From Logo to Brand
Your logo is a visual representation of your business and all it stands for, not just what it does. It might be a well established company providing a caring kindly service, or a company with a dynamic, high tech approach; or its products might be good value or come with an exclusive price tag.
Your logo is just the start. To create a strong brand, the public face of the company must consistently re-enforce the same values and this will be reflected in the way you answer the phone, the tone of voice you use in all your written correspondence, all your marketing material and even the way you treat your customers and it may even inform the choice of products you sell.
Photos and…
Take two drinks: one is a power packed energy drink, the other is a natural spring water. Everything about the power packed energy drink should be as packed with power as the product itself: dynamic photos bursting from the page with bold, clever headlines, strong calls to action, hard hitting copy, hard edged bottle designs and a punchy digital experience. By contrast, everything about the natural water company should engender a quiet, natural sense of goodness and purity. Photos would typically be calm scenes taken from nature, with lots of green and blue.
Should the high energy drink also choose to use photos from nature we’d see thundering waterfalls, mighty, crashing waves or fast fish leaping.
Fonts and…
Rather than using the same typeface that makes up your logo for other information, use a different font, which will compliment it and doesn’t compete or fight with it.
It’s all too easy to detract from your logo’s unique quality or devalue it by association. For example: if you use it everywhere it’s no longer special, then you’ll use it for directional signs for your offices… sooner or later you’ll need a sign for for the toilets.
A properly constructed corporate identity will specify a font – or family of typefaces – to use with your logo in your corporate communications. Whilst good typography should be ‘invisible’ it still carries subliminal messages that should reinforce your brand values.
Colours
As with fonts, a collection of complimentary colour schemes should be used consistently. The message is the same – these will help to re-enforce your brand ethos, brand recognition and brand loyalty.
One voice
A corporate identity which comprises of a variety of elements including those touched on above gains strength of purpose through consistent application. The temptation to fiddle and deviate must be firmly and continuously resisted. Everyone in the organisation should understand this and ‘sing to the same hymn sheet’ and keep their personal tastes and whims to themselves!
Brand Guidelines
A set of intelligently designed brand guidelines will ensure you get the most out of your logo. Typically they will address photos, fonts and colours, and a raft of do’s and don’ts. Decisions on your company’s visual representation are taken from a professional design perspective with all likely applications in mind. Brand guidelines are a great way to keep your brand on track both internally and with your suppliers and subcontractors.
