Design question?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Andrea Brundt is <<... designing a couple of HTML templates for the software
company I work for. One is for a newsletter, and the other is for press
releases. The two templates have design elements in common -- font,
background colour (white), drop shadow on the title text, and use of white
space, for example. But there are marked differences. One has the company
logo, one does not. One uses colour, one does not. The newsletter has a
prominently placed title, while the press release has a more subtle title,
letting the actual title of the press release take precedence.>>

So far, so good; it's important to make the two pieces stand out from each
other. But here's what you're missing:

<<One of my colleagues thinks the two should be more similar, in the hope of
reinforcing the brand. I think they should have only subtle things in
common, in the hope of distinguishing one type of message from the other.>>

Branding is one of those things we "technical" communicators don't think
much about, but it's crucial when there's a marketing aspect to your
communications--which is unquestionably the case for both newsletters and
press releases. So your colleague is at least partially correct: at a
minimum, the logo should be present in all templates for your companies
products (though not necessarily "in your face" present), and the designs
should (at a glance) noticeably and obviously appear to come from the same
company.

How can you achieve the conflicting goals of reinforcing the brand but
distinguishing the two products? Not simply, though you can go a long way
without to much fuss. First, make sure the logo is present in all
templates--but place it somewhere less prominent, or visually secondary. You
could place the logo at the bottom of the template so that the first thing
the viewer sees is the title (e.g., press release versus newsletter) and
they only see the template later. Me, I'd place the logo at the top because
you want it to be a prominent part of the visual impression, but I'd place
it to the right of the screen so that it's seen second (after the title).
You might even run the logo as a 50% screen so it fades more into the
background while still being easy to spot.

Secondly, harmonize the color palettes for all your products: if your
corporate color is IBM Blue, achieve the visual difference by using 100%
blue for the press release and (say) 50% blue for the newsletter. This gives
you a clear visual difference, but retains enough color in common that the
two pieces are clearly part of the same visual identity program (i.e.,
brand).

--Geoff Hart, ghart -at- [delete]videotron -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada 

"Wisdom is one of the few things that look bigger the further away it
is."--Terry Pratchett

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