Andrew Kelsall | Graphic Designer

I was tasked by Gavin Evans, a driving instructor based in Hemsworth and Elmsall, West Yorkshire (UK) to design a logo and marketing designs for his Instructor Training Business named Gavin Evans Driver Training (or G.E.D.T). Basically, Gavin takes pupils and teachers them to drive and even does advanced motorway training courses.

After discussing his requirements, we settled on a logo design based upon a shield motif with the initials G.E.D.T incorporated into it. The image above shows this design in its print-formation (I’ll get to that next).

I initially suggested a shield-based design to Gavin, as shields represent strength, authority and stability — all positive aspects of what a Driving Instructor could possibly convey to any potential pupil.

The great thing about this logo is the varied configurations that it can possess. The image above displays an alignment that is more fitting for limited horizontal space (such as when on the bonnet of the car).

I used the logo design to design an advertisement (above) which featured in the Thompson Local (advertising directory) to both sustain and promote his growing business. As can be seen, the logo configuration I used here also coined the tag-line A Flair for Success.

This tag-line was used on all marketing and promotional material for Gavin’s Driver Training Business. The car print displayed above shows some of the general layout and colour-scheme of one of the two cars he has used to instruct pupils in. The sides of the car display his web-site address and other information.

The flyer design (postcard) shown above was printed onto 350gsm gloss-card and distributed throughout local areas around Hemsworth and Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

I also designed some business cards for Gavin printed onto the same type of card. The photo above shows one of the glossy cards, with the flyer (pamphlet) design in the background.

I also branded a web site design for Gavin, which is a place where potential pupils can contact him. The site displays his pricing structure as well as photos and other relevant information. Visit Gavin Evans Driver Training to take a look.

Recently, Gavin asked me to design some marketing material for the franchise side of his business. I suggested to him that it would be a great idea to segregate the two sides of the business with a different colour-scheme, with orange/grey being the most attractive and meaningful. As orange is associated with optimism, it ended up being chosen simply because it worked well and looked great.

Again, I designed a flyer for Gavin which is to be printed soon. This design is currently being used for various online publications on the internet.

If you run a Driver Training Business and would like me to work with you on a logo design, marketing, promotion and car print (livery print design), please contact me for details.

What do you think about these designs? I’d like to hear your opinions…

A few days ago, I took at look at some print work I did for one of my regular clients, Next Plc, a leading word-wide clothing giant. The prints were for some of their notice-boards in the Dearne Valley Distribution Warehouse, England. The designs were nothing ground-breaking design-wise, but what this article is about is an amazingly dark CMYK Black that was achieved through the use of professional digital print. I have tried to do the black justice in the above photo — which shows a dark, almost-sparkly silk finish (although, I haven’t fully exposed its density in a mere photo).

This black was achieved using a Xeikon 5000 Digital Press (shown above), aftr sending the files to RCS Printers, located in Retford (UK). Now, there’s a lot of contention in the print-design world about the perfect values to attain a Rich Black. I’ve used Cool Black myself on a variety of occasions using 40% Cyan and 100% Black (key), but for this design, I wanted to achieve the ultimate black.

Normally, I wouldn’t use all four printing inks if there’s small type in the design, but in this case, I was sending the prints off to be printed digital, so registration wasn’t an issue, plus all the text was large.

For the sake of completeness, I have included the source image for the print below. I wanted a very rich, dark black to compliment the orange and blue colours on the design.

I suppose before I go on, I’d better explain what the print is for. As can be seen below, an A4 plastic adhesive sleeve (from 3L) is stuck on the middle of the A3 print (on 350gsm Silk stock). The design, along with another 23 in the set, can display weekly information and target data through the week in the Next Dearne Valley Distribution Warehouse.

To get the rich black colour, so it wouldn’t look all washed out, I used the following TAC (total area coverage):

60% Cyan | 40% Magenta | 40% Yellow | 100% Black (key)

The total ink coverage equated to 240%, which would be near the upper TAC limit if I was printing on some thinner coated stocks on an offset-press. Although these were digital prints, I suppose I could have used meaner percentages — maybe even registration black (!!), yet I chose this TAC percentage mix to see how well it would look…and it looked stunning.

I thought that using a higher percentage may make the black look ‘muddy’. Although next time I do something like this, I’m going to upscale the percentages to see if it looks even darker, but for this occasion, I wasn’t going to do personal experiments with a paying clients’ work.

At the moment, I’m compiling an article coving every conceivable way of printing black on both digital and off-set printers. So I’ll be covering the varied mixes of blacks, including Cool Black, Rich Black, Flat Black and Earth Black (oh yes), as well as CMYK, Hexachrome and even Metal FX® black inks. Why not to Subscribe to my blog as not to miss this upcoming resource?

So far, this set of prints have produced my ultimate CMYK Black. Have you got any experience with differnet CMYK ink mixes? What’s is your chosen persentage, and on what paper? Have you ever used the full 400% TAC on a digital print? I’d like to hear your opinion…