Brand Profile
Creating the perfect logo for you company, brand or product is a multi-stage scientific process. Way before you get to ’like it / don’t like’ it territory, you first need to sit down and figure out the perfect ingredients for your confection. The way you figure out what these ingredients (Brand Values) are is to follow my 12 step Brand Profile Plan, as set out in the ’Creating the perfect Brand Profile’ article. The article encourages you to think about your brand from your customers’ perspective, and create the perfect embodiment of their most desired Brand Values, ideally the character of your Logo should reflect the character of your most stereotypical customer. Only by following the brand profile can you get to a point where you distil all your ideas into a solid train of thought which is concentrated on a single specific direction. When you know what your ingredients are, you are finally in a position to bake your cake - so to speak.
Logo Elements
For my style of branding, there are always at least 2 parts to a logo - an ’Ident’ and a ’Typeface’. All Brands need a name such that customers can communicate their requirement for said brand - the name is usually decorated by a unique Typeface which reinforces the relevant brand values and ties them to the name. Several brand logos exist solely as a Typeface, but this can render the logo inflexibly and rather limited in its application. The reason why all the great fashion brands - including Armani, Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Versace have separate emblems / devices for their brands is to reinforce the name on a variety of merchandise where it may be difficult to incorporate the name - just look at belt buckles and cufflinks for this. Gucci and Louis Vuitton furthermore create wallpaper patterns with their idents - to be stamped into canvas and leather. Publishers Penguin Books and Puffin Books have iconic brand idents stamped into the spines of their books - so they can be identified at twenty paces. Most iconic of contemporary brands - yes Apple, likewise solely utilises its Apple ident on all products and merchandised - stamped or embossed in metallic format. Anyone who chooses not to utilise a brand ident is somewhat missing a trick.
The final element in my example is the Strapline - a strategic positioning statement which better and more succinctly defines the brand and supports its meaning and values. See separate article ’The art of the Positional Strapline’ for more input on your strapline; in short, we have:
Ident - The device, emblem or symbol which best reflects the values and nature of the brand
Typeface - A style of font which reinforces the meaning and extra dimension of the name - if you choose serif or sans, bold or skinny, straight or angled, curved or square - all these facets help give your brand added weight and meaning
Strapline - Fine-tuned positioning; this changes as the brand matures, moving from a statement of definition, to differentiation, and finally lifestyle aspiration
Refinements - Colour choice has key cultural significances - have you chosen a happy or sad colour, technological or organic, hot or cold, does it have religious overtones, does it appeal to the intended target audience? Before you get to colour and textures though, you need to ensure that your logo works well in just plain flat black and white
Logo Properties
The central mission in creating a logo is to embue it with the following properties:
Uniqueness - Does your logo stand out from the crowd, and solely convey your intended values
Meaning - What is your logo’s instant symbolism, what does it infer? It needs to carry meaning about what brand / company does, and which brand values it reflects and underlines
Memorability - How unforgettable is your logo / how easy is it to recall by the intended customers - memorable logos help ingraine your brand front-of-mind of your intended customers
Filmutea - a fine example of a perfect logo
We designed the logo for Spanish Professional Film-makers Community ’Filmutea’. They already had the name, so all we needed to do was focus their minds on the Brand Profile; the Brand Profile exercise concentrated their minds to such an extent, that the Strapline was formulated during this initial process - ’Make films. Share your talent.’ - right from the start this absolutely and succinctly summed up what the brand was all about. We were able to quickly proceed along the second 12 step process which resulted in the final red and black fully texturised version. In the logo creation process, you usually start working on either the Ident or Typeface, and then draw the other to match - using similar styling cues along complementary lines, making both elements strong, but not so strong that one overly dominates or clashes with the other - the discipline of this balancing act is a significant part in the success of the process. In our case, we ended up with the 3 pictured elements:
’Reel-Heads’ Ident - This was actuall stage 2 of our process on this occasion, we started with the TypeFace, and then drew up a range of symbols which best reflected the Brand Profile and concrete Strapline; the combination of film reels and 2 persons holding hands, perfectly symbolises what the brand stood for
Filmutea Modern Typeface - To be truly unique, you need to make your own typeface; starting from a near match stock font; we trace and extrapolate from scratch a brand new and unique font, which perfectly matches its corresponding Ident, and perfectly reflects subtle brand values by the shape, form and spacing of individual letters
’Make films’ Strapline - As mentioned previously, this was the first element to be defined, but often comes at the end; sooner is better, as it can be a critical component in defining the overall look and feel, as it was in this case
Further Advice
- Always start with a Brand Profile - Otherwise you really don’t know what kind of cake you are baking (what’s the recipe?)
- Don’t get trapped by your own personal perspective - You need to focus on the perceptions of your best fit customers and what they like
- Do design you own typeface - It makes such a difference in the long run to have total and unique owneship over all your branding elements
- Don’t copy design flourishes across elements - That is to say don’t use parts of the Ident within the Typeface and vice-versa - this typically cheapens / lessens the impact of both
- Try to be square! - Square logos / Idents / Typesets are more versatile and flexible
- Don’t add colour and texture until the very end - Too many people become bogged down in tiny details right from the start; if your logo works brilliantly in flat black and white, you should be able to do almost anything to it / with it
Remember: UNIQUE - MEANINGFUL - MEMORABLE
