Creative Ideas that inspire

Personal Note

Exhilarating Journeys

We've been taking exciting new roads in this our fifth year of business. In addition to the goal achievements we mentioned last month (launching our project-management system, redesigned Web site, and e-mail newsletter), we've worked with a business coach and refined our marketing plan. The best, as they say, is yet to come!

In this second issue of CreatiVerve, we talk about the importance of brand identity that really does its job. If you wonder whether yours does, feel free to ask us to meet with you for some dialogue about it.

Cheers!

Project Focus

Special Identity
for a Special Program

When our client needed brand identity for its funeral-industry insurance program, we designed a mark that represented the industry's professionalism and caretaking purpose, as well as the professional insurance coverage that takes care of their business.

See more. >>

Debi Calvet
Principal

Chris Calvet
Principal

Feature Article

Brand Identity: The Rep That's Not on the Payroll

Brand is everywhere, but you can't see it. It's real, but you can't touch it. Brand is perception—how people see an organization, a product or service, or an experience (The Dictionary of Brand, American Institute of Graphic Artists). Just as a company needs human representatives to protect and shape its public perception, so it needs visual representation—in the form of brand identity.

At the core of a company's brand identity is its brandmark (or "logo"). For it to succeed in its "job," it must perform well in four essential ways:

• Being memorable and evocative — People remember the brandmark and, when they do, re-experience the emotions it originally inspired.

• Exemplifying the brand — Every aspect of the brandmark clearly conveys the brand's purpose and appropriately reflects its culture.

• Appealing to the audience — The brandmark's colors, style, content, and general appearance attract and capture the interest of the market the brand targets.

• Working well across a broad range of applications — Whether used in print or in electronic media, on a building or on clothing, by itself or with other content, the brandmark's design just works.

Two great examples are Target Corporation's red bull's-eye and The Travelers Companies' red umbrella. Surely everyone with a TV recalls Target's eye-catching commercials every time that bull's-eye appears in print or anywhere else. And Travelers' umbrella is so iconic that the company, upon reacquiring the mark from Citigroup, ran a print ad to welcome it back!

Of course, most brands aren't huge corporations, but every brand needs identity that performs. Whether your brand is a specialty insurance program, an accounting practice, a trade association, or an annual event, if its visual identity is doing its job, then people remember it and respond to it. In addition, it portrays your brand right and speaks the language of your audience, and you can use it in every way you require.