While updating Informing Arts’ website I was reminded, the hard way, of the need to keep digital brand assets current. We stumbled on issues relating to trademark renewals and obsolete digital file formats. Even strategic marketers like me can overlook details like how current are your brand assets — can you still make changes with existing software tools?
While neither issue is life threatening, dealing with brand asset “hygiene” issues has consumed time and money better spent on more productive activities. Although I do confess to having fun with the designer and getting my hands dirty with Adobe Creative Suite 4… Informing Arts’ revised site is not quite ready to “go live,” but it’s imminent.
The Backstory: Informing Arts Brand
A top-notch designer created Informing Arts’ corporate logo and business papers in 1997, and her design strategy has served us well since then. A former Aldus/Adobe designer, she now leads the creative team at PopCap Games. No doubt the quality of her work enabled us to go years without having to update our brand identity, except for minor tweaks to adjust from print to web. We printed reams of business papers, and now that most communications are electronic, we still have lots left in inventory! Only the business cards need refreshing.
Unfortunately, the software tool used to create Informing Arts’ corporate identity, FreeHand, is no longer on the market. Time has marched on, and arch-rival Adobe Illustrator CS4 can no longer open our 10-year-old FreeHand files. During the decade since our design was done, Adobe acquired Macromedia which had acquired FreeHand from Aldus and the original designers of the software. It’s been years since Adobe updated FreeHand, a lingering death, I’d guess…
So I had to hire a designer to recreate the corporate identify files, to fix the consequences of imperfect file conversions. Had we stayed up-to-date with version changes in file formats, some of these costs might have been avoided. Luckily we had some ancient EPS and TIFF files to build upon.
Fast Forward to 2010
Having said that, I chose to take advantage of this file update project to change fonts for Informing Arts’ logotype and business papers (in case we ever need to reprint them!)
The original design specified Berthold Garamond, a typeface which is very elegant, with delicate ascenders and descenders. These details look fabulous on commercially printed materials, or when reproduced on a high-res laser printer.
But all that finesse disappears on most computer screens, let alone mobile devices. We’d struggled for years when we had to insert a small rendition of the logo in an Office doc or a web file. So it was time to switch to a typeface that remained elegant and legible even when displayed on lower res screens and printers. We chose Cronos Pro.
And here are the results: Informing Arts’ revised mark, displaying the company name in Cronos Pro Subhead.
Lessons Learned
One of the interesting lessons we learned along the way was the reminder about documenting all those last-minute design decisions, like exactly what Pantone color did the printer end up using… Our files called the color swatch “goldenrod.” Not a PMS spec, and not a color that has a consistent meaning across PC and Mac platforms, to say the least. My files did not contain written records of those final decisions, so we were having to make guesses about color choices and color ramp details.
We were also reminded that there were visual effects the commercial printer could achieve (in terms of a very subtle color ramp) that are still out of reach digitally. Or at least, out of reach digitally for those of us not blessed with Apple-size creative budgets.
Net net: a project we thought would take an hour or two consumed a day of a designer’s time plus half a day of my time. And when you pay by the hour for an experienced designer, the cost is comparable to what you’d spend on a new PC. Not huge in the grand scheme of things, but definitely a reminder to stay current with file formats!
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