Brand Identity Essentials

Essential Tools

The brand levers outlined in this chapter will be the most familiar to creative teams, however, everyone has an opinion about them. They often involve aesthetic judgments about brand expression. Rather than viewing them as entirely subjective opinions, designers see them as creative tools. Leaders can make better decisions when they understand the palette of brand tools. Brand builders can encourage teams to dig deeper and guide choices based on strategy.

  

  

Hamilton

Mirko Ilić

• IMAGE
• COLOR
• TYPOGRAPHY
• SHAPE
• CONTRAST
• DIMENSION
• SYMBOLS
• VOICE
• CONSISTENCY
• STORY
• TIME

IMAGE

The more literal an illustrative logo is, the less work a potential customer needs to do to interpret it. If your client is a dentist, and you create a logo for her practice that resembles a toothbrush, her logo functions like a highway sign. It says, “This is the dentist, not the restaurant.” The meaning is clear but limited.

Sometimes, an illustration can be concrete while its meaning remains abstract. Apple provides the classic example of an illustrative logo with its meaning left open for interpretation. Apple doesn’t sell apples, but you wouldn’t know that from its logo—a stylized image of an apple with a bite taken out of it. The Apple logo serves as a symbol or metaphor—knowledge, forbidden fruit, or the discovery of gravity. Its meaning is indirect but wide open.

2 Visual style

A strong visual style can come from an artistic vision, but sometimes brand builders overlook the obvious. Keep in mind that art and design serve different purposes. Brands need to communicate directly with a specific group of people. When developing the photography or illustration style for a brand program, you don’t need to trade clarity for sophistication. A lot of programs flounder by using sophisticated, yet unclear, imagery. Fall into this trap, and you fail to communicate anything.

Simply paying attention to imagery can add needed focus. Insightful use of communicative images reinforces and, in some cases, establishes, a program’s visual tone.

Creating a coherent brand program involves more than slapping a logo on bags and shirts. The style of additive visual elements—photography, illustration, etc.—truly helps define a strong program.

  

These images evoke what the Hong Kong Ballet feels like.

3 An aesthetic niche

Images add immediacy, power, and clarity to communications, from stained-glass church windows to Times Square billboards. Consider what images mean for a brand identity and choose wisely.

The evolution of online stock photography and photo-sharing sites has given designers access to a plethora of easy-to-come-by images. Search for “business people” and you’ll get plenty of guys in ties running through airports. But using these clichéd images won’t carve out a visual niche for a brand. It will merely add to the noise.

With everybody using the same pool of photos, it’s harder to find images as a unique differentiator or identifier. Today, brand builders need to work harder to create new visual artifacts. Additional creative minds can serve as wonderful collaborators in this effort, lending a new sense of depth and experience. Often, a good photographer, videographer, renderer, sound designer, UX developer, or illustrator can work side by side with a design director to carve out a new niche with a level of visual sophistication appropriate for a brand.

  

Sprite appeals to a youthful demographic with noticeable graphics that challenge and inspire.

COLOR

Color brings such an immediate emotional quality to a brand—it can tempt designers into jumping ahead and designing with a particular color in mind. Resist this temptation. Complete your initial design for each new mark without regard to the color it will eventually take on. Because most graphic identities face color limitations, depending on the application, you’ll need to ensure that a mark will work in several different colors. And because colors are often influenced by trends, what feels contemporary today may look dated tomorrow.

That said, a color treatment can make or break a graphic identity. Color choices that are too dated, illegible, or unsophisticated can drag down even the most wonderfully drawn mark.

  

Color isn’t entirely objective, but make color choices for reasons that add up to more than a gut reaction.

5 Applied color

As color spreads across an identity program into environments, packaging, websites, and more, logic and meaning is critical.

Strong brand programs use color in a fiercely consistent fashion. Choosing the right color is important—if you end up owning the wrong one, you can drag down a brand—but the importance of consistency in application can’t be overstated. Anything less adds confusion to the emotional spectrum that inspired the color choice in the first place.

As you think about how a base color and its accents tie a program together, remember this: color communicates at the speed of light. The brain responds to color the same way it responds to pleasure or pain—it’s immediate, primal. Know the cultural connotations of colors before assigning meaning to them within your identity program. Green can mean “go,” but it can also mean environmentally friendly, or the Brazilian national football team.

  

These Herman Miller brochures use color as a signal. Even at a glance, we won’t confuse Cocofloss with a brand of a different color.

6 Color signals

Clinical and anecdotal tests on color psychology and emotion have led to the development of widely accepted theories about color. That’s why schools and hospitals favor teal paint for interior walls to make people feel calm, while restaurants are more likely to choose red interiors to make people feel hungry. But the power of certain colors changes over time and across cultures.

One cannot deny the influence of fashion industry trends on color choices. Seasonality in fashion markets creates programmed obsolescence: what is the new “black” this season? Color-trend experts try to predict what car colors consumers might want to buy in the future. These color trends cross markets freely and often. A popular lime-green highlight seen in Fashion Week might find its way into business cards, websites, interiors, or products.

Culture also plays a role in how colors are interpreted. The obvious example: in Western cultures, people wear black to funerals, while in Eastern cultures mourners wear white. The cultural connotations of color are often learned and permeate a market.

  

Some organizations work hard to “own” a color and make it a foundational element of their brand and a point of differentiation from competitors.

TYPOGRAPHY

Typographic logos rely on words (typically the initials or name of the organization), rather than pictures, to represent an organization. Word marks often don’t ask the viewer to interpret much, though letter games can blur this line. Playing with letterforms can highlight aspects of a brand and suggest new meaning. Unique typography can project both the past and the future.

A clean, straightforward presentation of a name is understood. That’s not as true for organizations with unusual names—the Google word mark challenges customers more than one for General Motors. Instead of using full words, some brands rely on initials. Monograms have connotations of royalty, religions, armies, and family crests. Many contemporary brands, from IBM to ABC, leverage this history while communicating something new.

Context and circumstances should guide decisions about whether or not to use a typographic logo. When the goal is a mark that’s clear and straightforward, a word mark may be best. Of course, you might choose a different path if the competitors have all done the same thing.

  

Word marks that employ straightforward typography can express the character of a brand in subtle ways.

  

Monograms can be inspired by traditional uses in sports, institutions, and family crests.

8 Type choices

Type has personality. Show us someone who disagrees and we’ll show you someone who’s the walking embodiment of Times New Roman. Picking the right typeface means picking one that imbues your program with the right feeling. The choice begins with serif vs. sans serif.

The thicks and thins of serif typefaces evolved from the pressure points created by a calligrapher’s hand. Given that lineage, serif typefaces often get equated with tradition. By contrast, the relatively younger sans serif typefaces get equated with modernity. However, evidence hints that these personalities are in flux. Sans serif typefaces have been adopted for signage systems all over the world. As a result, what was once seen as quintessentially modern, now can be seen as institutional.

Personality is an important consideration when selecting a typeface, but it should not be the only consideration. Legibility, flexibility, and consistency are also important factors to consider for an identity program.

Overall, decide if typography is in the foreground or the background of your brand.

  

All programs require choices about type. Some programs lead with type when establishing a brand image.

9 Type and meaning

Typefaces may vary, but whenever typography plays an important role in a brand identity, we can assume that the brand is appealing to a reader—someone who appreciates prose or at least a good headline. They might be a comic book reader as much as a Shakespearean scholar, but, nonetheless, we expect them to read.

As with imagery, typography usually suggests an alternate meaning or cultural context for a brand identity. A typestyle that references classic print ads from the 1950s pushes a brand identity in a very different direction than one inspired by graffiti tags from the 1980s or today’s digital typography.

Typestyles always carry their own history, which often shades the meaning of what is being written. Brand identities built with typographic elements in concert with images may ask a bit more of the viewer than those built with images alone, but they can create deeper and more lasting memories. Some of the most effective campaigns and promotions rely on a headline and an image working together as a single unit. That’s why advertising firms often partner writers with designers.

  

Type can be manipulated to underscore or enhance meaning. For example, the idea of lost siblings is represented by deleting the second i in the Siblings word mark.

SHAPE

Many logos strive for a sense of balance or simplicity by employing a circle or square as their primary external shape. Like word shapes that are recognized before they are read, the overall shape of a logo becomes a recognizable identifier for a brand.

The shape of a logo can serve as a keystone—a visual building block for the rest of the brand.

  

What type of company is a circle? A square? A triangle? An egg shape? Shape, like color, makes an immediate impact. What shape will people remember about your brand?

11 Graphic patterns

As brand builders look for consistency in their programs, it can be very effective to build upon shapes from a graphic identity to create program elements. Shapes that echo the logo (squares for a square-ish logo or circles for a circular logo) can be used to create pattern or texture.

These elements not only are useful in making the look of the program more cohesive, but they also can make the brand more meaningful and memorable. Additive graphic elements not only echo the logo, but also suggest their own narrative. Graphic patterns can be an effective way to tie elements together.

Information is conveyed as program designers translate a graphic identity into physical spaces, allowing for layers of meaning to enrich the identity program. Consistent use of these shape elements will remind the viewer of the logo without being redundant.

  

Atmosphere and Kindo rely on memorable patterns that are immediately identifiable and help connect program elements.

12 Shape meaning

Shapes can convey meaning by echoing or suggesting brand promises. Simple treatments might suggest ease of product use, while patterns can project energy associated with a brand.

Product shapes often have a cultural context that suggests a previous generation or a different category altogether. Audiences see big and bold treatments as accessible, while small and understated graphics might suggest exclusivity.

Shapes can also echo the past or suggest the future. They can serve as a metaphor for meaning or a tool for use. Shapes can serve as reminders of everyday life and build on each other. We live with objects every day, and shapes can tell a story to enhance the meaning of a brand.

  

The EOS program looks like Easter eggs or candy, but the thumb impression suggests scale, portability, and use.

CONTRAST

The phrase “graphic identity” implies high contrast. A graphic identity has graphic form—it lives as an abstracted, simplified, high-contrast symbol of something. Strong graphic identities often use contrast to draw a comparison between two things. Usually that comparison begs a conversation, leading the viewer to wonder: Why is the weight of this letter different than that one? Why is this shape different than all the rest? And what does this all mean? Is it a joke? Does it suggest some deeper meaning? Does it imply variety, evolution, individuality?

