Brand Identity Design: translating brand values and culture into a verbal and visual identity
At Intrinzic, developing a brand identity goes deeper than just creating a logo, color palette, fonts and tone of voice. Our approach centers around translating your organizations’ beliefs and purpose into a visual and verbal toolbox of assets that will align your teams, inspire your work, build awareness, influence your marketplace and create an unparalleled brand experience.
Visual identity rooted in your brand’s unique characteristics and differentiators
The term corporate branding often brings to mind images of rigid brand manuals with ridiculous examples of what not to do with a logo.
On one level, brand and visual identity feels very functional: identifying what images, colors and fonts can we—and can’t we—associate with our brand. But these are merely executional functions of a much bigger creative question: who is your brand and how does it shape the way you’re perceived by your own internal teams as well as your customers and the broader industry?
Our process is designed to answer these questions with a strong strategic framework, one that is rooted in our Brand Development process and collaborative approach.
Once your brand is grounded in the Collective Intelligence of your people and the needs and values of the marketplace, our team beings the work of translating these elements into an external-facing Brand Identity. But how do you distill all that a brand is and can be into a system that works to communicate all you need it to do?
Our process requires a strategic approach, one that acknowledges the competitive set but also carves out a unique niche for your brand. It is crucial that your brand identity and visual identity system embodies the connections within your organization and resonates within the marketplace. This system takes into account both internal and external attributes that include values, mission, culture, industry challenges and key points of differentiation in order to create a unique brand toolbox that can only belong to your brand.
From the brand story and visual toolbox to communication styles, brand architecture, naming and expression, the full spectrum of your brand’s identity encompasses all the different kinds of ways your brand can be experienced—both by your own teams as well as customers and competitors.
Brand, product and service naming
Your brand name, product or service name is often one of the first impressions you make on a customer or core audience—so it has to count. Our process and approach naturally lend themselves to evaluating and asking questions to uncover the story behind how a brand, product or service got its name.
Through the work of uncovering your organization’s beliefs, purpose and goals, we work to align your external nomenclature with your internal culture.
Logo development
One of the most recognizable aspects of brand identity is a logo. Our approach to logo development begins with our brand world creation process: one that requires our teams to be very choiceful in considering the ways in which a brand should fit into its competitive set and where the opportunity exists to stand out.
Our design exploratory covers a wide range of possibilities and inspiration, all rooted in the core values of the brand.
Brand architecture
Whether we’re working with a large holding company with many small groups and brands or a consumer brand with multiple product lines, our approach to brand architecture development is still the same: asking how these elements relate to one another, how the audience(s) perceive them, and what characteristics can be used to unify or diversify based on the needs of the marketplace.
Design toolbox creation
Once we’ve solidified our brand world exploratory to a leading concept, we begin the work of rounding out the brand toolbox to include brand logo options, a robust color palette, typography, photography styles, patterns and graphics, iconography, brand tone of voice, and usage examples. We collect all elements of the design toolbox into one cohesive brand guidelines document.
Environment design
Brand exists beyond just paper and web: it also occupies spaces around us. Bringing a brand from a 2D to a 3D experience requires extra consideration for how to make elements of the brand design toolbox more dimensional and immersive.
Brand expression
It’s not enough to tie a neat bow around a comprehensive brand guidelines book and call the brand identity work done. There is an art to bringing all the elements together in a spectrum of brand expression examples that consider how the toolbox is used to launch the brand out into the world.
This goes beyond letterhead and email signatures; this includes how to create visually and verbally engaging print and digital collateral that is accessible for your marketing and
social teams and that resonates with your key audiences. From social campaigns to a full website redesign, our Integrated Marketing and Web Strategy solutions are designed to active your brand’s presence.
