How can you balance local and global perspectives in brand design?

1 Understand your target markets

Before you start designing your brand, you need to research and understand your target markets, both locally and globally. What are their needs, preferences, values, and expectations? How do they perceive your brand and your competitors? What are the cultural and social norms that influence their behavior and decision-making? How do they communicate and consume information? These questions will help you identify the similarities and differences among your potential customers, and tailor your brand design accordingly.

2 Define your brand core

While you need to adapt your brand design to different markets, you also need to maintain a consistent and coherent brand core that represents your brand's essence, purpose, and promise. Your brand core is what makes your brand unique, recognizable, and memorable, and it should transcend cultural and geographical boundaries. To define your brand core, you need to articulate your brand vision, mission, values, personality, and positioning, and use them as a guide for your brand design decisions.

3 Choose flexible design elements

One way to balance local and global perspectives in brand design is to choose flexible design elements that can be modified or customized according to the market context, without compromising your brand core. For example, you can use a modular logo that can change its shape, color, or typography depending on the occasion, or a dynamic visual identity system that can incorporate local images, icons, or patterns. You can also use a multilingual or phonetic name that can be easily pronounced and understood in different languages.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?