Design and branding

In this chapter we will outline:

• The relationship between design and branding
• The key design ingredients of branding
• Examples from the business world

As we started out by saying, an organisation’s brand is a whole set of associations which people make when they think about or encounter that business.

A common misconception – and one that designers are always at pains to correct – is that a brand is simply a logo or identity. The logo is just one manifestation of a brand, although it’s often a top-level communication, seen most frequently by the greatest number of people. It should therefore embody the key ingredients of the brand in a distinctive, recognisable marque.

Take the Nike ‘swoosh’ for example. Designed in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, then a graphic design student at Portland State University, the swoosh is a simple yet effective logo that conveys energy and movement, appropriate to a company that makes performance sportswear.

So, while brand building and branding are complex, strategic activities, there is almost always a vital creative design component too.

Design is what translates the ideas into communication. And many designers will work through both the strategy and the implementation to ensure that the results are consistent, adaptable and in-keeping with your original brand attributes.

Key design ingredients

There is a range of design elements that can be used to convey a brand proposition. Here are a few of them, with an example in each case:

• Colour – Orange
• Shape – Toilet Duck
• Name – Egg
• Touch/materials – iPhone
• Sound – Intel
• Illustration – Lloyds TSB
• Typography – BBC
• Environment – Guinness Storehouse

After working through a branding project with designers you should be left with something called brand guidelines. This is a document which details exactly how the different design elements (typically visual) should be applied in different situations. It will give information on things like typography, graphics, colours, materials, templates and photography used in the visual manifestation of the brand, providing instructions on how to apply them in different contexts, at different scales and so on. More detailed brand guidelines may include things like cultural or behavioural directions for staff training.

The organisation can use these brand guidelines to manage the brand after the designer’s work on the project is completed without losing the original consistency and clarity of the designs and, most importantly, with losing sight of your original big idea.