Now we ask, “Why?” Why store logotypes as images rather than as text?

Well . . . there’s a darned good reason for that.

First, recall the poor quality logotype that often graces Venable’s publications. Here it is:

Now, what we’re going to do is create a high quality version of Venable’s logotype (shown below).

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Let’s get started.

To begin, Venable’s logotype is set in Times Roman, all caps, with the initial cap being larger than the rest.

So, we start by setting the logotype as text:
.

VENABLE

As you can see, Venable doesn’t look all that impressive when set as plain-jane text.

Next, we stretch the type vertically by 50%:

Then, we adjust the spacing between the characters, eliminating the big gap between the first two characters and equalizing the spaces between all the characters:

Finally, we add the trademark symbol and the LLP:

So, there’s our logotype, which is stored as a graphic image.

Why store it as an image?

Because we want a browser to display the logotype at the firm’s web site, but browsers — unlike typesetting programs — can’t do the things we did to transform the name set in Times Roman to the logotype. (Though they will be able to do such things in the near future.)

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Now, zoom way in on this page. As you do, note that the one instance of Venable set as text is the only one that remains nice and smooth at any level of zoom. All the others, being images that can’t be smoothed, look fuzzier and fuzzier the more you zoom in on them.

In our next and final episode, we’ll see what we can do to improve the quality of the logotype at all levels of zoom.

Bereskin & Parr LLP is a leading Canadian intellectual property (IP) law firm serving clients of all sizes, in a variety of industries, domestic and international. The firm was founded in 1965 and has grown to be one of the largest IP law firms in Canada with four offices located in major economic or technology centers. The firm has offices in Toronto, Mississauga, Waterloo Region and Montréal. Bereskin & Parr is made up of over 70 lawyers, and patent and trade mark agents, many of whom are recognized as leading practitioners in their respective fields. The firm’s practice is comprehensive, encompassing all aspects of intellectual property, with practice groups including:

1. First, throw your readers a curve. One way to do that is to start off with a nice grammatical error, leaving readers to wonder what are “domestic and international industries.”
2. Next, start each and every sentence with the same exact subject, like “the firm, the firm, the firm.”
3. Take a bunch of different thoughts and stuff them into one paragraph.
4. Don’t use transitions.
5. Be sure that no sentence refers to another, and there’s no logical progression from one to the next.

It really works. If you want people to stop reading your copy right quick, be boring, boring, boring.

Consider the following block of type. The left side is from a PDF published by a Great Big Law Firm; the right side is from the Word document that was the source of the PDF.

The type in the Word document looks fine; the type in the PDF is much heavier and less distinct. To use some highly technical typesetter’s terminology, “it just don’t look right.”

In this case, the problem is that the PDF was saved in the wrong format. But that’s not especially important, as there are a number of problems that can prevent PDFs from looking as good as they should.

No, what’s important is that no one caught the error. They just distributed it to their “friends and clients” with clunky type.

That’s a mistake. It’s quite like showing up for an important meeting all dressed up for yard work.

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And why do so many Great Big Firms do this sort of thing again, and again, and again? Because they’re blind to good looks.

The attorneys run the show, and they could give a hoot about type or graphics. Those things weren’t mentioned in law school, so it’s hard to see how they could be important at all. What’s important is that your shoes are shined, your hair is groomed, and your suit is freshly pressed.

Hah!

And the marketing department? At some firms, no one in marketing has any training in publishing at all. And it really doesn’t matter. If the attorneys don’t care about the quality of what the firm publishes, why should they?

Prospective clients do care. They care about most everything: from your dress to your speech to your gate to the quality (both in terms of content and appearance) of your firm’s publications, especially if your firm claims to be a master of modern technology.

If a firm employed people who knew how to use computers to produce publications, it would never publish a PDF that looks like this.

So what’s wrong with that PDF? Nothing, except this: it’s the PDF that was sent to the printer. It contains crop marks, and register marks, and slugs — the sort of things that readers should never see. It’s a production PDF; it’s not meant for distribution.

Have you ever seen a copy of Time magazine with crop marks, and register marks, and slugs? Of course not. That’s produced by a publishing company, not a Great Big Law Firm, and its people not only know how to produce publications, they take pride in their work.

