This week feels like the beginning of something wonderful!

We have been working on buying and moving in to new offices over the past gazillion months…, and now it is really happening!

The building is ours, owned by Crush, which makes us super proud.

We have stripped away all and any remnants of the 80’s, including acres of wood-chip wall paper. And now the two top floors of our new three storey office are all ready to move in.

• Our design team will be designing on the top floor.
• Our developers developing on the first floor.
• And the ground floor is a space for our to show off what we do and expand.

Watch this space for the next phase in Crush Design’s success story.

 

Brochures are a fantastic way to promote your business and reach out to new customers.

A good brochure can differentiate you from competitors as well as give your clients confidence in your business’s abilities and remind them of your products and services.

In short, a good brochure leads to business and therefore it is vital to get it right.

Paper Size

Firstly, when deciding on a paper size for your brochure it is important to decide beforehand how much content you would like to include. A cluttered brochure is unappealing to read and much less effective.

If you have a lot of content, choose a bigger size so that it is presented in the best possible way. Alternatively, you can have a brochure with additional pages.

If you don’t have a massive volume of content, you can be more flexible.

Secondly, you need to think about what the brochure will be used for. Will it need to fit into a presentation folder? Will it go through a letterbox? Will it be renewed regularly or will the consumer keep hold of it for a while?

The most popular brochure sizes are A4 and A5. Why?

An A4 brochure is cost-effective in terms of printing, and the preferred choice if you need to include a lot of content.

An A5 brochure is a more compact brochure size for those who need less content, yet still gives way for a bit of creativity. This size brochure is also the cheapest option to send via the post.

Both are easy to carry around, fit through letterboxes and slot into literature racks.

However, staying safe has its disadvantages. Being the most popular brochure sizes means that A4 and A5 brochures will not stand out from the crowd.

Is it important for your brand to stand out?

If cost and efficiency is critical to your business, why not create landscape A4 or A5 brochures to be more distinctive among the standardized portrait brochures.

At Crush we have a soft spot for square brochures. A square brochure is a striking way of making a brochure look more premium and original, without a hefty price tag. Square brochures are letterbox friendly and don’t break the bank in terms of postage costs.

Alternatively, for those who are willing to be a bit more flexible in terms of budget, bespoke brochure sizes are the best way to show off your brand. Bespoke brochures allow for maximum creativity, to completely compliment your products and services.

Brochure folds

After choosing a brochure size, the challenge is far from over.  The next step is choosing the right brochure fold. This step needs considering at the design stage. Some examples are here below:

The right type of paper

Paper choice can have as much impact on the final product as the design.

There are two main things to consider; the paper density and the finish.

Paper density refers to the thickness and firmness of the paper. It is measured in GSM (grams per square metre). A typical corporate brochure would be between 170-300 GSM.

Think of a firm brochure as the equivalent of a firm handshake. It reflects assurance and professionalism. Whatever you are selling, every business should want to be seen this way.

The right print finish

A print coating is the finishing touch to a brochure. A matte or glossy varnish allows a brochure to be more expensive looking. You can also add lamination for extra protection and a smoother finish.

Once again, the key question is “what is the use of your brochure?”.

One of our clients, an industrial paint company, opted for fully laminated brochures because they recognised that their clients kept their brochures for years, and therefore they needed to be durable. They also needed to survive the wear and tear of an industrial environment.

However, if your brochure is for a one-off promotion it might not need such a finish.

For more premium brochures, other finishes can add a touch of class such as UV varnish, foil stamping, embossing, letter press etc.

If you are interested in finding out more, or thinking of getting new brochures for your business, give us a call on 012460 563357.

The price design agencies charge for a logo can range from £50 to £50,000. That is a huge price range, so what is going on?

Did the cheaper logo take one hour to create and the more expensive logo a thousand hours. I doubt that very much. The time taken to draw even the most complex of logos amounts to tens of hours, certainly not thousands.

There are two key factors that determine the cost of a logo: The cost of getting it wrong and Is it really just a logo?

The cost of getting it wrong

If you are a global sports brand and you find you have to recall a newly launched logo it would be catastrophically expensive.

• The embarrassment and bad PR of making a mistake
• The loss of customer engagement, because who wants to be associated with an epic fail
• The cost of recalling all products with the new logo
• The cost of changing every instance of the new logo (vehicles, website, billboard, office signage, etc)

All this could run into millions, so perhaps the £50k spent on finding the very best people and have them fully stress test the logo seems like money well spent, despite it only taking the designer an hour to draw the final logo.

So when you are considering the price of your logo, work out how important it is to get right and spend accordingly.

For a list of common logo mistakes, see below.

Is it really just a logo?

A logo is often just a simplified drawing with little meaning or value on its own. It needs to be part of a ‘Corporate Identity’ which is then part of the company’s ‘Brand’.

It is important to differentiate ‘brand’ from ‘corporate identity’ as too many people use the former term when they actually mean the latter.

This is important because when a client says they need a logo the chances are they actually need a corporate identity; one that includes a logo, but also shows the corporate fonts and colours, plus designs for letter-headed paper, business cards, email signature, social media favicon and so on.

Clearly the more you need from a corporate identity the greater the cost should and will be.

Then we come to the question  of brand. To use the analogy of a car;

• A corporate identity is the wheels, the chassis, the aerodynamics
• The brand is the pleasure you get from owning and driving the car

So yes, brand is the corporate identity, but it is also the experience of dealing with the company in question.  As well as making fantastic cars, Ferrari work tirelessly to make the entire experience of buying, driving and owning one of their cars equally amazing, and we believe our clients should plan the same for their businesses.

Making every client interaction spot on and consistent.

Common Logo Mistakes

• Logos that don’t scale
• Overly complex logo
• Logos that date quickly
• Logos that are a difficult shape
• Logos with colours that are hard to replicate in print
• Logos with colours that don’t work digitally (metallic colours)
• Symbols that accidentally look phallic
• Symbols that translate badly abroad
• Logos that are too similar to someone elses
• Logos designed before urls are found
• Technically poor logo files

Some examples for fun