Graphics essay by shaun billings

1    SHAUN BILLINGS: A2 GRAPHIC DESIGN ILLUSTRATED ESSAY

WHAT ARE THE IMPORTANT FEATURES IN AN EFFECTIVE BRAND IDENTITY?

A brand is a concept used in advertising. It is a feature such as a name, term, design or symbol that identifies and makes one seller’s product more distinct from those of other sellers. It is a foundation of the entire marketing framework. It is what people think and feel when they come in contact with you and your business. It represents a product and is crucial to the success of a company. Basically, a brand is an association a person has of an organisation. These associations can be intentional, as they can be promoted via their identity and marketing. On the other hand, the associations may be unintentional due to bad reports in the media about the product, which will give negative feedback to the public.

Every good brand needs a good logo to represent it. So what is a logo? A logo is a design element symbolising the organisation. It is a tool to help communicate and represent a brand. It is an emblem or mascot of the company. This is the first impression that triggers the feelings of consumers. It is critical for a logo to be easily recognisable and likeable to form a good trademark. A logo is used by an organisation for its letterhead, business cards and advertising material. It is also called a “logotype”. A logotype is a graphic representation or symbol of a company name, trademark or abbreviation which is uniquely designed for easy recognition.

So what is the difference between a brand and a logo? Most entrepreneurs and small business owners believe that a brand and a logo are the same thing. But this is not the case. A logo and a brand are two very different things that must work well together. A logo by itself is just a graphic element with a name. A brand is the communications strategy that helps you communicate your passion for the product and expertise. A combined, well-planned logo and brand strategy helps to effectively and efficiently reach your audience. It communicates your message, values and visually attracts more attention.

What is a brand identity? A brand identity is a distinct visual look that is associated with an organisation. This is not just literally putting a logo on letterheads and advertising material. By giving an organisation an easily recognisable identity, people will recognise the brand even if they do not see the logo. This diagram shows how the brand identity and logo form part of the brand.

2    In this essay, I will be exploring the important features to a brand identity and define what makes a good logo. I will be researching successful brands and comparing them to unsuccessful brands. These are questions I will be answering that develop important features in an effective brand identity.

• What makes a good visual identity? • How do I understand my target market to create an effective brand identity? • How do I build an effective branding strategy? • What makes an effective logo and brand?

What makes a good visual identity?

An important feature to a brand identity is to build your visual position to be something larger to stand out from other companies. You need a system for your brand to allow you to meet the demands of different media, while still representing a clear identity. The logo should be professionally designed and set. You should keep to key colours which are often only one or two. The colours should correspond with each other and not clash. These colours can be loosely defined, such as bright and bold, pastel or cool colours. They may be picked using a colour swatch book. The design should be kept simple, which will make it easier to remember and recognise. Use corporate typefaces. Choose a small number of font styles to be used whenever there are printed materials. You have to make sure that these are available on all the computers that will create these documents. Your typographic identity should include ways of handling key types of text and should be consistent when styling headlines, for example using capitalising. The images should be a consistent style in all materials, whether printed or online. All photos could be brightly lit or using a subtle colour palette. Whether it is using photos, illustrations or charts and graphs, they need to be in a consistent style. You need to have a full library of graphic elements. These are all the small details that build a branding system whether it is a background texture or a line style treatment. These areas will give a professional look to the brand. Once a good visual identity is established, it is a solid basis for a strong brand identity.

How do I understand my target market to create an effective brand identity?

According to Jerry McLaughlin (entrepreneur) “Branding is the perception someone holds in their head about you, a product, a service, an organisation, a cause, or an idea. Brand building is the deliberate and skilful application of effort to create a desired perception in someone else’s mind”. Most businesses have a specific target audience they are pursuing. Trying to appeal to everyone and ignoring the concept of a target market can be counterproductive which causes a company’s brand to become diluted. You have to work out the needs of your target market. Peoples’ comments are made on many websites and forums. Discussion boards have people talking about different things, expressing their needs for something particular. Surveys are good because out

3    of thousands polled, a few hundred will respond. Most of the people who respond are particularly interested in something. You can search for surveys using the internet and in magazines or newspapers. Also, social networks can be a direct indication of their interest and content ideas. Twitter and Facebook are very popular social network sites. Experts in your niche are bound to have conversations on social network sites that can lead to some specific, targeted topic ideas. In conclusion, you need to think like the consumer to know what they require as “Branding is the perception someone holds in their head”.

