I was thinking of writing a bit about branding design today. Before we jump into the whole thing, let’s clear the air by dismissing common misunderstandings about branding.
Branding Design is not
Logo Design
Identity Design
Marketing
Business Building
What is a Brand? It’s a collective reputation generated by any business or a person. For laymen on the other end, it's how we feel towards a business entity or a person. And Branding Design is all about creating and controlling the above said “feeling”.
To make this even simpler to understand, we will quickly take a walk alongside the chain of branding process.
Stage 1_ Business Goals: A business is formed. The owner comes up with a potential idea for a product/service. They define their business goals.
Stage 2_Values: Brand Values & Philosophies are set based on the business goal. These values should be communicated to the audience effectively.
Stage 3_ Brand Identity & Atmospherics. How to communicate the values to the customer? By creating an identity for the brand! From the Logo to the colors, From Typography to the Tone of communication— a system is built. Using various design collaterals like websites, adverts, visiting cards, stationary, etc (aka Brand Atmospherics), the identity is shared with the consumers to build a long-lasting impression.
Stage 4_Reputation: These collaterals will play a crucial role in building a reputation in the consumer's mind.
Makes sense?
Okay, I am putting the whole thing into a circle. Circles make everything better!
Time for a real case. Uber! Before coming up with their optimal brand design, Uber went through a lot of changes. We are not gonna talk about that here though. I am going to skip a few chapters from the Uber Story to make the process easy for you to understand.
Stage 1: Travis Cordell Kalanick comes up with a potential business plan for ride-hailing. He sets his goal to expand the business with branches in courier, food, and freight.
Stage 2: Based on these goals, a brand story is built. What do people want from a company like this? Trust, Ease of Access, Inclusivity, and Convenience! There, they became the brand’s values.
Stage 3: To convey that the company has these values that people care about, they had to build an identity that will communicate them. First step- Brand name! Uber says it all. Then came a simple, adaptable, and timeless logotype. Black & White color palette and candid imagery set the visual tone. They even set how the brand should sound— assistive, caring, and always available.
Stage 4: Uber eventually made people believe that they stand by their values. This brought in Uber’s current reputation. A good reputation helped in achieving its Business Goals!
So the whole point here is- we cannot pin down the term branding to some of its imperative operations alone. But, it's a holistic locution that includes the entire process of converting a business goal from paper to reality.
That's it for today.
<End of BrainDump>
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