The Impact of Image Packages
A professional necessity for establishing and maintaining your production credibility is your image package. Sometimes also referred to as an identity package, this is the basic stock-in-trade of any aspiring business and includes letterheads, business cards, and envelopes. Don't make the mistake of overlooking the impact of a good image package. The style and quality of your business cards and letterheads will showcase your production and professionalism, so don't skimp on these vital items.
Going in Style
Advertising and marketing agencies are staffed with graphic artists who will customize designs that enhance any professional business image. If you need to convey a very classy and highly professional appearance, hiring an agency can be worth the cost. Image-conscious investors can respond favorably to the presentation and feel of first-class letterheads and business cards.
Bear in mind that if you're seeking a significant portion of your financing from more frugal investors, including friends and relatives, a high-end image package may be seen as an unnecessary extravagance.
If you take this high road, however, you'll need to weigh the pros and cons very carefully. The price of professional design and printing is a substantial investment, often costing thousands of dollars that might be better spent on other aspects of your production. Those costs may be outweighed by the potential of attracting the financial support of well-heeled investors.
Cost-Effective Image Packages
It's entirely possible to produce a professional-looking image package without killing your business budget. For instance, if you've got a computer and printer and you're handy with graphics programs (and a pair of scissors), you can design and print your own materials.
The drawbacks to this approach are that doing it yourself can be time-consuming, and you still have to buy letterhead stock, card stock, and envelopes. The serious downside to designing and printing your own material is that you'll need significant graphics experience to produce professional-looking work. So be cautious with the do-it-yourself approach. If you're determined to do it anyway, at least give yourself an edge by investing in top-quality watermarked paper and matching card stock.
Bartering Your Image
Hiring a high-profile design agency to create your image package can be pricey, but with a little footwork you can find talented graphic artists who'll jump at the opportunity to work with you. Creative people tend to run in the same circles. As a filmmaker, chances are you're only a few queries away from hooking up with a freelance designer, graphic arts student, or art aficionado who designs as a sideline.
What could I offer a designer in exchange for help?
This is one of those golden circumstances where offering to trade screen acknowledgments for a few hours of design work can be beneficial to you and the designer. As an additional enticement, you can even offer to give them a mention in your production package.
Graphic artists can help you upload designs to an Internet printing facility, or load designs onto a CD that you can take to your local print shop. If your graphic designer is also a Web site designer, she'll be happy to work out a combination deal for image package and Web design.
Online Commerce
An increasingly popular way to save money on a quality image package is to order materials on the Internet. E-commerce companies such as Vistaprint.com offer low pricing and a wide range of four-color design options on business cards and letterheads. You can also order preprinted return address stickers at the same time for use on any size envelope. For under a few hundred dollars, you can set yourself up with a supply of professionally printed stationery and business cards that will help you create an effective and credible image.