Some Great Big Law Firms could use such people. They sure could.

In this and subsequent posts, we focus on the latter.

If you want your firm’s logotype to look good to everyone — including those with iPhones and Blackberries and who-knows-what’s-next — then make sure it’s produced correctly.

The most recognizable logotype of all bears the name of Coke’s signature soft drink:

Most logotypes are not so highly stylized as Coke’s. Consider Google’s logotype:

Note: Notice the trademark symbol at the end of Google’s logotype. It’s small, but legible.

Like Google’s, most law firm logotypes are only mildly stylized. And some are registered trademarks.

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Now, the goal of this series is to help you set your firm’s logotype so it always looks its best, on line and in print. Before we get into the details, let’s take a closer look at on-line  type.

Go to Google’s home page and zoom in on the logotype.

To Zoom:

Macintosh — Command + (plus sign) to zoom in; Command – (minus sign) to zoom out
PC – press and hold the Control key, rather than the Command key

The logotype looks sharp at one size. If you zoom in or out, it gets fuzzy.

Zoom way in, and it looks like so:

Note: When we zoom in, the trademark symbol becomes less legible.

The logotype for Coca Cola has a similar appearance.

But why? Why don’t these logotypes act like regular type? Why do they look fuzzy close up?

It’s because they’re stored as images (like logos), rather than text.

And why are they stored as images rather than text?

Well . . . we’ll get into that in our next episode of Setting Logotype.

Test Your Logotype

Display your firm’s home page. The firm’s logotype is displayed at the top of it, right?

Look at the logotype as you zoom in and out of the page.

Zoom in and out of a PDF file with your firm’s logotype.

Does it look good at all sizes, just a few, or none at all?

If it looks anything like the Coke or Google logotypes, then it’s probably OK.

But, if it looks anything like the following when viewed at normal size, it’s not OK.

Note: Notice the registered trademark symbol at the end of Venable’s logotype. It’s not legible.

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In upcoming episodes, we’ll review the steps you can take to make sure your firm’s logotype always looks sharp.

Though they function as publishers, most law firms don’t do many of the things that professional publishers (of books, magazines, or newspapers) do as a matter of course.

One of those things is this — most law firms don’t have editors review what their authors write. In fact, the whole notion of having an editorial review process is an alien concept to most attorneys (including those managing very large law firms).

That’s too bad, because not reviewing what you’re publishing (before you publish it) can be downright embarrassing.

Case in Point

Consider the following, the intro to this article “On The Enforceability Of State Bars To Discretionary Clauses.”

In 2009, several courts considered whether state laws that bar discretionary clauses in plan provisions governing the administration of benefit claims were preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) and, if so, whether they were saved from preemption by virtue of ERISA’s savings clause.

If an editor reviews this article before it’s published, he can’t help but notice a problem in the logic of the intro. No court is going to rule that a state law is both preempted and saved from preemption, now is it?

This simply has to be fixed — for the sake of the author as well as the firm. And here’s why. It portrays the author as a careless writer, and that’s a liability for the author, described by the firm as “a prolific writer on cutting-edge ERISA litigation issues;” and it portrays the firm as one that can’t possibly be sincere about its commitment to excellence — not if it doesn’t even review what it publishes.

So, what would a skilled and experienced editor do with this?

Very likely, he’d revise it like so:

In 2009, several courts considered whether state laws that bar discretionary clauses in benefits plans were preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) or whether they were saved from preemption by ERISA’s savings clause.

After that, readers won’t have a good reason to question the author’s skills, or the firm’s commitment to excellence (or whether it even reviews its associates’ work).

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Of course, most attorneys aren’t used to working with editors. By and large, those who haven’t worked with skilled and experienced editors express fear — fear that an editor might make a mistake and reword something that shouldn’t be reworded.

Well, that’s just not so. Good editors don’t turn good copy into bad; they save busy attorneys from letting others see the mistakes that busy attorneys make.

What’s the difference between them?

A logo is an image; a logotype is stylized type.

Logo	Logotype

Both logo and logotype (and other elements) distinguish one entity (e.g., person, business, agency) from all others, and these visual cues are so effective that most any substantial business or organization has a logotype; the larger the outfit, the more likely it is to have a logo as well.

And most outfits, regardless of size, have a style guide – a guide that describes lots of things, including the visual identity for an entity, like how its logo and its logotype should appear.

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An entity that wants to promote itself wants its identity to be as common and as recognizable as possible, right?

Well, the purpose of the guide is to help achieve that goal.

If it’s a good guide and it’s followed faithfully, the entity’s identity always looks the same, whenever and wherever it appears — press releases, newsletters, stationery, business cards, brochures, client alerts, web sites and blogs and more.

Now, you can take a course in branding, or you can take my word for it — the more consistent your identity, and the more often potential clients see it, the more visible you become; the more distinct, as well. That’s good.

Stay tuned. In my next post, I’ll offer up some dooze and doughnts on setting your firm’s logotype so it always looks good, no matter when or where it’s displayed.

You’ll like it, especially if you like your stuff Set in Style.

Our Employment Group provides employers with comprehensive legal services pertaining to the employment relationship.

That’s a common approach to practice area descriptions, but it’s hardly persuasive. It sounds clinical. “We offer services, just like every other firm.”

Now, consider this revised introduction:

Successful organizations manage their human resources with care; they take care to avoid difficult situations, they respond to problems quickly, and they respond aggressively when they must. We know; we help them succeed.

That speaks directly to potential clients (companies with employment law matters looking for counsel), and it’s much more inviting. It says, “We can help you.”

When it comes to practice areas, don’t waste your ink sounding just like every other firm with an employment practice.

Use it to stand out from them.

If you can, get a widely read paper: The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Chicago Tribune. If not, find a paper that carries AP stories.

Read a few stories. At least, read the first few paragraphs of a few stories.

Now, here’s my good advice: when you write your alert, write like a journalist.

You’ll be glad you did.

If you write like a good journalist, then we can say this about your alert:

1. The first sentence inspires us to read the next sentence.
2. The first paragraph gives us the big picture, without many details.
3. The paragraphs are short, sequenced, and well structured.
4. The alert doesn’t bother to tell us what we already know. If readers of The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Chicago Tribune don’t need to be told what is the EPA, or the IRS, or the SEC, then neither do those who read an alert published by a law firm.
   Remember: an alert is not a brief.
5. Your alert is well received and portrays you not only as someone who knows the subject, but someone who cares about the quality of his or her work — someone who readers (esp. potential clients) can appreciate.

Remember: nobody has to read your client alert.

And if nobody is going to read it, why bother?

Since lawyers spend a large portion of their time writing, either directly to clients or in publications of some form, clients will necessarily come to a conclusion about a lawyer’s capabilities based on his or her written work.

— Source: The Lawyers Weekly

Keep this in mind: anything you write can inform a potential client’s (or employer’s) first impression of you. Make it a good one.

Lawyers need editors for this reason too: they’re human. Not only are they capable of error, but they’re susceptible to an occupational hazard. Since they spend so much time writing legal matter and so little time writing promotional matter (e.g., client alerts), they tend to approach the latter just like the former.

The result is promotional material written like a statement of facts — overly formal, hardly interesting (especially when the audience includes not only corporate counselors, but those who influence them, and others of interest*), and way too wordy.

Here’s a quick example. Consider the following intro to a client alert written by an attorney without an editor:

On September 22, 2009, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) promulgated its long awaited final rule (“Rule”) that imposes a mandatory national system for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas (“GHGs”) emissions.¹ The Rule enables EPA to collect comprehensive, economy-wide GHG emissions data that can be analyzed on both geographic
and facility-specific levels.

Compare that to this intro to a client written by an attorney with an editor:

On Monday, the EPA issued its long awaited final rule that requires nationwide monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions. Under the rule, large sources of emissions, and large fuel and gas suppliers and manufacturers of vehicles and engines, will have to make annual reports to the agency.

What’s different, and why?

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* To attract journalists looking for quotes, the intro has to satisfy a very broad audience.