There’s no debating the fact that an online presence is essential in today’s market. Indeed there are only a few niche industries that do not rely upon or are affected by the global transition from workplace to web.

When it comes to doing it right, anyone with an ounce of knowledge of the way the Internet works will agree that representing your business or product online is by no means as simple as throwing up a website and claiming your territory in a small corner of the web.

Aside from the many factors that make a ‘great’ website, such as careful usability consideration, good aesthetic design and well-written copy; there are the numerous other external variables including SEO, PR and email marketing etc that help to promote your website, and in turn your brand.

What is a brand

Well, it’s just your logo and stuff isn’t it? Not at all. A brand is the representation of a business that is portrayed through a range of mediums – logos, product names, colour schemes, slogans, the style of language used to promote a product or service and much more. For a more verbose description, Wikipedia offers us this:

‘A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the descriptive verbal attributes and concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme that convey the essence of a company, product or service.’

It’s often found that as a company grows, the general acknowledgment of the value of it’s branding grows and becomes more apparent. Ideally this shouldn’t be the case, it’s irrelevant whether you’re a new start-up or a multi-million dollar corporation, your company’s image should always demand a level of priority.

However, creating a solid brand can take a lot of time, decisive and objective thinking, creative input and usually a lot more money. Thus many smaller business fail to see it’s relevance; ‘maybe a quick logo mock-up in Microsoft Word and some cheap template flyers should do the trick’. This is not a concept that should be promoted.

Losing sight of your brand

When it comes to web design, many businesses loose sight of their objectives and company image. I’m primarily referring to those that have transposed to the Internet, who already have a physical brand.

There are a plethora of reasons that explain this. Sometimes it’s a misunderstanding of the Internet’s potential which leads to carelessness, also the idea of building a nice new website can cloud judgement and obscure the realistic goals and objectives of a business. This isn’t helped by the appeal of free website templates and WYSIWYG editors that are far cheaper than investing in a professional designer.

Unfortunately taking this approach can cripple your existing image. Preset themes aren’t built around your branding and are almost impossible to manipulate to accurately represent your company.

At the other end of the spectrum, designers can also cause trouble. Even though we, as designers, are supposed to have a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t on the web; we can also get carried away by our own creativity and artistic input - which in turn can tar our client’s branding that they may have created and built over time, purely because we feel our method is better or our opinion more valid.

New website – let’s rebrand!

Another popular trend is to completely rebrand to correlate with the launch of a new website. It’s often unclear to see what business do this, unless the rebrand came first and a new website is therefore a necessary measure. Some people get bored of their current image too easily, some believe it a positive, refreshing step to rebrand every so often, like a spring clean. But let’s remember that building a strong company image relies on consistency and recognition, which is impossible to attain if logos and colour schemes are changing every 6 months.

There can sometimes be a fine line between evolving a band and recreating it. You must step back and ensure that, when updating your image, you can guarantee that it still reflects and resembles the old look and feel – that it maintains recognition. The process of rebranding should be done in one of two ways:

  • Gradual evolution, one small step at a time, over a long period of time.
  • Complete transformation – a full, across-the-board revolution that demonstrates a strong step forward.

Maintaining your brand’s consistency

David Airey’s article on the top aspects of successful branding concludes that consistency is by far the most important factor in maintaining and growing a great brand. This means ensuring that your image is immediately recognisable wherever it is, and on whichever medium it’s found.

Take some of the most globally recognisable logos:

The topic of what makes a good logo is a discussion for another day, but what has helped to establish these logos as such undeniably iconic symbols is the fact they have remained consistent on print, clothing, packaging, TV and on the Internet.

Who’s the new kid in town?

What’s your reason for changing or developing your image? Is it to help pull your company into the current times, to motivate your workforce or bring in new clients? Are you changing your corporate image to transform people’s perspective of the company, perhaps to express a higher level of quality or when trying to enter a new market?

If you choose to redevelop your branding – make sure you’re clear of the reasons why you’re doing it. If it’s a half-hearted or foolish move, it can greatly damage your image and general recognition.

Rebranding across the board

When it’s time for a rebrand, make sure it’s definitely time for a rebrand – don’t do it for the sake of it. Your first step is to decide whether to gradually rebrand or change everything in one fell swoop. Once you’re settled on that account, it’s time to get as many heads together to brainstorm and construct a solid plan for change. Make sure everyone involved in the process is on the same page, understands the end target and is comfortable to express their opinions that may contribute to the process.

  • Rebranding is not just a new logo. Mocking up a new logo is not rebranding – in fact it really serves no purpose at all if it’s not backed up by a full, fresh direction that incorporates new slogans, mission statements, business and marketing strategies, colour schemes, typography and imagery usage guidelines, print media (business cards and letterheads etc), occasionally new staff members and much more.
  • Project manage the rebranding process. Treat your in-house development as you would a client’s project. Set deadlines, make sure staff are sticking to the deadlines and are on task, set someone in charge of the operation to ensure it runs smoothly and this will help generate a better overall outcome.
  • Aim for originality, push some boundaries. Some of the most popular rebranding campaigns have been those that have boasted originality and new ideas. This can be a case of using an arrangement of the letters in your company name to build an adaptable logo that works on several levels, like the famous FedEx logo, where the space between the E and X forms the shape of an arrow – representing direction and haste. A similar idea is used in the Amazon logo, where the arrow underneath points from A to Z and also resembles a smiling face.

The main point is that if you’re going to rebrand, do it properly – consider all the elements and ensure that they relate to each other and don’t contradict the overall message.

Bridging the offline-online gap

When taking your branding to the web, many of the same rules apply at to print and other medium. Sometimes we’re held back by current technologies or accessibility and cross-browser considerations, such as a restricted number of typefaces. However – colour, imagery, copy and print design elements can be recreated or manipulated to suit the web.

A method to help retain brand consistency over different mediums is to create a brand guidelines document. This sets in stone various rules that must consistently be applied when developing any form of branding, such as what typography to use, colours to use and on which backgrounds, the kerning and spacing around letters, block content and imagery, how and where the logo is meant to be used and much more.

When creating a website design based on a company’s current image, I surround myself in print media and any form of branding I can find to help transform those elements to the web.

Don’t forget, the objective is to maintain consistent brand recognition. When a visitor arrives at the website – it needs to be immediately apparent where they are.

On your way to creating a stronger company image

Creating a strong company image is about more than just the visual essence you project. It relies on a well-crafted product, effective marketing, good customer service, in some cases a great portfolio or catalogue and lots of time and effort.

When making important design and business direction decisions and strategies – don’t rush into anything, take your time, research and gather as much opinion (especially from within the business) as possible.

For more ideas and information on branding visit David Airey’s blog and the Venture3 blog. I would also recommend ‘Graphic Design that Works‘ from Rockport.

Spread the love:

  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google
  • Blogosphere News
  • Design Float
  • Live
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Pownce
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • TwitThis