No matter what the digital product, it’s important to have certain elements provided by clients. Some items can be collected from the client’s current website, but most often these are not high enough quality or the client’s site is out dated. In order to avoid graphics that are inaccurate or poor quality, clients should provide branding elements. Clients may occasionally have a style guide for their brand. This is a document detailing everything from fonts, to logo usage, to color quantities. These are very useful as reference material for building graphics, and will answer most brand questions before they occur. However, in the event that document doesn’t exist for a specific client, the most basic and consistently required elements on the check list are the client’s logo and brand colors.
The client should be requested to send their logo preferably as a vector file. Vector file types include .ai, .eps, and .svg, and are the most versatile option for creating graphics. If the client does not have a vector version of their logo, a large size .png is the next best thing. While .jpg files are the most common, they are also the most compressed/low quality of the basic image types, so while they are useable, they are less preferred if other options are available.
Colors can be acquired in two forms from clients: the color codes or a digital file/site the client confirms is accurate. In digital graphics, every color has a corresponding code that is recognized by every screen as that specific color. For example, the code #008000 will be translated by all computers as green. Ideally, a client will have the color codes for their brand, however, if they do not, they can send an accurate representation of their color palette. If they send a file, it’s important that the file is digital and not a photo or scanned piece of printed material. The colors will not be accurately represented if the designers try to pull them from a scan or photo. Alternatively, if a client confirms the colors on their website are accurate, then a link to that site will suffice as a reference for color.
The list of required elements may change depending on the task, but logo and colors are always a very useful place to start! Keep in contact with the designer for anything extra they might need.