Customers asking questions can be a good thing, letting them fill in the blanks and create a personal meaning. Brand builders can view contrast in composition as a tool and a choice—How much contrast? What kind? How will this help us stand out?

Positive/negative

  

The intentional juxtaposition of different elements—weight, color, typeface, and orientation—can enhance meaning or simply add interest.

Rotation

  

Mirror

  

14 Contrasting elements

Contrast is relative to the things around it. If you’re looking at a logo on a high-resolution backdrop (a piece of white paper), then it doesn’t need to be high contrast to be legible. In fact, if contrast is too high, even a sophisticated mark can look crude.

When applied as part of a brand program, the mark must contrast from its surroundings. This may seem obvious, but it can be a challenge in practice. In program application, contrast not only deals with graphic elements such as color and scale, but also substrate, ambient light, backlighting, reflection, texture, angle, translucency, movement, time, and interaction—just to name a few.

So, if someone says, “Make the logo bigger,” your solution could be to make it red, or make everything else gray, or put a tint behind everything else. Making a logo bigger is certainly one way it stands out, but it’s only one way to do so. After all, not everything can be big. Selecting what should be most noticeable—what will have the most contrast—is a strategic choice.

  

These programs use contrasting elements to focus the viewer’s attention.

15 Get different

Strong brands not only look different, but they also stand in contrast with the overall market landscape. Contrast in brand building begins with positioning, which should focus on points of true differentiation, and can be reflected through graphic style, program application, and meaning.

Differentiated brands are admired for their unique programs, but creating such a program starts with strategic choices that enable new experiences. Brands that are truly different stand out based on how they look, feel, and behave differently than the rest of the market. Brand builders look for opportunities to encourage organizations to distance themselves from others in the marketplace.

As the competition makes standing out harder, brand teams must dig deeper. Increasingly, differentiating a brand means looking for strategic blue oceans—new, uncontested markets ripe for growth. When others zig, try zagging.

DIMENSION

Should a logo stylized to look spherical actually become a sphere in signage? How should a logo be viewed from the side? Should a logo composed of three horizontal bars be interpreted as three rectangular blocks or three cylinders? Is this open for artistic interpretation or is there a correct manifestation of the symbol?

When venturing into this territory, a larger issue emerges quickly: whether a logo exists inherently as a symbol of a thing, or—if given the opportunity—as the thing itself. In our view, this answer is clear. A logo is a symbol. Making a logo into a piece of sculpture risks confusing its meaning as a symbol. On the other hand, other treatments may enhance readability and add interest.

Two-dimensional application methods such as paint or vinyl don’t change the meaning of a mark. Creating readable outdoor signage often involves making raised, cut out, or extruded shapes and letterforms. This can be a reliable technique, provided the substrate thickness enhances, rather than interferes with, the readability of the mark.

The Red 9 Sculpture for 9 West 57th street in NYC by Chermayeff and Geismar became an iconic way to bring typography to life.

  

The Listen logo offers a playful opportunity for outdoor seating.

17 Physical space

As brand programs make their way into physical spaces, they present creative ways to amplify brand attributes. Concepts suggested in the two-dimensional mark—translucency, shape, color and contrast—can be realized in sophisticated, surprising, and enlightened ways when they move into three-dimensional space.

Stores, showrooms, trade show booths, and other selling environments are excellent opportunities to create phyiscal brand experiences. So are lobbies and other customer spaces. Increasingly, office environments are seen as important brand investments for productivity, as well as talent attraction and rentention.

Well-executed programs demonstrate the personality or character of the brand through details of interior and exterior architecture, as well as signage. Pulling program elements into a physical space is a great way to build a brand beyond the logo. Many other factors, constraints, and opportunities come into play here including readability, material choices, scale, distance, proximity, mood, and wayfinding.

18 A sense of place

Like colors on an artist’s palette, program elements in a physical space mix together to paint a cohesive picture. This introduces an important opportunity for creating a compelling brand experience.

The most successful retail chains and product showrooms excel at creating meaningful, ownable brands within their commercial environments. Think about how materials, color, and space come together to deliver different customer experiences at a Starbucks as opposed to Victoria’s Secret or Ikea. How big is the front door? What color are the walls? How low is the ceiling? How wide are the aisles? How do I get around? How are the products arranged? How far is the exit? Where is the cashier?

When working to translate a brand into a physical environment, look for inspiration in any impactful space that leaves an impression: a five-star hotel, a garage, an art museum, a corporate lobby. What does it feel like? What does the space remind you of? What does it compel you to think or do? Good brand identities express a sense of place.

  

Physical spaces present an opportunity to envelop the customer in a brand experience. Consider the experience you are trying to create and whether the physical environment helps deliver it.

SYMBOLS

From flags of nations to religious icons to the classical elements (earth, water, air, fire, and ether) of ancient philosophies, symbols communicate big ideas in small packages. Brand builders recognize the power of symbols. As the world gets smaller and more interconnected, they are increasingly mindful of where that power comes from.

It’s impossible to divorce symbols from cultures. That’s why the same organization is known as the Red Cross Society in one part of the world and the Red Crescent Society in another. Launching a brand that spans cultures and relies on symbols requires research and diligence to ensure that the symbols mean what you intend them to mean, or have similar meaning in different parts of the world. Symbols inspired by nature present less risk because they are so universal, but also risk overly broad interpretation. Only so many organizations can use the Sun as a metaphor.

  

Symbol languages from the worlds of politics, entertainment, sports, or social memes might layer meaning onto a brand that builds upon a symbol from various subcultures.

20 Symbol systems

Many brand programs integrate a system of icons, often drawing on the brand identity as a foundation or touchstone for a symbol vocabulary. Extending a brand in this way adds to the brand meaning with specific functions or messages.

We learn a street-sign symbol language when we learn to drive a car or navigate a city. We become familiar with new sports icons with each Olympic Games. In a corporate literature system or website, one symbol might suggest sales collateral while another suggests training materials.

Symbols should be clear, but often they assume some user learning. Switching to a new operating system can be disorienting, almost like learning a new language. When used carefully, a symbol vocabulary will become familiar to your audience and immediate recall will increase. Your tribe will understand your language. A recognizable symbol library can create a unique visual language for a brand.

21 Brands as symbols

The most memorable brands today tend to symbolize something in a culture beyond the specific, pragmatic offer. Some brands have risen to the level of becoming cultural icons. Many brand builders aspire to this level of ubiquity.

When people buy shirts prominently displaying the logo of a shoe company, get a tattoo of a computer company logo, or write a song about a car company, you know these brands symbolize something beyond shoes, computers, or cars. This may seem more obvious in today’s brand landscape, but 100 years ago, no one was buying jewelry with the name of a shoe company on it.

When a brand authentically connects itself to an idea that resonates with audiences—health, education, or community—the brand symbolizes more than a business value proposition. Brands that are as much about belonging as they are about buying tend to build the greatest value over time. Brand builders should be cognizant and respectful of symbolic brand power.

  

Some people display their allegiance with a brand as an expression of their personal identity.

Photos: Jordan Piepkow, Terry Johnston, Dean VanDis Photography

VOICE

An organization’s name establishes its most overt identity and provides excellent raw material for a strong brand.

An average name won’t completely limit the prospects for a brand. When paired with a clear graphic device, names that suggest something beyond their literal meanings create some of the most evocative brand identities. An organization with a great name is an obvious candidate for a word mark. It may make sense to show off the name, keeping any embellishment subordinate rather than layering in meaning with additional graphic elements. A clear, strong name and straightforward type treatment wields surprising power.

Increasingly, organizations are choosing to emphasize separate taglines to help carve out their identity and enhance their positioning. Successful taglines often play off the name, augmenting its meaning. Rebranding initiatives often employ a new tagline when reshaping an organization’s identity is the goal, but changing the name is not an option.

  

These names say a lot and make you want to learn more.

23 Editorial style

Product and service names, taglines, headlines, body copy, captions, and sidebars add up to a sense of brand and its style. Successful identity programs use a consistent editorial style that addresses their intended audience and remains cognizant of their brand positioning.

Just as a graphic identity sets a visual tone for brand programs, names and taglines set the tone for an editorial style. A name that underscores an organization’s solid foundation of dependability might lead more naturally into an editorial style that echoes themes of tradition, stability, and trust. On the other hand, an irreverent name or tagline builds an expectation for fun and playfulness in the minds of readers, which should be played out in the editorial style. Word choice, syntax, sentence length, metaphor, and what is left in or out all contribute to brand perception.

Details strengthen identity programs, but programs too often fail to define and pursue an appropriate editorial style across all program literature. If a company could swap out its competitor’s website copy for its own without the audience noticing the change, that company has missed an opportunity to differentiate itself.

24 Brand voice

An organization’s name, tagline, and editorial style add up to an overall reflection of its brand identity—its voice. As these elements are being developed, consider how the words would sound in the mouth of a brand spokesperson.

If your brand was a person, what would they sound like? Are they loud and boistrous or quiet and shy? Are they funny? Educational? What do they say? It’s an easy way to personalize the brand voice, and whether or not you use a spokesperson, successful brands have a deliberate voice.

As with all other aspects of brand positioning, when developing a brand voice, look for a different path than the one followed by the competition. If the voice of a brand’s top competitor sounds polished, you might consider adopting a friendly, approachable voice.

CONSISTENCY

Once you establish a base, every move away from that base calls attention to itself. Being noticeable means being different, but if everything is different, nothing stands out. A consistent foundation allows for effective highlight, clever uses, and creativity.

More organizations seek variety in their programs. So, don’t be boring! Indeed, too much sameness is a risk. Brand flexibility is desirable and possible as long as the foundation is consistent—and consistently recognizable to its intended audience. Changing things up offers new interest, but too many signals make noise.

A full spectrum of attributes spans the chasm between boredom and chaos. In one direction is rhythm, in the other, melody. Like music, good design balances order and variation to make a beautiful composition.

26 Flexible systems

Brand builders should plan for flexibility. Brand systems should intentionally balance order and variation, but also consider these questions: Which parts? How much flexibility? What are the boundaries? What are the rules?

The goal of rolling out a consistent program is to strengthen an organization’s brand identity and make it more recognizable. A brand should be represented in a recognizable way across all media and under different constraints—and resist temptations to vary it.

