Creating a Brand Identity: A Guide for Designers: (Graphic Design Books, Logo Design, Marketing)

by Catharine Slade-Brooking

This book has therefore two main aims. The first is to introduce you to branding, a complex and fascinating area of visual communication that spans the practical skills and techniques of graphic design as well as aspects of social and cultural theory. The second is to provide you with the creative tools – both theoretical and practical – that will enable you to tackle designing your own brands, from researching the target consumer to considering the name, as well as how to apply the final brand identity.

A brand is much more than a product you buy. Brands are as relevant to businesses as to services, and they can be applied to ideas and concepts as well as to products – a brand can even represent an individual celebrity. To be able to define what a brand is and does in its simplest form, it is helpful to consider first why people buy, and what influences their choice of one product over another.

Being a consumer is about identifying one’s needs and satisfying them by choosing, buying and using a product or service.

These basic necessities are then followed by more subjective needs, defined by a person’s particular lifestyle, which is, in turn, predetermined by their culture, society, social group and class.

The Oxford English Dictionary first featured the word ‘consumerism’ in its 1960 edition, defining it as an ‘emphasis on or preoccupation with the acquisition of consumer goods’.

Consumer culture theory argues that people buy one brand over another because they feel it reflects their own personal identity, or one that they wish to create.

In her book Consumer Culture, Celia Lury explores the way an individual’s position in social groups – structured by class, gender, race and age – affects the nature of his or her participation in consumer culture.

‘Products are created in a factory. Brands are created in the mind.’ Walter Landor, designer and branding/consumer-research pioneer (1913–1995)

A brand is also far more than the name, logo, symbol or trademark that highlights its origin; it is imbued with a set of unique values that defines its character and works as an unwritten contract, promising to deliver satisfaction by providing consistent quality each time it is bought, used or experienced.

‘The primary function of brands is to reduce our anxiety in making choices. The more we sense we know about a product, the less anxious we feel.’

Brand values are the core beliefs or philosophy that a brand upholds, and which differentiate it from its competitors.

psychologist Jennifer Aaker’s ‘Dimensions of brand personality’ framework, which uses a set of human characteristics to characterize a brand. These are grouped into five core dimensions: 1. Sincerity: domestic, honest, genuine and cheerful 2. Excitement: daring, spirited, imaginative, up to date 3. Competence: Reliable, responsible, dependable, efficient 4. Sophistication: glamorous, pretentious, charming, romantic 5. Ruggedness: tough, strong, outdoorsy

ways to create a successful branding strategy, but most design agencies start with research. The practical step-by-step processes involved in designing the final brand are covered in detail in the later chapters of this book, but they can be reduced to five key stages: 1. Customer research and visual enquiry 2. Concept development 3. Design development 4. Design implementation 5. Testing

1. When thinking about who you are, keep the brand’s promise front and centre in your mind. You need to be either better, different or cheaper. Challenge yourself to stay relevant, simple and compelling. 2. Keep challenging the status quo to maintain an experience that over-delivers the promise. Create a culture that attacks the brand’s weaknesses and fixes them before the competition can attack. With a beloved brand, the culture and brand become one. 3. Keep the brand story clear and simple, through great advertising in paid media, but also through earned media either in the mainstream press or through social media. 4. The most beloved brands have a freshness of innovation, staying one step ahead of their consumers. The idea of the brand helps, acting as an internal beacon to help frame research and development. Every new product has to back that idea. 5. Make focused strategic choices that start with being honest with yourself. Find a way to listen to your consumers and stay ahead of trends. Watch for dramatic shifts because they can really open a door for a competitor. It is easier said than done, but do not be afraid to attack yourself even if it means cannibalizing your current business. A good defence starts with a good offence.

A logo, brand mark or brand icon is a deceptively simple device. It employs a combination of shapes, colours, symbols and sometimes letters or words in a simple design that symbolizes the values, quality and promise offered by the manufacturers of a product or service.

The perfect logo needs to be distinctive, simple, flexible, elegant, practical and unforgettable.

There are several categories that can be used to define different communication approaches: Descriptive. This helps to describe the product service or promise, such as Innocent’s ‘Nothing but nothing but fruit’.

When considering the aesthetics of a strapline or tagline as part of the designed communication strategy, the quality of typography, its scale in relation to the logo and the colour used all need to harmonize with the design of the brand icon so that it can be easily trademarked along with the choice of words.

Brand architecture is a way of describing the hierarchy of brands within a single company’s portfolio.

