Graphic Mistakes That Can Cause Headaches & Cost Money

One of the advantages of offering graphic design services in house is the ability to assist our clients with creating cool new graphics. However, the biggest benefit is our ability to help you avoid choices that lead to common logo-branding mistakes. 

As your promotional provider, offering graphic services is a HUGE benefit! We have a deep understanding of what will and won't work for printing on the items you will order! It's not uncommon for a new business owner, who has outsourced logo design, to be frustrated that the PMS color associated with their logo is not a stock color; adding an additional charge to their order for a color match. Similarly, a non-profit may gravitate to a colorful design for a tee shirt, not realizing the expense to produce that design. 

Even our corporate partners, with in a graphic team on site are often using their artists to create art for printing on paper or electronic materials rather than promotional imprinting. Splashy effects in graphics such as shading or layering of color add a strong visual impact on a website image, but don't work well for imprinting; adding tremendous costs or loss of design detail when converted to promotional printing.

In all the scenarios sited, frustration arises because many graphic artists lack experience for the production end of executing your graphics on promotional products. 

What are 7 challenges to avoid?

1- If you love a design in one color you will love it even more in full color! One color imprints are always cheaper to produce and often the only choice when you have a rush project. Always start your design work in one color. Adding color is the easy part of designing; removing it while keeping the elements you like can often be a challenge.

2-  Avoid using fonts that are not standard. Paid fonts if you don't have the font files, fonts that have been manipulated by stretching or skewing all can present branding issues.  For example, serifs on the end of letters add fine detail that can be lost in imprinting within small areas. Typeface that is small and thin easily fills in small imprint areas.

3- Taglines are great for conveying a message, however make sure you approve a design that allows for use of your logo with & without the tagline; often a tagline is more information that you have space to include in an imprint area.

4- Make sure if your logo is a long rectangle shape that you have an option to use it "stacked" in a square shape; as many imprint areas are square. 

6- Know your PMS references, not the CMYK colors. Most promotional printing is done with spot color. 

7- Keep in mind that "shading" or "gradients" look cool on paper or web pages, but cannot be color separated or captured in embroidery. Back to tip #1, "love" your logo as one color! If your logo can not be reduced to one color, you will always be forced into decoration methods with limited imprint methods Often these methods will have a higher cost to produce and an increase in the required units to produce. 

Hire a pro!  

• Logos- tee designs- collateral print materials- yes, we can help
• Vectoring your JPEG designs or hand drawn sketches! 
• Generating a brand guide for your company as a resource. 
• We have numerous educational documents to show and explain the options and difference for various print process. 
• Plus, we stay up to date on trends- the hottest new process is a dimensional decoration. 
• Common questions related to art? We address those on our website

Ask is to meet with your graphic team before a large project to outline some key tips or hire us to do your design work- we are flexible to your needs.