Examples a few of the hundreds of pieces I’ve created as a part of TwelveStone Health Partners’ ongoing corporate identity I created and have been gradually evolving since 2013.
Corporate Identity:
50+ Companies Branded and Counting
With more than fifty corporate identity successes under my belt, benefitting large and small companies and individuals in about every industry nationwide, I understand the considerations that go into the corporate branding. As your corporate identity advocate, I’ll point out pitfalls and opportunities alike at all stages of the branding or rebranding process, from brainstorming the perfect corporate name to seeing your corporate logo projected 100 feet tall on the side of a skyscraper, and every crucial step between.
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What Is Corporate Identity?
Your Organization’s First Impression
Straight to the point, a corporate identity is your company’s personality. It’s the first impression to prospective clients, partners, investors, etc. A weak corporate identity is the equivalent of a weak handshake. It’s like not being able to look that other person in the eye. A strong corporate identity is just the opposite: it’s a confident handshake and eyes met.
All the pie charts, all the case studies, and all the fancy presentations won’t entirely make up for a weak corporate identity. Personality and professional offerings are great, but if your branding is off-target, amateurish, or dated, there will always be that little bit of doubt in the other party’s mind.
Let’s avoid that, shall we?
My goal is to make your organization look like you want to look in five, ten, fifteen years, the times you dreamed about when you decided to start your business in the first place. You may only be five friends in a tiny office with folding chairs, but to the world, to your prospects, you’ll look like a Fortune 500 company if that’ your aim. Alternatively, if your aim is to look as down home and approachable as possible, then that’s what I’ll create.
Your brand should communicate that marketing message, in as clean, tasteful, and appropriate manner as possible. Correct corporate branding design is not about my personal style — I actively try not to have one, so I can remain malleable — it’s about identifying, bringing into the light, and effectively communicating your company’s innate personality in visual form.
Your Organization’s Lasting Impression: Defending Your Corporate Brand
Once you corporate banding is created, it is very important that it be applied in a consistent professional manner. A professional designer should know this and will likely follow a corporate identity guidelines, but it is equally important that your corporate brand is being applied correctly by others.
You will often distribute your corporate logo to publications so they can create in-house ads, to service bureaus for application on t-shirts or other promotional materials, etc. It is key that you have someone advocate to these parties for correct application of your corporate identity.
Your Organization’s Evolving Impression
Not to confuse the issue — after having spoken strongly about maintaining your organization’s corporate branding — but in the rarest of circumstances, it is possible for a graphic designer skilled in creating, applying, and upholding corporate identity design to gradually modify your corporate brand. This can only be achieved gently, over the span of months, and over many pieces at strategically chosen points.
No matter where your organization’s needs fall, I am the person who you need. Creating, applying, and defending corporate identity is my area of greatest passion and experience.
Corporate Identity and Your Professional Organization
What is included in a corporate identity?
What is included in a corporate identity is something designers have been trying to answer since the dawn of the undertaking. In my many years in the trenches, I’ve found two ways to “package” branding so that my clients can budget for the work.
Branding packages
Logo only: The simplest corporate ID package is just a logo. Early on in a company’s life especially, that’s all that a new company can afford. And frankly, sometimes it’s all that’s needed. Because I had the rare luxury of never needing to market my services for my first couple years in business — I was working as a plugin design department for a plugin marketing company — I sometimes felt silly or vain for even having a logo.
Basic: The next and most common tier is considered Basic. It usually includes a logo, business cards, letterhead, and an envelope (though envelopes are being requested less and less each year), all of what is traditionally called a stationery set. I will also include one or two additional pieces, based on the client’s understanding of what “basic” is for their business,. On occasion, I’ll be asked to add one or two items that would normally be considered special, like email template, etc., but more on that later.
Presentation-centric companies will consider a PowerPoint/Keynote template as much or more essential than even business cards. In that case, I’ll throw in a template with three slides — cover, internal page, and internal page with sidebar. Another client who is very personable, will place a note pad at that same level. Regardless, whatever is included, the work will be estimated and billed per item.
Marketing: Here again, there is room for discussion as to what makes a comprehensive corporate identity, but it will include any or all of the items that are ever considered basic — logo design, business cards, letterhead, envelope, notecard, pocketed folder, and presentation template.
Additionally, a comprehensive set will also include pieces geared toward marketing — templates for sales sheets, case studies, white papers, digital and print ads, infographics, reports, and anything else specific to a client company’s needs.