Before the physical designing of a new identity begins, some fundamental questions need to be asked of the brand – including, simply, ‘Who am I?’ At this early stage the designer needs to probe the client to uncover the key functions of their product or service – put simply, what it does. An understanding of the brand’s philosophy will then begin to emerge.

A brand promise is not the same thing as a strapline or slogan. Coca-Cola’s promise, for example, is ‘To inspire moments of optimism and uplift’, whereas its slogans – which are regularly updated to keep communications fresh – include ‘Life tastes good’ (2001).

Brand values There are two key definitions of brand value. There is the value of a brand on a balance sheet, which obviously has key importance to the owners of the brand. However, probably more importantly, there is the perceived value of a brand by its consumers. These values are less tangible and refer to the emotional attributes associated with a specific brand.

‘Brand equity’ is a marketing term used to describe the commercial value derived from consumer perception of a brand name, rather than the product or service it provides. This is witnessed whenever a consumer is prepared to pay additional money for a branded product over a cheaper store-brand alternative.

If you tell the complete story in one shot, you lose the opportunity to build a long-term relationship with your audience. Instead, pique their interest but don’t provide resolution immediately. Leave them hanging with a promise of more, just like the best fiction authors do at the end of each chapter.

A ‘brand strategy’ defines the how, what, where, when and to whom the brand plans to communicate, alongside highlighting the client’s specific goals for the brand.

The first thing that attracts a consumer tends to be colour, followed by shapes and symbols. The text or the brand is usually the final element to be understood.

Packaging cluttered with too much text fights for attention and often creates confusion. Therefore keeping the design simple is often the best approach, focusing on a single competitive point of difference that distinguishes a brand from its main competition.

American adman Rosser Reeves first coined the term ‘unique selling point’ in the 1940s.

The USP – or sometimes ‘unique selling proposition’ or ‘point of difference’ (POD) – are all critical in defining a brand’s competitive advantage over its competitors, and fundamental to a successful branding strategy.

There are a number of key approaches that can be taken to help ensure a successful brand-naming strategy: 1. Descriptive. This is the simplest naming strategy, using words that define or highlight key aspects of a product or service, such as Royal Mail or American Airlines. 2. Acronyms. Using the first letter of each word of a name, such as KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). A similar approach is to use syllabic abbreviations, an abbreviation formed from (usually) initial syllables of several words, such as ‘FedEx’, which is an abbreviation of the name of the company’s original air division, Federal Express, used from 1973 until 2000. 3. Fanciful. This approach uses words that either look or sound good but do not necessarily have any relationship to the product or service that the brand represents, such as the telecommunications brands Orange and O2. 4. Neologisms, or Make it up! Creating a word that reflects the values or unique nature of a brand but has no actual traditional meaning. The brand Gü was created by James Averdieck, given its unique brand identity by design agency Big Fish. Pronounced ‘goo’, it was created to evoke the gooey, oozing nature of their puddings. 5. Onomatopoeia. Using a word to imitate or suggest the sound associated with a product can be a very effective way to develop a unique name. Many highly successful brands have employed this deliberately. In the case of Schweppes it was a happy accident. Johann Jacob Schweppe, an amateur scientist and entrepre...

Brand personality theory was originally developed by Stephen King of communication agency J. Walter Thompson, who recommended assigning human personality traits to a brand to achieve differentiation. This has become essential practice in the advertising toolkit and has evolved into more complex personality forms, known as brand archetypes.

As graphic designers we create a bridge between information and understanding.

MAKING YOUR OWN DECISION These are difficult decisions for any professional to make. However, perhaps being a conscious designer makes one a better designer. When you need to make a difficult personal decision, be aware of what you are being asked to do, and ask yourself two simple questions: 1. Am I hurting others? We have a responsibility to design products and brands that work, but do not forget that the consumption of brands can influence the world – both its people and the environment. 2. Am I delivering an honest message? There are many examples of companies that promise to be helpful, original, organic, etc., but are they? Will your brand stand up to its promises? If the answer is yes to the first and and no to the second, you need to consider why you want to continue working on the project.

When developing a brand identity it is difficult to predict how the creative process may develop, but it is essential that the identity goes through all of the key stages.

