Branding and Corporate Identity

A brand is more than just a logo and pretty pictures. It can be many things simultaneously; a product, a colour, a style, a voice, a quality, a history, a culture, a humour, as well as a series of relationships with customers, suppliers, the general public, the environment and more.

Many well know brands have accumulated these over time, and the specific combination that defines 'the brand', can be worth a great deal, becuase of what it represents. Brands can gain value when experience is conducive with its favourable evolution. They can also quickly lose value when experience goes against the brand and how it has defined itself.

For brands trying to maintain and add to their value, defining the brand in all its aspects, and ensuring on-going continuity and enhancement to customer experience of the brand, can be critical strategic concerns for the business.  That's why what appears to be a simple colour or font change can cost £millions, because there will be a great deal more involved.

Taking Your Brand Forward

If you have a new business or a new important product line, the name, logo and 'feel' you give to it will be an important part of its potential for success.  Many people come up with a great name and just let it happen.  There is the famous instance of Richard Branson marking out his Virgin logo on a napkin using a friend's lipstick, for example.  Today however you can bet they spend a lot of time on looking after that brand, controlling very carefully how and where it is used, and to what products or businesses it can be associated with.

With your business you can do the same, or instead you might want to start looking after it from the outset like the professionals would do, by defining it properly, from the word go. How your brand is defined can affect how your whole business operates, its relationship to its market, customers, services and products, and this definition will have implications for the brand's presentation, its logo, colours, website, voice and culture.

Using Freetimers to Help Define and Design Your Brand

One thing is for certain, every business makes its own mind up about how far they define their brand, and whether or not they will use professionals to help with this.  We have reams of experience designing, developing, updating, enhancing, expanding and evolving brands with the business and brand owners over more than 20 years.

Sometimes we help by simply producing a logo, other times by producing a website and related collateral (email signatures, business cards, etc), and other times much much more, including producing full brand definitions and usage procedure manuals. We have also helped many clients explore the brand ideas they have, shortlist and choose names, and then realisethese in practice.

If you have a new business or product line, and want to maximise its potential by getting its branding right, you need go any further. Contact us today.