What is Branding?
Karen Post defines brand as “a mental imprint that is earned and
belongs to a product, service, organization, individual, and/or
event. It’s a story embedded in the mind of the market. It’s the
sum of all tangible and intangible characteristics of that entity.
A brand is what an audience thinks and feels when it hears a name
or sees a sign, a product, [service] and/or a place of activity.
It’s what customers expect when they select an offering over a
competing one.”
Miletsky and Smith define brand as “the sum total of all user
experiences with a particular product or service, building both
reputation and future expectations of benefit.”
How does branding function in the field of design?Designers help
companies to build the foundation of a brand through the
development of a business or product’s identity. The identity
allows the customer to make a connection between the company and
the products it offers.
Identity includes: logos, symbols, taglines, advertising
campaigns, package design, promotional materials (t-shirts,
pencils, stickers), information-based brochures, websites, phone
apps, service design (how users are treated during the customer
service experience), material quality control (the quality, safety,
self-life, sustainability and durability of materials), etc.
Target Market The group of consumers who are most likely to buy
from you. To establish a target market you must determine your
customer’s age, gender, location, socio-economic background and
ethnicity.
Ebony Magazine Play-doh Snuggie
IdentityA visual aspect such as a logo that forms part of the
overall brand, identifying one product from another. Successful
logos are: Scalable, stampable, significant, memorable and
unique.
Logo: History
Numerous inventions and techniques have contributed to the
contemporary logo, including (left to right): watermarks, coins
(c.600 BCE), coats of arms, silver hallmarks, cylinder seals
(c.2300 BCE) and the development of printing press.
The current era of logo design began in the 1950s. A
paradigmatic contemporary logo is the Chase Bank logo, designed in
1960 by Chermayeff & Geismar, considered pioneers of Modernist
graphic design in the United States. The Chase symbol was “the
first truly abstract logo” of the contemporary era.
As would happen with many subsequent corporate logos, mass media
advertising was used to link the logo with the bank in the public
mind, while its simple, distinctive form, free of specific cultural
or other connotations, was well suited to represent a complex,
multinational corporation.
BrandingThe perceived ethical and emotional corporate image as a
whole that is shaped by the perception of the audience. These
magazines brand themselves within the field of journalism as
purveyers of different narratives, exploring different aspects
(sometimes of a single story, and using different
methodologies:
Logos
Logo: A mark or symbol created for an individual, product,
service, or company that translates the impression of the company
it is representing.
Logotype: Any alphabetical configuration that is designed to
identify by name an individual, product, service, publication or
company.
Logo + Logotype:
Often logos and logotypes are used interchangeably because they
so frequently appear together, however they are different, and they
frequently function in tandem but they also perform different
functions. It is true that sometimes they actually are inseparable
and in these cases the type or text is completely integral to the
overall design:
Logotype (text only) Symbol (image only)
TaglineThe key phrase that identifies a business by capturing
the essence of its mission, brand and promise to the customer.
Applications:
A logo and a logotype can be paired or not depending on the
context of the communication:
Semiotics and significance:
The logo or symbol is a non-verbal sign but it can also
sometimes reference the company’s name in some way, look at the
logo for the French supermarket chain Carrefour below, and notice
the embedded C in the logo:
Logos often use negative space to create a second layer of
meaning in the symbol, and a third layer can be added through
color. The Carrefour logo gives us two positive shapes with the
larger blue shape pointing ahead like an arrow, the negative space
gives is the letter C, and the colors correspond to the colors of
the French flag: red white and blue.
Successful logos are semiotically rich, that is they are
multi-layered, and one form may have be able to communicate two or
more meanings:
In this logo the book signifies both word and, through it’s
shape, it also becomes a refuge or a shelter. It is this ability to
have the same form do more than one thing that distinguishes many
successful logos for the simple reason that they communicate very
efficiently and, through their clever manipulation of
signification, they become memorable.
Sometimes a logo evolves over time and often this evolution or
refinement aims for simplicity. The two Citi logos below
demonstrate this idea as the umbrella form gives way to a simple
curve that is suggestive of an umbrella but is not restricted to
umbrella in it’s interpretation:
Sometimes a logo or logotype is intentionally not clever, but it
aims to capture a feeling. In the case of Nestle, a food company,
the metaphor of the mother bird feeding her young is heartwarming,
but it also captures Nestle’s product line which includes baby
formula, cocoa etc.
Less well established brands often try to compete on cleverness,
but a well-established brand often deviates very little from its
core communication strategy. In the timeline below you can see the
relatively slow evolution of Coca-Cola, the logotype was
established by the 1940s and the colors by the 1950s:
Coca-Cola uses its status as a heritage brand in its advertising
by mining its archives of historical advertising:
Branding is the representation of the character of a corporate
entity to a specified audience of potential users. Successful
brands invite the user into a relationship with the product or
service by indicating what the user can expect from the
relationship. A brand should not mislead the user but accurately
reflect and communicate the corporate entity’s identity to the
user. Questions to consider when developing your brand include:
1. What does the corporate entity do? What are its core
offerings?
2. What are its core values?
3. Who are it’s customers (users)? What do they do? What are
their core values?
4. What design languages are appropriate in communicating 1 and
2 to the user 3 in a way that will accurately reflect activities
and values.
5. What design languages develop (and create new) customers and
users.