Presenting a consistent and coherent image to the world demands that many aspects of an organisation are considered and designed so that they fit together as part of a whole. Conceiving and representing a brand is therefore a careful interplay between a number of design disciplines, ranging from strategic consultancy at the top level, right down to the choice of inks and paper used for stationery and packaging.
Brand consultancy 'i-am' associates lists the following elements as the components of an overall brand experience:
- Business strategy
- Physical and virtual environments
- Sales process
- People and culture
- Products and services
- Brand strategy and identity
This list illustrates the sweep of areas that brand designers might be involved in and shows what a multidisciplinary approach is needed to build and manage brands.
Techniques and tools
Brand design may involve research, strategy, design, implementation and ongoing brand management, each drawing on different design skills, as well as roles within the client company itself, such as brand management and marketing. Broadly speaking, a brand design process starts with research, moves to concept generation (or a reassessment of the current brand), followed by creative design work based on a chosen concept and ending with design implementation. For larger organisations the process may be ongoing.
The concept stage will typically involve discussions about the business, its products and services, their position in the market, its competitors, its history and aspirations for the future. This may well start with interviews with senior management. Market research and customer surveys may also be used to help build up a picture of the organisation and how it is perceived, as well as how it relates to competitors. From here, branding consultants can start to define a brand ‘essence’ and personality – the tone, character and purpose that can run through all the elements developed in the design phase, whether graphical, digital or physical.
Moving into the design and implementation stages, good designers should also be able to advise their clients on issues of sustainability: the selection of appropriate materials, efficiencies in processes and so on.
Where to go for brand design
Some branding specialists will handle everything from research and strategy, to the creation of a visual identity and personality and its application across various media, environments and other collateral. In other instances, different areas of design may be handled by specialist consultancies.
Branding for a food product, such as Mrs Massey’s chutneys, could be handled solely by a packaging specialist, for example. As well as specialising in a design skill, such as packaging design, some groups also specialise in a particular industry sector, such as construction, cultural heritage or healthcare.
The scale of the client organisation and the size of the project may determine what types of designers need to be involved in order to design for all of the brand’s touchpoints. Many larger organisations – especially multinationals – may work with a range of different design consultancies, perhaps operating a roster of groups, and may employ an in-house brand manager or head of design to ensure brand consistency across all output.
Branding for SMEs
What about branding for SMEs – is it essential to work with big budgets and big agencies to develop a strong brand? No, there are design consultancies of all different sizes and disciplines that are able to work with their clients to develop a strong brand proposition and then reflect that through creative design work.
And according to Rita Clifton, chairman of branding consultancy Interbrand, all businesses should invest in some brand design. ‘You can never afford not to be a brand, whatever size you are, because you’ve got customers or audiences that you need to influence, so you’ve got to think about it. The disciplines that you use are exactly the same whether you’re a big company or a small company,’ she says.
Building a brand internally
Building an understanding of an organisation’s brand internally, amongst staff, can also be important, as it helps employees to better understand the company; this understanding can then be communicated more clearly to customers. For example:
The Met Office worked with design group Elmwood to show staff how the organisation’s weather forecasts and research have a chain of influence in everyday life and how seemingly different departments are in fact completely interdependent. The ‘design’ outputs of this process included a series of mini-stories in the Met Office’s Exeter headquarters illustrating the influence of the organisation’s activities.
Virgin Media worked with design group Household to inject its brand into physical workplaces following the merger of NTL Telewest and Virgin Media to create the new company. The work was much broader than a mere visual facelift; it was about aiding a cultural integration of staff from the merging businesses by clearly communicating the new Virgin Media brand.