Brand Identity Process:
In this blog entry I have created a summary from Chapter 2 in Alina Wheeler’s book “Designing Brand Identity” It talks about the brand identity process and how it is created 5 phases.
How long will the brand identity process take? Even though the brand identity will take time, all clients put this project on high urgency to get it done. Some Factors would be the how big the company or organization is, what type of market it is, legal requirements, how many decision makers are on the team, and how many applications.
Managing the Project:
Small Business:
Founder/Owner Role: project leader, main decision maker
Large Business:
CEO designates a project manager for this role along with scheduling and information gathering. A large company will most likely form a brand team.
The best project managers have these characteristics
- Focus
- Discipline
- Stong Communication Skills
- Empathy
- Effective Management Skills
- Flexibility
- Creative Problem-Solving Ability
- Insight
The Phases:
(1st phase) Conducting Research:
Understand the organization: in terms of its mission, vision, targetmarkets, corporate culture, competitive advantage, strengths, weaknesses, marketing strategies, and what may be some obstacles in the future.
Interview the main stakeholders: This is done face-to-face while taping the interview so you can focus on the stakeholder and still take notes later on from the taped interview.
Some questions to think about in the interview: (from book)
What is your mission?
What are the three most important goals?
What was this company created?
Who is your target market?
Where will you be in five years? In ten years?
How do you measure success?
If you could communicate a single message about your company, what would it be?
Market Research: Market research is used to understand the attitutudes, awareness, and behavior of customers now and new customers in the near future. This may be online surveys, looking at customer satisfaction, how may people are using the organization. It is a TOOL to reveal new information and bring insight about what the customer wants and needs and their behaviors.
Marketing Audit: This is taking a overall view of the brand and examining what can be done to improve it. This is where you request materials that will provide a background in what has worked and has not looked in the organization.
Competitive Audit: This is you look at the competitors and their brand, key messages, identity, their taglines, ads, websites. It is important that you see what they have now and also what they have had in the past. Some questions you have to think about (from book):
Who are they?
What do their brands stand for?
How do they position themselves?
What is their financial position?
Stakeholder Audit: Get to know who the stakeholders are and what their needs and behaviors are. Getting a whole understanding of what makes the organization, including target markets, stakeholders and competitors will help the brand identity process through the entire process.
Language Audit
Audit Readout: This shows you are at the end of the research phase. It consists of a formal presentation about the information you have gathered through audits. The big challenge is to gather all the info and present only the important info and make it fit into a presentation without it dragging on for a long period of time.
(2nd phase) Clarifying Strategy:
Clarifying Brand Strategy: This is where you look at the organization and the big picture while also looking at the fine details to creating the strategies. Some senerios in this phase could be clearly defining a brand strategy, redefining a brand strategy, or having a need to create brand strategy.
Narrowing the Focus:
- Look within the company to find the ideal future of the company and all the possibilities it has.
- Look at trends that effecting the future, look outside the industry, and look at the general history of the company and what made it grow and expand.
- What are the strengths and weaknesses? What makes this company stand out among competitors? What are some adjectives that summarize how this company wants to be look at as? Take these questions and build a brand essence.
- Position platform: Mapping out and brainstorming where this company can go and how they compete is in this phase.
- Create a simple, transportable, one sentence expression for the big idea.
The Big Idea: These are statements that are simply stated about the function of the company and their company but yet so complex. The whole company will revolve around these statements and set it as a structure. Sometimes a tagline can be made up from essence of the brand. (Apple’s Think different, Target’s Expect more. Pay less)
Brand Brief and Creative Brief: A brand brief is what the brand stand for, which is created in phase 2. Another thing created is the creative brief that will show a “road map” for the creative team and what they have to do. Top levels in an organization should approve these briefs.
Brand Brief Content: (from book)
o Vision
o Mission
o Brand essence or the “big idea”
o Brand attributes
o Value proposition
o Guiding principles/ key beliefs
o Target audience
o Key markets
o Key competitors
o Competitive advantage
o Stakeholders
Creative Brief Content: (from book)
o Team goals
o Communications goals of all brand identity elements
o Critical application list
o Functional and performance criteria
o Mind Map (SWOTS)
o Positioning
o Protocols
o Confidentiality statement
o Documentation system
o Benchmarks and presentation dates
Naming: It is hard to come up with a name for a company, product, or service because everyone is doing it and having them legally protected.
(3rd phase) Designing Identity:
Designing Symbols: Designers take brand essence, reduce the complex idea and turn it to a simple form that will be show throughout the whole company. Many sketches are created and put on walls for a group discussion.
Logotype and Signature: It is all about type exploration and consideration of letterform and relationship of letterforms.
Color: Color is a huge factor and a company can be recognized by their signature color. It is all about color theory and has a clear understanding what the company should be perceived as. It evokes emotion and personality for the company and will trigger customers association with the brand.
Typography: Typography is one of the main features that make a brand stand out among competitors. It is all about the personality and legibility that the typography evokes and shows that it is sustainable but does not “go with the fads”
Sound: distinctive sounds can help make people remember the brand.
Motion: Animated version of identity can set apart the company from competitors at the same time it goes with the modern times where everything is fast paced and full of motion.
Trial Applications: Viability of the designed core brand identity elements are key. Put it on a business card, homepage, letterhead, some products, how it works on a billbord, etc.
Presentation: First big presentation to show new design in many ways
(4th phase) Creating Touchpoints: In this phase as a designer you will finalize the identity design, and come up with the look and feel of the brand identity. You will also take the trademark and initiate protection, and apply the brand architecture. This phase designers will create the letterhead, business card, Brochure, Packaging, and Website, Signage. Advertisement and environments are also created in this phase.
(5th phase)Managing assets: This is where you build and create synergy around the new brand, and where you create launch strategy and plan, standards and guidelines.
Process and Strategy