This can be a challenging proposition because unless the client has actual content they won’t really know what layouts may serve them best. For this reason, I usually suggest creating pieces in their corporate identity one-at-a-time as they arise naturally. This doesn’t allow for a bulk design discount, but it’s my experience that more is saved overall when the actual content does come in and the client recognizes the need for template edits.
Special: Sometimes, usually prompted by change or a sudden need to take advantage of a new opportunity, a client will need special pieces/projects designed. Any first-ofs must be designed to seamlessly fit with the company’s corporate identity, old or new, to avoid the jarring or unprofessional effects I mentioned earlier.
There are a few common scenarios:
When a client changes locations, they will rely on me for internal and external signage design and framed wall art showing displaying company information.
A client’s first trade show will require the creation of any number of materials and digital products ranging from digital and print ads, to branded merchandise, to trade show display, handouts, t-shirts, and on an on, depending on the client’s budget and marketing goals.
Often with client growth comes a need for graphical wrap design for new fleet vehicles.
The list of special circumstances is extensive. The number of different directions along that trade show support can go with all of the different types and different dimensions of materials that can be included in a trade show presentation necessitates the services of someone like me who has 30+ trade shows under his belt. You need someone who understands individual printer’s specifications, has trusted vendor relationships, and who can oversee and guarantee timely production and shipping of materials to your office or the trade show venue.
Branding Stages
With all of what I’ve laid out regarding branding packages, I’ve had far more success creating the starting corporate identity set initially then designing each of the additional pieces one-at-a-time as the need arises.
This requires the client to be willing to possibly pay a little more per piece, but as I mentioned earlier, they save overall by reducing the likelihood of template edits when the work is done blind at the beginning of our relationship. Working in this way also reducing the chance that a particular piece will be unnecessarily designed early on. If I design a case study template but you never find the need to use it, that effort and expense will have been wasted.
The bottom line though is no matter which path you choose to go, I’ll be your advocate, offering suggestions along the way based on my experience helping organization of all sizes. Corporate identity is hugely important undertaking for any company. And though it may seem simple in some ways, the work lies in the dedication to consistency, from the outset and as new work arises. I have that dedication and the experience to see even the most complex of branding jobs through, on time and on budget.
Where is your corporate identity?
Scenario 1: You Need a new or redesigned Corporate Identity
New organizations: There’s little more exciting to an entrepreneur, regardless of how many companies they’ve started, than creating the corporate name and corporate logo, seeing that new name on business cards. Then later seeing it appear on any first item of its kind. As sentimentally important as the design of your corporate identity is, it is even more so a step in your corporate evolution to take a step away from emotions.
Existing organizations: You may be a company who started out under one business model but finds itself in different enough a situation to justify a name change. This can happen any number of ways:
Some businesses move horizontally, finding success in a peripheral field, i.e. — Larry’s Lawns now makes a killing installing residential fountains. So, Larry’s Fountains.
Some business evolve from specific to general, i.e. — Larry’s Lawns does lawns but also, those fountains, gardening, home security installation, solar, roofing, etc. Now “Lawns” has become a marketing limitation.
Some businesses grow in the opposite direction. Maybe Larry’s General Contracting should just be Larry’s Lawns after all.
And some businesses find surprising growth, so that logo your daughter-in-law drew doesn’t convey the next-level professionalism your organization now needs.
Sadly, some companies just get cheated, left with a inappropriate, unattractive logo that did the job for as long as the business owner could stand it but now it’s got to go.
Whatever the reason, good or bad, your corporate identity design or redesign should be handled with lawyer-like care, with attention to detail and giving consideration to a large number of factors you as a business owner may not think of without professional guidance. I’ve rescued designs for more than a few companies, and I’ve given birth to a good many more.
Scenario 1: You Need a new or redesigned Corporate Identity
In many cases, you will be content with your corporate identity but are for whatever reason no longer working with the designer or form who created it. But time goes on and as new events, products, etc., come into play, they must appear as seamless additions to your current site, trade show setup, collateral or whatever you need.
I have continued about as many corporate identities as I have created from scratch. And that includes continuing the look and feel for companies whose current branding the organizations knew were outdated, unattractive, or for whatever reason was in need of updating, but they weren’t yet ready for a professional update.
No problem. Whatever your corporate identity need is — new, renewed, or continued — that’s where an experienced graphic designer dedicated to your brand comes in. I can design “down” as easily as I can design “up” if you want to think about the topic in those terms. So regardless where you are at with your corporate identity, design, redesign, or continuation, I’m your company man.
