Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

Sw For Mediocre Logos, Ltrs, Headlines, Postcards

Posted by telemoxie on 5/17/2006 at 2:59 PM ET 500 Points
Many of my clients are small companies, some of whom do not have letterhead, business cards, or other basic tools. I'm working on small projects with very limited budgets.

We all know that many on this forum could do a great job designing custom logos, letterheads, and crafting masterful sales letters. However, some of my clients are eEverything and cringe at putting a $0.39 stamp on a letter...

... We all know that a professional can do a better job - but even so, there are ads for inexpensive (cheap?) software and/or templates which will create logos, letterheads, postcards, attention grabbing headlines, sales letters, brochures, etc. Has anyone tried any of these? Are any of them worth buying?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 5/17/2006 at 3:35 PM Accepted
    I think you have different areas that you are talking about - the creative and the printing.

    On the creative (logo, slogans, etc.), someone has to sit down and think about this. Whether they make it themselves or use an outside creative firm, this needs to be done by a person. I can't see a software program doing this.

    On the printing, there are discount places that can do an Ok job. I have used a pair of online print shops for jobs - www.VistaPrint.com and www.Printingforless.com.

    VistaPrint says that they have a variety of free products, like business cards, but after shipping and such they are not that much cheaper than other places. Great for quick, simple type jobs. Not recommended for more complex graphics (I had a logo I was trying to do that was made up of text in 2 different font faces and sizes, and I couldn't get it right there either as text or an uploaded graphic).

    Printingforless worked better for me, but is a bit more expensive (still cheap compared to local print shops). I liked how you could do work on Word files (where VistaPrint you were doing it online) and send the file to them for printing. Allows for more complex work, but gives less hand holding than VistaPrint.
  • Posted on 5/17/2006 at 3:39 PM Accepted
    Firstly, $0.39 for stamp is a lot if you have direct marketing campaign. To address you question, I am a little confused about what software you are talking about. With software you can create logos, but they don't provide you with the content. So if you need the software to just create the logo, then you should defenitly use it - there are a lot of free programs available out there.
    However, if you planning to use cut and paste sales letter, and other marketing materials - then its not worth the price, because it is not going to work. I am pretty sure with some research and creativity your clients can write sales letters that would work way better by themselfes.
  • Posted by telemoxie on 5/17/2006 at 3:54 PM Author
    Thanks for the feedback so far.

    To given an example, I have a client who is a dealer for a software package. I've written a sales letter, and I believe the text is OK at this point. Now, I need to print a letter and envelope on my Samsung CLP 500 color laser printer.

    I need a tool so that I can create some logos and/or letterhead for that letter, which I can send to the client fro approval, then insert in my sales letter, and print on my color laser printer.

    I think we all agree there are 100 people on this forum who could do a much better job creating letterheads and logos and graphics - but I can't afford them for a high quantity of very small projects (e.g. mailing 25 letters to follow up phone calls.)

    In addition, I would like to be able to also create postcards and direct mail pieces for this and other clients. But I'm not a graphics designer, I'm just a telemarketing guy. We all know I could spend $3K to $5K or 10K for a Mac and some state of the art software - but I've seen the ads for software for logo creation and marketing letter templates...

    My sense is that most of these very inexpensive software tools and templates are probably a waste of time and money - but maybe there's a diamond in the rough out there. I'm curious if anyone has found some inexpensive tools worth buying.
  • Posted on 5/17/2006 at 4:10 PM Accepted
    Not the Mac not the "state of the art software" will make a logo for you if you are no graphic designer. I suggest just to get a pretty cheap software like Adobe Illustrator for example and to design a pretty simple logo with letterheads. At the end of the day you logo doesn't matter as much as the content of the letter itself. You just have to have some logo or letterhead, but it doesn't have to be ground breaking. Again, in my opinion (some brand managers will disagree) logo can't be ground breaking anyway, and you should concentrate on the text itself.
  • Posted by telemoxie on 5/17/2006 at 7:01 PM Author
    Thanks for the input. I'm abandoning the idea of doing the graphics myself, and I'm doing a first project with a part-time graphics designer, who is in fact working on the first project now. Take care.
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