Designing Brand Identity
Alina Wheeler
If you dive into Reddit and start looking through the most recommended books for brand strategists, Designing Brand Identity will be one of the first you come across. I do plenty of brand and identity design in my work, and I never want to stop hearing how other people approach it.
That’s the beauty of this book—it isn’t just one person’s opinion of the way things should be done. It’s bolstered with hundreds of quotes from agencies and designers sharing quick hits of their philosophies and processes.
Here are some of the lines that made an impact on me:
“Brand governance is the managed interplay of behaviour, communications, design, legal compliance process, and measurement that drive brand performance across an enterprise.”
Legal compliance.
It was so refreshing to see this often overlooked component as a recognized element of a brand identity. It’s a beautiful reminder to never forget the back-of-house in creative acts. Whether it’s the actual work to trademark, license, and scale, or the simplicity of ensuring the variety of templates for internal processes.
“Inevitably, something of worth has been tossed out over time—a tagline, a symbol, a phrase, a point of view—for what seemed to be a good reason at the time, There might be something from the past that should be resuscitated or repurposed.”
I’ve seen far too many branding engagements start with the sentiment of throw it all out and start fresh. Even if the brand’s performance has been subpar, there’s always something that was lost along the way that’s worth re-investigating. Never assume all of the best ideas haven’t happened yet.
“The Instagram generation now experiences the present as an anticipated memory.”
Does it sound like something yelled from a front porch at kids passing by on the sidewalk? Absolutely.
Does it showcase an important, basic truth? It sure does. Thinking about how we shape campaign elements and tactile opportunities can really change under the light of this line.
“Contextual testing—say the name, leave a voicemail, email the name, put it on a business card, put it in an ad headline.”
Testing a new brand identity is a big part of the work, and we know we need to put it on a business card to make it feel real. But saying the name and leaving a voicemail was a beautiful thought prompt.
A rebrand might absolutely sing on the screen, and look wonderful in a layout, but how does it feel to simply speak it and hear it?
“Logos should be heard as well as seen—Amazon could eliminate the existence of brands with voice technology. If you look at search terms on Google and voice commands on Alexa, the percentage of times a brand prefix is used in a request is declining.”
Again with the hearing.
There’s really something interesting here. Especially in this context of voice-commands for product searches. After all, brand pillars and messages need to connect to the problems and solutions offered. Otherwise, how will you show up as the answer to the right question?
This book is billed as a toolkit—and that’s a claim I’m often pretty skeptical about. But, this genuinely is a toolkit. It’s almost like a linear encyclopedia of tactics and methods that take you from first conception of an idea, on through execution and iteration. It’s not necessarily the book that will teach you how to build better identities, but it is the resource to turn to for inspiration on approaches, exercises, and rhetoric.
On the usefulness-to-me scale, I give it 3.5 / 4 Zaqirs.
