Collateral Drafts – Students apply their logo/brand in standard collateral materials that include business card, envelope, and letterhead. Display Ads will also be included in the final Graphic Standards as a collateral piece. It is recommended, that students also create an additional collateral piece that is commonly found in organizations, such as a postcard or label of some type.
It is important that when designing these pieces that rulers and deliberate measures are used to specify stand-off distance of elements, size and proportion, typography point size and styles, and color values. These measures will be used in detailing Graphic Standards specification for these pieces.
Target date for Collateral Drafts – 11.6.12
Programs used – Adobe Illustrator. Use rulers and guides to set up a separate file for each collateral piece. Specific measures for each piece will be used in the Graphic Standards. Reference past cohort standards on my blog. Illustrator does include some standard templates for these collateral pieces which you can access from File–>New From Template–>Templates–>Blank Templates. I prefer to set up my own files. Remember to save your final files as PDFs.
In preparation of working with digital files, I will distribute paper templates of standard collateral sizes for sketching mock-ups. PDF files of the collateral templates can be found HERE!
They are edible PDF files and can be used in Adobe Illustrator for designing your collateral.
Examples and Help – Tutorials and Illustrator resource links are found on my blog in Course Resources, the Adobe Illustrator “Help” in the program, and You Tube videos. Examples of past cohort collateral pieces are found on my blog, and additional collateral design and examples are found in my Information Design Preso Diigo list.
Readings – Reference Robin William’s books for treatment of logos in collateral design. Also reference the Business collateral handouts I provided for exact business card, envelope, and letterhead specifications/measures. Examples of collateral pieces are linked below and included past cohort Graphic Standards.
United States Postal Service Regulations – Business Mail 101
Samples of business collateral design: Wide variety of application.
Samples of past cohort collateral below and in the Graphic Standards:
