Design

Customers look for ways to find what is relevant to them and ignore the rest. Let’s create a brand that capture their attention.
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• The creative brief     
• My design principles for your brand identity     
• Colours    
• Brand guidelines (They should inspire its user to create greatness)   

A creative brief for a brand identity design

You have done your research. Thanks! Now my job as a brand identity designer begins.

To get all relevant information about your business, I will ask you to fill out a creative brief. This 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.

I listen. I learn. I question. Then I create.

Information about your business/product/ service
What are the features and attributes of your product or service?

Functional and Emotional benefits
What problems does your product or service solve? What positive emotions is felt by customers?

USP / Reasons to believe
The one meaningful reason that makes you stand out from your competitors.

Brand persona
Describe the brand. What values are important?  

Brand essence
One single thought that captures the soul of the brand.

Competitors and obstacles
Understanding what the competition can offer will provide a clearer picture of where your product or service stands in the market. List main business challenges.

Objective
Decide on the most important objectives that need to be achieved to be successful.     

Target audience
Who are they and what are their pain points?

Tone of voice
What tone of voice will target audience best react to?

Brand ambition
Where do you want your product or service to be in the mind of target audience?
If we were to sum up your business with a tagline... what are the key points that need to be communicated?

Budget and Schedule
A schedule should include design presentations, client feedback, content delivery and approval dates.

Practical considerations and additional information
​List all elements that need to be included. Are there restrictions of any kind?

Your brand identity should be a visual summary of your business

Customers look for ways to find what is relevant to them and ignore the rest. To be one of the brands that capture their attention, you need to make your company easily recognisable. Visuals speak louder than words, more so than ever before.

Most brands are complex and it is my job to strip away the unnecessary and to draw out the essential, resulting in a clear and meaningful brand identity design that will help grow your business. Focus on one powerful idea, well told and beautifully designed.

Here’s my design principles.

Unique 
Your logo must have the ability to stand out against the crowd and it should be easily recalled after just a glance. Keep it simple for easy recognition. Less is more.

Memorable 
A few seconds is all it takes to make a first impression, but you need to make sure your logo makes a lasting impression as well.

Relevant 
Your logo must represent you. It must be appropriate, tailored to your audience and easily identified with your industry. However, it must not become a “me too” version of any other similar business to yours.

Versatile 
Your logo will be used in a number of ways and in multiple contexts and it has to be clear and effective at any size.

Timeless 
Focus on your brand rather than what the latest trends are. You want your logo to be able to stand the test of time.

Your brand identity should communicate the things you do in an instance. It should be simple in structure. The easier something is to understand, the more likely people will become engaged with what you are trying to communicate.

Brand colours

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.

Colours are signifiers for emotions which we are often unaware of. In fact, most of us, whether we are conscious of it or not, would make a snap judgment about a product, based on its colour alone.​

Choosing the colour (or colours) that best represents your brand is no easy task as different colours can provoke very different reactions in people. However, there’s a few things I think we can all agree on. Warm colours are associated with energy and cold colours bring calmness. Black is total absorption in complete contrast to white, which is total reflection. Red is a passionate colour as it stimulates us and raises the pulse rate. Green is the colour of balance. Blue is the colour of the mind and is essentially soothing. But then there’s light blue and dark blue and..... Not to mention the use of more than just one colour.

Perhaps the visual above can be used to start our colour discussion?

Brand guidelines

​Consistent branding leads to recognition and credibility. Consistency also signals predictability. Customers believe that when they buy a certain brand, it will perform as they expect it to.

Every brand, from the smallest startup to a corporate giant, need a set of brand guidelines to maintain their identity. This is a toolkit containing specifications on everything that plays a role in the look and feel of your brand. Everything from variations of the logo and how it can be used, to what typefaces, colours, images and tone of voice to use.

Brand guidelines lets everyone know exactly how to present your brand to the world. Here’s a list of what I think this document should include:

• Main logo and secondary logos (and what not to do with the logo)
• Brand marks
• Tagline (if you have one)
• Color palette
• Typography and font styling
• Brand patterns / Icons / Illustrations
• Photography direction
• Tone of voice (how your brand ‘speaks’)
• Stationery design
• Social media key visuals
• Templates (for key touchpoints)

Confusion is the number one brand killer, so make sure your brand communication is always consistent with your brand promise.

All your brand touchpoints need to be branded to give the same look and feel. The brand guidelines are there to help with this. However, the biggest enemy of branding is often when the internal team starts to meddle with the logo. Hence the importantance of including what not to do with your branding elements in your branding guidelines, as well as what to do.

Approved templates ensure that nobody needs to reinvent the wheel every time they create content.

Go to Chapter 4: Implementation

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