Brand identity design, It’s not just about creating a visually appealing logo; it involves a comprehensive process that aligns the brand with its values, mission, and target audience; it’s about crafting a compelling narrative, establishing a unique identity, and connecting with your audience on a deeper level. And it is a process that’s done by both the design agency/designer and the business owners/stakeholders.
Let’s look into the five essential steps of the brand identity design process.
1. Conducting research
The foundation of a successful brand identity design process lies in a thorough understanding of the market, competitors, and target audience. This phase involves conducting market research to identify trends, studying competitors to pinpoint white spaces, and gathering insights into the preferences and behaviors of the target audience. Through this research, designers gain valuable knowledge that serves as the bedrock for strategic decision-making in the subsequent stages.
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler gives a detailed overview of the process:
Clarify vision, strategies, goals, and values: Begin by clearly defining the company’s vision, long-term strategies, and goals. These should align with the brands purpose and values, ensuring consistency throughout the branding process.
Research stakeholders’ needs and perceptions: Understand your customers, employees, and other stakeholders’ needs and perceptions. This might involve surveys, focus groups, or in-depth interviews to gather insights.
Conduct marketing, competitive, technology, legal, and language audits: Examine the market, competitors, technology trends, legal considerations, and language usage in your target markets. These audits help in positioning your brand effectively.
Interview key management: Consult key members of the management team to get their insights and align their understanding of the brand’s direction.
Evaluate existing brands and brand architecture: If your business already has established brands, assess how they fit into the new branding strategy and whiter changes are needed.
Present audit readout: Share the findings of your research and audits with the relevant stakeholders to provide a foundation for informed decision-making.
2. Clarifying Strategy
With research findings in hand, the next step is to define a clear brand strategy. This involves articulating the brand’s mission, vision, values, and unique selling propositions. Establishing a brand persona and tone helps guide the design process, ensuring that visual elements align seamlessly with the brand’s essence. This strategic clarity becomes the compass that directs the design team toward creating an identity that resonates with the intended audience.
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler gives a detailed overview of the process:
Synthesize learnings: Analyze the data collected in the research phase to identify patterns, opportunities, and challenges.
Clarify brand strategy: Develop a clear, overarching brand strategy that outlines the brand’s unique value proposition, target audience, and desired positioning in the market.
Develop a positioning platform: Create a positioning statement that succinctly defines what your brand stands for and how it’s distinct from competitors.
Co-create brand attributes: Collaborate with key team members to establish the brand attributes that should be communicated consistently.
Write a brand brief: Create a comprehensive document that outlines the brand’s purpose, values, messaging, and design elements. This brief serves as a guide for all branding efforts.
Achieve agreement: Ensure alignment among stakeholders on the brand strategy and attributes to avoid conflicts later in the process.
Create a naming strategy: If necessary, divide on naming conventions and guidelines for your brand or product names.
Develop key messages: Craft the core message that will be used to communicate your brand’s story, benefits, and values.
Write a creative brief: This document outlines creative expectations for design and messaging in the branding process, ensuring that all creative elements align with the brand strategy.
3. Designing Identity
The heart of the brand identity design process lies in the creation of visual elements that will represent the brand. This includes designing a memorable logo, selecting appropriate color schemes, choosing fonts that convey the right tone, and crafting unique visual elements that set the brand apart. The design phase is where the brand starts to take shape visually, reflecting the strategic decisions made in the previous step.
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler gives a detailed overview of the process:
Visualize the Future: Imagine the desired brand image and how it will be perceived by your target audience.
Brainstorm the Big Idea: Generate creative ideas and concepts that will form the basis of your brand’s visual identity and messaging.
Design Brand Identity: Create logos, color palettes, typography, and other visual elements that represent the brand. This step often involves the work of graphic designers.
Explore Applications: Consider how the brand identity will be used across various applications, such as websites, packaging, and marketing materials.
Finalize Brand Architecture: Determine how the various elements of your brand fit together in a coherent structure, including sub-brands if applicable.
Present Visual Strategy: Share the visual identity concept with stakeholders for feedback and revisions.
Achieve Agreement: Ensure that all stakeholders are in agreement with the chosen visual identity and design elements.
4. Creating Touchpoints
A brand interacts with its audience through various touchpoints, both online and offline. This step involves extending the brand identity to different mediums such as websites, social media, packaging, and marketing materials. Consistency across these touchpoints is crucial for a cohesive brand experience. By ensuring a unified visual language, the brand maintains a strong and recognizable presence, reinforcing its identity with every interaction.
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler gives a detailed overview of the process:
Finalize Identity Design: Make any necessary refinements to the visual identity based on feedback.
Develop Look and Feel: Extend the brand identity to create a consistent look and feel for various touchpoints, such as websites, advertising materials, and product packaging.
Initiate Trademark Protection: Take legal steps to protect your brand’s visual elements and trademarks.
Prioritize and Design Applications: Determine the order and design of applications, such as your website, social media profiles, and print materials.
Design Program: Develop templates and guidelines for the consistent use of your brand across all touchpoints.
Apply Brand Architecture: Ensure that the brand architecture is implemented consistently, especially if your brand includes multiple sub-brands or product lines.
5. Managing Assets
The final step involves organizing and managing the assets created throughout the design process. This includes creating brand guidelines that outline the proper usage of the logo, color palette, fonts, and other visual elements. By having a centralized resource for brand assets, businesses can maintain consistency in their branding across various channels and collaborations, safeguarding the integrity of the brand identity over time.
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler gives a detailed overview of the process:
Build Synergy Around the New Brand: Foster a sense of unity and enthusiasm among your team regarding the new brand.
Develop Launch Strategy and Plan: Plan how the brand will be introduced to both internal and external audiences. This includes timing, messaging, and channel selection.
Launch Internally First: Start by launching the brand within your organization to ensure that employees understand and embrace it.
Launch Externally: Extend the brand to the public through marketing campaigns, events, and other promotional efforts.
Develop Standards and Guidelines: Create a brand style guide that provides detailed instructions on how to use the brand elements consistently.
Nurture Brand Champions: Identify and empower individuals within your organization who can champion the brand and ensure its consistent implementation.
Develop standards and guidelines
With all that has been discussed, that doesn’t mean the brand identity design process is strictly linear. Brilliant ideas can emerge at any stage, literally, you know how creative’s brain works. Whether during research, strategy development, or the design of touchpoints. Sometimes you get a great idea in the strategy process. Note it down! It could be gold. I know cuz that happened to me before. Sometimes to the point of designing for touchpoint, you discover that a certain aspect of the identity doesn’t work. I know cuz that happened to me as well… So it’s essential to consider the big picture thoroughly in the first stage of designing.
It isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula but it’s a really good and flexible framework that can be adapted to suit the unique identity and goals of your brand. What remains constant, though, is the importance of authenticity, consistency, and a deep understanding of your target audience.
If you are keen on reading more about branding identity, go ahead and start with this book:
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler.