience in creating, designing, writing and ‘building’ Websites, whether they call for static presentations or more dynamic presentations. For example, when our client wants a Landing Page with Flash, or a retail Website with a large catalog of products to showcase. Not only can we design and develop the Websites, we can also develop and implement specific software applications and other back-end solutions designed to streamline our client’s business operation.
And, of course, everything we may develop for any specific client or assignment — as with all of our Branding and Design solutions — our work is strictly custom-created for that particular project. They do have several things in common with every other assignment we take on for any client: Our Branding and Design solutions are simple, clean, effective and cost efficient.
Website Design – In today's extremely competitive marketplace, a clear, dynamic, functional presence online is essential for every viable business, company, organization and institution. That is where our professional Branding and Design expertise and experience are particularly important. A professionally designed Website is the first thing which will set your company apart from its competition and help you make a strong impression on Internet visitors. And, it goes without saying that a well-designed, effective Website is a very cost-efficient Marketing tool. In fact, today, every other Marketing tool usually points prospects to the company’s Website for the most dynamic presentation, including general information and also product benefits and features. A Website is the best way to allow prospects and existing customers and clients to download brochures, directories, manuals, White Papers, research and other collateral materials — providing the element of immediacy while saving your business the cost of printing, shipping or mailing.
Website Programming – When the situation calls for specific programming, LITMUS BRANDING & DESIGN has skilled and talented software developers and programmers who can create Web
solutions which are effective, dynamic and basically simple and straight-forward. We also Offer Content Management Solutions to help make a client’s Website an integral part of the client’s business. Naturally, we create Websites in “all shapes and sizes”, not just those produced with templates or other over-worked, over-used designs. And all of our Website designs are based on researching a client’s specific business, products and services as well as the competition’s.
Both PowerPoint and Multi-Media Presentations are often taken for granted, both by clients themselves and by far too many “professionals” who work in Branding and/or Design. That’s because so many people who give out the assignments or wrestle with the solutions see the task as simply a matter of making the visual images and copy appear to complement each other. We have a different take on it: We not only want the visuals and copy to complement each other, we also want visuals and copy to effectively engage their audiences, to communicate pertinent information in strong, powerful ways — whether delivered in bold formats, or in more graceful, gentle ways — and to instill and leave a positive, lasting impression! That never “just happens” but, rather, it occurs as the result of our special insight, skill and commitment to keep working at it until we have achieved the results we seek.
Advertising
Advertising is another area of Marketing and Communications which is often taken for granted by clients and the people who work in it, for the very same reasons they take PowerPoint and Multi-Media Presentations for granted. After all, advertising has been around for more than a hundred years and it is “just so basic, there’s really nothing special to think about.” We disagree, strongly. Advertising has been around for at least 150 years or longer, but every new ad is a new opportunity to impact a new audience or prospect. And what was appropriate in, say, 1900 or 1950 or 1990, for that matter, has little or no bearing on advertising styles, trends and consumer taste in 2009 and beyond. It’s a ‘Brave New World’ out there and, at LITMUS BRANDING & DESIGN, we believe ‘fresh, new, dynamic’ solutions never come from something simply taken “off the shelf” but, rather, demand a contemporary point of view — even if that effort generates a “Retro” look. And that is even more true when Branding is incorporated in process, seasoned with Marketing goals and objectives. Generally speaking, Advertising is often considered to be a ‘traditional’ Marketing device. We believe effective Advertising in today’s world calls for a very contemporary look and feel, whether the ads will appear in hard-copy, print publications, as banners or space ads on Websites or incorporated in Opt-In email campaigns. .