On the other hand, effective identity programs keep things fresh and human. Brand applications should not just accommodate variations, they should also carefully orchestrate where variations take place. Too often, organizations scrap brand programs because they don’t include enough built-in variation.

Maintaining the right amount of consistency through implementation is a challenging aspect of branding. Nothing is more forgettable than a program without any surprise. What do you want your audience to see and remember? As a brand builder, your goal is to define, communicate, monitor, and continually fine-tune a flexible system that can bend without breaking.

  

Consistency and exactness are not necessarily synonymous. UICA and Daub & Bauble have both consistency and built-in flexibility.

27 Staying on brand

Brands are promises, and keeping promises means being consistent. In many cases, the commitment of a brand stems from the values of an organization’s founders. The idea of keeping the brand promise needs to become institutionalized and socialized throughout a company. Not only do the members of an organization need to understand the promise, but also its customers.

It can be easier to spot anomalies that define boundaries. We have no problem noticing someone acting out of character, but we have a harder time describing their overall nature. Likewise, identifying brand inconsistency usually comes more easily than recognizing brand consistency. That’s why corporate missteps can create public relations nightmares.

Some people don’t like surprises; others can’t get enough. Similarly, surprise plays a major role in some brand programs, while others do not tolerate much of it. You may not wish to find a surprise on your bank statement, but you’d be disappointed if you didn’t have a few in a fashion magazine. Some people are always on time; others are the life of the party.

Successful brands build toward a personal relationship with customers. Knowing what is appropriate for a brand is to understand its character. Because a brand is a living perception in the mind of your customer, brand builders create rules of thumb and use careful judgment.

STORY

Like the cover of a novel, logos are the tip of the iceberg, and what customers see first. A graphic identity can set the stage for a brand, suggesting the essence of the story contained therein. The logo is only the beginning of the story, and just like a good book jacket, good logos communicate the story without giving away the ending.

There is never a second chance to make a first impression, so brand builders think ahead. Aesthetic choices work together to suggest meaning, the setting, and what to expect. Initial brand elements work like a movie trailer—what will entice customers to pay for a ticket?

29 Consider each scene

Brand programs are all about context. If a graphic identity is the cover of a book, program elements are the chapters. The first experience with an identity program provides the exposition. As an audience experiences a brand’s pace, consider the sequence, length, and character of each chapter in the story.

Consider the where and how of use. Each scene offers evidence for customers that you are living up to your promise. As a brand builder, each chapter is an opportunity. Is a sign near the bathroom an opportunity for humor, a reminder of basic hygiene, or both? Is a website intended to surprise or comfort? If there’s a television in a lobby broadcasting the news, which channel is it on? What do I walk away with as a gift?

Each customer interation is a part of your story. Every place a brand is expressed reveals an opportunity to build or extend a narrative.

  

Every part of your experience with Café La Nacional feels considered, adding a sense of delight.

30 Brand narratives

From religious parables to folk songs to business case studies, stories are how we understand the world. They also serve as a vehicle for communicating complex ideas in a digestible way. Brand builders should consider what story they’re trying to tell. If they don’t, customers will fill in the blanks.

Brands are promises, and every promise naturally sets a plot in motion: will the promise be broken? It goes without saying that a brand should keep its promises, but that is easier said than done. Promises are the moral of the brand story—why the “story” was written and what it means to the customer.

Companies with memorable brands not only craft stories that are worth telling, they also live out the morals of their brand stories every day. In today’s world, with transparent social media, companies are beginning to embrace technology to allow customers and employees to help shape their stories.

Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. We expect heros, challenges, and a purpose. Savvy brand builders recognize that the customer—not the company—is the hero of the brand story.

TIME

Empowered by connected mobile devices, today's customers expect each moment to count. Google encourages brand builders to consider “micro-moments”—small interactions that lead to making decisions about products and services. Customers want to know: Where is the store? When are they open? Which products do they carry? What’s in stock? What’s the price? What’s on sale? How long will it take me to get there? What’s the return policy? Each of these movements can make or break a brand experience, encouraging customers to buy or go elsewhere.

Consider each interaction as a specific exchange of value with your customer. Design each customer interaction with intentionality. Before a customer gives you money, you have to earn their time. Pixar, one of the world’s most successful movie studios, reportedly invests 6.7 person-years per minute of a film. Not all brands need to exist in Hollywood, but as a brand builder, your job is to make each moment matter.

32 Total time

People want to feel like they are in control. The perception of control is often related to a person’s understanding of where they are in a process and their ability to effect change.

The total time invested in a transaction is an essential consideration for any purchase. Busy customers ask themselves: How long will this take? How much is left? Can I come back later? Will I lose my place? The Amazon checkout process and FedEx status updates have shaped customer expectations in all segments.

Today, digital processes are replacing bank tellers, gasoline attendants, grocery clerks, and, soon, fast-food cashiers. Customers are doing the data entry. Does it take less time? Perhaps not, but you won’t notice. You’re too busy working. Perceived time isn’t always the same as real time.

Brand builders consider how to communicate these dynamics to customers. What’s the big picture? What choices do they have? Next, offer feedback. Is there a progress bar? Will they receive a text notification? Then, what can they do to slow down, change direction, hit pause, or cancel altogether? Brand experiences should not only give users a sense of their overall time investment, but how to change their minds during the process if they feel as if they are wasting their time.

33 Opportunity cost

Brand building is about affecting customer choice. The science behind how people make decisions has become popular among marketing strategists, who dive into the deep pools of behavioral economics and motivation theory. There is plenty of good literature on the subject worthy of study. For brand builders, it’s important to know the basics.

Initially, customers engage with emotional triggers like color, shape, image, tone, and they form first impressions. Later, people begin to ask themselves: How am I going spend my time? Compared to what? If a customer makes a decision to choose your brand, they are making an implicit decision to not choose another brand. The cost of a choice is known as the opportunity cost. What a customer might’ve done if they had chosen differently can weigh heavily on a buyer. A sense of regret can emerge known as buyer’s remorse. If time is money, how customers spend their time is as important as a purchase.

Behavioral theory offers many levers for considering how people make choices, from anchoring (how a first idea can frame what follows), loss aversion (how people tend to value losses over gains), sunk costs (how people don’t want to lose what has already been invested), and many more. You don’t need to be a scientist to recognize the significance for brand builders. To build effective brand programs, consider how customers think about spending time and making choices.

Essential Decisions

Just below the waterline are decisions that inform creative expression but require a broader reflection of a brand personality. Often, these traits are identified indirectly. For example, it can be easier to describe the character of what you’ve done after the fact. Brand builders strive to be proactive in making these essential decisions to inform the creative process. Staying ahead is not easy because the path is not always straight. However, a better understanding of brand themes and approaches will enable creativity and make editing easier.

  

Spotify

Collins

PSYCHOLOGY

WIT

TRENDS

MEDIA

PERSONALIZATION

PROCESS

PROTOTYPING

MULTIPLES

STANDARDS

INVESTMENTS

OWNERSHIP

PSYCHOLOGY

Brands and the organizations they represent need to reflect the values, demographics, and psychology of their intended audience. Many essential elements of a graphic identity—shape, color, and pattern—mean different things to different audiences. Understanding people’s needs and desires through research and rapid prototyping is one way of evaluating aesthetic treatments for an identity. Can you test the appeal and connotation of a red logo in South Korea versus Western Europe? Is Hello Kitty popular among your target audience? What ideas are being adopted from another culture?

You can never know too much about your customer, their motives, and their beliefs. Understanding users and the context of use informs brand development to deliver the desired effect.

  

Brands are competing to be loved by customers.

35 Deliver an experience

Brand perception is shaped as a customer interacts with an organization over time. The overall experience is made up of many smaller interactions. Each moment can have a visceral and immediate effect.

As you enter a retail store, do you pass through glass doors? Do the interior graphics entice you to look up or down? Does the space remind you of your garage or kitchen?

Do the photos in a brochure encourage close examination or a cursory glance? Does the text make you want to read it twice? Does the printed piece look like a phone book or a work of art?

The application of program elements can be a powerful way of amplifying the psychological effect of the brand. We forget the everyday and platitudes, but we remember experiences.

PopTech!

Collins

36 Brand psychology

The world’s most memorable brands tend to distinguish themselves in the connotation—not just the denotation—of the value proposition. Brand builders strive to create just the right meaning for the brand in the mind of its target audience. Success in this endeavor is rare and precious.

While the idea of corporate reputation is nothing new among public relations and marketing professionals, linking diverse brand initiatives across media for a cumulative psychological effect on target audiences is the complicated work of brand building today. It starts and ends with what people think—or, more accurately, what a brand can inspire people to think.

The psychology of brands overlaps how people think about themselves as individuals and in groups. Brands are an aspiration to people. Customers ask themselves: am I the kind of person who does that kind of thing? Brands are a choice made consciously and by default. They are an expression of identity and intention.

WIT

  

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37 A reason to smile

As with art, literature, and life, some of the most memorable work done in the area of brand design gives people a reason to smile. While comical logos can easily go too far—you don’t want the organization to be perceived as a joke—a clever, witty brand can rise above the rest.

Humor is hard—just ask any comedian. Being funny often means being insightful and expressing a point of view. Comedy often walks the line between taste, timing, and cultural acceptance. Brands that remain relevant get it right.

As with the best comedy, context and timing is everything. Knowing your audience will give you clues as to what will make them smile. Laughing is a natural, emotional, involuntary reaction to what often is clever, new, and different—all desirable attributes for a brand.

  

  

  

  

The Mob Museum

Wall-to-Wall Studios

Airbnb Brooklyn

Collins

  

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38 Fun with programs

Even if your brand identity has good reason not to attempt to be funny, there may be plenty of room for wit in program design. Programs are all about context. Given the right time and place, humor can be a strong ally.

Funny programs come with the benefit of rolling out over time. Brand builders can allow customers to be in on the joke and anticipate the next one. An open-ended approach can extend, adapt, and grow, creating an audience and fan base for a brand.

The degree of humor in a program can vary depending on the campaign, the time frame, or the medium. A witty headline, image, or movie functions like an icebreaker at a meeting. It can loosen things up, prepping the audience for a more serious engagement. Programs often have the luxury of being transitory, so they can employ humor without cracking the bedrock of the brand standards.

  

Georgetown Optician makes a playful twist on an old standard.

