By Vince Derama, Design Specialist
Visuals only hold the value that we give them. With no context, a shape is just a shape. Though it may serve many purposes in many forms, from complex geometry and math to the rich history of a 200-year-old brand, a shape on its own won't tell your audience a story.
Suppose we took a shape and placed it with another to give it context:
In this instance, we can note that the shapes aren't the same, but they appear to have similar weight and value. What happens if we distinguish them further?
Now we can assume more about these two shapes. They're
different colors and different shapes. They must be opposites.
It happens often. You'll view an object that you haven't
encountered and make inferences about its use based on your personal
experiences. The same happens with brand visuals. How can we influence our
audience to make positive assumptions about us? How do we make sure that they
view us in a good light, even if they've never interacted with our product?
1. Intentional Design
Like in the above example, we naturally make assumptions
based on related experiences. It's likely that we viewed the red "X"
as a negative symbol, and the green "O” as a positive symbol. These exist
for many other symbols, characters and even colors. It's important that we bear
in mind the suppositions that can be made about a brand.
Fortunately, designers have the edge. They have their own experiences
in what has worked to connect with target audiences and what hasn't, and can
bring these experiences back to you. A designer’s real expertise is their
ability to put themselves in the perspective of someone who has had baseline
exposure to your products. In combination with the knowledge of their target
market, designers have the opportunity to shape consumers’ opinions and future expectations
of your brand.
2. Coherency
Visuals should obviously fit with company messaging:
Composition is appropriate to the designer's medium, color palettes appropriate
to the unique target market and everything from front to back works toward the
overarching goal. But as they say, "the devil is in the detail."
What's not so obvious is that a brand should be descriptive
of its origins and convey your goals in the market. A brand should put a face
to a product, service or organization. And when potential consumers look at the
competition, they should be able to clearly see the difference in the
experience your product can offer.
3. Design for People
One of the things that is not stressed enough is that people are going to be the ones viewing
any branding you execute. When determining what “personality” a brand conveys, consumers
often hope for something "tech-y" or "friendly" or "fun
– those descriptors are a few of many, of course." A successful brand will
find ways to tie these themes back to the people in its market. It's important
to keep reminding yourself that your brand isn't trying to appeal to your
competitors.
As a designer, a good measure of success is the ability to
provoke emotion, whether a simple positive/negative reaction like, "this
is nice," or nostalgic feelings, like remembering the color shirt your
first date wore to the movies. Emotion is a good indication of success because
it lets us know if and how people are making a connection to a brand. Keeping a
brand too "market-centric" prevents doing so on a larger scale.
4. Flexibility
A flexible brand keeps things from becoming stale and brings
a human quality to any and all of its messaging and collateral. Brand flexibility
can open the door to many opportunities, and great brands can translate across
multiple platforms simply and effectively. A successful brand will have a
clear, recognizable and consistent message throughout.
It's often difficult to tell what's coming around the
corner. Sometimes a series of events – planned or otherwise — could lead you to
huge growth or opportunity to reach a larger audience. Going through the effort
of a rebrand could be costly or untimely. When developing a brand, it's hard to
be conscious of the unknown, but leaving your visuals flexible can set you up
early for success.
5. Continuity
Like a great brand translates across platforms, a great
brand can also translate across multiple generations. A brand can go through
multiple rebrands and changes in messaging but always remember the brand is
about the product or service. Keeping this in mind will help develop a consistent
brand.
Continuity is the bridge between the visual and non-visual
elements of your brand. This includes everything from the product, messaging,
history, imagery and color scheme. Though these elements may change, the bridge
that brings them together should not.
Need some examples of great visual brands? Visit our page to get our take on effectively approaching and building a brand. Or,
comment below and tell us if you have any tips.
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