Recently, I worked on a logo design project for a Catholic school. The goal was to align the school’s brand with the church’s brand.

I started by gathering the design elements I needed, such as colors and fonts. The problem was I couldn’t identify the font used to create the church’s mark.

I researched several places, including What the Font, but I couldn’t match it to anything.

Unfortunately, no one on the administrative staff at the church or the school, including the webmaster, could tell us what the font was. The webmaster knew he had created the mark many years (and many computers) ago, but he didn’t have any luck finding the original art.

So, I took a screen shot of the website, uploaded it to Adobe Illustrator and traced the letters that I needed to design the school’s new logo. It worked out exactly as I had first sketched, and the client loved the logo.

The experience reminded me of how important it is to record key elements of a logo or brand, such as colors and fonts. My suggestion: Create an electronic document AND a hard copy file containing all the information you – or the next designer – will need to duplicate or manipulate your current logo.