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Corporate Identity/Branding

Branding

Brand is the “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s product distinct from those of other sellers.”

Working in branding allows a graphic designer or design firm to get involved with many aspects of the industry, from logo design to advertising to copywriting and slogans.

The goal of a brand is to make a company unique and recognizable, and to project a desired image.

Type of WorkWhen working in branding, a designer can expect to work in:

• Logo design

• Business card design

• Letterhead design

• Packaging

• Copywriting

• Writing slogans

• Advertising design

• Typeface design

• Research

• Marketing

Brand vs. Identity vs. Logo

A Brand (or Branding)

refers to the perceived image and subsequent emotional response to a company, its products and services.

It also represents the conversation that customers are having with each other about the company, and how that spreads.

An Identity describes the visual devices used to represent the company.

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.

cohesive and consistent

8 Essential Elements to a Comprehensive Brand Identity

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.

MIT Media Labs’ new logo has 40,000 variations

Each of the three shapes stands for one individual’s contribution, the resulting shape represents the

outcome of this process: A constant redefinition of what media and technology means today.

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.

Colors complement the key colors. This can be loosely defined such as: bright and bold, pastel, or cool colors.

5. Corporate typefaces.

Choose just a handful of fonts to be used whenever there is printed materials.

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.

7. Consistent style for images.

All imagery should have a consistent look and feel.

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.

• typefaces• color• texture

It could be a background texture, a line style treatment, a use of white space or color blocks.

LOGO

A Logo is the central, identifiable visual element that helps customers discover, share and remember a company’s brand.

Usually it’s in the form of an icon (mark or symbol), logotype, or combination of the two.

5 principles of effective logo design

Simplicity makes a logo design easily recognizable, versatile and memorable. Good logos feature something unexpected or unique, without being “overdrawn.”

K.I.S.S. Principle of design, which translates as: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Simple logos are often easily recognized, incredibly memorable and the most effective in conveying the requirements of the client.

MemorabilityAn effective logo design should be memorable, which is achieved by keeping it simple yet appropriate.

“Ultimately, the only mandate in the design of logos, it seems, is that they be distinctive, memorable, and clear.”

— Paul Rand

Timeless

An effective logo should be timeless. Will yours stand the test of time? Will it still be effective in 10, 20 or 50 years?

Leave trends to the fashion industry.Don’t follow the pack. Stand out.

Versatile

An effective logo works across a variety of media and applications. For this reason, logos should be designed in vector format, to ensure that they scale to any size.Ask yourself, is your logo still effective if it is printed…

• In one color?• In reverse color (i.e. light logo on dark background)?• The size of a postage stamp?• As large as a billboard?

Appropriate

How you “position” the logo should be appropriate for its intended audience.

For example, a child-like font and color scheme would be appropriate for a logo for a children’s toy store, not so much for a law firm.

10 Common Mistakes In Logo Design

1. Designed By An Amateur

A professional business should look professional. New business owners often invest a lot of time and money in property and equipment, but do not often match it by investing suitably in their logo. If your logo looks amateurish, then so will your business.

Advantages

• Your logo will be unique and memorable.• You won’t run into any problems down the line with reproducing it.• Your logo will have a longer lifespan and won’t need to be redesigned in

a couple of years.• Your logo will look professional.

2. Relies On Trends

Trends (whether swooshes, glows or bevels) come and go and ultimately turn into cliches. A well-designed logo should be timeless, and this can be achieved by ignoring the latest design tricks and gimmicks. The biggest cliche in logo design is the dreaded “corporate swoosh,” which is the ultimate way to play it safe.

Ignoring logo design trends is best.

3. Uses Raster Images

Standard practice when designing a logo is to use vector graphics software, such as Adobe Illustrator.

A vector graphic is made up of mathematically precise points, which ensures visual consistency across multiple sizes.

The alternative, of course, is use to raster graphics software, such as Adobe Photoshop. A raster graphic — or bitmap, as it’s commonly called — consists of pixels.

• The logo can be scaled to any size without losing quality.

• Editing the logo later on is much easier.

• It can be adapted to other media more easily than a raster image.

4. Contains Stock Art

A logo should be unique and original, and the licensing agreement should be exclusive to the client: using stock art breaks both of these rules.

5. Designing For Yourself Rather Than The Client

Stay focused on the client’s requirements by sticking to the brief.

6. Overly Complex

When printed in small sizes, a complex design will lose detail and in some cases will look like a smudge or, worse, a mistake.

The more detail a logo has, the more information the viewer has to process.

A logo should be memorable, and one of the best ways to make it memorable is to keep things simple.

Highly detailed designs don’t scale well when printed or viewed in smaller sizes.

7. Relies On Color For Its Effect

Some designers cannot wait to add color to a design, and some rely on it completely.

Choosing color should be your last decision, so starting your work in black and white is best.

8. Poor Choice Of Font

When it comes to executing a logo, choosing the right font is the most important decision a designer can make. More often than not, a logo fails because of a poor font choice (example shows the infamous Comic Sans).and hobo,and papyrus,and cooper black.

9. Has Too Many Fonts

Using too many fonts is like trying to show someone a whole photo album at once. Each typeface is different, and the viewer needs time to recognize it. Seeing too many at once causes confusion.

Using a maximum of two fonts of different weights is standard practice.

10. Copies Others

As mentioned, the purpose of a logo is to represent a business. If it looks the same as someone else’s, it has failed in that regard.

Copying others does no one any favors, neither the client nor the designer.

The Art of Logo Design

Writing Assignment

Find a logo that works well and one that doesn’t.2 logos in color printed out on letter size paper.

Write rationale supporting your choices for each, 100-300 words for each.

Be able to state a rationale in next class.

Due on next class.

#Research: Paul Rand