How do I build an effective branding strategy?

The key to build an effective branding strategy is to be unique. Establishing a successful brand identity requires something distinctive. For example, Apple has become known worldwide for their good quality products and minimal, unique branding which is aesthetically pleasing. When someone uses their brand, they know they will be getting a good service. In simple terms, creating an identity within a niche needs to have a special thing that separates it from the competition.

To create a successful brand, you also need to be passionate about the business or product. This will encourage the staff to work hard and continue to deliver good results. This leads to enthusiasm and good staff morale within the company which is infectious. This passion for success pushes people through hard times and setbacks.

As well as being passionate, the business needs consistency as consumers need someone they can rely on. As there are many competitors, inconsistency is a valid reason for consumers to take their business elsewhere. To stay ahead of competition, you need to consistently strive to improve. A brand should be continually on the cutting edge of its industry.

Another part of the branding strategy is exposure. To be successful you need to reach consumers through multiple channels. Larger companies have an advantage in gaining exposure because they have a bigger marketing budget and connections. They can pay for television commercials, sometimes using highly paid celebrities to star in their commercials. They can also be featured in globally-recognised magazines and rank highly in search engine result pages. However, the Internet and Social Media sites have narrowed the gap between small and large companies. There are more tools on the internet which offer any company a chance at establishing their brand. By becoming recognised on networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, any company is able to reach almost any consumer.

4    What makes an effective logo and brand?

There are five main principles to create an effective logo design. It needs to be simple, memorable, timeless, versatile and appropriate. The logo design should be kept simple because it will give a clear message to what the logo represents. This also helps it to be memorable, as a simple design is easier to remember than a complicated one. The logo design should be timeless so it does not go out of date or be affected by changes in fashion. It needs to be versatile to adapt too many different functions, activities and media. Lastly, it needs to be appropriate, so it relates to the nature of the product/organisation.

To create an effective brand you need research, vision and a design brief. Firstly, you need to go through market analysis and consumer research. It is the most crucial part of the overall process and should result in a design brief and guides the rest of the project. You need to have vision, set goals and establish a brand personality. You should create a logo and identity design brief. Throughout this phase, you should look at how the brand is perceived against your competitors. Then create a statement for your brand. You should look into the origin and heritage of your product type. You should establish your target audience and consider where your products or services will have contact with them. Also, considering how you would want that contact experience to make them feel, take action or think about your brand. The brand should have strong values and beliefs. If the brand was a person, what would its personality be? You should think about the benefits you want customers to associate with your brand and also the vision of the brand that you want to create.

After the research phase is complete and a design brief has been created, you then design a logo. Once the logo has been created, you start the identity system. The purpose of the identity system is to form a systematic visual language around the logo. It has to compliment the design thinking of the logo and offers a range of useful, flexible elements that will help to design marketing and business collateral.

Here is an example:

5    Lastly, you need to establish style guidelines. Style guidelines contain and set the logo usage rules, typeface system, colour palette and layout guidelines. They exist so that others can create design collateral and marketing materials that will have a well-integrated look. Traditionally, style guidelines have been produced as print and web-ready PDFs. They are the core of the identity design and usually accompany the logo, templates, fonts and other resources packaged together to make designing for the brand easier. Basically, style guidelines are in-depth rules about logo usage, styling and layout.

Successful Branding

ITV

There are many successful brands. One of which I like, in particular, is the recent ITV logo by Matt Rudd of Rudd Studio.

6    ITV completed its rebrand launch on Monday 14th January 2013. The broadcaster’s flagship channel changed its name from ITV1 to ITV and, along with ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV, and changed their colour scheme to “better reflect their programme mix” ITV said. ITV Group Director of Marketing and Research, Rufus Radcliffe, led the in-house rebrand. He said that “viewers now have access to hundreds of channels and are forming relationships with digital brands that did not exist a few years ago”. He explained that “the rebranding of ITV will allow us to further cement the relationship in viewers’ minds between our shows and the ITV brand that produces and broadcasts them. We now have a consistent identity across everything that we do, and rooted in our positioning as a media brand that is at the heart of popular culture”.

