Does your signage make you look professional?

Think about all the professional billboards, posters, printed materials and signage you’ve seen today.

I bet there’s one thing you haven’t seen on any of them: clip art.

This is with good reason. Clip art doesn’t just scream that a piece of signage hasn’t been professionally made; it makes anyone who displays it look downright unprofessional. It’s cheap and tacky.

It’s the aesthetic style of a piece of paper on the door or a notice board of the Parts Unknown Footy Club. Or a cluttered local milk bar.

As Old Taskmaster noted previously, there’s a good reason why big multinationals spend a small fortune on photography and pictures, rather than relying on the awful cartoon images that came pre-installed with Word.

No-one has ever felt better about themselves, a product or a business as a result of clip art. Clip art is to an authentic, friendly message what a cheap toupee is to a full head of hair.

It’s now 2014, yet it amazes Old Taskmaster that clip art smiley faces and tacky cartoons continue to appear on in-store signs, shop windows, PowerPoint presentations and even franchisee training manuals across Australia. Materials your customers see.

Well, Old Taskmaster says this: Take a look at your signage, notices and marketing paraphernalia. Do they contain any clip art?

If so, rip them down and put them where they belong: the garbage!

You should already have professional shots of yourself and your key products on file, along with your business logo. These should be sufficient in most cases where you need an image. That’s why you paid for them.

That said, more often than not, clip art is most commonly used in situations where no image is required at all.

In these cases, a sign in your business colours, or for that matter even plain black text on white paper, along with your company logo (where relevant), will look infinitely classier than the confected, canned zaniness of a crappy clip art cartoon.

Get it done – today!