Insight » corporate identity

Copywriter, SEO Specialist, and Social Media guru at your service…

Erin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:42:55 +0000

Hey there, my name is Erin and I am very excited to join the KeyWeb team as their copywriter.

The welcome I received here is just what I needed to assure me I made the right choice in coming on board. To top it off, I received the phone call from our company president, Jim Thomas, on my birthday! (talk about a “happy birthday”)

@ebthatswho

Little background on me:

I am a Mass Comm graduate from VCU with a concentration in Public Relations, and a minor in Marketing and Business. I have worked for production companies in the past as an Account Executive, and have over 5 years experience in PR and Marketing.

I am also the Co-Director of Marketing and Public Relations for RVA Fashion Week and have been since 2008. My experience with account management and campaigns will prove that I am the right person to meet our clients needs, and help continue the success of all projects that come through our door.

I am very appreciative of this opportunity and look forward to many days to come! I hope to contribute more to our blog and post some interesting as well as fun information for business and for leisure.

Let’s start with a nice little blog about the “dying press release” , still debatable? (figured this was specifically appropriate coming from me)

See you soon!

PS- Go Redskins!

What is Branding and Brand Consistency?

J Ivy — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 20:41:23 +0000

What is Branding?

Branding is a often discussed by individuals in the marketing, advertising and design industries, but it is something that is rarely thought about by many small business owners. This is quite unfortunate since branding, if done properly, is one of the most important things a company can do to reach their target market, build recognition and develop customer relationships. Mistakenly, many businesses look no further than a logo when thinking about branding. The issue with this is that a logo cannot and does not exist on its own. Rather, it is a core piece of the puzzle that also includes a wide range of other factors, including colors, patterns, typefaces, imagery, packaging, taglines, wording and more, all of which combine to create your company’s image. The same attention devoted to your logo must be given to these other elements as well if a truly effective brand is to be achieved.

To demonstrate the power of branding, let’s change some popular and effective brands a bit and see if you can still recognize them.

Can you tell what products these are?

Even without their names, it should be easy to recognize the packaging of Snickers, Reese’s and Hershey’s. This is the power of thorough and cohesive branding. There is nothing earth-shattering about the Reese’s logo; in fact, it’s exceptionally simple and understated. But when combined with other elements like the bright orange wrapper and the iconic shape of the candy, the Reese’s brand becomes immediately recognizable. Ultimately, the goal is that all of these things become associated with your company to the point that they identify you equally as well as your name or logo.

So how does this translate to a small business? Surely this branding thing takes lots of money and effort, right? Wrong. It is as simple as being consistent.

Brand consistency is not just for the big boys. It is something that you can do in any stage of a business to define your identity and begin to build recognition. Let’s say you use a red line on your invoices to show a division between the top and bottom of the page. In the future, if you use that same red line on other documents and keep its thickness, color and positioning consistent, it can become part of your branding. This is a small detail, but the same principle applies across the board: choose carefully how you present your business, pay attention to the details and keep it consistent.

Effective branding can be invaluable for the growth and success of a business. And it is something that can be as intensive and complex as your resources allow; the millions of dollars spent by large companies on industry research, consultants, focus groups, and so on demonstrate this. However, at its core, it is really very simple, and it is something that businesses of any size can achieve. At the end of the day, it comes back to one rule: be consistent.

J Ivy
Graphic Designer at Key Web Concepts

Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.
–Paul Rand

5 Ways to Use Color to Enhance a Design

Jim Thomas — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 22:04:41 +0000

In my last post, I began discussing the basics of selecting the right colors to fit your business/organization/group/competitive riverdance troupe. As promised, I’m now going to delve a bit deeper into how color can really be used to enhance a design (logo, website, print materials, etc.), with some real world examples. If used intelligently, color can be so much more than just a decorative element. It can:

1. Create a Mood

The most effective designs have the ability to make us react a certain way, to feel happy or sad or comfortable or on edge or whatever the situation calls for. With innate emotional connotations, the right colors can be the single most important factor in creating the right feeling for a particular project.

The McDonalds website makes great use of its iconic red color. Red, besides being one of the colors most effective at stimulating the appetite, can also create a feeling of energy and happiness if used in the right palette.

The logo of the The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation uses a warm palette of orange, gold and pink to create a real feeling of positivity and energy, which combine with the lively icon to create a real message of forward movement.

2. Make an Association

In addition to making us a feel a certain way, the right colors can also make us think of and make associations with certain things, an important consideration if you really want to create the right look.

With its deep brown and dark rustic red, the Sky’s Guide Service website immediately makes you think of rough and tough outdoorsmen. The rich textures enhance the site to create a great visual for the visitor.

Designed by Jacob Cass, one of our favorite reads on the web, the logo for UKE utilizes a strong, deep purple to make a visual connection with royalty. Selling chocolate gift baskets to an upscale market, the logo effectively communicates a refined, sophisticated image.

