Leave a lasting impression: how to create a design signature that triggers instant recognition

Home Office Computing, June, 1993 by Steve Morgenstern

Say you're looking for me at a party and ask one of my friends to point me out. If he says, "Look for the guy who writes for HOME OFFICE COMPUTING," you're no closer to finding me than you were before you asked. On the other hand, if you're told, "He's the guy with wire-rim glasses, a beard, and a moustache," you'll have the field narrowed down mighty quickly.

The same logic holds true for making your publications instantly identifiable to your intended audience. What you do for a living is important, but that won't trigger instant recognition.

What you need is a design signature. A style that says, "This came from my company, so pay attention." It's a look that's consistent over time and should also remain consistent from correspondence to newsletters, from advertisements to product spec sheets, and so on.

FROM CONCEPT TO CREATION

While the concept is one of consistency, the realm of possibilities for developing a design signature is as diverse as design itself. Coming up with the look that's fight for your company will depend on four factors: appropriateness, ingenuity, ability, and budget.

* Your design signature has to be appropriate to your field of business and the competitive positioning of your company in the marketplace.

* Its effectiveness will depend on the creative ingenuity you bring to the design task. If you need inspiration, pick up samples of materials used to promote other companies. In those pieces that create a tone and style that feel fight for your own projects, identify the design decisions that give the printed piece its character and adapt them to your needs.

* Some design signatures are more difficult than others to execute successfully, and some require more in the way of creative resources (such as custom illustration) than you may have at hand. But a distinctive design signature doesn't have to be complicated. By emphasizing simplicity, your design can be both effective and easy to execute.

* Finally, there are dollars-and-cents parameters involved in making any design decision. Having your 1ogo embossed into each sheet of paper you use may graphically express the top-of-the-line elegance of your business, but that doesn't mean this design option will fit the company budget.

TYPOGRAPHY TIPS

Here are some other points to consider in developing a design signature.

Using distinctive typefaces offers two undeniable benefits: It's technically simple and quite inexpensive. But it also provides a golden opportunity for ghastly mistakes by overexuberant designers. The classic typographic battle is waged between the forces of graphic panache and the countervailing forces of legibility. The two can and often do go together, but then there are those awful where type that looks striking is simply a pain in the neck to read.

How do you achieve a peaceful settlement between these opposing forces? First, concentrate on the body type--that is, the typeface used for major blocks of text. Have pity on the poor reader when making this selection. This is not to say that body type can't be distinctive. An example of a distinctive yet highly readable typeface is the condensed Garamond used by Apple Computer. The face is unusual enough to be identifiably different without being fussy.

You can stick with a single typeface family, in different weights and styles, throughout your work. Or you might select a reasonably reserved body type and go with a more elaborate display face for the headlines and subheads. If you're going to use two different typefaces, they have to be significantly different in order to work together successfully. When two fairly similar faces are used together, the near-miss differences are grating to the eye.

Consider using the same display typeface in your company 1ogo and the headings and subheadings of your publication. This strategy reinforces the sense of coherence in the piece and the association of that typeface with your company.

Also consider typographic devices that serve as low-cost, low-effort design signatures. Oversize initial capital letters in body text can add highlights to a design while serving the practical purpose of leading the reader's eye to spots where major ideas begin. You might try setting subheads at an angle, opening up additional white space, and breaking the horizontal conformity the reader expects. Or try extreme spacing between letters or between lines of type to add a distinctive graphic flourish quickly and easily.

EYE-CATCHING ILLUSTRATIONS

Our eyes naturally zero in on illustrations-it's just easier to look at a picture

read the text surrounding it. If you settle on a style of illustration and use it consistently, this can be a defining element in your design signature.

Let's say you're using photographs. They don't have to be rectangular. By silhouetting photographs, you incorporate a variety of eye-catching shapes in your layouts. Or you might adopt a framing device for the photos. A simple dropshadow is one possibility. How about placing rectangular photographs in front of shaded geometric shapes? Or "bleed" them off the page edges (a bleed is an illustration that goes right past the margins to the edge of the page).