39 Stay human

A key driver guiding how to inject wit into a brand is having a sense of appropriateness. Not all organizations should try to pull off a wacky name or logo, but not taking yourself too seriously is always a measure of humanity.

Like people, brands with a sense of humor are nice to be around. In addition to providing simple entertainment, wit can be clever and insightful. It can show an audience that there are real people behind the work.

With new media, moving brands into personal spaces and revealing the human side of an organization has never been more important. Wit can provide a pathway for lasting, deep, and personal relationships between companies and their customers. Brand builders remember that brands are for people—with all their mistakes, aspirations, and hope.

TRENDS

New companies have the luxury of starting with a blank piece of paper, crafting from scratch an identity that reflects current sensibilities, from typefaces to colors. This can infleunce organizations with a longer history to update an established graphic identity to appear more current.

Keep in mind that trends come from trendsetters. Would you rather be Nike or one of the countless other companies that felt compelled to add a swoosh to their logos afterward? Because trends can be fleeting, copying a trendsetter may be ill advised—unless being a fast follower is part of an organization’s explicit strategy. Brand builders watch trends, acknowledge their influence, and chart a compelling course.

Curves

  

Spectrum

  

Rhythm

  

Designers don’t work in a bubble, so the influence of trends on graphic design can’t be completely avoided.

Brackets

  

Spirograph

  

Concentric

  

41 Relevant programs

Since brand programs change with some frequency, they can reflect popular culture more easily than logos. It’s generally not a good idea to change either one too frequently, but refreshed graphics, colors, and other program elements can keep an identity program relevant.

People make snap judgments about the relevancy of a product or service simply by the way it looks. A brand that looks old may be taken as irrelevant—even if the company is not.

Seasonal or market trends penetrate a culture in a noticeable way, and their influence can be important to some organizations. Allowing a program the flexibility to react to seasonal or market trends starts with a clear understanding of what remains constant about the organization’s brand identity. Following trends too closely might diminish what you’ve built. Being recognizable and unique usually delivers greater brand equity than being trendy.

Fashion-oriented brands that explicitly focus on trends are an exception, but these organizations are also more likely to be trendsetters, rather than followers.

2FRESH LLC

2FRESH

Dropbox

Collins

42 Macro trends

Brand builders do their work in a big, diverse world, informed by macro trends in business and lifestyles. Technology innovation, globalization, and climate change are reshaping the landscape in nearly all categories.

Opportunities afforded by new technology are disrupting business, from consumer products to banking to transportation. These changes have decimated some organizations and given rise to others. Brand builders are challenged to keep up with new ways of working and expressing value propositions. Whether as a direct impact on the work (such as fast-changing disciplines focused on user interface design for digital experiences) or as a side effect of market shifts (causing brands to evolve to remain competitive), technology change is an unavoidable new reality.

The largest organizations are global, creating complex challenges for brand builders. In addition to working across different cultures, languages, and time zones, brand programs are balancing what decisions are centralized. Globalization and localization strategies make brand programs even more important and complicated to implement. Smaller organizations that operate on a more regional scale may dodge some of these complexities, even though their customers and suppliers may not.

All living brands react to macro trends—and no reaction is a type of reaction. The most effective brands leverage these changes into meaningful value propositions and experiences.

  

Macro trends including globalization, technology, and sustainability influence all work today.

MEDIA

Websites and web applications are fast-growing ways to reach and engage customers, giving rise to maturing screen-based and experience-focused design disciplines. Graphic and product design paradigms still apply, but now brand builders need to consider user interface design (UI), user experience design (UX), interaction design (IxD), sound design, motion design, and so forth. These emerging labels aim to describe the character of new opportunities and activities in the brand building landscape.

Looking ahead, virtual and augmented reality, robotics and artificial intelligence, 3D printing, smart and connected products, and host of yet unnamed categories promises to shift the category even more. Brand builders keep their eyes open for new opportunities while remaining focused on the fundamentals of branding.

44 The right channel

New production techniques have thrown the doors wide open for brand programs. From wrapped buildings and vehicles to backlit projections and temporary tattoos, opportunities for creative surface treatments for identities abound.

Brand builders recognize that the palette for brand expression goes beyond paper, products, and pixels. Brand experiences include touchpoints in surprising locations, whole environments, and previously unexplored surfaces.

Even with new techniques, basic design principles remain constant. The goal remains to evolve a distinctive identity into an effective program. Identity programs have constraints based on audience appropriateness and strategic alignment with brand objectives. Be informed and inspired by new production options for identity programs as they arise, but don’t be too driven by them.

45 Medium is the message

At the highest level, design is the creation or assembly of elements into a cohesive, meaningful order. The emergence of new elements creates opportunities for new meaning—and a source of innovation.

The media landscape inevitably shapes brands while innovative firms and designers leverage new techniques—often to solve old problems in new and different ways. Mid-century design icons Charles and Ray Eames capitalized on the then emerging technique of molding plywood in their furniture designs for Herman Miller. While molded plywood wasn’t the core problem, it presented an opportunity to catapult the Herman Miller brand into the modern furniture landscape—leaving it forever changed.

New production techniques influence brands in small ways all the time. Design with end-production methods in mind, but keep an eye out for advances in order to take full advantage of them.

What will be the molded-plywood material of 2050? As media theorist Marshall McLuhan noted, “the medium is the message,” or as he came to prefer, “the medium is the massage.” The surface itself is a story.

PERSONALIZATION

In an era of technology-enabled mass customization, consumers increasingly expect to put their fingerprints on the things they buy and the brands they desire. From manufacturing to information technology to health and wellness, personalization has become the new paradigm.

We do not yet understand the impact of these changes on policy or privacy, but brand builders will need to weigh what role customization plays in their brand programs going forward. Social media offers new ways of connecting with customers, who will expect brands to adapt to each platform.

  

The social media landscape creates many transparent connections between brands, customers, and everyone else.

Photos: Jeremy Frechette, Dean Van Dis Photography

  

New social platforms allow for deep personalization, creating an expectation for brands to offer the same.

47 Bend without breaking

Strong brand programs provide for variation from the start, but the larger trend of customer or user personalization tests the traditional boundaries of consistency.

An expectation of variety has combined with the ready availability of digital publishing tools to shift emphasis away from the hard rules of conformity one might have found in an identity standards manual a few years ago. In this landscape, the rules loosen as customization and personalization become possible in identity programs. The sort of litmus test for appropriateness you might find in a brand bible might provide all the order a program needs.

Customization and personalization are powerful tools, but they can erode brand recall if used haphazardly. Brand builders are increasingly challenged to define new kinds of rules for use as well as application. In an increasingly noisy and competitive landscape, successful brand programs will need to define the boundaries carefully.

48 Customers own the brand

As personalization moves from luxury to expectation, it will no longer serve as a brand differentiator. Leaders in the brand identity space will need to consider the role personalization plays.

It’s not likely that all aspects of a customer’s experience will need to enable personalization. Careful consideration of the customer needs and the brand promise will help define the hallmarks of the brand identity. Whether personalization plays a prominent or secondary role is a strategic choice made by brand managers. As with programs, an understanding of the brand identity foundation will help determine how design can best help express a value proposition.

One thing is certain: consumers like personalization and they’re not giving it back. Customers are ready for their selfie and want to select a filter. One-size-fits-all solutions will no longer hold up for brands looking to take the lead in their respective markets.

  

In this GVSU program, the students are the story.

PROCESS

While the time line can feel unpredictable, experienced designers learn to trust a creative process. Generally, this process starts with an understanding of the vision and context for the project. What defines success? Next, it draws upon ideation techniques taught in design school: research, goal-oriented creative briefs, prototyping, and other innovation methods. Testing and refinement follow.

Generating a lot of ideas throughout the process can be a good way to arrive at a solution; but volume, alone, does not guarantee quality. A lot of ideas from several people can increase the odds of coming up with a good one. Editing your ideas is the next essential step for creating an effective brand.

50 Develop good filters

Creating a strong brand program means understanding its context: Where does the identity need to manifest itself? Who is using it and why? Context determines constraints, business objectives, and program elements, which provide valuable input for prototyping. Having a lot of options is the first step. Deciding which ones to refine happens next.

Developing project filters will help define a path for success, enabling project teams to select ideas with the most promise. Brand builders aim to guide the process, allowing for forward movement.

Prototyping plays a key role in the program development process. Visualizing potential solutions and making connections and decisions can be a useful way to evaluate the effectiveness of possible directions. The goal is to fail fast, keep moving forward, and let constraints be guardrails as you learn through evaluation and testing.

51 Support the strategy

Customers identify a brand by its artifacts and its actions. It makes sense, then, that the process of brand building typically begins with an exploration of the most visible artifacts, but it quickly goes much deeper.

Brand building warrants honest, strategic business conversations about an organization’s value proposition and positioning. The strategic design process aims to address these issues directly. A solid business strategy will result in a brand that best supports organizational goals.

Strategic design often involves redefining the problem in order to create innovative solutions. Looking at a problem through a new lens is an important skill for brand builders.

Once a business foundation is in place, other important human factors play a role in the brand identity, including the character of the company, its audiences, and the marketplace. Through the iterative process, brand builders often land on a better understanding of the meaning and values of the brand.

  

The POP program reframes and repackages the Interface offer.

PROTOTYPING

Not all making is the same. Rough or low-resolution prototypes are simpler, quicker, and can be made or changed at a low cost. You don’t need to be a craftsperson to create a low-resolution prototype—stick figures on a whiteboard will do. Because they are unfinished, people fill the gaps with their imagination, inviting reviewers to debate possible ways of implementation. Low-resolution prototypes invite collaboration.

Conversely, high-resolution prototypes do require specialists—illustrators, engineers, model makers, fabricators, technicians. High-resolution prototypes are useful for refinement and quality assurance. Because they feel nearly finished, they don’t invite as much feedback, since all the critical decisions appear to have been made. Significant changes to high-res prototypes cost more time and money.

Brand builders understand the value of prototyping and how it works in the creative process. Start prototyping early, and manage prototype resolution so teams can collaborate to make big changes early.

53 Failing is learning

Making helps the creator think, but prototypes also allow for others to play a role in the creative process.

Think of a prototype as a “boundary object.” In sociology, boundary objects are things used by different people with enough inherent meaning that it serves to communicate core ideas. In a collaborative discussion, a boundary object allows for various team members to focus their attention on a concrete potential solution.

