Brand Identity - Five Key Ingredients
Let’s start at the beginning… A brand is a set of associations that people make with a company, product, organisation or service. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sums it up perfectly: “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
It’s our job as creatives and designers to help influence those thoughts and feelings positively, and we can do this by creating a strong and memorable brand identity. It’s ultimately your brand, alongside what you offer as a business that will set you apart and give you that competitive edge.
So what makes a strong and memorable brand identity? The elements below are by no means definitive, but they are essential if you’re thinking of creating your own brand.
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1. A powerful and compelling idea
It’s all very well having a beautifully designed logo and suite of brand assets, but if there’s no proposition or idea behind it, it’s a little bit meaningless. Having a strong idea that holds everything together is key. It influences everything you do visually, and how you speak as a brand, too (your tone of voice).
The ‘idea’ usually comes from uncovering a ‘brand truth,’ something unique and compelling about the product or service. This ‘idea’ helps to determine the brand proposition (what the business stands for) and its vision and values, which in turn directs how designers then visually articulate the brand, so what it looks and feels like.
Take Uber as an example…
Their proposition is ‘The smartest way to get around.’ This informs everything the brand does, as well as the way it speaks - ‘your day belongs to you.’ A simple statement that infers that you have busy enough life as it is, without having the extra hassle of calls to the taxi company, lengthy explanations of your desired destination, or fumbling around for the tight change.
This simplicity in the way they deliver their service is similarly present in their visual identity, from how they treat ads to the illustrative style they adopt to help communicate their messaging.
Ultimately, if a business is clear about the problem it’s solving and why their customers should chose them, they’ll have a far greater chance of delivering meaningful messages. And as such develop as a brand and grow as a company.
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2. A good name
What’s a good name? Years ago, before every man and his dog could start a company from the comfort of their own bedroom, ‘picking’ a name for a business was a relatively straightforward task. Over time, this has now become a big part of the creative process when creating a brand identity. There’s a pretty good chance that whatever said start-up is thinking of calling their healthy pet treats company, someone else is already using that name. So it falls to creative agencies like B&B to come up with smart ways to name brands.
These are just a few brand names we’ve helped to create over recent years.
We always tell clients, be relevant, be memorable and keep it simple. Being able to recall a name is one thing, but being able to spell it is also an important consideration, as this can affect how people find a business –or don’t– online. And if people can’t find a business, it doesn’t matter how incredible their product, service and brand is.
Finally, for any company planning to operate overseas, ensuring names don’t translate as something unfortunate is also a very real consideration. Ford know this only too well after marketing one of their cars ‘Pinto’ in Brazil, as the term in Brazilian Portuguese means “tiny male genitals.”
3. A beautifully designed logo
While in isolation, your logo is not your brand (a popular misconception), it is an integral part of it. They’re used on an almost minute by minute basis to help quickly distinguish between companies and make brands stand out more, from real ales on supermarket shelves to Instagram stories from fashion brands.
And as space is often at a premium on mobile devices, where most people interact with brands daily, the logo needs to work hard - There’s no room for additional brand messaging and straplines to help convey brand image here.
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Above are a few logos we’ve created as part of a wider brand identity.
It’s also often the first time someone will be introduced to a brand for the first time, and first impressions count. So get it right. Your logo’s look and feel should represent your company’s values and personality. And it should sit comfortably alongside every other visual aspect of your brand. An excellent creative agency (ahem…) can help to bring all this together.
4. Originality
Standing out as a brand or product is not always straight forward, but it is vital for many brands success. Creating a brand that looks just like every other company in the immediate competition will more than likely lead to being overlooked.
Finding creative ways to make a brand distinct and original will help to build the foundations for success.
A brilliant example of this is the 2018 rebrand of ‘Funeralbooker’ to ‘Beyond’. Instead of following the well-trodden path of using flowers, sunsets and lifestyle photography, design agency ‘SomeOne’ created a three-dimensional animated character and adopted a bold colour palette to stand out in a sea of sameness. A completely original approach that’s already seen an uplift in activity since 2018.
5. Tone of Voice
So often undervalued by companies (who doesn’t know someone in the next department who can write a ‘good headline?’), and yet such a significant part of any brand.
Establishing a tone of voice that is right for any company, product or service, and then ensuring that how they speak is consistent across all touchpoints is as essential as the visual representation of the brand.
In today’s tech-fuelled world, brands are communicating more than ever through multiple channels, both online and offline. So it’s arguably more important than ever for brands to make sure they establish their tone of voice and ensure your brands’ personality is delivered in this.
Using copy creatively to articulate an idea or work alongside a visual is also paramount to ensuring successful communications. Pictures need words as much as words need pictures.
Nailing these five key ingredients will help ensure a brand is memorable, distinct, relevant and cohesive.
If you’d like to discuss anything you’ve read here in more detail, we’re all ears.
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