I will help you clarify your messaging, package your offering and craft touchstones — designed around your customers, people and culture. So you can create an aspirational identity, tell an engaging story, and express a compelling positioning with distinction & value.
It’s Not Magic
— IT’S LOGIC —
Design Is A Process.
Design is a way of envisioning the future, and the craft of bringing it to fruition.
It's the pursuit in making the invisible, not only visible — but, meaningful, useful and beautiful.
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So, What is Brand Design?Brand Design is the Practice of Strategy + Creativity — Applied Across Business, Aesthetics, Culture & Technology.
The intention in my practice is to connect business & brand strategy with customer experience.
In order to be able to design & activate an incredibly personable and intuitive brand for your audience, we must first come to understand the individual pieces of the puzzle, and the strategic fit among them, in order to behold the composition of the brand as a whole.
To truly gain a wholistic understanding of our own brand we must come to see ourself from meta-perspectives, both from inside & outside of the organization, in order to be able to see with beginners mind, to be open asking questions, in order to help you to gain insights towards a vision from within. Ultimately, you are the expert in your field, I am only there to provide the reflection.
“Art is in the Framing”
— Paul Rand
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A Method Towards the Design of Brand as Whole.The brand is the sum of your vision + actions + story + experience — framed within the perceived whole, in the mind of the audience.
Brand is shaped in each conversation, each interaction, each touchstone and story you tell along your customer journey. It's the belief they have around why your brand matters; made up of the memories and ideas the customer holds in their mind around the concept. This is the concept of brand as a whole, and as Paul Rand so eloquently states, the "art is in the framing".
It's your audiences perception and understanding of your significance to them; the concept of the value & meaning within the brand they have developed in their mind — based on the framing, function and design of your offerings, communications and experiences. It's rooted in your vision, and your values, the purpose and people you serve, it's your customers' and team culture, but it has to do with the design of each and every interaction, which build the relationship.
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3 Keys of Brand Design ———
——— Transform Your Vision
From Ideation to Realization ———
A
The sound foundation upon which we plan, articulate & build your brand's conceptual approach.
Discover and define the vision, the truth & meaning and value in the concept. We build a sound foundation of understanding, from which we distill the value and distinction of the offering. Through internal, customer and competitor research & analysis, we can illuminate opportunities, and reflect insights.
We start with curiosity and empathic human-centric exploration, to grow the clarity in the category and persona, of their experience, their needs, their perception of the offering, the environment, the market, the competition.
Define the ethics, the ideology and underlying principles that uphold your brand. Define the framework for telling the story of your brand. We articulate the design strategy, and define the project drivers, factors, challenges and opportunity, which will inform the conceptual approach, and bring focus to the entire process.
B
The treatments and tactics leveraged to inspirit + focus the brand, to tell a story that matters.
Translate the verbal — criteria, requirements, goals, messages, meaning & value outlined in the strategy — into the art direction and visual language, developing a voice, a personality with the look & feel. How can we use image (perception, tone and theme), universal language, design and cultural cues, to enhance the brand's perception, association, positioning, meaning?
The strategy is brought to life, made tangible and visual through a series of creative briefs to communicate the overall Design Direction — the concept, core visual themes, and visual language, including key design ingredients and cues, to be leveraged to tell the brand (audience) story to create the desired impression, perception and tone; to support the concept.
C
Craft experiences + touchstones to embody aspirational identity and deliver trust, belief, meaning & value.
Based on our Direction, articulating a conceptual approach, to being relevant within a desired aesthetic, perception, culture; to reflect a discernible and aspiring style, that delivers the desired message, in a preferred voice/tone, required to make the necessary impression, to influence the audience to choose the brand.
This third dimension, is where design rubber meets the road. Where design ideas and decisions are guided by the direction, to merge form + content, type, image, and colour, information, medium, meaning, and value, to craft an experience that is meaning and memorable to the audience.
