You Must Spend Time Creating a Brand!

You’ve heard it before, and you’re going to hear it again right now: Those that plan succeed, those that don’t, plan to fail. This is one of those old sayings that you just can’t argue with. It amazes me that those that came before me were so wise in the ways of so many things. You’d think that peace on Earth would prevail. Maybe it will one of these days. At least, in terms of graphic design related to company branding, today your company can prevail.

After spending many years in the branding wars, I’ve come to realize one thing that is an absolute truth: a good brand image is arrived at through research, planning and strategy. If a company takes the time to do these three things when developing their brand, they will be successful. There is no doubt in mind. Let me explain why.

When a company has defined who, what, when, where and how, they have established an important foundation that can be leveraged for brand creation. The first step in the process is research and planning. This involves key concept questions that must be considered like: What should the brand look like? How should it make people feel? What should it say to people? Will it be consistent across all medias? All these questions need to be answered before the brand image of a company can be designed. Typically brand workshops are performed to foster discussions that help to answer these questions. Workshops typically involve the following:

• Create summary of your business model
• Define your mission
• Define attributes, personality and characteristics of your company
• Create an overview of your existing resources with regard to people, process and technology
• List your perceptions about your competition
• List any market dynamics/trends that you see impacting your business now and in the future
• Produce an overview of your products and services
• Foster in-depth discussions about your target audiences’ preconceptions, wants and needs
• Conduct brief analysis of your competitors
• Create segments and user profiles

Once the research and planning process is completed, a strategic road map will be created that will provide the guiding principles that will be followed during the design and creation of your company’s brand image. Ultimately the final product is the brand style guide, which is a document that details each and every aspect of a brand. The brand style guide should be available to everyone in the company and to all outside vendors who are involved in communicating your brand.

Overall, the branding process takes time and energy, but a well thought out brand will bring success. It is surprising how a brand comes to life when those that interact with it can understand it and be moved by it. Often times customers and employees can become champions of your brand. The time it takes to achieve an effective brand is well worth it, as it means you planned and will succeed rather than you planned to fail, by not planning at all!

In the case where your company may not have an established brand, we offer full service brand workshops and strategic planning sessions that will help you define the brand of your company, and in turn, impact the creative direction of associated graphic design services.