Re: business cards

[Jane Torpie <Jane_Torpie_at_III-HQ -at- RELAY -dot- PROTEON -dot- COM>]

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Laila -

Usually the use of a company's logo is subject to the "corporate
identification standards" that the company has put together.  The goal is
for everyone in the company to follow the standards so the logo is used
consistently (e.g., printed in the right colors and the right proportions,
used in "appropriate" ways).

Here are two good reasons for having such standards:

1 - Marketing:  Prospects and customers get used to seeing the logo or the
company's name (or logotype) and associate it with the product or service.

2 - Legal:  If the company has trademarked their logo, using it
consistently is part of the way the company protects the trademark.  (As
with anything legal, there's a lot more to the story than this, but you're
not considering switching to law school, are you? <grin>)

So ... what came first, the chicken or the egg?  If you have no specified
guidelines for your project, you can put the logo with or without the
company name.  But if you are going to be designing brochures, product
information sheets, book covers, diskette labels, or documentation slip
cases (especially for this course), you might want to think of how the logo
would look on all of that, with or without the company name.  (You don't
have to use the logo exactly the same on each piece ... just in a
consistent way.)

(Does your prof. offer independent projects?  Consider doing a corporate
identity guide!  Might be useful for your portfolio, esp. if you plan to
apply for a job w/ a startup company.)

Jane Torpie
EASEL Corporation
Burlington, MA