Visual Brand Identity
is the visual and verbal articulation of a brand or group including all
pertinent design applications, such as, letterhead, business card, and
packaging, among many other possible applications.
An Identity
describes the visual devices used to represent the company. Identity systems are a visual components package that is paired with style
guidelines and used as a framework to ensure the corporate image is cohesive
and consistent. Some of the visual devices that leverage the brand elements and
style guidelines are as follows: stationery, marketing collateral, packaging,
signage, messaging, and digital projects, among others.
The identity is
physical manifestation of a brand. To generalize, this includes a logo and
several supporting devices, such as the company letterhead, business cards,
website etc. all governed by a set of guidelines. The guidelines dictate how
the identity is applied and approved for printed pieces, color palettes,
typefaces, page-layouts, menu cards, uniforms, store furnishing, product packaging
and such items, across media applications that maintain visual continuity and
recognition.
Reasons for using VBI
·
Large organizations with layers of management
require a thorough brand identity system that provides a unified vision and
tools that help everyone build the brand. But before we dig in, let's define
the difference (and relationship) between a brand, an identity and a logo.
·
Visual identity has been proven time and time
again to be the foundation for customer recognition, preference and loyalty. It
is the starting place for marketers to build value-adding associations. A well-managed
visual identity provides stakeholders with reassurance through consistency and
a prompt for recall of previous brand experience. The brand, and therefore its
value, is put at risk when the visual identity is inconsistent, stagnant, in poor
physical condition or perceived as an indicator of weak management.
·
The aims of a corporate identity are to:
o
create a single and clear visual identity for an
organization, its divisions, its services and products / brands;
o
project an organization as professional,
reliable and contemporary organization;
o
leverage the brand equity and standardize an
organization’s visual presentation consistently across media applications
·
Corporate Identity benefits an organization in
myriad ways. An organization that invests in developing a solid corporate
identity says to its customer “we are here to stay.” It’s a sign of longevity,
which is not only attractive to customers, but also is desirable to potential
investors. It’s an indicator that an organization is serious about being
successful, that it is reliable in the industry.
The importance of VBI
·
Awareness:
as your identity becomes more developed and thus recognizable, awareness of
your business will grow.
·
Positioning:
symbols, values, culture, and projects. All of these help to encourage and
foster any progressions within your business.
·
A bond:
from the customer’s point of view, a strong identity creates a sense of
belonging and reliability.
·
Staying
power: Control over your identity will allow you to respond quickly and
effectively to changes, thus ensuring the immortality of your organization.
·
Savings:
a well-designed early identity will save you lots of money! No need to
constantly reinvent graphics, your identity is well-established and solid.
·
Basically, corporate and brand identities are an
expression and reflection of an organization’s culture, character, personality,
and its products and services – inspiring trust with consumers, employees,
suppliers, partners and investors. In the middle of the 20th century, the
development of visual identity systems became mainstay in almost all branding
initiatives. Some examples that come quickly to mind are iconic brands that have
stood the test of time – Coca-Cola, IBM, Mercedes, Ford, Levis and McDonald’s.
·
In the 21st century, if the vision for a brand
is not centered in a rich emotional connection with customers, and the visual
identity not well-defined, then the brand may be visible, but it will lack
personality. And a brand without personality is a brand without a soul. And
although a visual identity is a small component of the overall brand
expression, it remains the first connection made with the consumer’s mind.
·
Strong corporate branding is essential because
it subconsciously shapes consumers’ feelings about an organization and its
services or products. From the moment consumers interact with the identity,
their feelings about an organization’s service or product are subconsciously
reinforced. Often, these feelings last a consumer’s life-time.
Example: McDonalds
One of the reasons
McDonald’s is so successful is its highly recognizable brand identity. If you
go to a McDonald’s outlet in any part of the world, they will all look
relatively similar, the menus look similar, the food will be of the same
quality and taste the same – and one might even run into their mascot, Ronald
McDonald. This brand consistency is one of the reasons why McDonald’s is one of
the all-time biggest brands.
Process of creation of VBI
Phase 1: Research, Vision & Design Brief
This phase should be as thorough as needed — depending on
the depth of research and size of the company. It's the most crucial part of
the overall process, and should result in a design brief that guides the rest
of the project.
