Ashlyn Busse – Senior Graphic Designer
A lot of people think branding is all about the content people see: the logos, slogans, brand colors, etc., but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
In reality, a company’s brand depends on the intangibles: vision, voice, values, strategy, message and personality. Unless the marketing team fully understands these elements and pulls from them in every project, the customer-facing components will be built like a house with no foundation. This is why the branding process is thorough, consisting of multiple steps and considerations.
Know Thyself
The good news is that the foundation is already built; it simply needs to be found. Marketers can work with the leadership team to identify the company’s background, history, projected future, product attributes and more. Not only does this help the agency hone in on the foundation of the brand, but it also helps the client get to know their own corporate identity even better.
Tools like brand archetypes can be useful in this process, as they allow companies to narrow down the search within frameworks they can recognize. Is the brand a caregiver, preserving its consumers’ wellbeing? Or, is it a rebel, going against the grain to create new and exciting opportunities? Identifying which of the 12 archetypes a company is looking to represent, as well as which ones its customers perceive it to be, can help locate the foundation and inspire the path forward.
Start with the Logo
Once the foundation is firmly set, the next step in brand construction is the logo design. Logos are often the most recognizable elements of a brand, and they inform the color choices, font styles, imagery, tone and other important elements of future marketing pieces. Both these functions make logos a fundamental component of branding.
The logo design process is deceptively complex, as many critical aspects of the brand need to be communicated in a single, simple image. Pulling inspiration from the client’s industry is a good place to start, as is following precedents set by other brands that fit into the same archetypes. Client taste also plays an important role, and designers should ask for examples of logos the client finds particularly compelling. All these inspirations are helpful, but the most important priority for logo design is to make it unique and identifiable. Designers will often create several options and work through multiple drafts before landing on the final product and solving the visual puzzle of what the brand identity looks like.
Keep Customers in Mind
While the company and marketers develop branding from the foundation up, the audience will experience the brand from the top down. Every marketing piece that they see needs to be both visually compelling and connected to the brand’s broader story. This creates an engaging and straight path for them to follow to understanding the deeper corporate identity.
The importance of understanding the brand and building off a logo can be summarized by two key guidelines: consistency and recognizability. These should be the goal of any brand-building campaign and the standard for every project going forward.