I’ve had the pleasure of working with The Matthew Kelly Foundation for the past 9+ years. Along with working for the foundation, I’ve been able to work alongside Matthew Kelly, the author of Off Balance. Matthew is an internationally-acclaimed speaker, as well as a New York Times bestselling author of many books, including The Dream Manager and The Rhythm of Life.

Matthew’s recent work, Off Balance, touches on the myth of work-life balance and how we are striving not for balance, but rather personal & professional satisfaction. I recommend this book for anyone striving to find more satisfaction in life and struggling to achieve it. Here are some key points I jotted down while reading this book (literally in a few hours):

• Satisfaction vs. Pleasure: Many times we get these two feelings confused. Satisfaction is something that can be sustained beyond the activity of producing it, while pleasure can NOT be sustained beyond the activity producing it. Are you making choices to gain satisfaction or pleasure?

• YOU are personally responsible for living the best life you can. You are not entitled to a certain life. YOU have chosen & created the life you live right now. Are you dissatisfied? Are you willing to do something about it?

• We all need some unchanging values & principles to guide us in our decisions. Take the time to think about what your values & principles are and how you would rank them. Are you making choices based on your values & principles?

• Your experience of life expands with the more energy you have. Everything requires energy. Nothing affects personal & professional satisfaction like your energy level. What can you do to increase your energy level?

• Take the challenge to begin implementing The Personal & Professional Satisfaction System: 1) Assessment  2) Priorities  3) Core Habits  4) Weekly Strategy Session  5) Quarterly Review (Read the book to get a full explanation of each step.)

Overall, Matthew has an interesting viewpoint on what we all need to do in order to be able to “lay your head on your pillow at night, knowing that who you are and what you do makes sense…now, that is satisfaction.” I know this is what I want. Sign me up.

If I haven’t convinced you to read this book, maybe Matthew can. Check out his video introducing you to the book and what he hopes you gain from it.

You finally realized how important your brand and identity are and decided to invest in a designer to develop and design a logo.  Now, make sure you request the below file formats from your designer once the design process is all said and done.  This helps you and any other designers you choose to work with down the road.  Believe me, you will receive the “awesome client award” if you come to us for help on your marketing materials and when we ask you for particular design files you say, “No problem, I’ll send them right over.”  Usually, though, that is not the case.  More times than not we get a low-resolution JPG that has a white border around it making it almost impossible to work with.

EPS
I won’t bore you with the meaning behind EPS (okay, maybe just s little – it stands for Encapsulated PostScript), but this is one acronym that you must remember.  EPS is a vector file format that allows the artwork to be resized to any size needed.  This is the format usually preferred when printing because of its high quality.  In other words, don’t say goodbye to your designer until you have this.  (Keep in mind, this won’t be a file format you will be able to open unless you have certain design software.)

JPGs and PNGs
These two formats are used mainly on the internet , which in turn means they are smaller file sizes.  They are also great to have if you wish to include an image of your logo in your email signature or if you wish to insert your logo into Word, Powerpoint, etc.  (Microsoft Office Tip:  If you ever have trouble inserting a JPG into an Office program, it probably means the JPG was created in a CMYK color space.  Ask your designer for a RGB JPG instead.)

Remember when I was talking about what makes designers cringe (see above) – the dreadful JPG with the white box? PNGs allow for these same types of smaller file sizes to exist, but without the white background (a.k.a. they are transparent). Keep in mind though, JPGs and PNGs are NOT resizable in terms of making them bigger.  The bigger you make them, the more pixilated they will become.  So, it is best to ask for JPGs and PNGs to be created at a slightly larger size than their intended end use.

PDF
I also like to include a press-ready PDF of the final design.  This is just another file format that (1) I know you will be able to open and view and (2) is another format that many printers are open to working with.  Many times, if the PDF is saved with all fonts outlined, these files can be opened in certain design software and somewhat be manipulated, if needed.
So let’s recap.  Make sure to request an EPS, JPG, PNG and PDF from your designer and then treat these files with love.  Anytime you need to create an ad, business collateral, a new website or anything that includes your logo, you will be happy that you have them.  If you don’t, they will have to be recreated which equals spending more money for something that you already paid for.  Also, if for some reason your original designer jumps ship, you now have your company identity at your fingertips.