Advice You - Business

While the variables are infinite (that's a good thing - it means that every logo can be unique) there are certain benchmarks (I hesitate to call them rules) that if you follow, will pretty well insure that you'll end up with a decent and workable logo. While whether or not a logo is

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

'good' remains completely subjective, following these pointers will give you a logo that's usable, practical and promising a long shelf life.

1) Uniqueness
Your logo should be able to stand out as completely 'yours'. It's surprising how many times we get asked to 'copy' l

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

ogos - we've even had clients request a 'version' of my brand. Not a good idea. On top of the potential legal complications nothing screams 'unprofessional' like a logo that's looks even remotely like someone else's. Do not copy. I'll say it again. Do. Not. Copy.

2) Timeless
E

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

ery few years there's a trend, or fad, that new logos seems to embrace. A few years ago it was the 'swoosh' - made logos all hi-tech and 'internety'. Trouble is, everybody jumped on that bandwagon and the treatment rapidly became hackneyed and trite. Few years hence, and we've got l

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

ots of people stuck with out of date designs. The latest design logo trend is so-called 2.0, a technique that (like a lot of design trends) can be traced back to Apple Computers. Take your logo, add a 'gel' treatment, give it glassy reflection at the bottom and you're all set. (hey

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

the 3D version of our house could qualify). Web 2.0 is still going strong, but I'll go out on a limb and say it will be yesterday's news by end of summer.

3) Gimmick Free
Special FX and filters are usually applied, by inexperienced designers, to logos that are 'miss

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

ing something'. Trouble is, what the logo is generally missing is any design integrity, and adding bevels, lens flares and drop shadows is the logo design version of 'putting lipstick on a pig'. While it certainly shows how cool the latest design software is, it doesn't do much for

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

the professionalism of your mark. Such treatments are fine for glamour shots (used as display pieces on brochures and the like) but are only going to cause grief down the road, especially when it comes to application of your new logo on standard business material. Your logo should b

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

as technically simple as possible for adaptability, which just happened to be number 4 on our list...

4) Adaptability
Over the life of your company, you'll want to plaster your logo over everything you send out. That's the point of having a logo in the first place.

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

In order to do this, you'll need a logo that's adaptable to every occasion and while they may look 'pretty' , the design gimmicks we just talked about render your logo impractical for many of these uses. Some of these uses - checks, FAXes, embroidery, newspaper ads, invoices, letter

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

eads, etc. Your new logo has to work on all of them. You'll also need a quality black and white version that can reproduce as a halftone grayscale, or in the cases of low-resolution BW reproduction, a linear version.

5) Scalability
When using your logo, you'll need to be able

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

to use it small. Real small. Postage stamp size. Classic example of this - over the years, I've designed a load of sports event posters that feature logos from dozens of event sponsors. Space only permits the logos to be featured as very small images and it's always the simpler logo

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

s that stand out when viewed from a distance. The cluttered logos aren't recognizable to any great degree and the sponsors are probably wasting their money, especially if inclusion on the poster is the only benefit of their sponsorship. When it comes to scalability, the text portion

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

of the logo is the most important, as that's the piece you want people to remember. Scrawny, sickly text doesn't read very well at half an inch high.

6) Color is Secondary
Colors are extremely important. Using consistent corporate colors will become part of your brand

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

- that's understood. However, when it comes to the design of your logo, color must always be secondary. A logo that requires color to 'hold' the design together is fine when reproduction is optimal - websites, 4 color process printing and what have you - but even then only if the si

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

e is appropriate as well. Logos that rely too much on color tend to blend together when used small (see above) and unless the contrast between the two colors is pronounced, will be a grey mess if used in black and white. As for low-resolution reproduction (FAXES, checks, etc) you ca

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

n forget about readability completely - logos that use color as a design cornerstone usually come out as black blotches on a FAX transmission and with all their money, banks still haven't figured out how to print a decent check.

7) Appropriate Aspect Ratio & Footprint
The aspe

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

ct ratio of a logo is the relationship between a logo's height and it's width. Bottom line, you don't want a logo that's too tall, or too wide. Square'ish' is always best as this allows the maximum adaptability of a logo, especially when it's being used in conjunction with other art

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

ork. The 'footprint' of a logo refers to the amount of physical space that's required to place a logo on any page. If the footprint is 'wonky' - trailing design elements 'poke' outside the footprint - it can greatly affect the size that the design can be used at, as well as the visu

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

al impact of same.

Like most 'rules' of design, not all of these will apply in every situation, and in many cases, we'll toss them out completely. However, they should give you a road map that will help you navigate the sometimes frustrating creative process to design your new logo

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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