Where will your logo go? A promotional products checklist.

Great logos can be put just about anywhere and have an impact on your company branding efforts. But business cards and stationery are just the beginning. When you’re looking to expand your branding, you may consider ordering custom promotional products as give-aways to your customers. Making sure the impact your logo has works on the product depends on a variety of factors.

Here is a short checklist before you order:

Size – How big is the logo going to be on the product? If it’s really small and any text becomes difficult read it, the message will be lost. Make sure you know the size of the printing and that the logo’s message will still be effective before you order 1000 pens with your new logo on it.

Color or B&W? – Needless to say, color is the more expensive option, but sometimes color logos won’t work on a colorful item. When you’re designing your logo, make sure it’ll look just as good in black & white as it does in color and you could save yourself some money….and aggravation down the line.

Graphics & Text – many logo designs include both graphics and text. Most branding efforts need both to be effective (particularly in the beginning). Well established brands like Nike can get away with the simple graphic form of their logo. Sometimes, however, the text version simply won’t fit in a small space and be effective. If you opt for the graphic, ask yourself this: will people be able to identify this graphic with my company?

File type – most design companies will give you a variety of formats of your logo. It can be confusing as to which one you’ll need or use, but the one you’ll want to use the most will be in Vector format (usually a .eps file). This ensures that there is no quality loss when you scale the logo. JPEG, or GIF files tend to look like low quality photos when blown up too big.

Pantone Colors – If you opt for a color graphic on your promotional items, be sure you have the correct pantone colors. Some printing methods can change the color of your logo (ever so slightly). If you supply your printing company with the pantone equivalents, you can usually avoid this headache.