Corporate design is about more than a logo. Typical building blocks are:
- Logo in several versions, for example in colour, in one colour and as a small mark for social media.
- Colours with exact values for screen and print, meaning RGB, HEX and CMYK.
- Fonts for headings and body text.
- Imagery: what kind of photos, illustrations or icons suit the company?
- Layout rules and templates for business cards, letterheads, quotes, presentations and social media posts.
All of this is set down in a style guide, also called brand guidelines or design guidelines. This document explains how the elements should be used, and how not. That way the print shop, the sign maker or a new team member can work with the brand correctly too. Corporate design is part of corporate identity. Besides the look, corporate identity also covers how a company communicates and behaves. The design makes that identity visible.
A consistent look pays off for a business. If you look the same everywhere, people recognise you faster, from the company van to your Instagram profile. A coherent image comes across as professional and builds trust, especially with new customers. A patchwork of different logos and colours, on the other hand, quickly looks improvised.
What to look out for: make sure you get all the files in editable and print-ready formats, for example as a vector file and as a PDF. Keep the rules simple enough that people actually follow them day to day. As a rough guide, a logo from a Swiss freelancer costs around CHF 400 to 1,500, and from a small agency around CHF 1,500 to 4,000. A refresh as part of a rebrand comes to around CHF 2,000 to 8,000.
Over the years, a joinery in Kriens has collected three versions of its logo. The company van uses a different green from the website. Quotes are written in Arial, the business cards in an ornate script font. The new corporate design sets it all down: one logo in three versions, a wood brown and a dark green with exact colour values, one font for everything. On top of that come templates for quotes and social media posts. When the sign maker designs the next vehicle, they get the style guide and don't need to ask any questions.