A logo is not your brand, nor is it your identity. Logo design, identity design and branding all have different roles, that together, form a perceived image for a business or product.
There has been some recent discussion on the web about this topic, about your logo not being your brand. Although this may be true, I haven’t seen any clarification of the differences between ‘brand’, ‘identity’ and ‘logo’. I wish to rectify this.
What is brand? – The perceived emotional corporate image as a whole.What is identity? – The visual aspects that form part of the overall brand.What is a logo? – A logo identifies a business in its simplest form via the use of a mark or icon.
To explain this in more detail, let’s start at the top – the brand.
What is branding?
The fundamental idea and core concept behind having a ‘corporate image’ is that everything a company does, everything it owns and everything it produces should reflect the values and aims of the business as a whole.
It is the consistency of this core idea that makes up the company, driving it, showing what it stands for, what it believes in and why they exist. It is not purely some colours, some typefaces, a logo and a slogan.
As an example, let’s look at the well known IT company, Apple. Apple as a company, projects a humanistic corporate culture and a strong corporate ethic, one which is characterised by volunteerism, support of good causes & involvement in the community. These values of the business are evident throughout everything they do, from their innovative products and advertising, right through to their customer service. Apple is an emotionally humanist brand that really connects with people – when people buy or use their products or services; they feel part of the brand, like a tribe even. It is this emotional connection that creates their brand – not purely their products and a bite sized logo.
What is identity design?
ne major role in the ‘brand’ or ‘corporate image’ of a company is its identity.
In most cases, identity design is based around the visual devices used within a company, usually assembled within a set of guidelines. These guidelines that make up an identity usually administer how the identity is applied throughout a variety of mediums, using approved colour palettes, fonts, layouts, measurements and so forth. These guidelines ensure that the identity of the company is kept coherent, which in turn, allows the brand as a whole, to be recognisable.
The identity or ‘image’ of a company is made up of many visual devices:
- A Logo (The symbol of the entire identity & brand)
- Stationery (Letterhead + business card + envelopes, etc.)
- Marketing Collateral (Flyers, brochures, books, websites, etc.)
- Products & Packaging (Products sold and the packaging in which they come in)
- Apparel Design (Tangible clothing items that are worn by employees)
- Signage (Interior & exterior design)
- Messages & Actions (Messages conveyed via indirect or direct modes of communication)
- Other Communication (Audio, smell, touch, etc.)
- Anything visual that represents the business.
All of these things make up an identity and should support the brand as a whole. The logo however, is the corporate identity and brand all wrapped up into one identifiable mark. This mark is the avatar and symbol of the business as a whole.
What is a logo?
To understand what a logo is, we must first understand what it is for.
A logo is for… identification.
A logo identifies a company or product via the use of a mark, flag, symbol or signature. A logo does not sell the company directly nor rarely does it describe a business. Logo’s derive their meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolises, not the other way around – logos are there to identity, not to explain. In a nutshell, what a logo means is more important than what it lookslike.
To illustrate this concept, think of logos like people. We prefer to be called by our names – James, Dorothy, John – rather than by the confusing and forgettable description of ourselves such as “the guy who always wears pink and has blonde hair”. In this same way, a logo should not literally describe what the business does but rather, identify the business in a way that is recognisable and memorable.
It is also important to note that only after a logo becomes familiar, does it function the way it is intended to do much alike how we much must learn people’s names to identify them.
The logo identifies a business or product in its simplest form.
Summary:
Brand –The perceived emotional corporate image as a whole.Identity – The visual aspects that form part of the overall brand.Logo – Identifies a business in its simplest form via the use of a mark or icon.
How would you summarise brand, identity and logo design? Comments and thoughts are welcome, as always.
5 examples of Branding:
Wally Ollins: The Brand Handbook:
Brands are a cultural phenomenon of our time. Yet, whether praised or derided, they have suffered from a critical debate characterized by routine thinking, glib assumptions, or mere prejudice. Wally Olins draws on a lifetime of marketing experience to explain why it is time to throw the old mission statements away, what happens when a brand goes global, when we shouldn't automatically assume that the customer comes first, and how it might be good news that branding is set to spread even further. Above all, Olins provides a positive rejoinder to the new orthodoxies of the "No Logo" critics of branding by showing how they confuse their views about brands with their views about capitalism. As he argues, brands are no longer just about corporations, products, and services. In fact, all the significant institutions in our lives--the towns, cities, regions, or countries in which we live, our sports teams and museums, our consumer groups and charities--are given strength, identity, a defining role, and a satisfying cohesion via branding, one of the most significant social--as well as business--developments of modern times. Always wise, questioning, and iconoclastic, Wally Olins takes us to the literal heart of the matter: our crucial neglect of the way in which consumer decisions about brands are as emotional as all the other important decisions in our lives. For everyone in marketing, advertising, design, and business, and for anyone who wants to understand how the world works in the early twenty-first century, this is one of those rare books that breaks the mold.
Personal investigation into Branding and Identity:
As i feel that i am much more informed on what branding and identity is now, i decided that it would be highly benificial for me to look at what branding and identity is around me, i found that it is everywhere around us in everyday life, companies need it and every single piece of packaging contains a brand and identity. I have also found that most of it is not very good. Below are soe of the examples i have found both good and not so good.
What is Packaging:
Today almost everything comes in a package. Whether you think about food, mail, furniture or clothes, they are all packed in some way. Despite the fact that recycling companies struggle to gather and destroy the packaging waste that damages our planet, packaging is still used in great amounts and variations, as it is the only way to maintain goods safe for usage.
Main Purpose
- The main purpose of packaging is to protect goods. The more protection a product requires, the more complex the packaging is. Packaging is supposed to protect against any type of damage (like contamination, weather damage, scratches, deformation, corrosion and breaking). Packaging also protects goods from theft. Some packaging is a few times larger than the valuable products it contains to make it hard for thieves to hide the product and remove it from the store. Also, an envelope protects a letter from being read by others.
Food Protection
- Food needs to be very well protected to be safe for us to eat it. Most commonly used types of packaging for food are carton boxes, plastic bags, plastic containers, metal cans, foam boxes and glass bottles and jars. Inside packaging, food is protected from insects, contamination, handling damages, deformation and environmental influences that might change its properties. Sealed metal cans preserve food and keep it edible for a longer period of time. Foam containers are good insulators and help maintain a certain temperature.
Protection During Transportation
- During transportation, products might break, scratch or deform, but packaging makes sure they reach their destination intact. Without packaging, it would be hard to transport fragile objects without breaking them. Multiple types of packaging protect goods during transportation, depending on how valuable and fragile the products are. The most common system used is cushioning, using film, foam and paper cushions like bubble wrap, inflated bags, instant foam, styrofoam and inflated paper (the system is similar to the one used to make film cushions, but the material used is paper; for additional information see PackTiger).
Protection During Storage
- Packaging helps protect goods during storage. While stored, products might be influenced by weather and dust. Also, to save storage room, you can stack them on top of each other. The pressure might deform the goods, but in a suitable packaging, this won't happen. You can stack special reusable storage boxes or fold them while empty to save storage room. Also, to prevent rust, metal goods are wrapped in anticorrosive material during storage.
Other purposes
- Most types of packaging can be printed. This allows companies to advertise and helps consumers find out details about the content. The viewer
Fogal - The Dieline:
Divine Dairy : Lovely Package
Divine Dairy : Lovely Package
WANKEN - The Blog of Shelby White » Ducats 1980s Milk Packaging
6th Boro+Drifter+Psychemagik+Function
Investingation into packaging:
