Letting the ideas in
What distinguishes a great brand identity from a good one?
This is a question we reflect upon often at How&How. As designers and strategists we spend hours each week scouring the internet and physical landscapes for new and refurbished brands, taking notes on what they’re doing, what seems to be working, what isn’t and why.
Through this curious and critical lens, observations commonly arise related to consistency, attention to detail, feelings of originality, and the intelligent use of a particular mood or attitude. There are so many worthwhile conversations to be had about the components that work together to make a strong brand.
But from where we sit, something has recently solidified in our collective agency conscience: nothing seems to provide a more reliable boost to the quality of a brand identity than the presence of a single-minded idea.
If you’re reading this, then you’ve likely already grasped the importance of brand strategy in the development of brand, having recognised the gulf standing between brands which contain some semblance of intentionality and those which simply look good.
We know, however, that not all brand strategy material contains an idea. There may be an expressed objective to behave like this and not that, to focus on them and not them, but without a tangible idea—an inspiring non-obvious thought carrying a feeling of thingness—it appears to be more difficult to design, write, and execute an extraordinary brand identity.
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We’ve experienced both sides of this coin ourselves. We’ve all trudged through a project in the absence of a pithy strategic thought, just as we’ve skated through others with a north star that seemed to give us all the answers.
This goes for design concepts, too. With a specific creative idea driving the tools, informed by a brand strategy, everything comes to life with an added sense of purpose and passion. In a branded environment that’s so flooded with companies and organisations asking for our attention, we need more than good looking design to help our clients punch through.
We need ideas.
Things like brand frameworks, personality traits and mission statements will always have a role to play in building a brand, but as we strive to pierce the ceiling of brand excellence, what we really need is ideas that make people lean in. It’s a high bar, but one we think is worth reaching for. Are you leaning in?
I run a creative agency and am bringing more nature into dense cities ??
1 年A single idea can certainly help the design agency and is crucial for the client and their conducting the orchestra. Probably a key benefit to having comms/creative people in design agencies as they push this. For advertising/PR/comms a single idea is most useful, even if you riff off it but for community, digital channels, events, product comms etc having a richness of thinking can really help. Just about the job to do for the piece/channel and context really.
Design Lead at WADM
1 年Totally feel this “nothing seems to provide a more reliable boost to the quality of a brand identity than the presence of a single-minded idea.” - one of the hardest parts to nail down. Sometimes in the design process you’ll search for some things to add, where you should cut down to the essence instead.
Freelance Design Director & Type Designer (ex Pentagram, Wolff Olins, DixonBaxi)
1 年"Let the idea define the output" is something that I stand by (and also the first thing you'll read on my website) so it was great to read how you are unpacking and sharing with us such a fundamental part of our industry. One thing that I would like to quickly expand on is how often we're looking at brands a little bit too soon when searching for ideas. A valid approach, but my concern is how I'm identifying too many emerging patterns on the research outputs of different teams, for different projects for different companies — hey freelancer life! — mainly because most of us tend to look at design work. It's really hard but I often find more liberating and informing when we start to look at anything other than design to inform our thinking. Sure, there will be moments of "what the hell is he on about?" but I believe it allows our inner creative child to freely explore and mess up the playground while the adult is away. If we really get the strategy, the adult can then come back in, observing the mess, and start to question: What if...?