Question about "Brand Guidelines"

[GamecockGrafx]

Customer wants a double sided sign for his organization, which is part of a National organization. The "idea" he had for sign does not jive with the brand guide. I only know this because I was looking for a vector graphic to use and came across the guide. I passed this on to the customer and he just said, "who makes all of these rules? I just need a sign." Colors don't match up nor does graphic. What would you do?

 

[victor bogdanov]

Take payment and do the job as the customers wants it. Payment first in this case

 

[Boudica]

Customer wants a double sided sign for his organization, which is part of a National organization. The "idea" he had for sign does not jive with the brand guide. I only know this because I was looking for a vector graphic to use and came across the guide. I passed this on to the customer and he just said, "who makes all of these rules? I just need a sign." Colors don't match up nor does graphic. What would you do?

print the artwork the customer sent.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

If it's a customer representing the the brand (say, an insurance agent), you suggest they follow them (7 times out of 10 they won't), and do the best you can. If it's the actual company, you follow the guidelines- or make d****d sure their marketing department signs off on any changes (speaking from experience, having dealt with international franchises and companies who spend beaucoup $$$ to have a consistent, cross platform presence).

 

[visual800]

do the art do the sign not your problem your not an attorney

 

[SightLine]

We just inform them that we will do it however they want but if their corporate comes after them to change it that its not our problem. Most bigger brands have a brand standards document. You ought to see the KO Worldwide (Coca Cola) one - its over 300 pages.

 

[Bobby H]

If the customer is operating a franchise of a national brand he really needs to follow the rules of that company's branding guidelines. The brand is property of that national company, not the local customer.

If the customer insists on putting his own creative choices into the sign work go ahead and do the work. But get paid for it promptly, if not up front. And absolutely be sure to save any emails or other correspondence to show you warned the customer. Because they absolutely will try to act like they didn't know any better and make it your fault for not warning them.

I've been in this business long enough to see franchise operators get their @$$es in a sling with a national company's home office for doing stupid, not-compliant things with their brand. They insist on changing colors, fonts, using an out-of-date logo, etc. A regional or national manager sees the work and gets angry. The local guy is ordered to replace the sign, often out of his own pocket.

Trademark infringement is another big one. I've seen local, small businesses get sued for creating logos too close to a national brand. They say "no one's ever gonna notice, we're in a small city, no one's gonna care." Uh, wrong. Technology is a heck of a thing. The local business can get busted via a simple Google image search or by a Google car driving by their business and putting the Street View imagery into Google Maps/Earth. Any social media outlet can get them busted too.

 

[GamecockGrafx]

Thank you all for your advice/recommendations!

 

[jcskikus]

If the customer is operating a franchise of a national brand he really needs to follow the rules of that company's branding guidelines. The brand is property of that national company, not the local customer.

If the customer insists on putting his own creative choices into the sign work go ahead and do the work. But get paid for it promptly, if not up front. And absolutely be sure to save any emails or other correspondence to show you warned the customer. Because they absolutely will try to act like they didn't know any better and make it your fault for not warning them.

I've been in this business long enough to see franchise operators get their @$$es in a sling with a national company's home office for doing stupid, not-compliant things with their brand. They insist on changing colors, fonts, using an out-of-date logo, etc. A regional or national manager sees the work and gets angry. The local guy is ordered to replace the sign, often out of his own pocket.

Trademark infringement is another big one. I've seen local, small businesses get sued for creating logos too close to a national brand. They say "no one's ever gonna notice, we're in a small city, no one's gonna care." Uh, wrong. Technology is a heck of a thing. The local business can get busted via a simple Google image search or by a Google car driving by their business and putting the Street View imagery into Google Maps/Earth. Any social media outlet can get them busted too.

Totally agree. Had a salesman tell me stretch a logo until it wasn't close to the company's brand guidelines. As long as I saw a signature from the client and an email telling me to prep artwork for the crew to construct even after I wrote about the change of brand guidelines, it was out of my hands. 12' high by 28' wide on top of a 20-story building where the letters were carted by helicopter. It wasn't until they were installed that a higher up for the hotel franchise noticed the problem. I covered my arse, pissed off the salesperson, and the owner of the company appeared lost because he couldn't go after me, the art peon.

Cite what the guidelines are, get an approval to proceed based on what the final decision made, and make sure to get at least ½ down.

 

[VizualVoice]

With any luck you'll get to charge them again to redo it down the road

 

[Bobby H]

Had a salesman tell me stretch a logo until it wasn't close to the company's brand guidelines.

I've seen a lot of guidelines documents for regional or national brands. I've never seen any of them state it was okay to stretch or squeeze a logo out of its normal proportions. Most of us have seen the pages in these documents where they show illustrated "do not do this" examples of their logos being bastardized in various manners, including various kinds of distortion.

Most customers are understanding of brand guide books and willing to follow the rules. Then there are others who do not. And we have plenty of people in the sign industry who do not care about following brand guidelines rules either. IMHO, that's a bigger disgrace because the sign designers/makers know better (or they should know better).

 

[caribmike]

I take my direction from the person who's paying the bill and approved the proofs.

 

[Stacey K]

I would do the job. As long as you said something or have it in writing, I would not worry about it at all.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

The last time I reminded someone that what they wanted did not meet their branding guidelines, I was told that I can either do it or they will do it themselves with their label maker.

 

[Bobby H]

I'd tell him to go ahead and use his label maker. If the guy is that unprofessional about things then he is very likely not ethical or trustworthy either.

When these kinds of clients get busted by the higher ups for violating brand standards and are forced to remove and replace the signs they will try to blame the sign company for it. And they'll want the sign company to foot the bill. No thanks to that crap.

 

[jcskikus]

I've seen a lot of guidelines documents for regional or national brands. I've never seen any of them state it was okay to stretch or squeeze a logo out of its normal proportions. Most of us have seen the pages in these documents where they show illustrated "do not do this" examples of their logos being bastardized in various manners, including various kinds of distortion.

Most customers are understanding of brand guide books and willing to follow the rules. Then there are others who do not. And we have plenty of people in the sign industry who do not care about following brand guidelines rules either. IMHO, that's a bigger disgrace because the sign designers/makers know better (or they should know better).

There wasn't a brand guide book at the time, just the hotels logo. Because of the warping of the logo, I was tasked of creating a guide book for the company and had it rubber stamped by the Hotel chain. After that, if a salesperson wanted even something moved that wasn't in the book, I told them to get a signature from the client for the change first.

 

[bob]

Do the work, collect the money. I doubt if you're getting paid to enforce some far distant third party's standards, or even to look to see if there are standards.

 

[Gino]

Doesn't matter much what any of us would do, does it ??

Just you asking this question means you already know the answer. Whether you find out by accident, as you did, or the end-user makes demands, you still know..... you shouldn't be doing it. How you act on it, shows the level of integrity you have.