I really like the new ITV logo. It has a variety of colours which represents the variety of entertainment available. The typography is linked together and is consistent which I perceive to be a consistent and reliable brand. It is a simple logo that is colourful and easy to remember. The logo contains five colours which appears to represent the five television channels they broadcast. This shows that all five channels link together to create the ITV brand. This logo is a good example of the five principles to create an effective logo design. It is simple and memorable. It is timeless as it is modern and up to date. It is versatile as it can represent each ITV channel and is extremely appropriate as it represents the purpose of the organisation.

Coca-Cola

Another very successful brand is Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink which is sold via many stores throughout the world. It is produced by the Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia. Coca-Cola was established in 1886 by John Pemberton, who was a pharmacist from Atlanta. Colonel John Pemberton was wounded in the Civil War and became addicted to Morphine. He began a quest to find a substitute to Opiate painkillers. The prototype Coca-Cola recipe was created at Pemberton’s Eagle Drug and Chemical House which was a drugstore in Columbus, Georgia, originally as a Coca Wine. In 1885, Pemberton registered his French Wine Coca nerve tonic.

The Coca-Cola logo was created by John Pemberton’s bookkeeper, Frank Mason Robinson. Robinson thought of the name and chose the logo’s distinctive, joined-up writing. The typeface used, known as Spencerian script, was developed in the mid-19th Century and was the dominant form of formal handwriting in the United States during that period. Robinson suggested the name Coca-Cola, thinking that the two Cs would look good in advertising. Robinson also played a significant role in early Coca-Cola advertising. His promotional suggestions to Pemberton included giving away thousands of free drink coupons and covering the city of Atlanta with publicity banners and streetcar signs.

7    Coca-Cola’s Logo Timeline

1887-1890s – Inserting the ‘Trademark’ These two important little words, “Trademark Registered” were added to the tail of the first ‘C’.

1890-1891 – Extra swirls For just one year, the logo changed its appearance quite dramatically with this extra swirly script. Afterwards, the logo returned to its previous font.

1941-1960s – Tail tweaked In this version, the words ‘Trademark Registered’ moved out of the tail of the ‘C’ and were noted as ‘Reg. US Pat Off’ below the Coca-Cola name.

1958-1960s – A fishy shape This period saw the introduction of the Arciform or ‘fishtail’ logo.

1969 – That famous white wave The Arden Square logo was unveiled to the world. In this red box, the familiar Coca-Cola script was underlined with the iconic white ‘wave’ known as the ‘Dynamic Ribbon Device’, which is still used to this day.

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2003 – Keeping it real With the introduction of the ‘Coca-Cola... Real’ campaign, the logo’s ‘white wave’ was enhanced with a shock of yellow and some floating bubbles.

2007 – A classic design A simple, yet bold, design with a single white ribbon.

2011 – 125 years of happiness Coca-Cola's 125th birthday logo sees bubbles bursting from the famous Contour Bottle – a celebration of our past, present and future.

I really like the Coca-Cola logo. In my opinion, the Coca-Cola script is the most iconic feature of the logo. It is the only feature that has not been changed to this day, although there are a few variations. The logo has improved over time. It began as a simple script. It then evolved using colour, and gradually adding creative features to enhance it. The logo has grown in personality during its lifetime and continues to do so. This logo is truly a timeless classic.

9    Unsuccessful Branding

2012 Olympic Logo

This is the official 2012 logo for the 2012 Olympic Games. The identity was designed by Wolff Olins.

I think that the official 2012 logo for the 2012 Olympic Games was unsuccessful. This unusual logo caused many different reactions when it was unveiled in 2007. Some of the negative reactions were reported by The Week Staff on 3 March 2011. One of the negative reactions was very serious as Iran threatened to boycott the Olympic Games over the “racist” implications of the logo. The Secretary-General of Iran’s National Olympic Committee, Bahram Afsharzadeh, threatened to boycott the Games. He said that Iran sent a letter to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge. The letter claims the 2012 logo spells out "Zion," a biblical term widely recognised to refer to the city of Jerusalem.

