work life Archives - Website Design Company Kelowna BC - Atomic 55

Branding Assets Every Business Needs.

Tatum G — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 09:14:00 +0000

s we have mentioned before, branding is an important part of your business. In order to develop your brand, there are several assets that your company needs to possess. While there are certainly other aspects to a successful brand, the tangible assets are integral. Having the right brand assets on hand is essential when you work with other companies, onboard new employees and grow your business. In this article, we will be talking about physical brand assets that your company should have and what meaning they should take on.

Why do you Need Brand Assets?

As a small business, keeping track of your company’s brand assets can be easy. However, as your business grows, it can become much harder. With new employees and partners, it becomes essential to have a good understanding of your brand assets and when they are used. Over our years of experience at Atomic 55, we have seen varied levels of preparedness from businesses. Some are highly organized and can produce all desired brand assets. However, others are severely disorganized and struggle to provide the bare minimum.

For smaller companies, this article is designed to spark your imagination to start gathering these assets. Whether you need to have these assets created or make adjustments to what you already have, it is important that your small business is able to produce brand assets when needed. On the other hand, if you are an established company and fall in the unprepared category, this is your sign to get your s@#* together in 2023. It is never too late to organize your company or fill in the gaps for what is missing. Having a solid understanding of your brand will help save you time in the long run. Moreover, anyone that you partner with will appreciate the clarity of your brand.

Below, we’ve listed a small checklist of the physical and digital assets that your company needs to have. Ideally, you will want to invest in all of the assets listed below. It is best practice to gather these assets and put them into a folder so that they are readily available. Follow along below to learn more about what brand assets your business needs!

“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is gained.” -Franklin

Brand Guidelines

Consistency is to a good brand as brushing your teeth is to good dental hygiene. In order for your brand to do well, you must have unity in your font, colour, icons, ads, and logo. This is where brand guidelines come into play. Brand guidelines are basically a rule book on how you can showcase your brand. They include details about colour, font, messaging, sizing, do’s, dont’s and so much more. A brand guideline package is a perfect tool to help educate new staff/partners and keep everyone on the same page.

Logo Files

Logos are a business’s most important asset (after brand guidelines, of course). And, you’d think that because they are so important that every company would have logo files on hand right? Unfortunately, this is not the case. Most companies have no idea where they would even get their logo files let alone have them on hand. This is not ideal. Failing to produce your own logo files can result in longer production times and higher costs. So, it is crucial that you get a hold of your logo files.

The file types you’ll need for your logo are as follows:

EPS

A .eps file is the best option out there when it comes to giving your logos to a marketing team. This is because it is a high-resolution vector format and a working design file that can be edited in Adobe Illustrator. If you don’t have a .eps file, you should consider attaining one from the company that did your logo or hiring a third party to create one on your behalf.

PNG

A .png is a file type that allows you to use your logo without a background (ie: everything but the logo is transparent). This makes it possible for you to put your logo over the top of any object/background within your brand guidelines.

SVG

Another essential logo file is the .svg file. A .svg file is a high-resolution, vector type that is able to be used both digitally and for print.

JPEG

A .jpeg is not a necessary file to have. In fact, a .jpeg should only be used as a last resort if your company cannot produce any of the above file types. If a .jpeg is all you have for a marketing company, chances are things will take longer and cost more.

Font & Colour Palette

Fonts are important to a company’s brand. And, not all fonts are free and readily available on the web. It is important that you are able to provide your font as part of your brand assets. Moreover, you’ll need a colour palette. Although, not having a colour palette isn’t that big of a deal. Most tech-savvy marketing companies will easily be able to pull the correct colours for your brand. However, it is still a nice thing to have on hand, which can help save time.

Imagery/Photography

Lastly, is your imagery and photography. Things like icons and illustrations often get mixed in with this category, so it is important that you include these details if they are applicable to your company. Being able to produce a mood board that is representative of your brand is ideal.

Contact Us Today!

If you need help building brand assets, contact us today. We’d be happy to help you create the right brand assets for your business. For more information about what we do, feel free to reach out to one of our team members. You can find the latest updates on our social media page or check out our blog for related content. We look forward to working with you in the near future!

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Nobody likes meetings.

