Modern approach to visual brand identification
The nature of the trends the world has become a different place maternal words. Farewell, the usual logo throughput visual identification system – what is it?
Nature of trends
The world of graphic design and visual branding is symbolic in its quest for trends. It is dominated by the tendency of blind copying and imitation of the incomprehensible. The majority of designers, marketers, creative workers in our country, unfortunately, are people without education and without roots. Anyone can become a prophet in the country if the true nature of things remains open only to a few – people who want to learn.
How close we have gone in visual culture, it is easy to see on examples of printed advertising of twenty-five years ago.
The origins of most modern trends and genres are extremely simple: the genre of glamour is a deep retouching of initially bad photographs taken with the participation of bad stylists and talentless models by crooked-handed photographers. Just a few years – and now we can hardly imagine portraits without stupid facial expressions and deep retouching, which does not save any signs of life on the face.
And only few, large brands, expensive magazines do it differently. Why not? That’s why to make a subtle, imperceptible retouching you need a good picture and good knowledge of anatomy, it’s more difficult than to paint a portrait. While the “glamorous” retouching can be taught to anyone in three hours. The main thing is not to lubricate the nose and eyes! The rest will roll for style…
Grunge” genre – collages made of bad materials, “tech-design” trend – glossy, which is caused by hopelessness – drawing in a photo shop based on pictures stolen from the Internet – a technique which is easily mastered by any person in 3 months.
The highest peak is to read two chapters from the textbook on drawing – as for light and shade and glare. Did you know that the average age of beautiful technical designers. “Wet floor”, diagonal glare and gradients on everything – the quintessence of what is now fashionable to call “the style of web-two-zero”.
The situation in visual identification is even worse.
Looking back on the classic logos? The time when the Apple logo could have become recognizable has passed. We love and remember the Coca-Cola Lettering because we have seen it every day since early childhood. Most often even designers forget to think about it.
I’ll tell you a secret – it’s worth looking at any familiar for many years logo – bounty there, or tick-tock from a professional point of view and you notice that this is a very poor quality work. But we got used to it so much that we don’t notice it all. The classic logos in every marketing textbook are not always good, they are just familiar.
A square or circle as a logo is a very cool minimalism, but it has no chance to stand out, to be remembered…
Designers and art directors close up in their society and circle, they dream of an ideal world their best works for ideal people… Simple people will simply not notice them! The subtleties and nuances in the ligatures of the logo name are only available to those who understand what is written at the beginning of the sentence.
The world has become a different place.
Conscious marketing and advertising for more than a hundred years. But only twenty years ago, no one could have thought that the images of visual communication would go beyond leaflets and printed advertisements in newspapers and move to television, the Internet, electronic signage, flash movies.
Even full-color printing was not so long ago a complicated and expensive process, nobody heard of four-color printing presses. Not so long ago, the logo was the symbol that could be drawn in 3 seconds and distributed by any reproduction on any material. Like a stamp. Something simple, technological.
Throughput visual identification system – what is it?
We often say “a modern visual brand identification system must be integrated and end-to-end,” but what does that mean in practice? In general, everything is simple – through identity is all-penetrating – it is plastic, easily transformable for the needs of any visual, appealing.
The system of images and rules is sufficient and redundant, which does not displace meaning, but is not lost itself. To better understand what this means, let’s consider typical errors.
A sure sign of a bad logo is a self-sufficient, proud badge that rejects any neighborhood, which feels comfortable only in the middle of a large white sheet.
A sure sign of “corporate identity” is when all a designer can do is to put a logo on the whole sheet, under a cut-off or duplicate it by making a “watermark”. Twice or three times, even a repeated logo is not yet a system of identification.
Learning to understand the client
It is the 21st century and it is worth remembering that even before the start of work on the identity of the brand is worth thinking about where the consumer will have to meet with our works most often.
After all, if it is a small shop – the carriers – signage, packaging, price tags, packages – are limited in size and expressive means. If business is a law firm, then to live the logo only on business cards and on forms with folders, quietly and imperceptibly.
And if a large network of supermarkets – who will see her business cards and forms? Billboards, videos, the Internet, partisan media, interior and exterior, navigation system and corporate magazine are the carriers of style, creating a huge space that we must use. If the restaurant: carriers – menus, interiors, postcards, branded clothing, outdoor advertising.
