Issue link: https://nbm.uberflip.com/i/1490460
2 4 G R A P H I C S P R O • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 3 G R A P H I C S - P R O. C O M S I G N D E S I G N | M A T T C H A R B O N E A U S I G N A G E & P R I N T I N G A Logo Perfect for Any Occasion Creating a piece that works for all marketing plans and applications S o, it's one of those Mondays. You are the first one into the office; it's a bit chilly as the shop heaters haven't kicked on yet, so you head over to the break room and start the coffee. You pour yourself a cup and wander around the shop check- ing on the progress of your recent projects. You finally make it back to your office, throw on the light, and there it is, wait- ing for you on the top of the stack on your desk. Apparently, the design elves never came in over the weekend to finish the design for you. Now it's Monday and you must own it and come up with some great ideas for the client to consider. Let's rewind to last week, when you had the 90-minute meeting with the cli- ent. ey described for you the very lim- ited marketing they do and so their logos from the past were not required to jump Matt Charboneau started his career in the sign industry in 1985 as Charboneau Signs, later changing it to Storm Mountain Signs. In 2017, he published the "Pre-Sale Sign Survey Field Guide," and he also provides sign design training at his site: LearnSignDesign.com. Contact him at matt@stormmountainsigns. com; LearnSignDesign.com; or 970-481-4151. "We like our logo, it's just too hard to reproduce cost effectively." "Our logo design is impossible to read on a sign — the colors all blend together." "The sign company couldn't build channel letters from our logo (too many fine details)." Here were the first two options I presented to David Zimkowski, co-owner of the Fork and Bowl Bistro in San Antonio, Texas. I didn't add any colors; I kept the design options as shown in grayscale from the start. This helped David envision it in various applications — without the color aspect skewing how or where he could use it. I like to leave plenty of white space around the image, as well as show it below the image in a very small version. It's helpful for the client to see how it changes when it's shrunk down to fit on the side of a pencil. Sometimes important elements vanish, sometimes not. (Images courtesy Matt Charboneau)