Rigid Flexibility (Part One)
Practical Guidelines For Corporate Graphic Standards

Objectives

Creating a corporate graphic standard is critically important toward establishing and reinforcing a company’s brand. A consistent presentation among all elements of a company’s communications firmly seats the company’s identity in the customer’s mind. Additionally, unifying the look and feel of materials throughout a company and its myriad of products and services clarifies the existing connections and synergies that exist to present a strong, cohesive identity.

A properly designed corporate standard will:

  • simplify and clarify information by standardizing its presentation
  • unify communications to reflect and contribute to the strength of the company’s brand
  • reduce cost through the use of common design standards

While consistency is the underlying goal, this should not be taken too far. Standardization should be absolute on fonts, corporate colors, and on materials such as stationery. But on collateral, broadcast and electronic materials care must be taken not to design the company into a corner with inflexible formats. A carefully considered standard helps create strong identity while allowing for widely varied amounts of information, styles of art or photography, or, in the case of electronic materials, new technologies and effects.

A properly designed corporate standard will NOT:

  • enforce consistency to the point of sameness
  • restrict creativity in presenting ideas, products or services
  • prevent divisions or business units from developing a distinctive look within approved formats

Implementation

Each element of corporate communications has a unique set of considerations when developing a corporate standard. The starting point is the treatment of the logo.

The Logo

The standards for the colors and application of the corporate logo should be clear and inflexible once determined. As such, the standards must be carefully developed and drafted to prevent the need to work outside the rules. All applications must be considered, whether they be literature, Web sites, binder covers or signage. Decisions must also be made about the use of art effects on the logo. Will the logo standard permit drop shadows, embossed effects, patterns or metallic foils? In electronic use what Web-safe colors should be used for the logo, and is it acceptable to animate, morph or otherwise distort the logo for visual effect? For signs and vehicle lettering a standard should be established for the colors and suppliers of the approved vinyl, paint or Plexiglas® materials.

What’s Next

In part two of this paper, we will discuss the application of corporate graphics standards for specific communications media.