Quick Tips
Use logos, colors and fonts consistently throughout all your printed and digital materials.
Your marketing materials, website, etc. should look great, obviously, but your business documents should look good, too.
Create a standard design for your forms and other business documents. They should reinforce your brand.
Design each form and document to have a similar look.
Create computer templates for routine documents such as letters, forms, reports, envelopes, etc. They should look the same every time, no matter who's using them.
Building a Consistent Brand for Your Company
Think about your company for a second…does it have an image—a brand? How would you describe it? Professional? Experienced? Responsive? Capable?
Okay, now take a moment to look at a few of the documents your company produces—letters, forms, emails, proposals, marketing pieces, etc. Check out the logos, fonts, colors. Notice how the information is organized. When you place these documents side by side, do they work together to reinforce your company’s image, or does each document look like it was created by a different person?
Consistency is the key
Consistency is the key to creating and maintaining a professional image…your brand. Each time a client or customer receives something from your company—a proposal, an invoice, a postcard—he or she forms a mental image of the company. When all of your documents share a similar look, they work together to send the message that your company is organized, professional and attentive.
Your image can get derailed
Most small businesses start out with an image; they have a logo and matching business cards, maybe matching letterhead. In many cases, that’s as far as the image ever gets. Day-to-day items such as letters, forms, reports and even marketing materials are created in a hurry by different people to meet different needs. Sometimes these documents look great, and sometimes they look awful, but seldom do they look consistent.
How to build a consistent image—your brand
Building a consistent, professional image doesn’t have to be difficult. With a little planning and a bit of software savvy, you can modify existing documents (or create new ones) so that they look more professional, are better organized and are easier to use, too.
1. Use logos consistently
Whenever possible, use your logo consistently from one document to the next: same size, same orientation (horizontal/vertical), same location on the page. Use a good-quality image, not a low-res copy you pasted from the website.
If your company doesn’t have a logo, create one. Or think up some ideas, then have a designer create a logo for you. There are websites that will do this inexpensively if you don’t have the budget for a truly custom logo. Whether simple or elaborate, a logo helps create a distinct, recognizable identity.
2. Choose a palette of fonts & colors
Choose one or two fonts (typefaces) that complement your logo, then use them for all your documents. Sans serif fonts (Arial, Helvetica, Calibri) are often used for headings, with serif fonts (Times, Garamond) for body text, but there are really no rules, as long as you save the trendy or decorative fonts for special uses, such as invitations or event posters.
This is a serif font. This is a san-serif font.
Now select two or three colors that work well together (probably your logo colors), and use them consistently throughout your documents.
3. Look at your marketing materials
Your marketing materials—including your website and even your Facebook page—play an important role in conveying your company’s image. They should all share the same basic fonts and colors unless the piece is for a special purpose.
4. Design your business documents to match
Your day-to-day business documents should reinforce the brand you’ve established in your marketing materials. They should never look like an afterthought. Design your letters, reports and other forms to look like your other documents. Use the same fonts and logos and a similar layout. Keep information in the same place from one form to the next; this makes it easier to find.
5. Create document templates
Save each of these business documents as template (like a master copy)—letters, memos, reports, proposals, forms, even envelopes and labels (you can do this in Microsoft Word with a .dotx file).
Each template should include everything you need to set up and print the document: fonts, styles, headers/footers and preset margins. Every time you need a new document, you begin with the template to create a new pre-formatted file that looks exactly like the last one you sent.
If you work with a group, store the templates with the rest of your group-shared files so every employee can access the same template documents. This way, each person’s finished documents will look the same.
Hint:
It’s often easier to fill out a form on the computer, and it’s much neater than handwriting. Add checkboxes and pre-filled fields to your computer forms to minimize typing.
6. Your message is important, too
Your brand encompasses more than just your look. It also includes the message you project in written and spoken communications, including emails and social media. Your words should be used just as carefully as your image. We’ll talk more about this in another article.
—by Eve Wyatt: web, writing and design for small businesses