A lot of people confuse logo design with brand identity. A logo design is simply a manifestation of a company’s image but brand identity requires a lot more.
When building a brand identity, you have to keep the theme in mind. Before you start the identity building process, you have to ask a few fundamental questions.
- What is the company’s vision and mission?
- What are the company’s core values?
- How does the company positions itself for social responsibility?
- Who are the customers or the target audience?
- How does the company differentiate itself from the competitors?
It is the designer’s responsibility to research the company inside-out to answer these questions. Answering these questions will help you understand how the company wants to be perceived. Designing a certain perception for the company is what branding identity is all about. Once the perception the company wants to pursue is clear, designing a logo is only the first step towards building that identity.
A brand identity then requires a company to incorporate its perceived value in every design, from graphic design (logo, business cards, stationaries, website etc.) to the company’s building architect, as well as the interior design of its offices. Brand identity is not just limited to the design, but also the advertisement that plays a crucial role in communicating that identity.
Last but not least, every employee and a stakeholder of the company must adopt company’s identity down to personal level in their daily business to be fully successful in building a strong brand identity.
Apple, inc. is an exemplary company with a strong brand identity. If you analyze Apple you can observe its strong identity that is consistent across all their business functions as well as their product lines. For example, one of the themes that are consistent across all functions of their business is “simplicity”. Their products emphasize on simplicity and the ease of use, their store design is simple and elegant, the company’s head office and its interior design are simple so the employees can interact with each other without any power distance, their customer service is world class which emphasize on solving all customer related problem efficiently; which becomes simple for its customers, and then you can see the simplicity of its graphic design from logo to website.
Designing a logo is often the first step in building a brand identity, especially if a company is new. When a company is new, the questions mentioned above become forward looking, as to where the company’s shareholder want to take the company. What is the identity they want to build for their new startup. Designers must have the same vision as the company’s leadership to be able to execute the initial stages of building the required identity.