Discussing prototypes (potential solutions) in a collaborative setting invites variation and experimentation. Creating several different solutions allows comparison and contrast, and often leads to more options using different variables. Building many prototypes and evolving them is an inherent and valuable part of the process.

Involving users is an invaluable way to leverage prototype iterations. Creating multiple prototypes can allow for focused research to resolve controversial issues, conduct A/B testing, or discover overall themes easily missed by project teams.

  

Website evaluations today can include cursor tracking and heat maps.

  

Evaluating a lot of alternatives encourages group collaboration and can lead to better solutions.

54 Prototype iteration

Too often, success-oriented managers mistakenly think that “failure is not an option.” Experienced leaders understand that failure is a given. No idea or prototype is perfect at the outset, and we not only must plan for failure, but also appreciate its value.

Educators understand that failing is learning. If a student performs all the time perfectly, they aren’t being challenged and aren’t learning. The concept of “flow”—when people are working most productively—is described as the space between frustration and boredom. If the problem is too easy, we’re bored; if it’s too hard, we’re frustrated. The same idea holds true for creating prototypes. If we test a prototype and it yields almost no feedback, perhaps it’s too easy. We should’ve asked harder questions. If it fails completely, we’re way off base and may have to go back to the whiteboard.

Software engineers who advocate agile development practices know this lesson well, creating detailed processes for making and remaking products so they work well. So do Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who advocate not falling in love with a business plan and getting to “Plan B.” They recognize that failure is a signal of experimentation and progress.

You want to succeed more than you fail, but to err is human. For brand builders, aim to build a system that can be adaptive rather than perfect.

  

Agile software-development process mirrors creative prototyping. The goal is to learn from each prototype iteration.

Photos: OST Technologies, Peopledesign

MULTIPLES

A logo traffic jam is a trend best avoided. As more and more entities team up to produce products and provide services, however, these relationships may need to be expressed in the mark. The same careful considerations that inform the development of individual marks can help you make multiple logos look good together.

Technology brands have become primary case studies for ingredient branding: a brand, powered by another brand. Ingredient brands have a right to enforce their program identity standards on the companies that use their ingredients. A well-executed program finds a way for ingredient logos to add to the program identity. Often, the ingredient brands lend credibility, like medals on a general’s uniform.

Identify the hierarchy among any group of logos used in concert. Which is dominant? Which is subordinate? Are they the same? It’s not a graphic question, it’s a communication question—what is the intended meaning? The graphic identity should express the intent.

56 Brand layer cake

Brand programs, campaigns, products, services, and companies never exist in isolation. Brand builders are cognizant of the relationships brands have to their context and make deliberate choices about implementation.

Strong programs have clear hierarchical treatments. Making two or more brands work together in a program often requires rules for maintaining the hierarchy of the relationships. One mark usually leads and the others represent ingredient brands or product brands that are subordinate. Once the hierarchy standard has been defined, then determine the program pattern.

Too often, product managers and communications professionals launch a specific project and overlook the relationships between parent or company brands. All products or programs exist in the context of the organization behind it. Not every project has to be a rebrand, but every project is an expression of the overall brand.

57 Managing multiple brands

The question of how multiple brands might peacefully coexist has become a more common issue. Keeping it simple for customers should be the guiding principle. Companies often create logos for things that may or may not even warrant their own identity. How committed is an organization to each new branded program?

The first choice is whether or not a company needs multiple brands. A good rule of thumb: don’t build another brand until you have to. More brands mean more money.

If an organization establishes multiple overlapping brands, the question of whether the organization should become a branded house or remain behind the scenes as a house of brands needs to be considered. Very few companies actually have the resources to create a house of brands. Well-known consumer packaged goods brands often take this approach, but unless you have a billion- dollar product brand, brand builders may be wise to keep it more simple.

Brands are expensive to build and maintain properly. In general, fewer is better. Ultimately, companies that are deliberate about their brand strategy and stay the course will win out in the end.

Branded House

Peopledesign

Too big to fail.

Photos: Jeremy Frechette

House of Brands

Peopledesign

If you think it’s hard to run a country, try the United Nations.

STANDARDS

It isn’t any arrow; it is this arrow. It isn’t any serif typeface; it is Bodoni. Anything less adds up to something that is not your ownable brand.

A thorough set of logo specifications should cover the precise drawing of a logo, the position of elements, spacing, color, and proximity to other elements. Attention to detail here can add to an overall sense of quality and craft and set a tone for the overall program. In your documentation, focus on clarity and simplicity—the goals are effective communication and high-quality results.

59 Application rules

Creating and following application rules are essential for ensuring program consistency. Documenting application guidelines allows for it to be done by more than one person.

Brand builders and their suppliers make decisions on a daily basis about how brand standards are applied. If brand specifications are written clearly and designed well, and if they are presented positively and enthusiastically, most partners will see them as a burden lifted rather than a new one added.

Articulating these ideas amounts to more than self-exploration. Documenting a brand this way also allows you to share a record of your decision-making process—and the wisdom behind it. This record can build in room for variation, while protecting against compromising the integrity of the program. It establishes rules, guidelines, dos, and don’ts. On the whole, brand builders see greater adoption of their programs if they focus more on possibilities than limitations.

60 Brand bibles

When some people think “bible,” they think rule book. Others think of it as a book of inspiration. Most people who read it tend to find a little of both.

Imagine these two modes—rules and inspiration—separated into two different books. That’s what most organizations do when they want to document their brand. Brand guidelines contain the dos and don’ts of a brand. Brand bibles capture the brand’s spirit and promise.

Brand bibles trace their roots back to the engaging annual reports companies began producing in the 1970s. At that time, well-known designers helped companies seize an opportunity presented by their mandatory annual financial reports. If done well, these documents could communicate something to stockholders beyond earnings. Designers helped create a brand narrative for investors and beyond. For leaders, the very excercise of having to tell their story became beneficial for strategic planning.

Years later, as companies moved their financials online, a new generation of brand builders encouraged companies to continue publishing the narrative part of their annual reports for internal use. The brand bible was born. Since companies no longer have to refresh their brand story in annual reports, brand bibles became more vital.

INVESTMENTS

Logos are a touchstone for the brand industry because they are among the most tangible artifacts produced. Today, anyone with a computer and internet access can create a kind of graphic identity—and many try. Thanks to clip art, online logo generators, and business models based on crowdsourcing, logos are abundant and cheap. However, when it comes to a free logo maker, you often get what you pay for.

Organizations typically spend a lot of money on brand programs. The most cost-efficient programs are built or a solid foundation. In fact, the motive for reinvention late in the production cycle is often due to a lack of depth in the initial solution. Brand builders can help save money over the long run by investing more up front.

  

The Nike logo was reportedly designed for US $35 in 1976. This is a pretty unusual circumstance, and you could say that they were very lucky. In any case, Nike has paid millions in refinement and implementation.

Google search results

  

The Micheline program didn’t come from a free template.

Micheline

Anagrama

62 Economy of templates

Brand builders invest where it makes sense—strategic foundations and creative direction. Meanwhile, new economical solutions are enabling teams to execute in efficient ways.

Defining program elements, and understanding how a brand should be manifested in its application, can lead to efficiencies. Create artifacts worth having, but look for ways to reduce cost by planning ahead to avoid reinventing the wheel.

The online marketplace of templates for mock-ups, prototypes, websites, and more, has exploded in recent years. This trend will only increase in the years to come. Savvy brand builders leverage what they can, being mindful of where to invest. Not everything can be cheap or the brand will feel that way, too. Templates can make easy problems easier, but they will not solve harder problems.

  

Pretty good, inexpensive mock-up templates are in abundance these days, which means everyone can—and will—use then.

Free mock-up templates

63 Walk the talk

Whether an organization invests up front or gets away with a cheap logo and carelessly slaps it on everything possible, a strong brand is hard to fake. Customers know the difference.

Strong brands tap into what an organization does, how it behaves, or who it is—or is trying to become. All the elements should add up to a coherent whole. This takes work, practice, expertise, trial and error, and perseverance.

Everyone understands the importance of being frugal. Whether an investment is advisable or wasteful changes by audience or market. What remains constant is the need for organizations to have a sense of self as they make financial and operational decisions about their brand. A company’s actions must match its words. If they don’t, every dollar spent to communicate its brand promise has been wasted. Brand builders champion wise investments, make clear messages, and take decisive action.

  

Don’t say you have unparalleled resources and a global perspective unless you do. Of course, it’s very likely that Harvard does, but beware of hyperbole.

OWNERSHIP

Just like names and taglines, the law recognizes a company’s logo as its intellectual property. Of course, a good designer wouldn’t intentionally create a logo that looked like an existing mark (especially in the same category or industry). However, so many logos have been developed in the last several decades that finding common, universally understood shapes or cultural icons that haven’t already been used can be difficult. Widespread access to new internet search tools including Google Images makes it even more obvious how much similar work is being done.

Beginning your identity projects with research may make it harder to finish the work, but research must be included at some point in your design process. Better to start early and know the competitive landscape than find out too late that your idea is too similar to one that already exists and is not protectable.

  

It didn’t take long for Peopledesign to realize that their Pulse Roller mark looked a lot like the soon-to-be launched Beats logo. Thankfully, from an intellectual property standpoint, Pulse does not compete with Beats.

65 Iconic value

As logos become more and more ubiquitous—and as competition gets stiffer and stiffer—the need to develop brand programs that help differentiate organizations from their competitors increases in significance.

The first step is creating a mark that’s completely yours, but that’s only the first step. The next step challenges you to think about how to apply that mark in ways that add up to a unique and protectable program, one that echoes the brand promise and speaks to the intended audience in a way that others have not.

In legal terms, protecting the overall look and feel of an identity program may fall under trade dress. The placement of the mark, the color, the shape of product packaging: All of the things that create the overall look and feel of a brand in the marketplace could be protectable.

Trade dress is difficult to protect. For some types of trade dress, you need to prove that the consumer really believes that the trade dress is a source indicator for you—that your company is the source of that product or package. Only once a company proves that its package or program has achieved distinctiveness can it be protected as trade dress.

  

The well-known silhouettes of a Coke bottle and several Herman Miller products have trade dress protection.

