Lesson 8: A Logo is not a Brand

Think of a brand. What comes to mind? Golden Arches (McDonald’s)? A green mermaid (Starbucks)? The apple of Eden (Apple)? If so, well done! That’s what you are supposed to picture when thinking about a brand. Companies pay an enormous amount of money to make sure of that. But it is not what a brand actually is. McDonald’s “Golden Arches” is their logo, a symbol representing their company. A brand, however, is the entirety of all tangible and intangible elements that represent a business. Without these, the logo has no meaning.

The brand behind the logo carries all of its meaning, which is why when you think of “the apple of Eden”, you think of a red apple as in any number of cultural references of what an apple looks like. But when you think of the Apple brand, you think of “The Apple of Eden” logo, the silver or black modern shiny depiction of it as a graphic element. And so we come to Lesson 8: A logo is NOT a brand.

A logo as an identifier – Presence in the market

Logos are powerful graphic elements that enhance a company’s communication. They generally contain a symbol or graphic, typography (e.g. a word mark), and colors.

Consider the Chanel logo above: the interlocking Cs form a recognizable symbol; the distinctive monochrome color palette creates a strong identifiable contrast; the name of the brand as a word mark in their trademark font frames it all together with beautiful typography.

This logo, like any successful logo, is SMART: simple, memorable, appropriate, reusable (can be resized for use across channels and media), and timeless. It is meant to announce a brand and help it stand out within a crowded marketplace.

A brand as a reputation – Promise in market

Again: a brand is the sum of all tangible (read: design) elements and non-tangible (read: strategic) elements that make up your company’s identity. The logo is there for communication purposes, the brand is there for sales purposes. The brand is what gives the logo meaning, it is what gives products value. Customers do not buy your products because they have your logo on them. They buy them because they believe in what the brand stands for.

A quick side note to that: a logo may be updated over time as it keeps up with societal tastes, trends, fashions, etc. But your brand is there to stay for the long run. From a customer perspective, a brand is built on reputation and trust, both of which require time to develop and are easy to lose if not treated with care. As such, plan your brand for the long term.

Avoid being “weird” – How you present yourself must match who you are

If you ever had a “weird” experience with a company but could not really put your finger on what was off, it was likely because there was a misalignment between your expectations and your experience. Same as in meeting a person in real life, you want what is on paper to match the person in front of you. Brand Essence and Brand Identity, the promise and the presence, must also always match. For a quick refresher on the Brand Essence, feel free to refer to Lesson 1 on a company’s strategy.

A Brand Identity is made up of several key components:

1. Name – a distinctive and memorable shorthand for your company
2. Logo – the visual representation of your brand in the form of symbols, typography, colors
3. Tag-Line – a synthesis of your purpose in a catchy one-liner, a hook
4. Colors and Semiotics – symbols and graphics that your brand “owns”
5. Product and Packaging Design – a sensorial experience reflecting the quality of your offering
6. Brand Guidebook – a summary of all the above elements in the form of a “user manual”

We avoid calling this a “visual” identity, because certain brands may also use other sensorial elements as part of their brand, such as an anthem (audible) or a scent (remember the Abercrombie & Fitch store experience in 2014?).

Creating your Brand Identity – Discovering yourself

It should come as no surprise that it is recommended you start working on your Brand Identity once all other aspects of your company strategy are settled. Being an external representation of your Brand Essence and a calling card to your target customers, it makes sense that you first clarify those things for yourself before you start telling others. Here are a few steps to get you going:

1. Start with your positioning: It is best to keep it simple to begin with (e.g. a SWOT analysis) to get an initial feel for how your company fits against its competitors. Relevant questions will crop up from that initial analysis, pointing you in the right direction for your research to dig deeper. Make sure you base your results on actual data and research. Gather market data from official sources and interview experts to ensure high-quality results. This is key to having a clear and usable market positioning to feed into all your other strategic decision-making.
2. Understand your customer: Get out in the world and start talking to people. Convey focus groups, do interviews, conduct surveys, do whatever you need to do to get to know the people you consider to be your target customers. Get as much detail as possible on your segments to construct in-depth customer personas. The more you know about their needs, preferences, desires, and pains, the more inspiration you will have when designing.
3. Define your Essence: Clarify your strategy by writing down your vision, mission, and purpose. Synthesize first and foremost for yourself what your company stands for, then attempt to convey it to others and gather feedback. This is best done through workshops and creative ideation sessions since you will want to get input and develop through iterations before coming to your “single point of truth”. While you don’t need to get into a lot of detail regarding your culture just yet, having your values, beliefs, and tone of voice drafted as well will provide valuable inputs when considering your communication.
4. Determine your value proposition: Consider how your offering stands out in the market. Elements of what makes your company’s identity so recognizable should become clear as a result. Use these as inputs when crafting your messaging, such as a tagline.
5. Design: Begin from your company’s Essence and build from there using what you have learned about your market and your customers. Note that, while this may seem like the “most fun” part of the process, it is also the most important. All your efforts until now will fail if what you show to the world falls flat so attention to detail and an immense level of consideration are paramount.

A special note here: It is recommended you treat this as an inter-disciplinary exercise. Don’t think that because we are discussing logos and colors this is work meant just for your designers. A Brand Identity is an interdisciplinary strategic project that requires both an eye for beauty and a brain for business. Importantly, the decisions taken here should be based on DATA, which is why you need as much of it as possible on your market and customer before beginning. Think of it like designing a car: you need both knowledge of design and engineering to make it work.

Your Brand Guidebook – Bringing it all together

I know, this all seems like a gruesome ordeal with way more steps and details than you expected. But it is worth it. All great brands put immense effort into their identities to ensure they control them. Consider that anything your company puts out into the market is open to interpretation from two sides: your company’s purpose for it and your audience’s perception of it. So, unless you take the reigns and put in the effort on your end, rest assured someone else will define your identity for you. And you may not like what they come up with.

So to remove any ambiguity, the results from your Brand Identity work should be documented in a Brand Guidebook. Think of it as a manual for how to use your various brand elements. It should include as individual chapters all five elements of your Brand Identity (or more if you also have sounds, materials, etc. to add) with clear guidelines on how to use them.

For example, the chapter on your logo should contain instructions on where on a page your logo is allowed to be placed (and where NOT to be placed). This should be done in detail for every channel you wish to use to communicate with your customers, including any actual customer experiences you want to put together to showcase your brand. Include how your elements will look in a virtual space (videos, ads, photos, websites, social media posts, etc.) and an analog space (banners, posters, shop windows, shop designs, merchandising, etc.).

This may take some time to get right, but a good Brand Guidebook will save significant time and money down the line by simply avoiding costly (and public) mistakes. It brings together all those efforts you put in beforehand and celebrates your brand on each page. So, if possible, have fun with it.

In the end, we’re only talking about your entire identity… no biggie.