BRANDING + LOGO DESIGN
FOR OMAHA TRADES.

Most trade logos around Omaha were made in a hurry: a clip-art wrench off a template site, the name in whatever font the sign shop had loaded, four colors because the screen made them free. It works until it goes on a truck door and the edges go soft, or the embroiderer asks for a file nobody has. Branding here starts from the door and the shirt and works back to the screen.

• A logo drawn as vector, with a one-color version in black and one in white
• The colors written down as hex, CMYK and the closest vinyl match, and the typeface named
• Rules on one page: minimum size, clear space, what not to do to it
• Files for every shop you'll hand it to: SVG, PDF, transparent PNG
• A starter kit for the card, the truck door and the shirt, built from the same files

1. 01

   The brief is an email

   The business name as it's registered, your trade, the towns you work, a photo of the truck, and two logos you like from any industry. That's enough. There is no discovery call and no mood board.

2. 02

   One direction, drawn properly

   We draw one strong direction rather than six weak ones, and we draw it in one color first. If it doesn't read across a parking lot in black, it doesn't move on to color.

3. 03

   Two rounds, then the files

   Two rounds of changes are in the price. When you approve it you get the vector master, every export, and the color and font list on one page. You own all of it from that day.

Vinyl lettering is cut from one sheet. Embroidery charges by thread color. A rubber stamp has one. Almost everywhere a trade logo actually goes is cheaper and cleaner in a single color, so the one-color version is the real logo and the color version is the bonus. A logo that only works as a gradient with a glow behind it costs more at every sign shop in Sarpy County and looks worse on every truck.

A brand is the logo plus everything it touches. The kit that comes with it covers the truck door, the business card, the yard sign and the invoice header, so the customer who sees the truck in Papillion and looks you up on a phone that night sees the same business twice. If you add a website or the Google listing, they're built from the same files in the same job. The truck graphics too.

If customers know the mark, keep it and fix what's wrong with it. A refresh is $75: it cleans up the outline that fills in at small sizes and cuts the four colors to one. A mark that was never drawn as vector in the first place gets drawn again as a new logo, which is Spark at $150. Send it in and we'll tell you which one it needs.

The studio is in Bellevue and most of the work is for shops around Omaha: Papillion, La Vista, Gretna, the rest of Sarpy County. The logo and the kit are delivered by email, so out of state is fine too. What's local is the truck. A photo of it in the driveway is the first thing we ask for, and when the job is done it's the first place the logo goes.

SPARK IS $150: THE LOGO AND THE STARTER KIT. IGNITION ADDS THE SITE AND THE GOOGLE LISTING FOR $375.