To complete this task I will be required to carry out some research, which will involve using the Internet, and also completing a small amount of non-IT research, perhaps involving a promotional package from a competitors company. These will be included in my next section. In order to create the above items, I will need to use various computer programs and software tools, including a word processor and a desktop publishing program. These will be sufficient to use in order to create a business card, a letter headed sheet and an introductory leaflet.
To design a suitable company logo, I intend to attempt to create a relatively simple logo, as my research will prove that successful companies can succeed with only the simplest of logos. For this reason, I intend to use a relatively simple graphics program. Obviously, I will also need to use a web browser as part of my research, and this is the same both at school and on my home connection. Introduction to My Company My company is going to be based in the tourism industry, because I wanted to produce a project different to most other people in my class, and it was an area of industry I felt I would enjoy researching.
I am going to begin a new hotel chain called Parker Hotels. I intend it to be a middle-of-the-range, overnight stay style of hotel, suitable for motorists on long journeys. It will be cheap and affordable, and yet I hope to have an excellent quality of service and good facilities to attract customers. My hotels will be located at service stations and strategic points along major trunk roads in the UK, with the possibility of expanding abroad into mainland Europe and maybe America and Canada.
I will start with a modest chain of 50 hotels across the south of England, and allow for expansion if company revenue from the first year or two allows it. Research In this project, I will be using both IT and non-IT sources to produce my work. I will visit a key hotel chain, the Marriott, and, with their permission, I will include their products in my research, and base my project on the information I gain from them. I will however, ask for their permission before I do this, and acknowledge them at the end of my project, so as to be within copyright laws.
I will also look on websites for important hotel chains, to gather information that I can combine and use. Internet Research I have chosen to use www. google. com, my favourite Internet search engine, to search for information on important hotel companies, including a selection of logos. Here is a screen print of my Internet search on www. google. com These were the corresponding search results. Logo Comparisons Here, I will attempt to compare the logos of 4 important hotel firms, in order to produce a suitable logo for my company.
The four logos shown here were extracted from the websites of the first four hits from the Internet search shown on the last page. This is a simple logo; a transparent background, and the name of the company are its distinguishing features. The Marriott ‘M’ is one of the most recognisable logos in the commercial world. This was taken from the companies website. Radisson is a relatively small UK hotel chain. This is a simple logo involving the name of the company in a particular style.
The Travelodge logo is a common roadside company, with an extremely simple and effective logo. Designing my own logo I will now begin to design my own ideas for a logo, as it will occur numerous times on other parts of the project, including the business cards and letterheads, and forms the central part of my company’s image. My first idea was this. It is a simple design, in red, based around the idea of the company name in simple writing, and then a simple graphic above, as demonstrated by the Hilton logo. Here is my second idea.
This logo is also simple, and does not involve a graphic. Instead, it uses the a different colour, green, and the company name in an elegant and sophisticated style that makes the company name into the focal point of the logo, as is the case of the Marriott. I believe that the second logo, although it does not include a graphic, is much more appealing to the viewer than the first, which is less eye-catching and more simple. However, I prefer the colour red for my logo, and so I will combine this colour with the second logo for my final design.
Therefore this is my final logo design. Business Cards I will now use my own non-IT research to produce other parts of my welcome pack, starting with the business card. With my logo design finalised, I then had to design a business card. For my research, I looked at a business card I acquired from my father’s company, Simrad, a yacht equipment engineering company. The business card included the company logo, the name and job title of the person to whom the card applied, and the contact details of that person, by address, telephone, fax and e-mail.
I thus decided that I would include these features on my business card, as it is obviously a standard set of data. My first design for the card was this This design incorporates all of the main features of the two business cards I mentioned. The personal contact details are separate from the general contact details of the company, and the name of the person to whom the business card applies is in the centre, as it is meant to be the focal point of the card. I also produced a second design In this design, the centre of the card is the company logo, with the name of the person and their personal details at the top.
The red company colour has been used in a border like style, which I believe gives the card a bit more of an aesthetically pleasing look. I believe that the company logo is best suited to the top of the card, rather than the middle, with the name in the middle. I have altered the above designs and combined them to form this, my final design. Designing a letterhead As a research idea for this section, I used a letter I received from Fortek Computers, with reference to my successful work experience visit to them.
I decided that, for my letterhead, I would use a similar idea to my business card, except leaving out the personal contact details. This is to preserve continuity in the company literature. Therefore, my letterhead design was easy to produce. It looks like this. To demonstrate the use of this letterhead, I have written an example letter to a prospective customer, which can be seen on the next page. ‘With Compliments’ Slips It is customary in the business world to supply customers who request company literature that does not require a cover letter to include a small slip of company paper, giving them the compliments of the company.
In most cases, this is the same as the letterhead, and this is also the case with my company. Here is my ‘With Compliments’ slip for Parker Hotels. On the next pages, you can see my final project. My work has been saved in my user area of my school server. The area of the server I have used is illustrated below. The Use of IT in this project The use of IT in the production of this project has been a great advantage to my purpose in many ways, and it would do so in a real life situation, but it does not come without its disadvantages.
