8 Questions That Will Anchor Your Brand
Read This Before You Start The Logo Design Process
Misalignment is your brand’s biggest enemy.
Have you ever run across an organization that just confuses you? Industry identification is totally unclear by the logo and its visual presence unsettles your eyes. Touchpoints (any point of contact between a buyer and a seller) are styled independent of any solid structure. A shaky approach to design compromises the integrity of your brand and confuses the marketplace. When planning and thought isn’t involved in the design strategy, the brand suffers.
Perhaps you’re not a designer. Or you’re unsure how to start.
Put in the time at the front end and you’ll brand will surely be anchored and ready to launch.
Discovery
A worthy design partner will ask a bunch of questions. This is called the Discovery Process.
Imagine having a million dollar idea. This is an idea you’re passionate about. You miss meals researching it. If it’s truly a good one, you must welcome a myriad of questions coming from your identity design partner.
Now there’s no reason to drop a vague job posting in a contest-driven design site that appeals to the lowest-skilled designer. It might cost you $100 and take a week, but these pixel-pushers are the kind that have one style, a backlog of cookie cutter logos and templates, and probably not much drive for thoughtfulness. They value quantity over quality. We’re all striving to be better than this.
By contrast, seek out a professional brand identity specialist that will
deep-dive into your brand’s goals, target market, look and feel, strategic offering, uniqueness, understanding of the market.
The Five Guys Model
Sidebar: I went to Five Guys today. It was a tasty lunch, but a better experience. Among the many attributes of the brand, I noticed really interesting touches like large bags of potatoes, a board that noted where today’s french fries came from (Mr. Hanks: Parker, Idaho), and wall quotes praising their burgers.
Why did I tell you about my lunch? To demonstrate the importance of alignment questions, I’m answering the following questions acting as Five Guys’ Brand Strategist. This is an exercise any company must go through before rebranding or starting out in the marketplace. Have these on-hand when you start your discovery process:
And Now, The Homework
Product
What is your offering?
Burgers, fries, a quick and tasty meal with friendly service and no compromise on quality
Why is it important to the world?
Five Guys offers food in a speedy and quality fashion. In a fast-food world, the market was missing a rapid quality option until Five Guys.
What is your solution and what problem is it addressing?
The pain-point of fast food offerings skimping on taste. Five Guys is committed to taste.
Uniqueness
What sets you apart?
Five Guys grill their burgers cooked to perfection and fries in pure peanut oil. Five Guys sources ingredients that align with the quality of the brand.
Target
Who is your ideal customer?
A person on the run that needs a tasty burger and fries but doesn’t want to skimp on quality
Message
What’s your primary message?
Handcrafted burgers and fries: the best in any location
What’s your brand’s top keywords?
burgers, fries, handcrafted, tasty, ready-to-order, diner, friendly, energetic, quality, service
What are your brand’s abstract keywords? (Look and feel words. Words that aren’t necessarily found on your site but apply to your brand)
original, simplicity, casual, high-quality
I’m not privy to the design strategy of Five Guys, but with the above information, let’s now critique the logo’s alignment of the brand.
Camera-Ready?
Does a passionate red thick sans serif capped type paired with some variation of Tekton mixed-case embody brand message? Does it align well with the goals of the organization and how they want to be perceived?
These questions measure the effectiveness of a lasting mark on a brand.
Good job! You’re more aligned with your brand than ever!
If you didn’t before, I imagine you now see why it’s necessary to obtain context and information to begin logo design and development of the brand as a whole.