well said, hank_scorpio

When looking for a designer to create a logo for your business, there are several important factors to consider when determining if you should trust the designer in question with your company's image.

While we don't discuss all those factors today, I did want to touch base on choosing a designer that will create your logo in a vector program (such as Adobe Illustrator) vs. Photoshop or another similar program.

We actually have had a good amount of design work come in from clients that had logo designs (not through us) that were not in a vector format and they not only paid another designer for that logo, they were now paying us to vectorize that logo for them so that they could actually use their logo (many printers will ask for the vector file of your logo).

Nearly every single thing we design at Different By Design is in Adobe Illustrator.

We have our own (similar..but more professional :)) explanation as to why we use Illustrator vs. Photoshop, but today I came across this little gem on the Graphic Design Form site... and um...yeah...I might just start going with what he says from now on.

Here is his response to someone who wanted to start designing logos for a living but didn't understand why he needed to learn a vector program if he could just make a big file in Photoshop:

Thanks for the laugh, Hank_Scorpio! All joking aside, he does a great job making his point.

So. When you are looking to work with a graphic designer, find one that has the capabilities and knowledge to use the right tool for the job.

tuff stuff jerky company

While Tuff Stuff Jerky Company has been around for as long as I can remember, it recently went under the new ownership of Pete Stocker.

Pete contacted us shortly after taking over and wanted to find a way to keep using the iconic "Tuffy" logo but in a refreshing, more modern, clean way.

We started out by cleaning up some of the lines on Tuffy and we played with a couple ideas Pete had...how about that cigar smoking Tuffy? :)

We then set out designing new labels for the jerky packaging. As you can see the old labels were rather gaudy and cluttered and they didn't do a good job of portraying the fact that Tuff Stuff Jerky is actually an all natural jerky, free of artificial ingredients, nitrites, and MSG.

We also wanted to make a clear distinction between flavors because there's nothing worse than accidentally buying one flavor when you wanted another because the packaging doesn't do a good job of distinguishing between different flavors!

The evolution of Tuffy.

Old label.

Picture by Sunflower Natural Foods Market, where you can purchase Tuff Stuff jerky.

Photo of the new labels we designed.

We are now currently in the process of getting a web site going for Tuff Stuff Jerky Company and getting Pete some new business cards that will match the updated look of his company. 

Thanks for thinking Different By Design, Tuff Stuff Jerky Company!

Bright Futures

We recently had the honor of working with the lovely ladies over at the Sutter County Children & Families Commission again.

We designed business cards for them several months ago and more recently they came to us for a 4'x8' banner and 6" circle postcards for a conference they are attending this month.

While we did not design their logo, we wanted to keep in being consistent with their color palette so we continued using primary colors and green in their collateral.

Probably the number one mistake we see small business owners make the most often in their marketing is not staying consistent. Everything from changing your logo colors with each new season or color trend to using multiple fonts that are not cohesive to your brand image weakens your marketing efforts.

We thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of finding a fun and playful way to continue enforcing the Bright Futures and Sutter County Children & Families Commission's branding in a refreshing way. We chose to use "block" shapes on the poster to also play off the wording of "building" bright futures and we love how the imagery and bright colors is appropriate for the audience as well as being eye catching.

You can learn more about the free services they offer through their Bright Futures program over at www.sutterkids.org