After a long absence, the InHouse Advertising blog is up an running again and we’ve give ourselves a spruce up. For all subscribers thanks for your suggestions and inquiries. For the newbies, please subscribe to our feed as we dive into the world of all things “graphic!”

See how we can help you! Follow the design process for one of our clients that was looking to redo their marketing materials. We redesigned their logo and brochures and gave them a more appealing, streamlined look to help them market their services.

We were approached to do a redesign the corporate identity for a non profit organization dedicated to enriching the lives of children and families through mental health counseling and substance abuse prevention and treatment.

The old logo was very simple and ineffective at conveying a message of outreach, warmth and renewal. We met with the client to identify the clients’ goals, found out the message they wanted to convey, defined and gained knowledge of their services and we were given a tour of their office so we can see where some of the counseling happens. The tour was great because each room was geared towards a specific age group. This counseling center mainly dealt with troubled children and teenagers. Some rooms had lots of toys and bright colors, meant to evoke a happy place and some rooms were purple or blue meant to evoke feeling a safety and calmness.

Our logo concepts – as always begin as sketches or doodles – we started with a few ideas for an icon. The client really wanted to keep an image of a tyke and a teen, so that was the initial task to develop and redesign the logo.

After some pencil sketches, the computer process begins, taking the initial doodles and better defining the icons and adding letter styles and color to them. Picking the right font is extremely important as it gives weight to the entire logo.

The client was swaying towards using blue and green in the logo concept, to set a tone of calmness, hope, renewal – so the initial ideas were presented to get a feel as to which style and approach felt they would like to pursue.

Concept A. The little icons were actually the letter “t” converted to show images of a tyke and teen. The styling was kept clean, and open to give a more corporate feel. Concept B was more ideaology, symbolizing new growth and renewal, a tree made up of 1 teen (the trunk) and many little tykes (tree leaves). The final concept C sprung from the tree leave image from B, combining different sizes, and gave a brought together a corporate and freestyle feeling which the client wanted to pursue.

Upon further reiterations, a final logo was chosen and to our delight not to far off from one of the original concepts. We moved on to their brochures, which explained each service they offered. Below you can see before and after images. The aim was to come up with an image and a message that will lodge in people’s minds.

Remember your company’s identity should be as consistent as possible. The corporate identity is the pieces, aspects, ideas, methods and techniques a company uses to differentiate itself from the rest. When a brand is associated with a color, a combination of colors, shapes, pictures, phrases, music, etc. a corporate identity is built. It’s well known that a company or business that has a consistent corporate identity is taken much more seriously and are much more successful than those that don’t use own style guidelines.

If you are thinking about refreshing your corporate identity or budget for your marketing items, please contact us now! We are here to help you!

InHouse Advertising’s new blogboard is a resource site which focuses on design solutions & marketing tips for any growing business. We offer free marketing tips, advice on redesigning or establishing your company’s identity in the marketplace and how to avoid the pitfalls of using your local printing or copy places as an advertising agency.