It was also reported in the Huffington Post on 25/05/2011, that in comments carried by the official IRNA news agency, Secretary General Bahram Afsharzadeh said the letter urges other Muslim states to oppose the "racist logo". The letter also said "There is no doubt that negligence of the issue from your side may affect the presence of some countries in the games, especially Iran which abides by commitment to the values and principles.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel's destruction and questioned historical accounts of the Holocaust. Iranian athletes refused to compete against Israelis.

The International Olympic Committee said it received the letter and joined London organisers in rejecting Iran's complaint. They commented "Our response is as follows: The London 2012 logo represents the figure 2012, nothing else." The London organisers said the design was launched in 2007 after testing and consultation. They went on to say "we are surprised that this complaint has been made now."

As well as this pro-Zionist interpretation, there was also the Nazi interpretation. Rod McKie, cartoonist, said that the logo was “an absolute disgrace” and went on to say that “connotations of the Waffen SS in any signs and symbols makes me distinctly uneasy”. The comparison McKie made was to the design below, which is that of the Waffen SS, the Nazis’ secret police.

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This view was agreed with by Zennie Abraham. Zennie Abraham is a pioneer video blogger, YouTube Partner, social media practitioner, game developer and pundit. Abraham commented that “the Waffen SS is the least of it” and went on to say that “to me, it resembles nothing less than a swastika”. He pointed out that the logo had the same four-square-corners rotating around a centre. He ranted that “worse yet, it looks like someone realised that, and decided to turn the logo so that it was more square than diamond”.

There was a different, but still negative, interpretation which was expressed by Chris Chase at Yahoo! Sports. Chase commented that if you read the logo “counter-clockwise from the bottom left” it resembles the word “Izzo”. He explained that Izzo is the nickname of the hip-hop superstar Jay-Z. This might draw copyright complaints or at least “cries of protest from Ohio State fans” whose rival basketball team, the Michigan State Spartans, is coached by Tom Izzo.

In my opinion, the logo design looks awkward and is not easily recognisable. At a first glance, this complex logo is not entirely clear in what it should say. It has negative, racist connotations which should have been recognised during the design period. The only good thing I could say is that it is a bright colour which can catch peoples’ attentions, but that is all.

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There is another unsuccessful logo which I found on the internet. It is a logo advertising junior jazz dance classes. There is an explanation of the type of dance classes which is offered to boys and dates of classes etc. There is a simple picture of a man and woman dancing. Unfortunately, when you stand back and look at the picture again, it is clear to see that the picture resembles a naked woman. This is extremely inappropriate, especially for a children’s dance class! They should have thought about their target audience more and studied every angle of the picture. They should have thought about how the logo makes people think and feel. The logo is very memorable, but for the wrong reasons.

In conclusion, the logo and brand is an essential part of how people perceive a company and adds to its success or failure. Careful guidance and procedures need to be followed during every level of the design period. By looking at the successful brands that I have outlined, ITV and Coca-Cola knew their target audience, displaying a clear message and also knew how they wanted people to think and feel about their organisations. They kept their logos simple, yet they were aesthetically pleasing and memorable. They also kept their logos up to date and clearly took great care in the detail of their design process. The unsuccessful logos I have outlined did not think about their target audience. They did not think through the message they wanted to convey. The important features in an effective brand identity were definitely overlooked in these cases because a brand identity is a distinct visual look that is associated with an organisation.

12    BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.designcouncil.org.uk

www.bourncreative.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-logo-and-a-brand/

www.visiblelogic.com/blog/2013/02/logo-brand-identity-brand-what-is-branding/

https://www.visiblelogic.com/blog/2010/04/8-essential-elements-2-a-comprehensive-brand-identity/

www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2013/11/12/the-top-7-characteristics-of-successful-brands/

http://www.itv.com/news/2013-01-14/new-itv-logo-rebrand-2013/

http://www..wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-cola

http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/125/history-of-coca-cola-logo.html

www.theweek.com/article/index/212682/zion-lisa-simpson-and-3-other-things-the-london-olympics-logo-resembles

www.rodmckie.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/london-2012-and-waffen-ss-logo.html

www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/28/iran-london-2012-olympics-logo-racist_n_829179.html

www.yorkgraphicdesigners.co.uk/top-ten-logos-gone-wrong/