When making the decision of which promotional item to use for your campaign, know this is not the only important aspect you need to consider when purchasing promotional products. Once you decide on the perfect product for your campaign, the next thing you need to consider is how you are going to design the items.
Your imprint is the message you are trying to get out to your audience. Therefore, treat your like an advertisement. You don’t want to confuse your audience on your message or the action you want them to take.
Here are some best practices and 3 things to avoid when designing the imprint of your promotional products.
1. Avoid cluttering your promotional item with logo and text
You want the design to be clean and clear so your message stands out. The important thing to know is each item has a specific imprint area. Always be conscious of the imprint size when designing your items.
Although it feels tempting to add your logo, address, phone number, website and call to action on your product, most items do not have room to add all of this information.
Then, if you try and make it all fit, the information will either be too small to read or small enough where the ink will fill in the lettering making it illegible.
A pen, for example, has a small imprint area and you may only have room for your company logo, phone number and website. Placing additional information on a product with a small imprint area will make the item look cluttered. This will distract your audience from reading the imprint.
Best practices for designing what goes on the item is to use whatever contact method or call to action that makes sense for your campaign. If it isn’t necessary to the campaign for others to call your office, leave your phone number out.
2. Avoid using colors that do not match your brand
Being on brand is important. This is your advertisement so you want it to be consistent with your brand. Therefore, it’s always a good idea to match the color of your promotional products to your company colors.
The best practices for this is to use your company’s Pantone/PMS color (or colors) in your logo. You can either match the item color to your colors or the imprint color for a uniformed look across your brand.
3. Avoid putting off reviewing your paper proof
Before promotional items go into production, you will typically receive a paper proof. The proof is designed for you to double check all the details in your imprint. Not to make a “decision” about how you want your imprint to look.
Know it can be costly to replace promotional products if you find an error after the products have been made. Especially after you approved the proof to send the products into production.
This is why it is important to double check your paper proof. This doesn’t mean you don’t have to check your art proof. You should still check to make sure your imprint is 100% correct.
Check to make sure everything is correct including imprint colors, item colors, and grammatical errors. This way, if you find a mistake on a proof, the errors can be fixed for free or a small fee.
Best practices for an art proof are to be mindful of how long it takes you to approve your proof. A delay in production can occur If you take too long to approve or make too many updates to your proof. Also, don’t use the proof to decide if you like the way the imprint looks. Do this before you place your order.
The next time you have place an order for promotional items, take these tips in consideration when designing your imprint. These tips will help you avoid spending money on a cluttered or off-brand promo item. Plus it will help you avoid spending money fixing errors.
Creating Memorable Impressions For Your Brand 