This four-step process can also be applied to any student design project. Its structure will help you creatively by making sure you allow adequate time and space to think, experiment and apply your imagination. It will also harness your problem-solving skills if you run out of ideas. Finally, it will ensure that you demonstrate: • Your design decisions, which will help justify the final concept • The depth and breadth of your research, highlighting your knowledge of current markets and practice • Good project management skills – answering the original brief and keeping to budget • Time management – allowing each stage of the process the necessary development to ensure a successful creative outcome

Aspects that can be subject to analysis include: • The age and history of the brand • The current market position • The target market/consumer/audience • The existing brand properties • The overall aims of the project, timeframes/ deadlines and budget

senior creative team present their findings to the creative team. This will cover: • The design platform • The analysis of and information developed on the competitors • An analysis of the failures and successes of any previous design

These initial sketches do not need to be to scale, have the correct perspective, or be very polished, but as the idea development process progresses, there is an exponential need for accuracy in these drawings in order for a concept’s potential to be assessed. The ability to try out ideas on paper at speed is valuable.

The responsibility of launching a brand is traditionally undertaken by the client, working together with a marketing or advertising agency. However, a design agency may be asked to produce marketing literature for the brand or, in the case of packaging, elements of launch communication such as point of sale.

Ultimately design is a creative challenge, and creativity requires dynamics. For instance, if you have a creative idea, how can you ensure that it is successful if you are the only one judging it? All you will have to gauge your ideas by will be your own point of view.

Surrounding yourself with a team of great people and remaining open to suggestions will enhance your creativity not distract it.

One of the earliest models of the creative process is attributed to English social psychologist Graham Wallas, who in his 1926 book The Art of Thought proposed that creative thinking proceeds through four phases: 1. Preparation – initial work on a problem that focuses the mind and explores the scope or dimensions of the problem. 2. Incubation – the problem is internalized by the unconscious mind and nothing appears to be happening. 3. Illumination (or the ‘eureka’ moment) – the creative idea bursts forth from preconscious processing into conscious awareness. 4. Verification – the idea is consciously verified, elaborated and then applied.

Student exercises The following are some examples of the kind of exercises you may be given as a student. For each brief an understanding of the design process will inform a successful outcome. Exercise 1: Mimicking the structure of an industry team Groups of five students or more are set the challenge of working together on a single brand creation. Each student is given a job title that reflects the roles within an agency team: creative director, senior designer, designer and two junior designers. A member of staff then acts as the client, attending briefings and presentations. The step-by-step design process is therefore used to structure the project, both creatively and practically. Exercise 2: Concept creation using the ‘mild to wild’ or ‘evolution to revolution’ method This exercise involves taking an existing brand and redesigning it for a new market. After researching the brand and its current consumers, students must identity the drive needed to make it appropriate to its new market. This will involve firstly creating a range of ideas that would move the brand a small way from its current position, followed by other concepts that would take it on a more revolutionary journey. Students can then explore their concepts further by calculating their perception of the amount of change reflected in their ‘refreshed’ brand. Exercise 3: Using blogs to document the design process Blogs can be a very useful way for students to document their design process. However, clear rul...

Research is the first, and possibly most important, stage of the design process. For contemporary brand design practitioners it plays a key role in achieving original and distinctive work. Rather than stifle creativity, research actually empowers it, and without good research findings your design work will lack focus and direction. Any time invested in research will help you to make confident design decisions, moving through the design process quickly and with conviction. In an industry context, too, clients are always reassured when they are able to see how and why designs were created.

The various research methods used to collect data can be divided into two main categories – information that is collected first-hand from a particular source (primary research) and pre-existing information (secondary research).

Any point-of-purchase observations can then be followed up with interviews to gain insights into a consumer’s thoughts, feelings and motivations whilst they are still fresh in their minds. Things to record: • How long people take to make their choices • The brands chosen, and the size and number of items purchased • Impulsive purchases versus planned purchases • Purchase motivations • Reasons for rejecting a brand • Shopping experience and store layout (retailer performance)

SWOT analysis is a technique that can be used to evaluate any product or service. Firstly the objective or aim has to be defined, and then the factors that are favourable or unfavourable to achieving that aim are identified. This type of analysis is useful because it enables researchers to not only identify a brand’s unique selling point but also any existing threats to the brand. • Strengths: characteristics of the brand that give it an advantage over others • Weaknesses: characteristics that place the brand at a disadvantage relative to others • Opportunities: elements that the brand could exploit to its advantage • Threats: elements in the retail environment that could cause trouble for the brand

Once the USP has been identified, it is used to develop the positioning statement – a sentence or two that summarizes the essence of the brand in relation to its competitors, and is used to drive its communication strategy. This, in turn, is used to generate a strapline or slogan that, over time, will hopefully become synonymous with the brand.

Mid-market brands in general are the most decorative of the three, using more colour, a wider variety of type choices, quality photography and illustration on pack and promotional materials.

Luxury brands, however, revert back to simplicity, but handled in quite a different way from the economy brands. Often minimal both in colour and style, they appeal to our senses in other ways.