Creating Brand Identity
Brand Identity. Making it stand out.
What is most important about brand identity? Two things: It represents your brand, it makes the customer identify with it and It serves the strategy behind it.
That’s what brand identity is in today’s turbulent and competitive markets. How is it done? Call us, right now and we can tell you.
We have a predictive process in creating brand identity. Click here to learn about our behavior modeling.
But don’t believe for a moment that identity is just your logo, trademark, and color palette.
Other branding companies focus on that. We focus on the persuasive power that lies dormant in your current brand identity. Today your brand identity says who you are. After our brand work, it says why you are.
If you can settle for less than that, don’t bother to call us. But someone in your category will call us. And that day transforms the identity playing field permanently.
Developed through quantitative research that goes beyond the simple usage & attitude studies.
Why are other brand identity companies clueless?
Other brand development companies are lost with that concept. They are process-driven and believe the dog eared notions from years ago.
In these shops (I can’t call them brandy companies) the strategy takes the back seat to design.
At Stealing Share strategy always comes first.
However, we see brand identity as a small part of today’s brand building.
Your rebrand should be a persuasive element.
The foundation of your marketing
Brand identity is not some simple graphic that you manage for consistency. Call us. We will tell you the real story of branding. And how yours needs a modern approach.
We went rogue. The old-school ideas were lazy and foolish.
We are jumping off here to answer your googled query. But know one thing for certain… a new vision of branding is our calling card.
We changed everything. Suddenly the book on branding and brand identity is obsolete. Remember. It all starts with a persuasive strategy.
Once the strategy is established all visual and verbal customer touch-points must be aligned with the new brand.
As with all things visual, there are many signals between the lines that communicate to your potential customer.
The color palette, typography, graphic and photographic style all contribute to the personality. However, without a core concept to drive the way, the parts can only amount to mere decoration.
The important concept in logo design and brand identity
When we speak of the concept, we are talking about a central idea. An idea that brings the strategy alive.
In logo design, there must be one central idea that connects with customers.
Further, all energies must be staged so that they are immediate and apparent.
If the viewer has to work to get it, then the logo is not doing its job – being a symbol for the brand.
Simplicity is the path to clarity and immediacy
Simplicity is the only way to ensure the logo concept is immediate.
Complexity adds confusion and is, therefore, a barrier between the brand and the viewer.
The thing about simplicity, however, is that the elements can be elegant. It always must be of the utmost quality and craftsmanship.
You might be surprised how complicated simplicity is.
The tendency is to always add more. Yet Picasso explained that “omission is a creative art.” He was too right.
The clarity in brand identity arises when the strategy focuses on a single idea. Not a few ideas or been a couple of ideas. It must decide on the most important one.
Adding superfluous messaging just muddies the water.
We insist on single-mindedness. In that way, we can bring the identity to life in a meaningful AND persuasive way.
Our vision of identity elements for your brand asks more of it. it must strike a chord with the highest emotional intensity in the market.
And it builds on that intensity. It becomes the gateway to more compelling marketing. It gives permission for all the claims your marketing makes.
That’s why we see identity, not as the pinnacle of the marketing pyramid but the entire foundation upon which everything relies.
Simplicity and production values
Simplicity also greatly affects the ease and difficulty in producing the logo in a vast variety of required sizes and media.
Complex logos are difficult to reproduce when they are small – in addition to being unreadable.
Complex logos are always more expensive to a company as well because additional production processes are required to make them readable.
Brand Standards should be more than a set of rules
They should promote the strategy and personality. When done correctly,
Brand Standards help an organization reinforce the brand with energy and guidance. Examples with rationales go much further than direct commands.
They should also address language and messaging in order to make all parts work together in concert towards a dynamic impression.
In our Brand Standards, we also have a list of Do’s and Don’t’s that keep the focus tight.
In these logo and identity examples created by Stealing Share, notice how simplicity helps promote each strategy.
Stealing Share creates comprehensive visual and verbal systems. It’s one thing to create a system that works together. It’s quite another when the standards help create a personality and messaging system that reinforces the strategy.