66 Own an aesthetic

Beyond protecting a brand in a legal sense, attempting to “own” a meaningful space in the mind of your customer is the brand builder’s objective. Being proactive in protecting brand assets to keep a company sharp and competitors at bay might win the battle, but not the war.

As you build your brand program, starting with essential tools, explore essential brand decisions—brand psychology and wit, process and production, trends and media, multiples and documentation, investments and ownership. All these choices add up to an elusive and covetable goal—owning an aesthetic. Creating a recognizable and differentiated brand in the mind of your customer is the net objective of making these decisions.

The most covetable and valuable brands in the world have built their reputation over time, deciding how to use each element, adapting and course correcting, creating a brand image that stands out and we remember. Strong brands unapologetically own their aesthetic and customers reward their efforts.

Essential Strategies

The foundational elements of brand building can be the most elusive, but they are perhaps the most important. These essential strategies change the least and enable other work. Brand builders seek answers to these hard questions first. Going deeper and getting to the core philosophy takes longer, but pays off over the long term because understanding the motives behind customer decision making creates a firm foundation. The most cohesive brands last.

CHANGE

COMPETITION

ORIGINALITY

POSITIONING

USERS

RESEARCH

COMMITMENT

TOUCHPOINTS

SYSTEMS

INSPIRATION

PURPOSE

Tarot Cards of Tech

Artefact

CHANGE

67 Logo life cycles

Times change, people change, and organizations sometimes change right along with them.

Why do some logos seem to age well, while others do not? AT&T, UPS, and Burger King have all updated their graphic identities in recent years, while Volkswagen, CBS, and the Olympic Games have not.

Certain graphic elements age better than others. Companies pin the fate of their illustrative logos on the longevity of the particular drawing style they choose. Typefaces are increasingly susceptible to looking dated, which may account for some degree of graphic-identity reinvention. Like hairstyles and clothing, certain graphic embellishments go out of fashion as quickly as they come into favor.

Simple, bold, easily identifiable marks possess a timeless quality. What plausible reason could Volkswagen give for changing its classic logo? The company’s current mark could easily outlive the updated marks of AT&T and UPS. If it does, which will build the most equity in the mind of customers over time?

When developing a graphic identity, consider the life cycle of the mark. Don’t let it paralyze decision making or push you toward solutions that may prove to be too conservative, but ask yourself, can we live with this logo for the next fifty years?

Before/After

Before/After

Before/After

Evolving a graphic identity can involve a complete redo, or minor refinements to help keep brands feeling current.

Before/After

Before/After

Before/After

68 Evolve with customers

Some markets rely on a sense of stability and consistency. Others thrive on change. You might not expect a law firm or bank to change on a whim, but media companies or other organizations more closely tied to pop culture expect change. In the race for brand differentiation, however, the rules are loosening. Next-generation law firms are embracing the new, and bank brands once built on stability are eager to redefine themselves.

Brands should reflect and evolve with customer needs. Foundational brand attributes form the character of an organization. These do not change; a sense of reliability and continuity depend on that. The evolution of a brand is usually the translation of baseline attributes for current conditions.

Change is inevitable, but the rate of change for a brand is a strategic choice. Leaders in organizations need to face the challenge of brand evolution directly. While speed is a choice, change is coming, and the marketplace won’t wait. Brand builders must look ahead to stay ahead.

  

The iconic Kleenex brand has evolved with its customers from the 1920s to the present.

Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc.

69 Plan for change

Commitment to a brand program over a defined period of time makes sense, though programs must be ready for reinvention. Organizations often coordinate program changes with scheduled events: a product launch, a trade show, an advertising campaign. Built-in plans to evolve allow organizations to anticipate the next event with less internal heartburn over the changes.

Every opportunity to keep the identity program fresh and relevant is a chance to react to changing market conditions and shifting customer needs. Adaptive programs offer the necessary space for a brand to evolve, but change just for the sake of change doesn’t necessarily contribute to a better experience—just a different one. Creating dynamic programs requires knowing what can change, and what should remain constant.

Knowing that change is ahead helps brand builders to reflect on the past and focus on the future. Viewing a brand as a point on a continuum—a state in a changing environment—is a healthy lens for creating an adaptive and sustainable program.

  

The ArtPrize program was designed to adapt with the needs of the annual event.

COMPETITION

The competition for a good logo is steep. Most logos aren’t very good (which is to say, novel, memorable, or lasting). But the sheer number of them makes it harder than ever to stand out. Thankfully, far less competition exists within any one industry or segment. A quick survey of all the logos in an industry might reveal that the majority of logos are blue and blocky. If you’re looking to upgrade a graphic identity for a company in this industry, do something different and better that will be uniquely appealing to your audience. Too often, companies follow the competition rather than their customers.

Sometimes, a graphic identity can stand out on quality alone. A clear, easily readable typeface will often endure beyond a fad font. A good mark, name, or tagline can be the foundation for communicating your competitive position.

  

Be aware of what the competition is doing, but don’t just follow. Focus on meeting customer needs.

71 Program differentiation

In a world of too many brands, programs represent the most accessible horizon for brand differentiation. Even if an organization’s logo and all of its competitors’ logos look alike (especially if this is the case), brand builders should pursue divergent applications.

It’s important for identity programs to be clearly differentiated not only from competitors, but also from any other experiences. In many crowded marketplaces, brands are competing for overall customer mindshare. Customers will experience the brand through differentiated touchpoints.

Program applications can help create a recognizable niche for a brand, creating distance between competitors.

A series of orchestrated touchpoints can work together to create a noticeable rhythm. Recognizable and differentiated brand programs can connect like products or build bridges to separate offerings.

  

The Smokehouse Market program ties products together while these coffee packages each tell a different story.

72 Competitive position

A lot of brand strategy work relates to an organization’s competition—a brand might be positioned this way, but compared to what alternative? A brand is built in part on a competitive position.

Being aware of competitors and their positioning is just doing your homework. An ownable brand position doesn’t need to be the polar opposite of the competition, but it needs to be distinctive. Even fast followers have unique value propositions and identities—often addressing the competition head on. Developing a true competitive position goes deeper than just what you say—it’s what you do. Evaluating competitors can offer insights, but it doesn’t provide a roadmap.

More often than not, competition comes from other alternatives—not necessarily from other companies. Instead of buying apples from a fruit stand, potential customers may save their money and go without apples altogether—or they may buy ice cream instead. How would a good brand manager win them back and make apple eaters out of them again?

ORIGINALITY

When high-profile companies rebrand themselves with a new logo and a new attitude, sometimes the decisions are wise. Often, they are not. Facelifts don’t create an original face; they just make the same old one look a little fresher.

When AT&T hired Saul Bass to design the mark that would become their famous Bell System logo in 1969, the company remained committed to the mark until its breakup in 1983. The freshness may have worn off, but over its fourteen-year run, Bass’s Bell Telephone logo enjoyed a 93 percent recognition rate in the U.S.

Aspects of brand building are ephermeral, but seeking to build a timeless brand is an investment that pays off. Aside from a few refinements, some of the world’s most successful brands can use nearly the same approach today as they did fifty years ago. Many directly leverage their archives for inspiration, because the timeless foundation was so solid.

  

Some of the most effective brands rely on a sense of enduring quality. House of Cards and Cuisipro employ a classic modern style that looks like it could have been designed in 1960—and we mean that as a compliment.

74 Take chances

In today’s digital picture-box world, the chance of doing something graphically that has never been seen is pretty hard, but worth the effort. Sometimes, brands have to be bold.

Companies often miss the opportunities presented by brand programs. That’s because doing something truly original with an identity program takes guts. Part of the reason the Nike logo succeeded was that it was an original shape, but the company also had the guts to do something different with it. They downplayed or completely removed the company name. Not only did Nike have the courage to pursue it, they created a cultural icon by doing so.

Taking calculated risks is inherent in brand building. Organizations that seek to be innovative—or project the image that they are—will need to take some chances. Without some risk, there will be no reward, so savvy brand builders seek opportunities to really stand out.

  

The CSC program offers a healthy push for some readers.

75 Dial into human needs

The most successful brands often capitalize on human emotion. What may feel original to the marketplace may be a company better understanding what customers really need.

Competitors might be able to mimic popular brands aesthetically, but what makes these brands true originals isn’t merely the fact that they have beautiful brand identities and execute them as part of disciplined programs. The best brands dial into primary human needs. Customer insights often serve as the basis for original brand thinking. The implications of this work applies to aesthetics but also products, services, and experiences. Because customer needs change, original ways to meet these needs is fertile ground for brand growth.

Originality inspires designers and brand builders. Because it inspires customers, it should inspire businesses, too.

POSITIONING

Most brand teams know what customers do. So do their competitors. An interview with salespeople who interact with customers directly, or an analysis of metrics from technologies that do the same, will reveal current behaviors. Understanding how customers act is a first step toward serving them well. Even better is to understand why customers do what they do. It goes beyond behaviors to customer motives, beliefs, and biases. If we know a bit more about how customers think, we have a better chance of understanding not only what they’re doing today but also what they might do tomorrow.

Simple demographics often define customer segments. However, brand builders who identify customer personas through behavioral motives have a better chance of creating longer-term value. A brand that is positioned to resonate with deeper customer motives will outlast their changing behaviors.

77 Stake a claim

One of the critical decisions for any brand builder is to stake a claim for the brand. Why is the brand different and better than any other? In a landscape of branded competitors, customers are inherently asked to make a choice. Positioning is about clarifying the differences, helping customers understand why your brand is the right choice.

The most common mistake in positioning is saying that you can do everything for every customer. It’s not credible, and customers know it. Defining your customer first will help sharpen your focus on who you aim to serve. Then, stake a claim and decide what you are offering that is different—not only from competitors but alternatives. Often, a customer alternative is to do nothing.

Staking a claim is giving customers a meaningful reason to choose your brand. What is significant to a customer is depends on their motives and what they value. As a brand builder, your job is to make your case for the brand in a clear and compelling way.

  

Guilford of Maine claims high-performance textiles for specific vertical markets.

78 Make tough choices

Choosing a path for a brand is hard. Living with the implications is even harder. What will you stop doing?

Identifying a customer persona and deciding what you are claiming or offering will help organize and clarify what is essential for the brand. Seeing your brand through the eyes of your target group will help to prioritize specific interactions and character. However, it’s a lot easier to add things to your list than take them away.

