Logo and Brand design | How to and why
So what is brand design anyway? You've heard the term a
million times and while you know what a logo is, the whole branding thing
escapes you. Simple, it is who you are in the eyes of your client. Let's start
with the first piece of that puzzle, the logo.
Your logo is the first thing anyone sees. In a happy world,
if you put your company/product/etc in a blender, reduce on slow heat for 3
hours and let it sit for 45 minutes the result should be your logo, in other
words the essence of who and what you are, distilled down to a small image that
represents you. This is all well and
good when your company is one dimensional and sells only one thing, take (x
logo) it represents beautifully what the company does, however if the company
grows and starts to sell y as well as x, things can get a little more tricky
(one of the things to keep in mind when building your brand!) but I digress...
So, the logo is an image that represents you/your company,
it should be easy to reproduce in black and white, should be easy to read at
one and a half inch by one and a half inch (some go as low as one inch, some swear
by 2) but you get the idea... also it should look fine when blown up as big as
a building and usually you want to keep things simple and use no more than two
colors (plus black/white).
Branding
In a way branding is the continuation of the logo. Say your logo is blue, aqua and grey. Your corporate identity would showcase these colors somehow, your brand (the global compendium of everything you put out) would participate of these colors, maybe the accents you use in your collateral are aqua and the titles blue, etc. The idea is to have a cohesive look and feel for your company so that whenever a client comes into contact with anything of yours, he or she will easily associate those images with your company and have a consistent emotional response.
Branding
In a way branding is the continuation of the logo. Say your logo is blue, aqua and grey. Your corporate identity would showcase these colors somehow, your brand (the global compendium of everything you put out) would participate of these colors, maybe the accents you use in your collateral are aqua and the titles blue, etc. The idea is to have a cohesive look and feel for your company so that whenever a client comes into contact with anything of yours, he or she will easily associate those images with your company and have a consistent emotional response.
We are just touching on the visual aspects of a brand but
there is a lot more that goes into branding. Things most people would not stop
to think about, like the tone and style of writing, like the type of images
that can and cannot be used when representing a brand, colors that might be
banned, even sounds and styles of music that may (or may not) be associated
with the brand. But for now just keep in mind, who you are and how you are
perceived in the eyes of your clients is completely determined by branding!
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logo and brand design | How to and why
the right marketing collateral piece for you
Why identifying your audience is key | Who is your customer?
Online design.
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The right marketing collateral piece for you
So you have come to the realization that if you don't
advertise nothing happens, and I mean nothing...crickets. Good, it's the first
step towards great things. Now that you have decided that advertising is a good
idea if you want to get the word out, you look up a designer (check their
portfolio from end-to-end and make sure they fit what you are looking for) and
wham, you commission a piece!
The designer asks you a bunch of things (do you have a logo/corporate ID? great, who's your target audience....and on and on) and once he or she gets a lay of the land they get down to, ok what do you need designed exactly? And you go blank...
The designer asks you a bunch of things (do you have a logo/corporate ID? great, who's your target audience....and on and on) and once he or she gets a lay of the land they get down to, ok what do you need designed exactly? And you go blank...
Hmm, advertisement! Yes, great but what are we talking about
here, a good year blimp? Flyer? Poster? Brochure? There are unending
possibilities, and if you do not know what fits your needs you might as well go
back to the second sentence (nothing happens). Ok ok, don't fret. Let's try to
find the best solution.
What is the purpose of the piece? Yes, advertising, but are you selling multiple products? (catalog might work for this) are you mailing it? Are you leaving it behind when you meet people? (might be a bit expensive to print if that's the idea...try a trifold instead) Is the point of the piece to peak someone's interest just enough to look you up online? If so, a flyer or a postcard might be just the thing, cheap to print, just enough space to convey one message, carry it with a striking image to cause an itch and follow it with a website (for those who decide to scratch)
What is the purpose of the piece? Yes, advertising, but are you selling multiple products? (catalog might work for this) are you mailing it? Are you leaving it behind when you meet people? (might be a bit expensive to print if that's the idea...try a trifold instead) Is the point of the piece to peak someone's interest just enough to look you up online? If so, a flyer or a postcard might be just the thing, cheap to print, just enough space to convey one message, carry it with a striking image to cause an itch and follow it with a website (for those who decide to scratch)
As you can see, things can get a bit complicated the deeper
you go, but so long as you identify what you want this advertisement to
achieve, who your target is, and what the message is you should be fine. Try to ask yourself as many questions about
it as possible, get in the shoes of the client and try to see the piece from
their perspective, the more questions you answer and the more you see things
from the audience's point of view, the better your piece will perform.
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Why identifying your audience is key | Who is your customer?
Say your audience is middle-aged women to whom you want to
sell cookies, the central (visual) part of your piece should probably not be a
sponge...with pants and over-caffeinated eyes and somewhat psychotic
expression; change that audience for 5-year olds, call the thing Bob and voila,
instant success!
Each person is a world on to themselves and all that good
stuff and while putting people in a group and making a bunch of assumptions is
generally frowned upon, when it comes to advertisement it actually helps a bit.
So the first thing you want to do is figure out who you are selling to and get
as specific as humanly possible. What is
their age group? Education? Male/Female? Where are they from? Do they even like
cookies? and keep asking questions until you know these people better than
their Aunt Bertha.
The more questions you ask, hmm...no...the more questions
you correctly answer!...the closer you are to reaching your audience. If you can reach your audience
and you are still not making sales, your product is probably quite awful, think
back on the 80s...someone managed to sell pet rocks! All they did was connect
with their audience and it took off (Granted the 80s saw a lot of drugs being
consumed by said audience but still).
The point is if you know who you are talking to, you can change your
tone and your message to reach them better (here puppy puppy....see?
automatically you went high pitched while reading that and sounded like you
were speaking to a toddler) Well, it's the same thing, just a little different
since your audience is probably not a puppy.
Note,
the stuff in yellow im not 100% sure about....let me know what you think.