“I’ve been doing website design since 2000.” That statement tends to make prospective clients react in one of two ways, both of which start with, “Wow!” The first group says it, then I can see that they’re a little put off, like how could he create a current website if he was doing it when I was born. (That was a hint.) This group is usually comprised of other designers.
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https://youtu.be/0f5dtV1Wr3M
I get it. I was a young designer once and the thought of my dad — anyone with a wrinkle may has well have been my dad — giving his input on any of the cool things I was hoping I’d design someday. I wasn’t thinking at the time about corporate website design and the importance of mastering all of its present and future nuances.
The second group, however, says, “Wow!” and gets a different look in their eyes. These are the entrepreneurs, business people of all levels of experience. They hear that many years of experience and more than 100 websites to my credit and they want to know how I can help them achieve a better Internet presence.
They’re the ones around whom I’ve built my entire career. They’re the ones who appreciate my mastery of corporate website design and all those ever-changing nuances.
An aside concerning my vast experience with website design specifically for healthcare and healthcare-peripheral organizations
The majority of my work since 2012 has been specifically for organizations in or related to healthcare. This is worth mentioning because, as with any industry, it is very important to be cognisant there are certain image, textual, and symbolic “notes”.
Failing to do so in any graphic design creates in the viewer a level of discomfort they may not even consciously be aware of. Consider making that mistake with a printed sales sheets: not a perfect situation but one that can be corrected easily relative to a corporate website, whose vastly greater time and monetary investment often makes a wholesale website redesign a more cost-effective option than trying to rescue a bad design.
There is little else in design that rivals the complexity of a website project.
Website design bring together skills used in all parts of graphic design. There are strong corporate identity considerations. You’re working in the digital design realm which adds its own set of check boxes. Websites include multiple instances of graphical elements design, such as icon sets, photo, and infographics.
Add to that these and other website-specific considerations:
• Video
• Hosting
• Maintenance
• Web Visibility
• Internal and External Linking
• Forms
• Animation
• Dynamic Elements
• Styling
• and on and on
Still, Obviously Websites Are Still Worth Your Investment
It’s not difficult to see the complexity so it’s not difficult to see the need to invest wisely in a design company that can handle the complexity at all levels—from concepting and wireframing, to design and development, to publication and all of your site’s ongoing edits, updates, and modifications.
Company Man Design has nearly 20 years of experience designing, building, and promoting websites of all degrees of complexity, for all sizes of clients in a wide range of industries.
Verically-Integrated Website Design
There is no substitute for keeping your look and feel consistent with all other aspects of your designed/branded presence in the marketplace than relying on one company—especially one who has created your corporate identity—to artfully and tastefully design, custom develop, maintain, and host your corporate website design and development. It is the definition of a good investment. Contact Company Man Design today to get started with your new or facelift website design.
FREE Website Evaluation
I always offer a free, comprehensive evaluation of your current website, complete with good and bad news, suggestions for improvements, warnings about possible vulnerabilities, and more. And I’m never afraid to tell you that your site (or any part of it) is perfect the way it is. Full disclosure: I will seldom have suggestions for improvement, but my promise to you is that I will never solicit from you any unnecessary work.
So, at this point, you can contact me for that evaluation; contact me to get started discussing your website design or redesign; or continue down the page for more website design examples.
Your corporate logo is your company’s first impression to prospective clients and customers. First impressions are hard to overcome, and most of the time you won’t be there to try.
It is crucial that a seasoned pro with tons of branding experience leads you through the process. And that’s where I come in.
With more than 60 companies of all sizes branded and rebranded from the corporate logo design to everything that comes afterwards, you can trust that I know the pitfalls and opportunities presented in this very important time in a company’s evolution.
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EVALUATING YOUR CURRENT CORPORATE LOGO
The first step is to detach as much as possible from any personal feelings or other connections you may have with your current corporate logo design, to look at it with new eyes, to look at it as much as possible like your clients and customers will be looking at it. If you’re unable to, try to ask a handful of strangers, people who don’t know you or the company, what their impressions are of the company that this logo represetnts.
Don’t lead them. Ask them things like, “How big do you think this company is?” “How long do you think this company has been in business?” “Is this a foreign or a domestic company?” “What business do you think this company is in?” and “Is this company still in business?” Some or all of their answers might shock you. Just try to go in expecting the worst, because most company logos can use improvement. You’re not alone.