It’s tempting to try to do everything. Even though it’s impossible, it seems most customer centered to say you can do anything for anyone. In the same way, it feels more comfortable to merely add key brand elements once you’ve identified your customer and brand claim. However, your time and resources are limited. What will you stop doing that will make the new thing possible?

Making the tough choices about what you will not do may be as important as deciding what you will do. Stopping activities that do not support your primary customer and claims will give you the bandwidth required to create a more focused and compelling brand.

  

Photo: Conduit

USERS

It’s important to remember that customers are people and people are complicated. Customer motives aren’t always clear. They may exhibit one pattern of behavior reliably—until a new variable upsets the system, causing them to behave differently.

As brand builders, it’s best to understand and build on market patterns, but always treat customers as fully formed individuals who make choices and mistakes based on motives and emotions.

  

Customer persona models risk simplifying customer depth, but appropriately keep a project team focused on people.

80 Users versus markets

Markets are made of people. Users are people, too. While both revolve around people, understanding the market is different than understanding users.

Market research is often a quantitative view of history—a record of how customers and competitors have behaved in the past. If customers act the same way tomorrow as they do today, market research can be a good predictor of future behavior. However, when market landscapes change, tracking market behavior has limits. Market research wouldn’t have predicted smartphones.

Henry Ford famously quipped that if he asked people what they wanted, they’d ask for a faster horse. User research aims to identify unmet needs and opportunities.

Viewing customers as people can begin to shape your view of marketing. User research differs from market research because it focuses a bit more on qualitative beliefs, biases, and motives. A goal of user research is to discover unmet needs that customers themselves may not be able to identify. The lack of seemingly clear metrics from user research can make it difficult for some companies to act upon, but understanding user motives often has a better chance of predicting future behavior than market patterns. Both quantitative and qualitative inputs are welcome—you can never know enough about your customer. Brand builders know the differences and how to apply them.

  

Nobody asked for a smartphone.

81 Universal design

Marketing often aims for the biggest target. This makes sense because that’s where most of the customers are. It’s also where the competitors are. Designing for the middle of the market can make good financial sense on the surface, but digging a little deeper reveals a crowded marketplace of sameness.

Viewing customers as real people can bring insights about user motives, but it can also reveal less obvious paths for innovation. For example, looking at extreme user behavior, instead of the most common user behavior, can reveal new opportunities that benefit a whole program.

The idea of universal design involves working on extreme-use cases to not only be inclusive for minority users but also, ultimately, to create new standards for the entire population. For example, designing screens for limited vision helps overall usability of software. Designing products for people with physical limitations can lead to breakthrough products that outsell previous middle-of-the-market products. Designing for extreme-use cases is not only inclusive, but can also create better standards for everyone.

  

Photos: Dean Van Dis Photography

RESEARCH

For starters, get to know the company—its current strategy and any past programs. The desire to be perceived as fresh or new often prompts companies to leave a rich visual history in the drawer. Mining these resources for source material provides a logical starting point.

Find out what competitors are doing. The internet makes it easy to conduct a quick survey of logos within the same or related categories. It’s also wise to look at marks developed for companies with similar names or letterforms. Even if these other solutions do not raise a legal conflict, they’re good input for your work.

Learn about the company’s target audience: what are their needs, their preferences, and their goals? Developing a logo employees feel good about wearing on a T-shirt or baseball cap is an accomplishment. Identity work rooted in an understanding of the audience can transform a logo into a badge customers will proudly wear. Ultimately, brand builders aim to deeply understand the target customer. Value propositions start with what customers value.

  

North Face understands the constraints and opportunties of high-performance gear.

83 Embrace constraints

Research provides insights about the constraints for a brand program. Constraints may eliminate some options but, in doing so, they help define the design problem. Embrace constraints as opportunities for innovation.

Brand builders need to experience the context directly to better shape their understanding of what solution might be optimal. Find out everything you can. What is the resolution of the device? What are the color limitations of the output method? Are sound and motion options? Can it be interactive? What are the lighting conditions? Does it need to hold up to daily use? What are the limitations and opportunities of the medium? What can’t the users abide? What happens before and after?

Most media do at least one thing well, so let your insights guide you to applications that leverage the strengths of your materials. Good brand programs work across multiple media, so there may be a time and a place for everything.

84 Key insights

Great brands and products forge a real and direct emotional connection with their customers. It starts with a deep understanding of the target audience. Needs, preferences, goals, desires—you can never know enough about your customer.

There are a wide variety of traditional customer research techniques—surveys, focus groups, etc.—but newer ethnographic research methods are becoming an increasingly larger part of the design- research mix.

Ethnographic research methods are aimed at discovering unmet or unarticulated customer needs that are less likely to be revealed with more overt research methods. They include activities such as customer observation and shadowing. Meeting the needs of customers in ways that others either currently don’t or can’t is a true competitive advantage.

Future-focused initiatives build on key insights about what is useful, usable, and desireable to create concepts. Market and user insights can help keep a brand relevant and drive it forward.

  

Artefact research led to key insights about autonomous vehicles.

COMMITMENT

Aside from the fact that a brand identity can be expensive to change (the production costs alone add up quickly), this way of thinking reveals a bigger problem. Strategic branding is a foothold establishing the value proposition in the minds of customers. Changing a logo is not the change itself—it is the symbol of a change. Changing it on a whim risks eroding brand equity.

A brand identity is a valuable asset—the symbolic face of the company. Once an appropriate approach is established, the organization needs to commit to it. Change is inevitable. Businesses must evolve with their customers, but the most successful businesses evolve strategically.

86 Confident programs

Successful brand programs rely on consistency, one measure of confidence. Confident organizations that commit to strong programs will see the best return on their investment over the long term.

Brand programs can have a shorter life span than graphic identities. While a strategically focused organization might consider changing its logo only once in a generation, programs may need to be refreshed after a three-year business cycle. Program variations might be necessitated by events—campaigns, trade shows, changing seasons—or ad hoc. Strong brands allow for a good balance between ordered consistency and opportunistic variation.

Confident leaders who are willing to commit to certain brand ideals see application standards not as a limitation but as a reflection of their resolve. Brand builders see this commitment as another kind of constraint—and as a source of inspiration for creative problem-solving.

87 Decisive brands

Decision by indecision is no way to build brand value. When companies commit to a value proposition, audience, and position, they create opportunities for a strong brand to grow. Failure to commit is one of the most common ways to weaken a brand.

In many ways, brands are like people. People whose actions are consistent build a strong identity. They become known by the reliability of their actions—their commitments. Brands are built up or torn down based on a team’s willingness to commit and their ability to follow through.

Decisive brands have a clear objective and direction—and stick to it. They have a voice and a message. They know who they’re talking to and what they need to say. They know how to listen and respond. Confident brand builders know what is working, adapt as needed, and keep moving forward.

TOUCHPOINTS

88 Interactions are opportunities

To design a holistic brand experience, consider all customer touchpoints—the places the brand touches the customer.

The best brands translate well to a variety of customer interactions. Each time a customer encounters the brand is an opportunity to remind, inform, deliver, and delight. Large organizations with literally thousands of touchpoints require flexible programs with clear guidelines. A graphic identity can be applied to everything from paper cups to ocean liners. Smaller companies may not have as many requirements, but the same logic applies—even the smallest business has invoices and a website and these touchpoints merit consideration.

Production constraints, brand standards, and a right-sized plan are worth an up-front investment to ensure each touchpoint expresses the brand as intended. It’s not only protecting an investment, but also the entry point through which people experience a brand.

89 Customer perspective

Building a brand as a series of touchpoints means seeing it through the eyes of the customer. Consider each interaction as they might see it, how one builds on another, and the cumulative effect.

Not all touchpoints are the same, nor do they have equal value. Some touchpoints happen almost all at once and, therefore, require greater continuity than those that exist separately. Some touchpoints occur regularly, which implies a kind of rhythm, while others are ad hoc, providing a little splash or surprise. Some touchpoints may be overlooked by customers, while others directly influence their buying decision.

Most importantly, remember that a customer's experience with a brand is a linear experience through their perspective—not your department, or medium, or budget. Each interaction is a qualitative judgment. Their perception is shaped every time they touch the brand.

90 Experience planning

Customer perceptions are created by a series of touchpoints—the interactions customers have with a brand. These touchpoints can, and should, be identified in a high-level customer experience plan. By mapping customer interactions, brand builders can better define the relationship between tactics.

Customer experience design is the discipline of understanding customer needs, making choices about an ideal customer experience path, and creating memorable customer touchpoints that affect customer perception or brand value.

Customer experience planning is a powerful brand-management tool. It provides a framework not only for answering key questions but also for realizing better outcomes. How do customers currently experience a brand? How would you like them to experience the brand? What happens before, during, or after? Changing, adding, or removing touchpoints can reshape the customer’s perception of your brand.

Touchpoint strategies that reflect customer needs and company positioning contribute to strong brands.

  

Healthcare Experience

OST Technologies

SYSTEMS

91 Identify all the parts

Brand building requires systems with many parts. New technology is creating even more ways to connect with customers, and understanding what exists and what’s possible can be a first step toward building a healthy system.

For organizations with a history, it is helpful to take an inventory. Often, merely collecting all brand materials and viewing them together can be enormously useful in spotting gaps and inconsistencies. Gathering these materials can be an enlightening experience for creators and internal teams.

Identifying all the parts of your brand system can be a helpful driver. As you assemble what exists, consider what needs to be added or taken away? How might you create new materials they solve the problem differently? Some teams maintain a visual display of current brand artifacts to remind colleagues of the current state and progress.

92 Look for connections

Systems are made of nodes and connections. When you identify all the parts of your brand program, you’ve defined the nodes. Next, focus on the connections.

The process of finding connections is both analytical and intuitive. You can start by looking at the basics. Do the pieces look or sound alike? Are they in the same medium (digital, physical, environmental)? You can look at their function. Are they serving the same purpose? Do they yield a similar result? Are they targeting the same people? Do they play the same role in the sales process?

Discovering patterns through analysis is one way, but a strategic choice can also generate connections. Brand builders look to bridge seemingly disparate parts of a brand program to create new meaning. Perhaps a brand will be a better expression of its positioning if new interactions between customers and salespeople occur, which don’t happen in the current model. Making new connections builds bridges between nodes, encouraging new flow. You may also decide to reduce the flow of other, less productive node relationships.