Below is a list of foundational questions and key dynamics
to explore and document through qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
(Note: This is only a quick overview of the most complex part of this process.)
·
How is the brand perceived against competitors
in the market for products and services you're looking to provide?
·
What is the positioning statement of your brand?
Answer the what, how, to whom, where, why and when questions.
·
What is the heritage of your product type, and
the origin(s) of it's ingredients and fabrication process?
·
Who is your audience? Are they digitally savvy?
Where will your products/services have contact with them? How do you want that
contact experience to make them feel, take action and think about your brand?
·
What values & beliefs should the brand have
about the business and it's mission in the world? If the brand was a person,
what would it's personality be? How would it look, act and talk?
·
What benefits do you want customers to associate
with your brand? What is the vision of the brand that you want to create?
·
Other brand image concerns: market awareness,
emotional associations, value to the consumer, brand perception vs. consumer
behavior, changes desired in the brand-consumer relationship over time.
The Design Brief
It's important to have a design (or creative) brief if the
brand identity project is bigger than one designer doing work for a small local
business. A design brief should contain summaries from the research phase, such
as: target audience(s), messaging objectives, values and mission of the brand,
and the brand's products/services offering. It should also include budget,
project schedule, file formats for delivery, and other practical needs.
Phase 2: Logo, Identity, & Guidelines
After the research phase is complete and a design brief has
been created, it's time to start designing the logo and identity system.
The Logo
There are many ways to start designing a logo, but most
often times you'll see designers begin by sketching out dozens if not hundreds
of iterations on paper. The process of getting concepts down on paper and then
iterating on those ideas can unlock new directions to explore and final
solutions that you wouldn't have normally arrived at when starting on the
computer. After selecting your best sketched concepts, you should start
iterating on them digitally.
Here's a peak behind the curtain of a few logo concept
sketches as they became final digital solutions:
Firefox Logo by
Martijn Rijven of Bolt Graphic, art direction by Wolff Olins
Greenpeace Airplot
Logo by Airside
The Identity System
The identity system usually starts after the logo is
complete. The purpose of the identity system is to form a systematic visual
language around the logo — one that compliments the design thinking of the logo
and offers a family of useful, flexible elements that will help to design
marketing and business collateral. Here are some examples:
Fortaleza 2020 by
Guivillar
Handsome Coffee
Roasters by Ptarmak
The Style Guidelines
The style guidelines contain and prescribe the logo usage
rules, typeface system, color palette, layout guidelines, and more. They exist
so that others can create design collateral and marketing materials that will
have a cohesive look and voice.
Style guidelines have traditionally been produced as print
and web-ready PDFs. They're the core of the identity design, and usually
accompany the logo, templates, fonts and other resources packaged together to
make designing for the brand easier. Style guidelines are in-depth rules about
logo usage, styling, and layout, and are always interesting to browse through.
Here are a few style guidelines of popular brands: Skype
(pdf, brand page), BestBuy (Euro Guidelines), BBC, Adobe, Apple, Google, and
Walmart. Looking for more? Dig into this list by Logo Design Love.
Phase 3: Monitoring & Rebranding
Lastly, after a new brand identity has launched, it's
important to monitor and care for it, as it's a living and breathing thing that
interacts with your customers. Honestly, that's a loaded statement as there are
many ways to properly care for a brand. Regardless, over time, if your target
audience shifts, the market evolves, or the brand's products and services
change, it may be time for a rebrand. The main challenge with rebranding is
trying to maintain familiarity and consistency so that your customers will
remember you.
5 key aspects of visual brand identity
If you want to make a lasting impression on your target
audience, making the right decisions when it comes to visual brand identity is
crucial. Here are the five most important visual brand elements that should be
considered:
1. Choose the right brand name
Even though naming isn’t technically part of the visual
design process of brand identity, the brand name should still be considered a
visual element. A strong brand name shouldn’t just sound right and be easy to
pronounce; it should look right too. Even if you hire a gifted design team, a
poor brand name can eliminate the opportunity for a successful visual brand
identity.