3. Create Emphasis

Through brightness and contrast, color can also be valuable tool to create visual interest in strategic areas and direct the viewer’s focus.

The Taami Berry website utilizes a simple layout and soft, earthy, off-white background augmented with punches of red to direct the visitor’s eye to key elements such as the logo, slider and shopping cart.

The colors of the British flag are used cleverly in the UK Space Agency logo. Juxtaposed with blue, a calmer, more static color, the powerful red directs your eye to the UK and the focal point of the upward-pointing arrow.

4. Unify a Design

One of the most important functions of a strong and consistent color palette is to unify a design, to give it the appearance of being a single, purposeful, cohesive unit. Furthermore, across a variety of different materials, a consistent use of color can really strengthen a brand.

The Product Superior logo, website and business card all make use of a bright, distinctive blue and green to create a strong brand for the business. Perhaps more importantly, these colors are used consistently across all of their materials to create a unified message.

5. Define Structure

Color can be used for organizational purposes as well, to define certain elements of a design and distinguish them from others. Especially in web design, this can be a useful strategy for creating a clear site structure and hierarchy and for clearly communicating to the visitor where they are within your site.

Cubicle Ninjas has a collection of six different one-page websites, each devoted to a different type of print material. The sites make use of a common navigation across the top of the page, but each site is assigned a prominent background color to clearly separate it from the others. We also see a good selection of color in terms of connotation and emotional reaction; the brown of the white paper site immediately communicates a more restrained, professional tone than the intense red or punchy blue of the poster and business card sites.

Color 101

Jim Thomas — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:07:09 +0000

Branding is one of the single most important factors in determining how your company is perceived by potential customers. Not a big surprise to most. It will define your business’s appearance, its personality, its demographic and even its values. Perhaps more than any other factor, the colors you adopt are central to creating this first impression. And still it seems that color is not always given the attention it warrants by some business owners.

It’s easy to overlook. After all, what’s so complicated about color? Does it really matter if your marketing materials are green instead of blue? Yes. In fact, even the specific shade of blue you choose can make a big difference. We attach all kinds of emotional and symbolic meanings to colors, sometimes consciously but most often without even thinking about it. Needless to say, it’s important to be aware of these overtones and use them to enhance your message.

The Basics

Let’s start simple, with some of your basic colors and the connotations they carry:

Red

In a word, red is intense, the most overpowering of colors. It is the hue of passion: anger, love, lust and guilt. Red can also communicate speed and energy or signal danger. In a nutshell, red, if used wisely, can make a big impact.

Blue

In contrast, blue, the color of the sky and ocean, is cool, calm and soothing. Depending on the tone, blue can be very inviting and pleasant or very somber. It is also a classic, enduring color, one that communicates history and tradition.

Yellow

Bright and cheery, yellow can be very effective at creating a feeling of fun and happiness. But yellow also has negative connotations to be aware of, including cowardice and decay. Similar to red, yellow needs to be used with restraint as it is very powerful in small doses.

Green

Green is most obviously the color of nature and growth, which has made it an exceptionally popular choice today amongst environmentally-minded companies. But, like most colors, green also has its less positive meanings, including envy, illness and greed.

Black

Deep and dark, black is extremely dramatic. It is the color of night and darkness, giving it the potential to be very ominous and mysterious. In contrast, black is also often associated with sophistication and elegance.

Mixing It Up

That is just scratching the surface. The implications expand exponentially when we start to talk about combinations of colors, each with an array of possible shades, tints, hues and intensities. For example:

Red and yellow, when used in tandem, create a feeling of fun, excitement and positivity. They are bright and playful, perfect for kids and families.

Just by darkening both colors slightly and toning down the saturation of the yellow, we can completely change the feeling we create. Now we have a palette that is much more mature and more refined, perfectly suited for a golf course or a nice restaurant.

Take a look at this combination of blue and green. These two colors make for a very cool, smooth, natural look, with the slightly limey green injecting a little bit of fun.

Now we see what an effect black has. Immediately it boosts the contrast, and, in effect, the intensity and energy of this color palette. Much more dramatic, and much more aggressive.

Here, a dark hunter green and a light brown combine to create a rustic, natural look. An obvious choice for a business with a connection to the outdoors.

But just by swapping the green for a light, airy blue, we completely change the look. No longer rough and rustic, now we have a palette that is still subdued, but much more modern and feminine.

When thinking about how you will brand your business, the important thing to remember is that it’s not necessarily about what you like. It’s about what makes sense and what will be effective and successful. Your branding should reflect who and what your company is, but it should also reflect your industry and appeal to the people you’re trying to reach. It’s not always an easy thing to do, but finding the right combination of colors can go a long way towards getting you there.

I’ll revisit this topic soon, with some real-world examples to discuss.

Matt Leahy
Director of Graphic Design
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