“A Brand is more than just a colourful logo”
Corporate Identity means many things to many people, but in general it is creating a company’s personality and then presenting it effectively, through differing types of communication. You will then enhance the perceived value of your product or service, helping to differentiate your company from your competitors and creating your own ‘Corporate Brand’. Your company needs to be readily recognisable in order to stand out against the many different and mixed messages in the mainstream. You need to identify how you want your company to be portrayed (your brand values) and then acting accordingly to make it happen. Below are some tips of how to get started:
1. Take your company’s brand values, then think about how they might be portrayed visually through your company brochure, business cards, website, letterheads, adverts, e-mails, signage etc. (your Corporate Design). You may have an idea of an image that best represents one of your brand values, or a particular typeface you wish to use. Or you may have an idea of the style you wish to get across, i.e. businesslike, creative, fun, down-to-earth, friendly.
2. Think about the physical applications in which the identity will be used – i.e. your logo may need to be seen on letterheads, websites, even large posters or vehicle liveries. All these different applications need to be taken into consideration when creating the guidelines for using your logo and associated corporate design.
3. Then comes the stage where you will probably need to take your ideas to a professional designer to help develop the visual look of your new identity.
4. The designer will normally begin by designing and developing a series of logos, based on your brief, going through a staged process bringing you closer to the one which is your final identity central to your corporate design.
5. The designer will also consider different applications of the logo – i.e. it will need to encompass all usage requirements in spot colour, full colour and single colour applications. It may need to be ‘reversed out’ for use on a darker colour background, or a low-resolution version made for use on PowerPoint presentations or websites. It may need to work on a vast scale, i.e. for billboard advertisements, or considerations may need to be taken into account if your logo is to be animated.
6. Once the final logo is agreed, the rest of the corporate design will then be developed choosing the right typefaces and sizes, complimentary colours, placement and size of logo, strap line usage, additional graphic treatments, etc. This is needed to ensure a visual consistency across all your non-verbal communications.
7. Your designer may then use these guidelines to create a series of literature for you as required, and/or create a ‘corporate identity’ or ‘brand’ guidelines document that sets the rules to ensure your new identity is applied consistently.
Now that you have your new identity and have invested time and money in its creation and development, ensure you use it! A well-designed Corporate Identity won’t hide flaws in your product or service however, but as long as you don’t have them, your new identity will almost certainly make a strong statement about the kind of company you are!
This article is written by Rachel Toy, a freelance Graphic Designer working in the design industry for over 15 years. Her company, Spirit Creative Ltd, is a full Graphic Design Agency serving Beds/Bucks/Herts, providing logo design, business cards, leaflets, brochures, web sites, web hosting, exhibition graphics and more! If you would like us to help your company with any of the above then do not hesitate to contact us on info@spiritcreative.co.uk
Rachel Toy 