As a designer I am regularly adding logos to printed pieces and websites. These are usually for sponsorships or partnerships or associations or whatever. It is also common to make regular requests to whomever I am work with to retrieve good, usable versions of company logos. This person then contacts said company representative–who is likely a sales person–for their company logo of which they provide a toothy business card from which to scan. Oye. On really good days, with larger companies, the sales person provides a link into a marketing area of the company site where many hoops are jumped through and secret passwords conveyed to received the coveted logo/brand kit. It’s usually a PDF, with a multiple version of (albeit necessary) color overlay and white space information. The logo file doesn’t come with it, you have to extract it from the PDF file yourself ..somehow. Screenshot? Yep. Photoshop? Sure, why not.
I’m pretty naive about a lot of things, my wife reminds me of this regularly and she is not mistaken. So, maybe someone could explain to me why companies do not create a place on their website where versions of their logo, in various file formats, can be attained? All the color and placement information can be placed on the page too. Is it because they don’t want anyone to abuse the brand? If so, I have news for them. It’s being abused anyway, we are clipping it out of their website’s mast and scanning it from business cards. If there isn’t a good reason, I’m going to start suggesting and implementing this page for my clients.