How to design effective bilingual logo products
Many business owners have an audience who speaks just one language: English.
When it’s time to order promotional products, it’s easy. Just design it and you’re done. But what if you have a multilingual market? Bilingual logo products are easy to design, and we’re here to show you how to do it.
Being residents of the Chicago suburbs, we understand why advertising to a polylingual audience is so important.
Bilingual speakers are commonplace in Chicago and the surrounding area. While English is the dominating language, Spanish is the most common language behind that. Depending on what suburb or neighborhood you’re in, you could also hear Polish, Indic, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, and more. Seeing advertisements in two or more languages is the norm.
But you didn’t come here for a lesson in Chicagoland linguistics. You came here with a marketing predicament. How do you design multilingual promotional giveaways for your business? It’s easier than you might think.
Here are four easy tips for designing effective bilingual logo products.
Tip #1: Choose a double-sided product
It’s easy: put one language on one side, the other language on the other. And there are a lot of promo giveaways that work perfectly for this.
Great for service professionals, local businesses, and hotels, the 2004 Door Hanger from On The Ball Promotions can be printed front and back, making it a perfect bilingual printed advertisement for your market.
Another great use for door hangers is for city services or public works. If the water department needs to leave notices on homeowners’ doors in a bilingual neighborhood, this is the perfect solution. No guessing on what notice to leave on the door. One bilingual logo product covers your needs—and audience.
Restaurants, bars, and cafés can promote drink and dinner specials or upcoming events with a double-sided table tent. The above example shows the menu in English on one side and in Spanish on the other side.
Need to promote a cause? The Wave Table Tent has a unique shape, and you can put the same message on both sides, but in different languages.
Tip #2: Choose a giveaway with large ad space
Have a lot of selling points or information you want to fit on your multilingual giveaway? You’ll want something big.
Here, a tri-fiold calendar card was used as a reminder to register for school. Instructions were given in both English and Spanish.
A health care system wanted to promote their website for appointment scheduling and visit overviews. Since they are located in an urban area that boasts a large bilingual audience, they chose the extra large 10-½” x 14″ daily date to pass out to all their providers as an office reference calendar.
Tip #3: Tell them what languages you speak
We see this a lot on advertisements, flyers, promotional giveaways, and on TV. The ad is entirely in English, but there is a line or two in there that say “Se habla Español” or “Mowimy po Polsku” (in case you are stuck, those say “Spanish speaking” and “We speak in Polish,” respectively).
Tip #4: Keep it simple
Sometimes, less is more, especially when you’re trying to fit two messages into one ad space. Sometimes branding is the only language you need to speak.
Hosting a community event in a bilingual area, or throwing a customer appreciation event? Take photos of guests and hand out cardboard picture frames with nothing but your logo.
Let’s make your bilingual logo products
Need some Spanish promotional products, or perhaps some Polish promo giveaways? We can help. Check out our entire product line at OnTheBallPromotions.com. Don’t see what you need? Help is just a phone call away. Reach us at (800) 475-2255.