Five Things to Check Before You Brand

Before the logo is stamped on the product, the following five points need to be carefully checked: legal risk, graphic clarity, color standards, brand consistency, and file format.Combining real-life case studies with practical advice on how to avoid copyright infringement and guarantee good printed results, the course helps brands avoid design pitfalls and build professional visual identities.

Don't let legal problems ruin your brand.

Many companies rush to use their logo, but forget to make sure that the copyright is secure.We'll have to dig out the design contract, and the copyright will be confirmed in writing.If you use elements from a free website, you must make sure that commercial use is allowed. Don't be fooled by the "free" label--some fonts and graphics require attribution or payment for commercial use.

Checking for illegal use of fonts is like checking people's household registration.

Have you ever heard of anyone being sued for copyright infringement for using Microsoft YaHei? It's easy to run afoul of Chinese font copyrights.I recommend using a font library like Zcool or Siyuan, which clearly indicate which fonts can be used commercially. When using fonts from a third party, remember to get permission.If you have designed the characters yourself, be sure to keep a copy of the design process as evidence.

The details of the graphics are not lost even under a magnifying glass.

Vector files are the hard currency.

Never print directly from a JPEG file! Ask the designer to give you EPS or AI files in vector format. That way, the image will be clear even when blown up to billboard size.You can use software to shrink the logo to the size of a thumbnail and see if the lines blur together.

The blank areas must breathe.

When designing a logo, at least one-third of the height of the logo should be left blank around it, especially if you plan to make a physical sign.Have you ever seen a teahouse with its logo plastered across the entire storefront? When you get closer, you can see that the logo is actually just a bunch of stickers, which gives the impression that the owner is a bit cheap.

Color standards are not a mystery.

We test both CMYK and RGB.

New designers often get confused about the difference between RGB (red, green, blue) and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).It is particularly important to have two color numbers for corporate standard colors.For instance, the CMYK color values for Tencent Blue are C100, M80, Y0, K0, and the Pantone color number is 19-4053. All this information must be entered into the brand manual.

We have to test the reverse white version.

When a logo is placed on a black background, is it clear?The logo of a certain brand of phone, for example, was completely unreadable in low light in the phone's boot-up animation.

Brand consistency is hidden in the details.

Don't change the auxiliary graphics.

Do not adjust the proportions between the logo and its text.Just as there are strict rules about the distance between the Starbucks logo and its text, any changes would make the brand look unprofessional.

Multiscenario testing.

You can also preview the logo on different media such as PowerPoint presentations, WeChat avatars, ID cards, and express delivery boxes.One restaurant's logo looks great on a neon sign, but when printed on a napkin it looks like a blotchy blob.

Document management is a key to efficiency.

Archiving of documents.

This allows the designer to keep the logo's image, text, and other elements on separate layers, facilitating subsequent expansion and modification.When we've had to make a special logo for a company's anniversary, we've often found that the original file has been merged into another file.

Don't be afraid of version numbers.

The documents should be named "Brandname_logo_2024v3," and the cloud storage should keep a history of all versions.Last year one company printed 5000 brochures with the old logo, and the mistake cost them NT $ 100,000.