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The Importance of Branding

Branding and logo design is a big part of any new business in the current day. But all too often the process is given much less weight than what it brings to the table for your business long term. Investing in great design and great designers will leave you proud as punch for many years to come.

With an influx of crowd sourced design sites and cheap overseas resources such as 99 designs and freelancer.com gaining mainstream momentum, companies new and old are tempted more than ever to spend less, with the promise of million dollar results. The premise is easy to grasp in the case of crowd sourced design, many heads provide many concepts as quick as possible, with the best one taking the prize. But the ‘best one’ is rarely the ‘best for your business’.

the ‘best one’ is rarely the ‘best for your business’

A great branding development project is 50% fantastic design skill, but also 50% communication and the fundamental understanding of your business from top to bottom. Without knowing how your business works, your audience, how you interact with them and your future plans for growth, a designer simply can’t accurately develop a brand for that will work well into the future.

Here are some key points to consider when re-branding and deciding how to invest in your design team.

Your designer must understand business

Its essential that your design team can understand what its like to be one of your consumers. To do this, they need to understand your product, how it works and what the future holds for it. Only then can the design process start. Unfortunately when offshoring or using cheap resources who focus solely on design, this part of the process is lost.

Communication

Although we try to get as close as possible, almost all branding projects require some tweaking through the design process. Communication from both sides is paramount at this point. From the business owners point of view, being able to articulate what their company and product means to the consumer is vital. From the designers point of view, being able to explain in language that the business owner understands why the design has gone the direction it has, is also paramount to success.

The time required

Any great brand is the result of many many concepts. In our case, we tend to develop anywhere from 10-20 concepts, before we arrive at 3 which we feel ticks all the boxes. It would be great If we could do those 3 first, but the process is iterative, and only after many concepts can we arrive at those which will work best. This takes time, and time takes investment.

Future cost savings

Your company branding sets the tone for everything requiring visual design. From your website, to email marketing, to printed collateral, to TV commercials, to communication language. All of these things get their start from the initial brand design. Investing in your brand up front, will save you countless hours and thousands of dollars on these elements long term, as they will fall into place much quicker.

Pride in your flag

We often refer to a brand as the flag for your company. Your brand is an extension of you and the idea that you set out to build. You should take pride in it, the same way you take pride in your company. Investing in a design process, and a team that is working with you to achieve the right result, as opposed to a quick pay day, helps define another chapter in your businesses creation. This pride in your band shows through when delivering on your product, and also in helping staff understand what it is that they represent when they speak with customers.

Expertise across disciplines

It may be graphic design that you’re after, but a design team that understands how graphics are used across all mediums both digital and print is important when designing your brand. If your new logo design doesn’t translate well to print, or uniform embroidery, then you may hit a wall before you know it. Not investing in the right designer can lead to these issues more often than not, costing you more money in the long run than simply doing it right from day one.

Engaging an experienced design team doesn’t have to be a scary task. The right team will help lead you through the process, making the creation of your new brand a collaborative and enjoyable process. And who wouldn’t want to look at their new logo every day and remember how great it was seeing it come to life.

If you would like discuss an upcoming branding or re-branding project with the team at PN Digital then get in touch today.