Finding and creating connections between nodes are the levers that allow brand systems to thrive.

  

Collaborative sessions are one way to identify system nodes and connections.

93 Inputs and outputs

Brand systems can be better understood and managed by their parts. The connections between system components can be viewed as a flow: causes and effects, ends and means, actions and calls-to-action. Brand builders can map the network of system nodes and connections as a way to understand macro patterns and design their intentions.

Another way to think of systems is as a series of inputs and outputs. As a customer moves from one touchpoint to the next, define what is happening at each step and in between stages. What indicates progress or success?

Brand builders are ever seeking better metrics to track performance. How you define inputs and outputs will shape your thinking, solutions, and perceived success. Sometimes, the most important things are the hardest to track, so be careful what you measure. Looking at a holistic system that measures inputs, outputs, and the variables in between can build a scaffolding of metrics to help climb toward your ultimate goal.

INSPIRATION

94 Look for ideas everywhere

Where does a good idea come from? Innovation comes directly from a business plan, drawing inspiration from constraints and the target audience. But clearly, the world’s best brands also draw upon other unseen inspirations.

Designers draw from a variety of their life experiences—art, pop culture, nature, family, etc. That’s why so many designers like to be sponges when it comes to sources of inspiration. Brand builders look for nonproject ways to be inspired and renewed. It’s not only good for mental health but also for professional development.

Look for inspiration everywhere. Go for a walk or a trip. Read a book, go to a party, sleep on it. Sometimes, the best ideas come to you in the shower.

95 Work the problem

An inspiring plan that addresses a commonly understood human need provides the best inspiration for a brand. If the story is clear, then the work requires translating the brand into various media and messages.

It can be difficult to develop an inspired brand identity without inspired positioning. This is where marketers get a bad name. Indeed, many less- than-satisfactory brand experiences have been promoted with excellent campaigns. However, the smell of false advertising ultimately will rise as consumers become savvier about brand promises—and more willing to hold brands accountable when their promises are broken.

Customers increasingly look for brands that inspire them. Building a brand that delivers inspiration is work—hard work. The challenge lies first in determining what the customer values and how to translate that into a product, service, or experience that is inspired and meaningful. Then, determine the best course of action for living up to the brand promise.

  

Photos: Conduit, mrmrs, Peopledesign

96 Inspiration in context

The inspiration behind identity programs often comes from the context of their constituent parts. Where is the identity going to be experienced? What materials or techniques might provide an inspirational experience in that context?

Brand builders need to see, firsthand, the places where their identities are going to be applied. If you’re designing a program for a grocery store, go to the store. Go a competitor’s store—better yet, go to several competitors’ stores. What’s going on in these stores? How are people interacting with other brands? What works? What doesn’t? Look for patterns. Inspired solutions often reveal themselves when you take the time to understand the context.

Sometimes, the inspiration for a program comes from one breakthrough insight about one element of the program. If an inspired approach solves one important problem really well, how might that idea be extended to other program materials? What program elements can be designed to echo or reinforce the idea? Inspired programs maintain a sense of vitality often spurred by a few simple artifacts.

PURPOSE

97 Design consequences

Creativity has found its way into the boardroom. For many, the success of companies like Apple has cemented the role of design in business. However, on the ground, brand builders don’t always feel supported. Nevertheless, their decisions have consequences.

We make things and our things make us. People who make things should recognize their inherent responsibility to their users and to society at large. Brand builders are aware of their impact on the world. It may be about making something useful, usable, and desirable—but why?

Often, these powerful levers are in service of commercial business, but what is the effect on society or the planet?

Even the smallest decisions can have consequences. What is the source of your materials? What are the default user settings? What is the cost of user failure? Brand builders needn’t shoulder ethical issues alone, but neither are they exempt from the implications of their work. Brand builders may have more agency than power, but collective agency can move mountains.

98 Behavior and belief

Designers are becoming attuned to behavioral science. We’re beginning to understand better how our work has implications for the user beyond core function.

The people for whom we design are complicated. We are all creatures of habit, belief, bias, and emotion. When brand builders leverage the understanding that users take a path that seems easier, safer, or what “most people choose,” we’re designing for behavior.

Behavioral design can have powerful consequences, so designers have new responsibilities. Brand builders try to understand the consequences of their actions. Start by playing out the customer experience beyond the interaction, beyond the sale, and what success looks like over time. Brand builders are helping people make choices with an impact on the economy and society at large. Individual belief and a sense of purpose cannot be divorced from your life’s work.

99 Net effect

As we consider our strategic decisions—positioning and change, user-oriented systems and originality, behavorial design and consequences—we must ask ourselves: to what end?

Many organizations are beginning to seek a stronger sense of purpose for their brand and company overall. As we move into a new era, where customers have more choices than ever, organizations will need to give customers and employees a meaningfully different reason to chose them. A strong sense of purpose doesn’t start with positioning, products, or promotion, but it can have a powerful impact on everything a company does.

Clarifying one’s purpose is a big idea. To pragmatists, it may seem esoteric or overly lofty. It may sound like a first-world problem but, ultimately, it’s a whole-world problem. Design has consequences. As designers, and as a society, we have a responsibility to understand and explore how to improve our condition.

Brand building is about customers and business, users and design, but it is really about building meaning. In the end, as in the beginning, building meaningful experiences and relationships is part of our journey of being human.

REFERENCE MATERIAL

Baseline Brand Audit

A review of brand basics.

Graphic tools

• Are your visual approaches enhancing or illuminating meaning?
• Are your color choices helping you stand out?
• Have you used your wordmark to its fullest advantage?
• Have you leveraged graphic shapes in your brand program?
• Do your brand materials have a strong, clear theme?
• Is your signage or showroom a representation of your brand?

Guiding tools

• How might your graphic identity work as a symbol?
• Are your program, products, services, or brand names working to your advantage?
• What are the consistent elements of your brand program?
• Is your graphic identity setting the stage for your brand story?
• Have you considered how each moment of your customer’s experience matters?

Thematic decisions

• How are you continuing to better understand your customer?
• Are you giving your customers a reason to smile?
• Are you watching how trends compared with your brand?
• Are you taking full advantage of new opportunities with new media?
• How can customers personalize their experience with your brand?

Process decisions

• Are you making room for new idea generation?
• Are you visualizing what could be?
• Is your brand hierarchy clear to your customers?
• Are your logo specifications clear?
• Are you taking too many shortcuts?
• Are you protecting your trademark investments?

Strategic value

• Have you considered how your brand might evolve over time?
• Are you aware of what your competitors are doing?
• Will your solutions look good in ten years?
• Is your customer definition up to date?
• Do you see your customers as real people?
• What are you researching?

Strategic purpose

• Which of your solutions are worth keeping?
• Do you see each customer interaction as an opportunity?
• Do you have an inventory of all your brand elements?
• What have you seen recently that changes your thinking about your brand?
• What are the consequences of your brand choices?

Brand Practice Audit

How your brand is being applied.

Graphic tools

• Is your visual brand style current?
• Are your brand colors being applied consistently?
• Is your typography expressive of your brand?
• Have you considered how you might use graphic patterns?
• Is your brand program helping you stand out?
• Is your brand extending into physical spaces?

Guiding tools

• Have you considered creating a brand symbol library?
• Does your editorial style reflect your brand position?
• Are your brand rules flexible enough?
• Are you considering each customer touchpoint as a part of your brand story?
• Have you looked at your customer’s total time investment in your brand?

Thematic decisions

• Is the experience of your brand all it can be?
• Are your brand programs fun?
• Is your brand program dated?
• Are you selecting the right mediums?
• Does your brand program bend without breaking?

Process decisions

• Do you have good criteria for creating brand assets?
• Are you accepting failure as a way to innovate?
• Do you have internal clarity about your brand hierarchy?
• Are your brand guidelines useful and understood?
• Are you leveraging new templates and efficiencies?
• Have you considered if your brand elements have iconic value?

Strategic value

• Are you changing with your customers?
• Do your brand applications distinguish your brand from competitors?
• Are you taking calculated risks?
• Is your claim clearly differentiated in the marketplace?
• Are you viewing your customers as real people, not just markets?
• Are insights and constraints focusing your work?

Strategic purpose

• What program elements do you have the most confidence in?
• Are looking at your brand experience through the eyes of your customer?
• Are you finding connections in your customer’s experience?
• Are you really working the problem?
• What customer behaviors does your brand program encourage?

Brand Philosophy Audit

A look into brand thinking.

Graphic tools

• Does your brand have an aesthetic niche?
• Are your colors sending the right signals?
• Does your brand typography convey meaning?
• Do your graphics carry meaning for customers?
• Does your brand feel different than others?
• Do your physical spaces echo your brand positionc

Guiding tools

• What does your brand symbolize for customers?
• Do you have a clear brand voice?
• Do you have a clear understanding of what is appropriate for your brand?
• Is your brand telling a story?
• Have you given customers a reason to choose your brand over alternatives?

Thematic decisions

• Do you know what your brand means to your customers?
• Does your brand feel mechanical or human?
• How does your brand reflect macro trends?
• Are you choosing the right medium for each customer interaction?
• How do your customers have a voice in your brand?

Process decisions

• How does your brand support your business strategy?
• How are you testing your solutions with users?
• Do you have a clear vision for your brand portfolio?
• Do you have a way to express your brand values?
• Are you keeping your brand promises?
• Do you own an aesthetic in your marketplace?

Strategic value

• How are you planning for change?
• How are you clearly differentiated from your competitors?
• Are you attuned to your customers’ real human needs?
• What have you stopped doing?
• Is your brand striving for normality or seeking new paradigms?
• What key customer insights are driving your brand program?

Strategic purpose

• What clear decisions define your brand?
• What is your clear, cohesive understanding of your customer’s journey?
• How does your brand system and metrics hold together?
• Is each customer touchpoint fitting and inspired?
• What does your brand program add up to?

Brand Fundamentals Course

Course Description

A brand encompasses far more than just its logo. Brand identity is crucial to establishing the public’s perception of a company, its products, and its effectiveness—and it’s the brand builder’s job to envision the brand and create what the public sees. This class lays a foundation for brand building through examples of world-class design.

Learning objectives

• Learning the tools and building blocks for branding
• Aligning aesthetic choices with strategy
• Building robust brand programs

Goal: Students will learn the fundamentals of brand building.