Not all of the logos below in my design portfolio tell specifically what each business does, but all of them tell a client or customer that there is a certain level of sophistication. They all impart a clear mood or tone of the company’s business. They all indicate that the companies are probably current, not decades old. And they all communicate a certain proficiency and confidence in what they do.
So now you’ve either seen it or seen it through strangers’ eyes and you understand it’s time for a change. But how can you transition your company into the next phase without that logo that’s meant so much to you?
Maybe you scratched it out on a napkin during a special, inspired moment when you were first starting out. Maybe your favorite niece was an artists and you were proud to let her create it. Maybe initially you didn’t have any money to do it right. Whatever the reason, you owe it to yourself to hold that old logo in your memory, but to move on. You, your employees, and your company’s success depends on it more than you can imagine.
YOUR CORPORATE LOGO’S REACH
In addition to being your company’s first impression, your corporate logo design has a wider reach than you might imagine.
Every design decision you will every make for your company, must relate in some way to the corporate logo, from the color of your trade show booth, to the orientation of your logo on vertical banners, how small it can appear at low resolution. It informs what your business cards look like, your sales sheets, your brick and mortar signage, your website, your app, your company vehicles, and a never-ending continuing list.
Additionally, your new corporate logo has the power to create whatever image in your clients’ or customers’ minds. If you’re a 10-person shop, an improved corporate logo can suggest that you could be a 100-person operation. What I try to do when creating a corporate logo is identify what the perfect business in your area of expertise would look like, what tone they would set, what reaction they are trying to elicit, and work from there.
Now Is Always time to evaluate your CORPORATE LOGO
So again, decouple your emotions from your current corporate logo. I’ll help you right your ship, using the wisdom and guidance I’ve gained over my years as a a professional designer who has done this hugely important work successfully dozens of times before.
Graphic design for UX/UI, Websites, Print, and Digital
From a technical perspective, print and digital design are differentiated by units, resolutions, and types of output. Print is designed in points and picas, sometimes inches and millimeters: web is designed in pixels. Print output has always fallen in the 100-600 pixels per inch (ppi), depending upon the need, where digital output is wholly dependent upon the size of the screen on which it is being viewed—72 to nearly 600 ppi as of this post. Print is mostly PDFs with the occasional exception, while digital is wide open with a plethora of vector to raster file types. From a client/partner’s perspective it’s all about how the end user will view and/or use the designed product. Will the customer be holding it or will he/she be viewing it from 1000 feet away? Will they need to be prompted to call/email or will they be clicking it, etc. [See Related Services on this page for a breakdown of the types of work associated with each of these design categories, including links to portfolios showcasing some of the work Company Man Design has done.]
Print vs Digital
Whether considering print design and digital design jobs, the distinction between the two is largely irrelevant. A designer either has or doesn’t have enough experience to be confident designing certain rare or complicated types of work. In the end, good design is good design.
Good Graphic Design Is Good Graphic Design
The check list of design is fairly, almost surprisingly, small:
There’s a design space (even if that design space is flexible as with responsive websites)
There are client/partner goals and requirements—target demographic, message and tone, branding elements, and text and imagery
There is a clear call-to-action (or multiple ones)
And there are vendor, publication, and/or other output considerations—screen, print, and (in the case of copy and scripting) broadcast
But, again, it’s all design. The designer takes all the requirements (and recognizes and alerts you to to any that may be missing) and creates an effective piece, meaning one that is well-designed, is strongly-messaged, and that is presented to the correct target demographic at the right time and in the most accessible and user-friendly medium to ensure a business-positive action on their part.
Sounds simple, right?
Eggs and Baskets
Though we’ve established that it’s not a competition between print and digital, that’s not to say that one is better than the other FOR YOU. Even then, the choice usually isn’t a stark one of one or the other; rather, it’s a matter of how much marketing emphasis should be assigned at a particular time. Some clients may gain more general benefit from print or vice versa, but usually the distribution of resources is on a case-by-case or campaign-by-campaign basis. Over the last six years of our relationship with one of our longest-standing clients, there are been phases where we focused nearly 100% of our efforts on print. At other times, that same client’s focus was split 50/50 between print and digital efforts. They upped their digital game leading up to trade shows and other events, when they were in the midst of relocating their home office, and each time they have expanded into new markets. All the while, print has proceeded at the same pace.
Company Man Design has experience designing nearly all types of work all channels: print, digital, and web. Additionally, we are uniquely experienced to aid your organization in making these important choices is how to most wisely distribute your marketing resources.
