Branding is our specialty. Creating a company's brand image from the ground up is what we enjoy doing best. Starting a branding campaign or rebrand from scratch, allows us to carefully shape and manage your brand. From the logo design to the website, business cards and other branding materials, our goal is to make a strong statement about your business by making everything as cohesive as possible.

Take Paragon Aviation Group for example. They are a family owned start-up company that focuses on creating a network elite FBOs in the aviation industry. Between the three partners of Paragon Aviation Group, who happen to be family members, they pull together knowledge and understanding from generations of experience in the aviation industry.

When it came to designing the logo, they wanted something that was modern, professional and classy. Something conservative and run-of-the-mill was out of the question. They wanted to stand out amongst their competitors.

After considering many logo marks and color options, magenta and gray became the final logo colors. The intertwining wings became a mark that symbolized strength, elegance and unity. The sans-serif modern typeface and punch of pink gave the logo an up to date and slightly edgy quality. Paragon Aviation Group’s industry trends have shown an increase in larger chains dominating the independents. Paragon wanted to emerge from the clutter of their competition with a brand image that rivaled the larger chains.   

On the website design, this translated into using classy black and white photography with pink as the accent color for sidebar graphics and headlines. Business cards, stationary, a trade show booth and PowerPoint template, among other materials, were quickly to follow. Now Paragon is on their way to having practical branding tools that they could work with on a daily basis and the confidence to step out into the industry with a fresh face.

“Tribe Design did an incredible job designing our logo and helping us develop our brand. Their commitment to excellence is obvious through their quality in design, recommendations, and turn around. They listened to our vision and needs as a new company looking to deliver an effective message, the product they created couldn’t have been better. They are by far the best marketing company I have ever worked with, and look forward to my continued relationship with them over the years as our marketing needs continue.”

Molly

If you are building a new company and feel a bit lost about where to start with your brand image and marketing, Tribe Design can help. It is not only what we have been doing for over 17 years, it is what we enjoy doing.

When developing marketing materials for your sales staff or working on company branding, it is important to understand the mechanics (of the types) of images you should use. There are two types of images in the graphic design/printing industry: Vector Images and Raster Images. The key differences are broken down below:

Vector Image

• Mathematically placed dots with straight/curved lines to connect them
• Commonly used for print or illustrations
• Simple in detail, minimal color palette
• Very small file size
• Scalable without sacrificing quality (loss-less format)

Raster Image

• Composed of thousands of little color dots/pixels in a grid
• Commonly used for the web or photography
• Complex in detail, millions of colors
• Can be heavy in file size
• Can only be made smaller without sacrificing quality (lossy format)

Vector vs. Raster Up-scaling Comparison:
Say “hello” to our buddy, Tribey. We will be using him for this scaling example.

The original image is on the left side of each graphic. On the right side, notice when we scaled both images up, the vector image keeps its lines and details very crisp. The raster image, on the other hand, tries its best to simulate the up-scale, resulting in a boxy jagged edge blob (pixelation).

Example 1

Vector Graphic:

Raster Graphic:

Why is this important to your marketing materials?
This is a very important issue when graphic designers work with clients and marketing directors. Many times, they are not aware of the limitations of scalability of the images they own. For instance, let’s say their company wants to get a promotional poster made and wants to use the existing graphics from their corporate website. Usually, web-based graphics are created at a high compression rate - meaning it’s the lowest possible quality. This is because the higher the quality of web graphics, the longer it will take to load on the web page.

If you tried to copy and paste these graphics into a poster-sized file, the graphics will be microscopic. You can try to up-scale it but the result will be like Example 1, not a very pleasant sight.

So how do brand identity get around this?
One solution is to have a graphic designer “recreate” the graphics from the website into a usable vector format. These graphics can then be used over and over again for different print applications such as t-shirt designs, flyers, signage, billboards, etc.

Another possible solution is to take a look at the native website design files (in most cases, the file is .psd - an Adobe Photoshop native file). Depending on its contents, these files may or may not contain elements that can be up-scaled. Some web designers use vector images while creating the websites, some don’t.

After all this talk, what exactly are Raster Images good for?
There are actually many places where Raster Images are used. Besides the world wide web, digital photography is another major source. Although it is possible to “vectorize” a photo, it is not a practical method of reproduction. We have seen attempts where the graphic designer would vectorize photos in order to up-scale them for larger displays such as posters, tradeshow backdrops, billboards, etc., but doing this may cause undesired results, like Example 2.

Example 2

Vectorized Photo:

Raster Photo:

Here is what Tribe Design recommends:
The first step is to identify the type of project and what its contents are. If a print project needs photography then it calls for high resolution raster photos (print uses 300dpi). If your website needs photography, you CAN use the images used in the print project. Remember, you can always down-scale raster images for web (web uses 72dpi), not up-scale.

If a project needs simple graphics such as logos, icons, typographic fonts, symbols, etc., then they should be vector based. You can use vectors interchangeably for your website and print projects.

If you have further questions or need help developing marketing materials for your visual brand, contact Tribe Design today.

Do you effectively use photos to market your business? Choosing the right images for your project can improve chances of successful communication to your target audience. Two possible roads you can take when developing a piece of marketing material are: choose from an archive of royalty-free stock photography, or hiring a photographer for custom work. Both routes have their pros and cons (one does not outweigh the other). It all depends on the scope of the project, available timing and budget.

Royalty-free Stock Photography

Pros

• Many professional websites to source from
• Pricing to match budget (pay-per-image or subscription-based)

Cons

• Can take hours to find what you are looking for
• Finding the ‘right’ search terms
• Found images may not convey your message
• Same images can be used by your competition

Custom Photography

Pros

• Ability to achieve unique results
• Explore different ways to present your brand/product/message

Cons

• Can be cost-prohibitive - More planning involved (shots required, scouting location, weather/timing, props/models)
• Finding the right ‘fit’ (photographer/portfolio/style)

If you are on a limited budget and tight deadline, royalty-free stock photography may be a good option. Think carefully about your search terms to improve your results/findings. If you have the resources then invest in custom photography. This gives you the opportunity for original (and creative) ways to convey your message.

At Tribe Design, we are equally skilled in working with either option. We welcome the challenge of searching for royalty-free photos to produce creative work. We also enjoy the opportunity to work with professional photographers to deliver custom imagery to enhance our client’s visual brand.