Jennifer Fuller — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 14:49:00 +0000

o one likes meetings heading into 2022. If you’ve been around the business community then you’ve likely already picked up on this. Possibly it’s because we’re becoming more reclusive as a society, but for some of us, it comes down to productivity. Meetings can suck away precious time from your workday, which spills into your private life, which spills into protecting your mental health. More and more of us are looking to break free from the unhealthy work weeks cultivated in the past.

In fact, we weren’t the least bit surprised when we read that the 34-year-old female Prime Minister of Finland was doubling down on the 4 day work week in her country. She proposed that the hours worked in a day be cut from 8 hours to 6 hours. Suggesting that work-life balance is more important to citizens than ever before.

“The hustle generation is slowly shifting to the shuffle generation and we aren’t mad about the virtual slowdown.“

There will always be the game changers, disruptors, and other buzzy, buzzword types who want to make you feel as though you aren’t doing enough and that meetings are necessary. However, in 2022 the majority of us are going to be reigning those folks closer into the middle. Especially when time after time, the meeting in question could really be an email.

From the unnecessary preparation required to run a meeting to the unfocused individuals whose only task is avoiding their actual job, we want to share our thoughts on when a meeting is required and when a phone call or email will suffice.

These are some observations about the evolution of the death of the meeting.

Meetings are for people with time to waste

More often than not, my experience tells me that meetings are called by people who don’t know what else to do. They call a meeting to drag out their calendar, and to make it appear that they’re busy. You know the types, they always have a mobile device hanging from an appendage and much like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, they’re always professing that they’re late. Not to an important date, but to an important meeting. With all the meetings these types attend it’s a wonder how any actual work gets done. They call meetings to talk about meetings and those are the kind of people the rest of us want to chill.

Ask yourself if it can be done in a phone call – even better, an email

Teams and organizations that are organized will have strategies in place to avoid meetings at all costs in 2022. Not only are in-person meetings a risk to personal health (still in a Pandemic over here) but they destroy productivity. We recommend developing a decision matrix based on whether the problem you’re trying to solve requires all hands on deck in person. Questions you might want to ask to arrive at this decision?

Is the information sensitive in nature?

Some things you don’t want in writing. But maybe you can talk about them on a conference call?

Have you thought through the situation you want to meet about?

Just because you haven’t, doesn’t mean that someone else hasn’t. Reach out to the people you want to meet with first to see if your question(s) can be dealt with over the phone or through email. It’s very tempting to want to collaborate when you don’t feel as though you have a clear understanding of a situation. We encourage you to set aside some strategic thinking time in your calendar. Articulate the questions you have on paper and often times that will give you a clear understanding of the tasks at hand. That way you won’t waste your colleague’s time with inefficiencies.

Do you need outside input to make progress on your project?

If you’re a home builder, trade, or sometimes even a designer you might need to physically be on-site to examine things. Make sure that a picture won’t suffice before you call in the calvary for a site visit. Sometimes a lot of leg work can be done through a visual. Remember, a picture speaks a thousand words.

Stop rushing and putting unrealistic time constraints on projects

If we can collectively slow the roll, then I think we will be better off as a community. Stop with the expectation that as soon as you receive correspondence that you have to immediately respond with a hyper-focused answer. Slow down, schedule some time for yourself to answer. My suggestion is to always reply to a customer indicating you have received their correspondence. I let them know that I will review and respond when I have had sufficient time to provide in-depth and thoughtful feedback. This in itself helps to stave off the need for an in-person conversation.

Overall, meetings are dying in popularity, partially due to Covid and the fact that many people are working from home and partially because of people like us who discourage them wherever possible.

Gone are the days of wasted time. I would much rather take off after 6 hours of productive work than be forced to include 2 hours dedicated to one meeting because when you add up the time involved for one silly meeting it chews into your day like a puppy with a shoe.

Superfluous time wasted on meetings:

Commute time back and forth if the meeting is off-site
Parking time
Waiting for everyone to arrive at the meeting on time
Drink and/or snack distribution
Pleasantry and nicety exchanges (talk about the weather, the kids etc)
Off-topic ramblings of the one person at every meeting with main character syndrome
Actual time spent on the task at hand
Closing pleasantries
Chasing down everyone from the meeting to see if they followed through
Calling another meeting to follow up on the meeting because – meetings

Consider this when you head into 2022. Are you going to be a meeting caller or are you going to get productive? Organize and schedule yourself OUT of meetings in 2002, you’ll be happier for it!

Get in touch if you want to learn more about our process!

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