Creating a cohesive set of marketing materials will make your company look very professional. Everything will coordinate, and you’ll have a recognizable brand across a series of different items and ads. All of your signs, banners, stickers, and other items will send the same message and funnel people to you using the same identifiers and branding.
Tying all of these materials together can take a little creativity because of the differences in size, usage, materials, and other elements. How can you make a large banner and a tiny sticker that both serve their own unique functions while also coordinating with each other? The team here at TNT Signs has put together some tips for creating a suite of marketing materials that serve their purposes while also looking amazing.
Use the Same Logo
One of the easiest ways of tying everything together is to use the same logo on all of your marketing materials. You might already do this, but you may also find some difficulty with it. Stickers, for example, are very small. If the focus of the design isn’t your business and your logo, where do you put the logo? Do you add it off to the side? That can make it look weird and off-balance. Do you shrink it down? If you do, it can be very difficult to see.
Determining how to put your logo on a sticker, or even if you put a logo on a sticker, is one of the most difficult parts of sticker design. You have a very limited amount of space, so every bit of it has to be used carefully and intentionally. Look at what the purpose of the sticker is. If it’s to advertise your brand, having your logo on it is a great idea. If it’s not, you may find that you don’t need the logo on the actual sticker. How do you keep this cohesive with your other items? One thing you could do is put your logo and business name on the paper under the sticker. You could also put it on the back of the sticker paper. While this is the part that will end up in the trash, it still puts your brand in front of them for a moment.
Use the Same Color Scheme
If you can’t put your logo on a sticker, you can always use the same color scheme. You’ve likely picked a color or two to serve as your main business colors, anyway. Many companies do. Target, for example, is associated with the color red, while Wal-Mart primarily uses blue in its marketing. McDonald’s uses red and yellow, so two colors can certainly be an option. You might want to use these colors in your logo, but you can also use them for your business name or as an accent color.
On banners and signs, there’s usually no problem using your established color scheme in a few places, whether it’s your logo, business name, or other information. You can use your selected color at the bottom of the sign for your address, phone, website, or other text. But with stickers, again, it’s not always so simple. Small text can be difficult to read, which means it isn’t useful. What you can do is use the color scheme for something like a border. Use a circle or square border around the edge of the sticker in your chosen color. This helps strengthen the connection to your brand without making it incredibly obvious.
Use the Same Font
If the color scheme doesn’t work, maybe you can use the same font to create unity among your various marketing materials. Do you have an official company font? If not, you should select one. This is the font you’ll almost always want to use for your company name. You may also want to use it anytime you have your address, website, and other identifying text on your sign.
This doesn’t mean you have to use this font for every single piece of text on a banner or sign. You can, of course, but that sometimes prevents your text from standing out. Instead, use the selected font just for your company name and other items. Use a different font to get your message across.
You can use this font on stickers, small signs, handouts, and other items, too. Like with color, it’s a small way of tying everything together. Consciously, people may not connect the fonts, but unconsciously, they might, especially if you also tie in color.
Consider the Design
Can you copy the overall design from a large banner to a store sign to a sticker? In some cases, no, it’s not at all an option—large banners can have too many elements that simply can’t be seen clearly when shrunk to sticker size. However, you can use the same overall look. You can use the same layout for all. For example, you could have your logo to the left of your business name in a colored circle. This could easily be made into a sticker. You might need to remove additional information from the design, but the overall look can work on all items.
Create Your Custom Banners, Stickers, and Other Items Together
Trying to modify the designs for marketing materials to make them all look similar or related can be difficult. You’ve already spent time creating these items, and they may look perfect. Trying to make them tie together can ruin the look of them individually.
Instead of designing everything separately, you want to create these items together. Create a basic set of elements that can work for all of the marketing materials you’re putting together along with a color scheme, font, and other basic design elements. You can then customize the design for signs, banners, stickers, and other items. The base elements will tie everything together, while the customized parts will allow you to take advantage of what each item provides, such as the large size of a custom banner or the versatility of a sign.
This doesn’t mean you have to start completely from scratch every time you want to create a set of signs, banners, etc. If you’ve already designed a really cool custom sign, you could take the basics of that sign and use them to create banners, displays, and decals. This way, you can continue using the things you’ve already created plus add new items to your marketing plans.
Some Items Don’t Have to be Tied Together
While we’ve discussed a lot of ways to create a unified look for your marketing materials, there may be some occasions where it’s okay to create a sticker or a sign that doesn’t match with anything else. For example, if you’re a dentist’s office and want to give every brave kid who comes in a sticker, that sticker doesn’t necessarily have to be part of a marketing campaign. You might still have your name or logo on it, but it’s okay if you make this sticker really fun and use a lot of bright colors, even if you don’t have any other marketing items that look similar.
Banners for specific events are another example of where you don’t necessarily need to tie everything together. An event may have its own branding, including its own colors, fonts, and other elements. The signs, banners, bags, stickers, programs, and other items associated with the event should have a cohesive look, but they don’t need to match your business. In some cases, you may even want to put a little distance between your business and the event if the two aren’t related at all.
Work with the Best – the Team at TNT Signs
Figuring out how to connect all of your marketing materials can be a challenge for first-time designers. You may not know where to start. We understand that not every business has the resources to bring in a professional, either. If you’re a small business owner, especially if your business is fairly new, you may be wearing multiple hats and winging a good portion of it.
That’s why the team here at TNT Signs can assist you with designing, printing, and even installing signs, banners, and other items. We will work closely with you to make certain the items you design can be easily printed and will look great once they’re done. Whether you simply need a few tips on sizing and resolution or want a designer to help you bring your vision to life, we’re here to help.
All of the signs, banners, and other items printed at TNT Signs are done using high quality vinyl and fade-resistant inks. We know you want these items to last for years whenever possible. To that end, we don’t skip on quality. When you invest in one of our signs, you know you’re going to get years of use out of it. The same goes for our displays, banners, and even custom vehicle wraps.
Want to know more about what TNT Signs can do for you? Reach out today.
