Consistency is key
Using your look to its best advantage
There's a reason it's called "Corporate identity": to the public, your logo IS your company! It reflects who you are and what you do. That's why it's vitally important to apply it consistently, and to develop clear rules and guidelines about its use.
If you want your corporate identity to be instantly recognizable, you must be consistent. John Deere is a fantastic example of this theory in practice: they've keep their essential logo and colors intact for years, and use it in precisely the same fashion every time. Whenever you see that deer, or that green, you immediately think "John Deere." Coca Cola is another star - you glimpse that red, or that swoosh, and your mind says "Coke!" These companies may not be advertising within a hundred miles, but their consistency is still paying dividends.
Every exposure to your logo builds on the one before, until your identity is a recognizable brand. A logo used incorrectly, with wonky proportions or bad colors, dilutes your brand. You never see Coca Cola in yellow, or the John Deere deer stretched or squished.
When Idea Bank develops a corporate identity, we provide a usage manual to go with it. You should do the same. The manual plainly spells out which version of a logo (horizontal or vertical, with or without tagline, etc.) should be used where. It specifies correct proportions for all formats, and addresses color issues. Make sure you share this information with not only your staff, but your yellow pages ad rep, your signmaker, or anyone who will use your logo in any way.
You've invested a lot in having a great logo. Make it work its hardest for you!
Keeping it in the Family
The Power of Repetition
Likewise, when all your ads or brochures have similar elements, the cumulative effect is greater than each individual piece.
frames, shapes, similar elements, fonts at some level reminds them of the ads they've seen before, and give and sense of consistency and more ads placed than there really are.