2. Create a consistent visual style
All of the brand elements should follow a consistent visual
style throughout. If, for example, a decision is made to design a brand
identity that is visually romantic and endearing, then this style should be
applied to all visual elements. Exceptions can be made for advertising
campaigns, but the overall brand identity should always be uniform. This is why
visual style guides are always a vital deliverable as they help maintain
consistency.
3. Develop a compelling logo
The logo is the flagship image of any brand. Logos can
quickly speak volumes about your business, your mission and what services you
offer. An enterprise without a logo has no chance of making an impact on its
target audience. The logo is the most essential and valuable visual element of
your brand, so keep this in mind when allocating your branding budget and
hiring professionals.
4. Pay attention to color
Colors can play an integral role in brand recognition and
brand loyalty. They influence our emotions and help us distinguish between
competing brands. Having acknowledged this, considerable research should be
carried out before deciding on a final brand color or palette. Cadbury’s, the
UK based confectionery producer, considers their own brand color so important
to their identity that they went as far as copyrighting their "Cadbury
Purple," or Pantone 2685C as it is more commonly known.
5. Select appropriate typography
Typography concerns the style and appearance of any
lettering or fonts used as part of your visual brand identity. These
characteristics can have a significant influence over people’s purchasing
decisions and help to further emphasize the message of your brand. Typeface and
font choice can affect whether the right message is being communicated and
these should conform to the overall visual brand style. Wrong choices can be
disastrous, for example a playful font such as the ever-popular Comic Sans
would not be suitable for a serious brand image.
How do companies test their VBI?
How do companies test their VBI?
When we first began presenting our logo concepts to clients,
the ensuing discussions often devolved into a subjective discussion of who
liked blue better than green. This was not terribly helpful feedback, so we
developed guidelines for our clients to ask themselves as they reviewed the
options:
·
Is it legible?
Is it easy to read and understand?
·
Is it impactful?
Does it stand out and catch your eye?
·
Is it meaningful?
Does it support your organizations goals and objectives?
·
Is it differentiated
enough from your ‘competition’ and does it avoid obvious visual clichés? For
example, a project we did recently for a community organization placed a lot of
emphasis on ethnic diversity. When we examined the landscape of similar groups
we discovered many logos that used multi-color hands – hand holding,
overlapping hands, hands in circles. We decided to emphasize this group’s
uniqueness by offering other design solutions.
·
Is it authentic?
Does it feel genuine and appropriate for what you do, who who do it for and who
you want to reach? If you offer services for the homeless, for example, you
wouldn’t want your logo to look like one for a contemporary art museum.
·
Does it have enduring value? Will it stand the test of time, and look just as
fresh in several years as it does now? Logo designs can fall into trendy traps.
For instance, according to logolounge.com, did you know that “nested circles”
and overlapping, transparent colors in logo designs are all the rage right now?
(Check out this article for more on recent logo trends.)
·
Is it flexible?
Will it work across different media, such as your website, business card, tote
bag, PowerPoint slide, email newsletter…?
·
Will it work for you both in color and in black and white?
·
Do you need a tagline with it and if so, will it accommodate one?
London 2012 Olympics logo disaster
“The jagged emblem, based on the date 2012, comes in a
series of shades of pink, blue, green and orange and will evolve in the run-up
to the Games.”
It shows the numbers 2012 in a design aiming to appeal to
today’s Internet generation. The chairman of London’s 2012 organizing
committee, said:
“It is an invitation to take part and be involved.”
The identity was designed by Wolff Olins. Due to the fact
that they were chosen as the designers more than a year ago, I’m left
disappointed. The mascots are pretty scary, too (unsurprising after they were
chosen from an open call for submissions).
When London unveiled its £400,000 2012 logo design, the
masses were unimpressed.
Some claimed that it looked like "some sort of comical
sex act between The Simpsons." Others opined that the logo resembled a
swastika. On the flip-side, Iran threatened to boycott the Olympics since they
believed the logo spelled out "Zion."
Pick your poison, but the logo seemed to be a resounding
fail.
8 essential elements to a comprehensive brand identity
Sources
8 essential elements to a comprehensive brand identity
Does your company have a brand identity that is more than
just a logo? While a logo is a good place to start, you should consider
building your “visual position” to be something larger. Building a system for
your brand allows you to meet the demands of different media, while still
presenting a cohesive identity.
