Keeping a client's look together with Brand kits

Designers who work for more than one client know the small panic of reaching for a colour and not being sure it is the right blue. Brand kits in Vectornation by Zaweba are there to stop that. The Brand kits panel keeps a brand's colours and assets together, so the right ones are to hand whenever you start something for that client.

It is a simple idea. Instead of hunting through old files to copy a logo and sample its colours, you keep the brand's pieces in a kit and pull from it.

What belongs in a kit

Colours first. A brand usually has a small set: a main colour, one or two supporting colours, perhaps a dark and a light neutral. Getting these exactly right, every time, is most of what makes a brand look like itself.

Then assets. The logo in its versions, any marks or icons the brand uses, and the bits of artwork that come up again and again. Keeping them in the kit means you place the approved version, not a copy of a copy that has picked up a slight change along the way.

A kit per client

The panel earns its keep when you have several. A print shop or a freelance designer might be working for a café, a builder and a charity in the same week. Each has its own kit, and switching between jobs no longer means switching between folders of old drawings.

It also helps when a brand changes. Update the kit, and new work starts from the new colours rather than from whatever was in the last file you opened.

Working with the rest of the app

Brand colours mean little if they drift on their way to print. Vectornation has colour management and CMYK output for print, and spot colours for brands that specify them, so a kit's colours can be carried through to the final PDF. When the job is going to press, preflight and the separations preview let you check that the colours on the page are the ones you meant.

The Font manager pairs naturally with a kit. A brand's typefaces can be kept in a collection there, and activated from a folder when you need them, so the type matches the colours and logo.

Habits that keep brands consistent

Build the kit from the brand's own guidelines rather than from a file you have been sent. Files pick up approximations. Guidelines give the numbers the brand intends.

Use the kit every time, even for a small job. The quick poster made in a hurry is exactly where an off brand colour slips in.

Name things clearly. A colour called Primary Blue or a logo called Logo Reversed is easier to pick correctly than one called Colour 3.

And check the printed result against an earlier printed piece for the same brand. Screens vary, and paper and press vary more. Seeing the new job next to an old one is the quickest way to spot that something has shifted.

Why it matters for small jobs too

It is tempting to think kits are only for agencies with big clients. In practice they help most on small, repeated work: price lists, event posters, menus, shelf labels. These are made often, by whoever is free, and that is when consistency slips. A kit makes the right choice the easy one.