Logo and Color Information for co-branding on a Clarke American On-line Application

Some areas of some Clarke American applications can be co-branded by our Financial Institution Partners with their logo and/or a corporate color, if they so wish. Your Clarke American Partner Executive can give you the specifics of the application your institution is utilizing or adding.

In short, the Partner need only give us one logo (print resolution) and their one preferred color choice (often a Pantone™ or PMS).

Below is expanded information on these requirements for the logo file and color choice.
 

Sending your logo

In short, you should send your existing electronic file used in your high-resolution print pieces (such as brochures, annual report, etc.).

Clarke American will create all needed application screen images for you from this master logo file. This file must be a high-resolution one. It does not need to be resized or saved in another format or resolution; the file used in your print pieces will be high-resolution and optimal for our use. Nothing needs to be done to it other than to send it. This file is usually available from your Graphics Department, Agency or Printer.

This file must NOT be merely a file that looks just like the print version, such as your logo placed in Word, PowerPoint or any other low-resolution format or a scanned printed source, as these invariably give inferior results (and may introduce some delay in the processing of your logo).

The electronic logo file is often in a file format that can only be opened and utilized by high-end graphics programs; this is normal. So don't worry if you aren't able to open it to check or look at it before sending it on to us.

The logo file can be any normal high-end graphics format, including Vector EPS (vector formats perform best), Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, TIFF, bitmap EPS, Adobe Photoshop, PDF, and several more (but those are most common). If sending a Photoshop (.psd) file, it should be a high-resolution original (such as a master file used to create your print version) and not any other low-resolution format resaved as a .psd or other bitmap. (You can't make high resolution out of low-resolution; sort of like the old saying of "making a silk purse from a sow's ear".)

Providing one master institution logo file enables Clarke American to create any and all needed screen images for you for whichever applications you utilize, both present and future. However, if the institution wishes to retain control over the entire process of its logo images, they are welcome to create all screen images themselves, but these images would have to match the application's requirements precisely. Keep in mind that this may introduce delay if the provided files do not meet the application requirements.

If you have any questions, please contact your Partner Executive.
 

Choosing color

In short, you may just tell us your desired color.

Usually, this is a color chosen from the Institution's official corporate color(s). The Institution's Agency, Graphics Department, etc. will be able to provide the exact colors. These are often defined by the Pantone Color System (such as PMS 143, Pantone Process Blue, etc.). However, Pantone is used for high-resolution printing. Most colors come very close, but cannot be guaranteed to match on a computer screen. An easy example to visualize is a metallic color such as silver which can only be approximated on screen by a gray. An institution (and many businesses) will often have their institution colors already defined for on-screen (such as their Web site or CD-ROM presentation) as well as for print. Your Graphics Department, Agency or other content creator would be able to help determine if you already have this preference already defined. This way we can show your preferred color as well as is possible.*

Clarke American can accept an institution's color choice in many ways: in RGB or hexidecimal values (screen color), or we can convert the various print systems (Pantone, CMYK, TOYO, LAB, etc.) colors into their closest on-screen equivalents*.

Some information about color for the Internet*

Dithering Colors and the “Browser-safe Web color palette” for older computers

Newer computers do not need to worry about this. This palette is only necessary if your branches have predominantly older computers. (Most consumers will have newer machines.) Most images viewed on the Web are created using 24-bit color displays (millions of colors mode), but older computers using only 8-bit color displays (256-color mode), only show a small fraction of the spectrum (total colors). On computers with 8-bit color, colors must often be displayed using a technique called "dithering" to simulate colors not available in the color display system. Dithering creates adjacent pixels of different colors to give the appearance of a third color. -- but again, this is not an issue for most consumer machines from the past few years.

Here is an example of a color specified from an RGB or Pantone color not from the Browser-safe Palette, as viewed on an older computer with only 256 colors available. Notice the pattern in the image rather than solid color; this is known as ?dithering.?

This example is similar in color, but has been chosen from the closest value from the Browser-safe Web color palette. This color will not dither, no matter what browser, platform, etc. it is viewed from. (Reminder: dithering color is not an issue on most newer machines which have much better color hardware.

If you wish, click here for the Browser-Safe* Web color palette (see notes below). This will open in your browser window. Alternately, you can right-click the icon and choose ?Save link as?? and save to your disk. Either way, you may view or print it. (this is a slightly large file if you are on dial-up; approximately 300 Kilobytes)

* Please note: 24-bit color or non-dithering color does not imply any "Calibration" of any sort. Unlike printed pieces, color cannot be guaranteed for different end-users on the Internet, except for source files (on the web server end) being as close as RGB monitors will allow. But, myriad variations in end-users' different hardware platforms, video cards, monitor settings, etc. can vary the color that is seen on a particular computer screen, which cannot be controlled by Internet content creators.

As an example of this, you would be able to adjust the brightness, hue, color, etc. of the appearance of this very page easily by adjusting your monitor's controls (either with the knobs physically or through a software control panel) and throwing it "all out of whack." This is similar to an individual changing the hue and color settings on a Television set, which would modify the colors of the TV. This also cannot be regulated by the content creators.