CONTACT US
Bad players in business are like foxes, smiling and promising while hiding plans to eat your tasty chicken body. In this analogy, I’m the faithful farm dog who dedicates itself to protecting you from those foxes.I believe most graphic designers are proficient and ethical. On a professional level, a few bad players can taint the graphic design industry’s broader perception. However, on the individual client level—I believe that’s the level that matters most—a bad design experience is almost always an emotional and monetary offense. Even if I can’t make the bad experiences disappear, I’ve dedicated a large part of my career to ensuring better design experiences, one project, and one client at a time.Too Much Bad DesignI’m continually amazed at how much bad design there is out there. As a graphic designer, I’m cursed to see it all. It shows up as color choices that assault the eyes or leave the sight-impaired scratching their heads. Often, it’s type: poor letter-spacing, awkward alignments, and mystifying font choices. The killer for me, though, is how many terrible logos and poorly-designed websites I run across. I can’t count the number of clichéd logos, logos that do something cute its letters, or logos that had to have been designed by a loved-one or an amateur.
But I can handle a world riddled with bad design. Bad design can be pointed out and corrected. What burns me, what brings out my fight, is learning about clients’ bad design experiences.
Too Many Bad Design Experiences
Bad design experiences come from a variety of causes. In increasing order of darkness, they are
Innocence/Ignorance: With the ubiquity of design programs that advertise themselves as DIY, there’s the appearance of an over-abundance of overconfident designers, or designers who believe they’re capable of more than they are.
Fudging: A designer can add to their portfolio pieces that they didn’t work on by themselves, giving the impression that you’ll be getting that quality of work. Alternatively, a designer can choose to show only the tip of the iceberg, meaning you see the 10% of the very best and not the 90% rubbish. Whether this is done innocently or in full knowledge, it’s misrepresentation.
Premeditated Deception: Though hit-and-run episodes portrayed by unscrupulous designers are rare in the scheme of things, they do happen. I’ve had clients who paid deposits only to be ghosted. Others worked with designers who under-delivering work and threatened to sue. Another client had her websites erased after a disagreement. And there is an endless line of similar stories beyond those.
To right the wrongs, my mission has always been two-fold:
To always ensure good design experiences. Doing so gives clients a benchmark of what to insist upon going forward. It also improves the chances they will return to me for more design; and,
To replace bad design experiences with positive ones. I have a chance to right clients’ perceptions about our industry. And, again, it increases the chances of repeat business.
Never Too Safe
Because I know not everyone can go with my design services, you’ll need to know a few things to keep yourself safe. I could write pages on this topic, but most of the tips I would provide fall into three basic categories. And, between you and me, only the last one matters.
Look past the glitz of flashy websites, stunning presentations, and motion graphics for substance.
Listen past the confident sales pitches, the thumping music, and the too-good-to-be-true offers for truth.
Demand that all design expectations, costs, fees, dates, and agreement details are in writing. It doesn’t matter if it’s text, email, or contract. I prefer email so I can keep everything in one project-titled thread. When both parties do what they’ve agreed to do, how and when they’ve agreed to do it, and for the price they’ve agreed to in advance, there’s no room for a bad design experience.
Never Too Many Testimonials
Thankfully, I have created many good design experiences. Here are some of the testimonials from my many happy clients.
Testimonials
I gave Thomas very loose parameters for my company brand, business cards, and corporate website, then let him go. He produced something better than what I’d imagined.
Brian AllenPrimary, Odyssey Design Studios, LLC
Thomas exceeded expectations with our logo design and website. He kept me informed each step, making sure I was satisfied. He made it easy and stress-free.
Chasity NelsonPrime Bodywork Massage
Thomas and his team are the epitome of professionalism. They completed my website clean-up with awesome execution. And they never pressured me to build a whole new site. So happy I found them.
Chloe ReedPrimary, Glam Nailz
Founders of new companies need partners, not suppliers. My experience with Thomas was such a partnership, throwing himself into the project as if it were his own.
Will KeyserFounder, Venture Founders, LLC
Thomas did a wonderful job designing my corporate logo. I’ll definitely recommend him to my friends and associates.
Yamel GonzalesPrimary, SetPoint Refrigerations LLC
My experience with Thomas was smooth. I provided basic info about us and our services and he produced a full multi-company website and corporate logos for all of our entities. We’re impressed and proud.
Keith SampleThe Greenbox / Alamo City Services
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