Another interesting excerpt from Alina Wheeler (Ive been using this book ALOT the last few weeks with lots of branding projects on the boil in the studio!)

“You’re waiting for your café latte and see brochures in a stylish rack. You rip open your monthly mutual fund statement and there it is – an insert. You unpack your new Ipod and there’s a tiny booklet. You go to the doctor and each aspect of your health care has its own publication. You contact a consultant and he encourages you to download his company’s brochure. Brochures are omnipresent.

Brochures  continue to be popular marketing and information tools. The best brochures invite readership since they’re easy to understand and user friendly. Designing a unified system ensures that the identity of the company is consistently presented and communicates familiarity to the existing customer. Designing a grid and typographic system  that allows flexibility is not only smart from a branding perspective, but also efficient from a cost and resource perspective”.

Brochure System Basics:

• Unified brochure systems increase brand recognition.
• Effective brochure systems are differentiated from the competition.
• Brochures are an extension of a company’s identity and brand architecture..
• Effective brochures make it easy for a customer to understand information and to buy products and services.

By making information accessible, a company demonstrates its understanding of its customers needs and preferences:

• Effective brochures make it easier for the sales force to sell.
• Effective systems anticipate future change.
• Great design is only effective if it can be reproduced at the highest quality.
• Systems  should include a consistent call for action that gives the customer choice and access.

The best brochures are well written and present appropriate amounts of information.

Taken from “Designing Brand Identity – A complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands”

Triscia 27/01/10

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It may seem a little odd to get inspiration from a wedding blog, but click on the link and you’ll see what I mean. Once Wed covers the whole gamut of wedding styles, from french country chic to Pop style LA, to (my personal favourite) roughing-it-in-the-woods style. There are great DIY ideas, links to all the suppliers and not to mention the stunning photography to drool at. Even if you’re not in (or on) the market, this blog will leave you inspired and dreamy. Sigh.

Leah

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Regardless of the size of a company or the nature of a business, there are certain ideals that characterize the best brand identities. They hold true whether the brand identity project is about launching an entrepreneurial venture, creating a new product or service, repositioning a brand, working on a merger, or creating a retail presence. A fairly common list of criteria for brand identity looks something like this.

An effective brand identity will;

Be bold, memorable and appropriate

Be immediately recognisable

Provide a clear and consistent image of the company

Communicate the company’s persona

Be legally protectable

Have enduring value

Work well across media and scale

Work both in black and white and in colour

Triscia 20/01/10

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Who develops brand strategy? It is usually a team of people; no one does it alone. It is a result of an extended dialogue amoung CEO, marketing, sales, advertising, public relations, operations, and distribution. Global companies frequently bring in brand strategists; independent thinkers and authorities, strategic marketing firms, and brand consultants. It often takes someone from the outside who is an experienced strategic and creative thinker to help a company articulate what is already there. Companies also use marketing research to determine and test the best strategies.

Sometimes a brand strategy is born at the inception of a company by a visionary, such as Anita Roddick, Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart, or Jeff Bezos. Sometimes it takes a visionary leader, such as Lou Gerstner, CEO, IBM, to bring brand strategy to a new level because the company has become a behemoth. Companies frequently survive and prosper because they have a clear brand strategy. Companies falter because they don’t have one.

Taken from “Designing Brand Identity – A complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands”

Triscia 19/01/10

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There is a great book Ive been using as a bit of a branding bible for the past few years called “Designing Brand Identity – A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands”. I love this book, it meticulously maps out the processes, provides the fundamentals, and never loses sight of the big picture when it comes to branding. From translating the vision of a CEO and conducting research, through to designing a sustainable identity, Alina Wheeler applies her strategic imagination to help build brands, create new identities, for various companies and organisations. Heres an interesting excerpt;

Branding Imperatives

Acknowledge that we live in a branded world

Sieze every opportunity to position your company in your customer’s mind

Communicate a strong brand idea over and over again

Understand your customers. Build on their perceptions, preferences, dreams, values, and lifestyles

Identify touch points – places in which the customer interfaces with the product or service

Use brand identity to create sensory magnets to attract and retain customers

Triscia 14/01/09

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