DESIGNING BRAND IDENTITY

DESIGNING BRAND IDENTITY

Designing brand identity:

LANGUAGE AUDIE

Foundation: Meaning, Voice, Tone, Emphasis, Accuracy, Clarity, Consistency, Positioning, Framework, Hierarchy Punctuation, Capitalization, style

Identification: Company name-formal, company name-informal, descriptors, taglines, product names, process names, service names, division names,

Aspiration: Mission, vision and values, key messages, guiding principles, customer pledges, history, elevator speak, boilerplate

Navigation: Call to action, Phone numbers, URLs, Email signatures, Voicemail messages, titles, addresses, diagrams, forms, directions

Information: News releases, FAQ’s, Press kits, Annual reports, brochures, Shareholder communications, call center scripts, customer service scripts, presentations, announcements, web content, blog content, blast emails, advertising campaigns, direct mail

The process of synthesizing learning:

Interviews: Stakeholder categories, key learnings, customer insights, excerpts

Brand: Strategy, presence, essence

Marketing Research: Brand Recognition, Survey Results, Focus group findings, Perceptual mapping, SWOTs, Gap Analysis, Benchmarking

Marketing Audit: Logos and signatures, Brand Architecture, Across marketing channels, media, product lines, look and feel, imagery, color, typography

Language Audit: Voice and tone, clarity, naming, taglines, key messages, navigation, hierarchy, descriptors

Competitive Audit: Positioning, Logos, Brand Architecture, Taglines, Key messages, Look and Feel, Imagery, Color, Typography

Intellectual property audit: Trademarks, compliance issues

Process audit: Existing guidelines, technology, and collaboration

Brand Brief–>Creative Brief

Brand Brief: Vision, Mission, Big Idea or brand essence, brand attributes, value proposition, guiding principles/key beliefs, target audience, key markets, key competitors, competitive advantage, stakeholders, driving force

The process of Naming:

Revisit positioning: Examine brand goals and target market needs, evaluate existing names, examine competitor names

Get organized: Develop timeline and team, identify brainstorming techniques, determine search mechanism, develop decision-making process, and organize reference resources

Create naming criteria: Performance criteria, positioning criteria, legal criteria, and regulatory criteria

Brainstorm solutions: Create numerous names, organize into categories and themes, look at hybrids and mimetics, be prolific, and explore variations/iterations on a theme

Conduct initial screening: Positioning, linguistic, legal, common-law databases, online search engines, online phone directories, and domain registration, creating a shortlist

Conduct contextual testing: Say the name, leave a voicemail, email the name, and put it no a business card, put in an ad headline, put it into the voice of stakeholders

Testing: Determine methods to trust, check for red flags, unearth trademark conflicts, check language connotations, check cultural connotations, do linguistic analysis

Final legal screen: Domestic, International, Domain, Regulatory, and Registration

Color is used to evoke emotion and express personality.  It stimulates brand association and accelerates differentiation.

Research basic color theory knowledge: Warm, cool, values, hues, tints, shades, complementary colors, contrasting colors.

Typefaces

Trademark process

Circle R denotes a registered trademark, and may only be used when marks have been federally registered

™ is used to alert the public and does not require filling federal applications.  It means trademark, which is a claim of ownership for goods and packaging.

SM means service mark and refers to a unique service.  This appears in any form of advertising and promotional literature.  It does not require filing federal registration.

pg. 146 letterhead

Research the size of a foreign country

Abbreviations:

–Telephone: Phone, Tel, P, T, Voice, and V

–Facsimile: Fax, F

–Mobile: Cellular, Cell, M, C

–Email: email, e, (just address)

–Website: Web, (Just URL)

pg. 148 business card process

DESIGNING BRAND IDENTITY

DESIGNING BRAND IDENTITY

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