“DesignWrite” was created by Thomas Anstadt to explore design and business-related topics.

Desired Identity Outcomes

Do you ever wonder why 3M, Walt Disney and Target are so successful? One of the main reasons is they all have a well-established brand. Having a strong brand is of grave importance to business success. A thoughtful brand sets a business apart, makes it unique and helps ensure recognition. For instance, when you view the Target bullseye its instantly recognize as Target. They have built a strong and memorable brand identity that has remained consistent for years.

There are several aspects to consider when building an effective brand identity. Some of these are the business name and logo, color palette, typefaces and supporting visual elements. No doubt, the process of choosing the ideal name and set of visual brand elements can weigh heavily on a marketing team. The best pathway for their success would be to partner with an external design firm with experience in strategic design practices. They work diligently to uncover their true brand.

Identity Portrayal

Strategic design practices provide businesses a solid foundation for developing a consistent and memorable and brand identity. An experienced design partner will be able to implement various design tactics, such as a competitive analysis or persona development that will provide the needed information to create a purposeful and useful set of visual branding elements.

Another critical phase in bringing a brand to life is the development of an brand appropriate logo—portraying an accurate identity is essential. The strategic process should focus upon developing a logo with the intent of standing out within the market place. The brand’s logo be able to live in the marketplace, be distinctive from competing brands, and be meaningful to stakeholders. First impressions are critical to capturing and retaining customers and business success.

Tying it Together

Now that we have covered why an appropriate visual message is highly necessary, we can’t forget what ties a brand together—the verbal message. From taglines to mission statements, to brochure and advertising content, writing is vital to a brand’s success. It’s what an audience is taking-in and if the message is unclear your company’s brand can be misread or missed completely.

Take the Target Corporation for example, which just happens to be the second most recognizable U.S. brand identity, it’s well-known brand statement, “Expect more. Pay less,” delivers a clear message that gets right to their persona’s pain point making it even more powerful. And it’s all based upon a persona research tactic that is an inherent part of a strategic design process.

With a basic understanding of the strategic design process, it becomes obvious that a variety of a brand’s verbal messaging can be based upon the outcomes derived from the research tactics implemented during the development of a visual brand. Design firms will, oftentimes, provide businesses with the tactical outcomes so their marketing team can reference this information while creating verbal messaging. The outcomes could also be outsourced to another partner—depending upon the design firm’s capabilities—to create a broad range of messaging, from mission and value statements to brand statements and advertising copy.

In Conclusion

Partnering with an experienced and competent design firm is a win-win scenario. Designers that build their design process upon tactical design research become more like a brand consultant verses just being a provider of visual design elements. They eagerly work with clients to uncover branding problems that need solving. Instead of approaching the design process thinking only about deliverables, the strategic designer considers the business objectives and outcomes. Understanding a client’s brand problem and approaching it in a tactical way will deliver an exceptional broad set of results.

Finally, uncovering and implementing a set of strategic visuals together with verbal elements or proposals when establishing a brand is vital to a business’ success. Not every business will reach the level of Target’s brand, but by recognizing the dual value of strategic design will place a business in the right path. Helping them tap into their target market’s mindset through meaningful and well executed branding materials that also illustrate their brand values. By doing so, a business will continually grow its customer base and expand its marketplace. A win-win outcome. –end