While the brands we are most familiar with today may not have been originally developed using today’s sophisticated brand design techniques, don’t be fooled into thinking that the most popular brands that we see everyday do not constantly undergo a rigorous process of evaluation and analysis. Millions of dollars are spent each year to fine tune every element of the corporate brand from logo design to package design. A truly effective brand design program will incorporate the art of design with the quantitative tools that are available to today’s marketers.
That brand design is taken so seriously is not surprising when we remember that brand design is the critical process of establishing a company’s image in the marketplace. The brand is a company’s chance to create or reinforce how customers perceive it and tells its customers what it stands for. If done effectively, brand design also gives a company the opportunity to set itself apart from its competitors. Regardless of whether a company provides merchandise or services, it is brand design that is responsible for cementing customer loyalty, reinforcing price points, and communicating the overall message and vision of the company.
While logo design typically comes to mind when we think of brand design, a true brand design program encompasses much more than the design of the logo. The logo is certainly the linchpin of an overall corporate identity program, but true brand design incorporates much more. In fact, everything you see from television and print advertising to marketing collaterals and website design should be created with the overall brand design in mind. Every item that is a touch point with the customer and the public has the opportunity to further establish the objectives of the brand.
When a company undergoes analysis of its brand with a design or redesign in mind, it uses a full battery of sophisticated techniques to measure the possible effectiveness of certain elements in the marketplace. Everything from line shape and size to color are assessed to determine how they impact a customer’s view of a company and its products. Word choice and tone are measured and analyzed. As the new brand design is being shaped, possible changes and adjustments are weighed against the vision and mission of the company, its owners, and its shareholders to ensure that what is being communicated is what the company wants communicated. The goals of the company must be balanced against what target customers want and need since disconnects between the two can have disastrous, and very expensive, results.
Once the brand design program has been launched, it is carefully monitored to ensure that the results that are obtained are the results that were anticipated and desired. Adjustments will be made in areas where the brand design program is perceived to fall flat. And so the process continues. In fact, it is never really done. Evaluation of the brand continues using the measurement techniques that are available to marketers and, of course, sales are monitored to see how modifications to the brand impact the bottom line.
Sydney CBD
brand design agency specialising in corporate brand identity management
packaging design and
brand management. Our agency's branding consultants & designers work on corporate strategy design, marketing to branding for packaging.
