Recently, I designed and printed some Business Cards / Swing Tags for Viva Handmade.
Business Owner, Leanne Murdoch had played around in a graphics program at home and had come up with a design for her new business but she wasn’t completely happy with it, and more importantly she didn’t know how to get it into the right format required for professional printing.
This is the logo that Leanne had been playing with:
While it had some good points, I felt that the text was not presenting a strong enough message for her business. There was a little too much going on at once – different fonts, colours and styles all competing for attention. Also the hands image bothered me as I was sure I had seen something very much like it before. A few days later I realised where I had seen it – it was very similar to the logo for TomTom, who make car GPS navigation aids. I saw this logo every time I turned my GPS on!
I reworked the hands design and strengthened all of the elements so that they worked together better. The “Viva Handmade” words are now a lot stronger and bolder than the ones in Leanne’s original mockup, providing a better fit with the style that Viva Handmade wants to be known for. Then I designed a business card (to double as a swing tag for her clothing items) and this is the end product:
The cards are a lovely gloss on both sides, with the bright orange on the back side. I also produced a disc for Leanne that had her artwork and design information on it, so that she can keep a copy for whenever she needs it in the future.
One of the things on that disc is the colour information for her logo – these codes can be used by any other designer to match the colours for print or web design, so that the orange and blue for Viva Handmade will always be just the right shades.
Have you been playing with a design for your new business – be honest now, does it need a little professional finessing? Do you need a professional logo or new business cards to put your best foot forward? Contact Jen at Red Instead to talk about how we can work together to give you the visual tools to project the right image for your business.
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Web Development - August 2009