For example, website design only allows a limited number of
font choices, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a corporate typeface for
printed marketing materials. In fact the more elements you can establish as
your basic look and feel will mean that variations from that scheme won’t make
your brand identity disintegrate.
1.
Logo or
wordmark. A logo is a graphic symbol, whereas a wordmark or logotype is
just the words of your company or product name set in a specific, fixed way.
These elements should be professionally designed and set.
2.
Different
logo “lockups”. While your logo should always be rendered consistently, you
will need variations based on placement and usage. For example, you may need
color and black and white variations, you may need versions for horizontal and
square applications. But they all should have the same essential qualities.
3.
Key
colors. A corporate color palette is usually defined by the colors in a
logo. Often these are one or two colors only, although some are more complex.
4.
Additional
color palette options. In addition to the colors in your logo, what other
colors complement them? This can be loosely defined such as: bright and bold,
pastel, or cool colors. Or, they may handpicked from a color swatch book. These
additional colors are often what really brings together (or makes a disconnect)
from one point of contact to the next.
5.
Corporate
typefaces. Choose just a handful of fonts to be used whenever there is
printed materials. Make sure these are available on all the computers that will
create these documents.
6.
Standard
typographic treatments. Your typographic identity should include ways of
handling key types of text, perhaps a consistent way of styling headlines or
pull-out text. Work to make these similar from one application to the next. It
may be the way you write your URLS, or the way you capitalize your headlines.
7.
Consistent
style for images. You don’t need to use the same photos over and over
again, but all imagery should have a consistent look and feel. Maybe the photos
are brightly lit and the subject is looking right into the camera. Or, the
photos have a subtle color palette and the people never look at the camera but
are engaged in their activity. Photos could be close-ups, soft focus, or crisply
detailed. You don’t need to use photos! You can use line art, illustrations or
just charts and graphs. Whatever you choose, use a consistent style in all
materials, whether printed or online.
8.
Have a
full library of graphic elements. These are all the small details that
really build a branding system. It could be a background texture, a line style
treatment, a use of white space or color blocks. These are the areas where
do-it-yourself-ers start to suffer, and where a professional graphic designer can
pull together a cohesive look for you.
When you have a comprehensive and broadly built graphic
identity, it creates a foundation for a rock solid brand identity.
The truth is, that once you start making things, your
identity standards are going to be tested.
For example, item #5 (choose a corporate typeface) is not
going to be fully applicable on your web site (unless you’re Ikea and choose
Verdana for everything). But if you have seven other branding elements that are
strongly apparent in the web design, the site will still be able to promote
your recognizable brand. If on the other hand, those other graphics are not
well-defined and well-used, each application you create dilutes rather than
builds a comprehensive brand identity.
Sources
·
Leroux, K & Reich, J. Is your logo
effective? Tips to evaluate your visual identity. 2011. (http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog/2011/05/19/is-your-logo-effective-tips-to-evaluate-your-visual-identity/)
·
Brackett, E. 8 essential elements to a comprehensive
brand identity. 2010. (http://www.visiblelogic.com/blog/2010/04/8-essential-elements-to-a-comprehensive-brand-identity/)
·
Lamson, G. Designing a brand identity. 2013. (https://creativemarket.com/blog/2013/07/23/designing-a-brand-identity)
·
Brand Finance. Visual Identity – Definition.
2015. (http://brandirectory.com/glossary/definition/visual_identity)
·
Ridivi Consulting Knowledge Base. The importance
of corporate identity. (http://knowledge.ridivi.com/the-importance-of-corporate-identity/850)
·
Hardy, G. 5 key aspects of visual brand
identity. 2012. (https://www.waveapps.com/blog/visual-brand-identity-design/)
·
Airey, D. London 2012 Olympics logo disaster.
2007. (http://www.davidairey.com/london-2012-olympic-logo-disaster/)
·
Stampler, L. & Taube A. The 15 worst
corporate logo fails. 2014. (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-15-worst-corporate-logo-fails-2014-1?op=1&IR=T)
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