'5 Ways To Tell Your Client (Tactfully) That Their Logo Is [Crap]' by Alexandra Design
So you’ve been busy turning the marketing cogs and you’ve scored a new client. Congratulations! They need business cards for 24 staff, loads of letterheads and with compliments slips, a fancy big brochure and 50,000 flyers for a mail marketing campaign. They’ll be spending thousands of dollars on printing over the coming year and beyond, giving you some sweet regular income. Wonderful! Then you see their logo. It’s rubbish. A fuzzy DIY job created in Publisher, using Calibri font, clip art (gasp) and blindingly bright screen colours. What to do? Your first choice is to simply clean it up, convert to CMYK and start counting your profits. But going ahead with a big print order, using a poorly designed and executed logo, will result in a poor return on investment for your client. And when they tell their friends who printed their business cards, you may well lose a few potential clients. So you need to sort the logo issue before anything goes on the press. Here are five tried-and-tested methods we’ve used to let a client know their logo is in need of some serious TLC:
- Your colours on screen won’t necessarily transfer well to print.
- I’m concerned your font won’t be easy to read for older people
- We’d like to tweak your logo slightly to ensure it works well across all media.
- Your logo requires a quick re-draw so it can be enlarged without losing clarity.
- Your logo will be easier to recognise from a distance with some slight changes.
In most cases, your client will be grateful for your honesty, and the opportunity to get an updated look for their business. Taking care of your client may require more than just following their brief. While they may be happy with their logo just the way it is, they’ll be ecstatic to see the improvements resulting from your expertise. Written by Leisa Dent from Alexandra Design