The design of products, services and touch-points — each interaction, designed on-purpose. Experiences tasked with provoking recall, engagement & loyalty; while shaping an experience that delivers the solution, belief and connection the customer desires.
“Clarity Comes Through Articulation.”
— David C. Baker
BRAND DESIGN PROCESS
We will apply the methodology across the Brand Design Process framework, to bring together each of the principle brand building components. Empowering you to translate you business strategy into meaningful messaging, story and aspirational identity; to express a distinct & valuable positioning; and craft irresistible offerings & designful experiences, upon which to grow loyal brand-customer & -employee relationships.
Research, observation, exercise, dialog. Asking the right question and listen. We discover origins, ethos, vision, truth, and insights.
Further analysis internally, to capture the wisdom of your team members, until we can define and articulate the brand strategy.
Brand the human connection to build a relationship. Create brand audience personas, brand as person, character, culture of the MVA.
Express the brand's valuable distinction. Articulate a refined understanding of the audience, category, offering, competition, value proposition.
Translate verbal language, vocabulary and meaning into visual language, aesthetic toolbox, art and image direction.
Develop a visual system for for expressing the values, personality, tone, perception, tone to create the right impression on the audience.
When your offer is attuned to your audience, packaged in the identity, with messaging reinforcing the concept, you can identify your Competitive Sustainable Advantage or the category defining must have product or service.
Take Your First Step Towards Aspirational Brand Identity.↓
Brand Thinking
Essentially, strategy (noun) is a plan to achieve a goal — they say, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. As a verb, strategy is more of a bridge between the tactics and the desired results. For each brand or business the primary strategy is one of differentiation. Understanding how you are different & better than the next brands offering a similar, solving the same problem. The integrated & holistic planning process which provides and guides a set of activities or patterns to be applied, to bridge the gaps from business intention to design direction to brand experience.
Human Centric
I enjoy working together closely with my clients on a continuum, to ensure that the execution of the strategy, the implementation of the communication, the tactics — i am there to follow through to guide the strategy and design. This ensure the activation of brand strategy, identity, campaigns excel at expressing the focused value and meaning.
Research Lens
Research guides “how” we frame the context of the problem, and the solution. Paul Rand, said: “Art is in the Framing” — he was certainly right. How we look at something, our perception of the subject/object, is informed by our unique perspective. The more perspectives we can gain and understand, the more well-rounded our understanding will become. Research gives form to human-empathy, insights, and shine light on the path forward.
Crossing Boundaries
As the great design educator Kenneth Hiebert, teaches us; “crossing boundaries — discovering the application of one experience of life to another — is the basis for many of the greatest discoveries.”
Philosophy
For the love of wisdom and study of the fundamental nature of our existence. I am on a Quest to understand the universe & true self. Closely tied to identity and culture, unifying aesthetics & ethics Understanding interplay and relationship of the individual parts of the system, to each other and to the whole.
Cognition & Psychology
Hierarchy of needs. Mirroring & social validation. Contiguity. Psychology of colour. Cognitive bias codex. Gestalt: figure-ground, Law of Proximity, Law of Similarity, Law of Closure, Law of Continuity, Law of Symmetry. Psychology: Von Restorff effect, Hick’s Law, The Principle of Least Effort, The Serial Positioning Effect, The Principle of Perpetual Habit.
Myth & Storytelling
An understanding of archetypes, and how they influence and reflect our lives. And the use of the narrative arc, highlighting moments within a script. Thinking in universal concepts & themes, the golden threads in which we weave the story of time. Recognizing and embracing repeating patterns. The ability to translate dream & the power of invision. The protagonist & antagonist. Fluent in relevant culture and meaning.
Symbology & Metaphor
Cognitive tools used to simplify the process of human information absorption. The workings of figures of speech and association. Figurative language. Cultural symbols representative of meaning & value. Universal language, based on esoteric roots in ancients natural sciences of astrology & hematic wisdoms.
“The Best Way to Predict the Futureis to Design It.”
— Buckminster Fuller
