Branding and Identity
Having a clear brand for your organisation is critical for a connection with customers and conveying your key messages. From logomark, to tone of voice, each component in your brand should be considered and well executed.
What
A common misconception is that a brand is simply the logo, but nothing could be further from the truth. A truly successful brand extends to anything and everything that reaches your customers, with consistency in the 'feel' it gives to people, extending the human element to your organisation, and showing what sets you apart from your competitors.
Why
Having a visually appealing presence is obviously worthwhile, but a great identity helps grow the organisation and aligns to the goals and objectives of the company. By conducting thorough and well thought out branding, you're ensuring that you're positioning yourself in the right way, and helping to generate business and revenue.
How
First and foremost it's about understanding the organisation, observing and analyising, so that an identity that works for you is created. From workshops and stakeholder interviews, to digital guidelines and collateral, a process can be defined to ensure that the end result is appropriate, well thought out, well executed and flexible.
Who
With nearly 15 years industry experience working directly on clients branding or applying it to digital and printed material, the partners of Alloneword have worked with household brands such as Clarks Originals, Sekonda Watches, John Smedley, Alzheimers Society and the University of Northampton.
Creating the Right Identity
Post research and observation, Alloneword can get to work, and start outlining the look of your brand, working collaboratively with you at every stage, and creating a beautiful and unique aesthetic.
Logomark
While this may not be a starting point, a successful and professional logomark is vital in reinforcing your key messages and ideology. Alloneword is well versed in crafting custom logo marks which not only stand out, but are also versatile, scalable and fit for purpose.
Colour treatment
Colours tell a story, and bring a brand to life. Making sure time is spent considering a brand palette, aligning it to your ethos and defining its usage will help give consistency and flexibility to marketing collateral and subsequent visuals.
Typography
A typeface has a personality just like a brand and we understand the importance of this. Passionate typofiles, Alloneword loves pairing a typeface to a logomark and colourway, bringing uniformity across a range of material and mediums. With a wealth of experience as to what works and what doesn’t, this all feeds into considerations when selecting the perfect typeface.
Tone of voice
Design without content is merely decoration, and what’s at the heart of who you are is what you say. While your offerings might be clear, the way that’s delivered will need aligning. Do we refer to ourselves as “we” or the company name? Should copy strike a playful or formal tone? Who is the target audience and what would they respond best to?
Brand Consultancy & Strategy
Building a great brand starts with definition, planning and analysis, and ultimately leads to an industry leading look and feel. Finding out about what makes you tick, what drives the business and sets you apart, gives valuable insight into next steps, areas of focus and deliverables.
Whether part of a larger process of design, or as a standalone service, Alloneword can offer brand consultancy that utilises years of hands on experience, helping you outline who you are, why you’re great and how you should be presented.
- Process and deliverables
-
You’ll need a logo, sure, but what else? And what first? From taking a snapshot of the business right now, Alloneword are able to work with you on what the next steps should be and what you’ll need to roll out the brand going forward. Do we need to first collate content and copy? Do you have multiple aspects to the business? Do you have internal resource to assist with the project?
- Workshops
-
Speaking to as many people in the organisation as possible can help us understand who you are and how best to position the brand. We ask questions and run exercises to help us gather as much information as needed can be derived, plus find out skills you have internally which may be of use. Alloneword will also use our time with you to educate and inform on what goes in to a good brand and how to support yours.
- Brand personification
-
Turning a brand into a person helps us find that elusive ‘feel’ for who your company is, but also helps as a reference point for future decisions. If your company was a person, how would they talk, interact with customers and dress? Setting this out might feel like over zealous storytelling, but executed well, is a key method in aligning a brand to a company.
- Stakeholder engagement
-
A key part in building strong identity is making sure everyone feels ownership and pride over it. To do this, Alloneword can work with you to speak to all key stakeholders in the business, finding out how they see the company and the work they do, gaining their input into what needs to be produced.
- Competitor analysis
-
Positioning yourselves as market leaders is relative as to how well your competitors sit. What are they doing well? What’s their USP and how is yours different? By conducting relevant and collaborative competitor analysis with your company, Alloneword will be able to ascertain what we need to do to set you apart.
- Observation and analysis
-
Alloneword is a research led and conceptually driven practice, and never one to just paint pretty pictures. By spending as much time as possible with you, Alloneword can become part of your business, rather than just a service provider, and gain a first hand understanding in who the company is. Observing and analysing everything seen as part of a thorough strategy report.
Relevant Branding Articles
Web Considerations When Redefining Your Brand
Feb 13, 2022
Odds are, if you’re running (or helping to run) a business, you’ll either have a website or be in need of one. The web, and designing for it, can be a minefield if approached without proper consideration and time.
Creating a New Website: The Design Phase
Jun 05, 2018
Following on from my last article for on writing the brief, which explored the subject of writing a design brief for a website from the customer’s perspective, I was interested in taking on the same challenge for the design phase.
Asking the Right Questions
May 31, 2021
Part of being a good UX designer isn’t having the right answers, its about asking the right questions. Knowing what the questions are will lead to moulding the design from a ill defined shape, to a considered and appropriate product.