About Trumpet Brand Identity Design

Brand identity design is not about pretty drawings. It's about a powerful idea, well told and beautifully executed, that will grow your business.

Hello, my name is May Sivertsen and I am a brand identity designer from Norway. Despite having lived in Ireland for twenty years my work is still very much Scandinavian inspired. 

I spent ten years working with clients such as Hyundai, Birdseye and Bank of Ireland, as an employee of QMP D’Arcy and McCann-Erickson and as a freelance art director for numerous Irish advertising and design agencies, including Javelin, Irish International and Cawley Nea. 

I set up a greeting card business called Yes I like It but it it was a bit of a failure... I preferred the designing part to the selling part and I ended up drowning in cards! One good thing came out of it, though. I got commissions from shops, including the beautiful Chester Beatty Library giftshop in Dublin, to produce custom made cards. I found I enjoyed working directly with clients so I waved goodbye to stressful freelance work and set up Trumpet in 2010. Since then I have worked with a broad range of wonderful clients from all different sectors.

​May is pronounced My in Norway and my surname... well. It’s safe to say my name breaks plenty of rules when it comes to naming a business. Hence Trumpet! The idea behind my business name is that if you have a business you need to let people know about it. You have to blow your own trumpet;-)

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We believe we have a particular talent for stripping away the unnecessary and drawing out the essential, resulting in a clear, focused and memorable brand identity design. ​ ​

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. There are a lot of very talented people working as a Trumpet Team when a project requires it.​ Myself and Leanne Willars (a superb graphic designer, connect with her on LinkedIn by clicking here) collaborate with several web developers, a marketing planner, a couple of copywriters, various photographers and printers when projects need it. Working with Trumpet means you meet and work with the people who actually do the work. ​​

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What I know about Brand Identity Design

The foundation of your brand is your logo and your brand identity elements such as typefaces, colours and type of images to use, tone of voice etc. Your brand is your business' reputation.  It is through branding that you will create consumer trust and emotional attachments. A good example is Lego. They’re not just building blocks for kids. They represent childhood imagination and creativity. 

​As a brand identity designer I have worked with several leading branding experts over the years. And although things change constantly there are a few fundamental principles when it comes to branding and these are pretty much unchanged since I started out in the industry some twenty odd years ago. Here's a few links to articles I have written about branding and design:

Creating a brand story is the best way to differentiate your business, but it is not simply about standing out and getting noticed. It is about building something that people care about. Something they want to buy into. Click to read "How to create a brand story."

A brand is your business reputation. It is through branding that you will create consumer trust and emotional attachments. A good example is Lego. They’re not just building blocks for kids. They represent childhood imagination and creativity. Click to read "Do you have a business or do you have a brand."

There’s plenty of ways to go about developing a name for your business. You can describe what your business is or what it does, you can take a word out of context or you can make up a brand new word. Click to read "10 ways to go about naming your business."

A creative brief is a communication tool that outlines a project’s requirements, expectations and resources. It helps ensure that everyone involved in a project are on the same page. Click to read "Trumpet’s creative brief template for a brand identity project."

Here’s my design principles and some of my logo designs. You need to communicate clearly, confidently and positively. It is absolutely vital that your logo represents your core values. Click to read "Your logo is the visual summary of everything that your business stands for."

While logos are visual representations of a brand, taglines are audible representations of a brand. If your business name is not already descriptive of what you do, well then your tagline should be. Click to read "How to write a great tagline for your business."

Colours have the power to convey and communicate meanings and messages without words. It is the most important component of a logo design and by far what people remember the most, much more so than the shape or word of the logo itself. Click to read " What does your brand colours say about your business?"

Every brand, from the smallest startup to a corporate giant, need a set of branding guidelines to maintain their identity. Here’s a list of what I believe is essential information for a brand style guide, along with some great examples from the likes of Skype, Spotify and Orange.

A brief history of branding. The word brand derives from the Old Norse word brandr and it means “to burn” or “to mark permanently with a hot iron.” Originally, branding was a method to mark ownership to try and avoid theft.

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Please do not hesitate to contact me at any time if you would like some more information. I would love to be part of your brand building journey. ​