Branding: A Case Study
Stick a piece of metal in a hot fire, then scorch something you own with the metal. You’ve just “branded” your property. If you want to distinguish your property from your neighbor’s, your brand has to be easily distinguished from others. This concept of branding has been around since the 1500s. In the early 1800s the meaning was expanded to be associated with products.
These days the concept of branding has been further expanded beyond just the visual element that symbolizes a product or company. Examples include customer service phone recordings or the manner in which an airline boards its passengers. For now I’m just looking at the visual aspects of a brand.
Since the idea of branding has been around for so long, it surprises me that some businesses don’t bother to distinguish themselves from their competition. It doesn’t take a multinational corporation’s budget to create a brand; it just takes consistency.
Think of the images you’ve seen in Westerns: big ranches, open space, cattle drives, cattle rustlers, and don’t forget, brands. The brands were seen on the flanks of the cattle, on the archway above the entrance to the big ranch, somewhere on the barn, and probably on the wax seal the ranchers used to close their envelopes. No huge marketing budget. Just consistency.
There’s a carpet store around here that I’ve driven past perhaps hundreds of times. I can’t mention the store name, not because I don’t want to embarrass them, I simply don’t know the store name. There’s a lot writing on the store window…something to do with remnants, I think. There’s usually a van parked out front. The van has a lot of writing on it too. Something to do with carpeting. If I wanted to look up the store in the phone book or online I wouldn’t know what to look for.
I’m not suggesting that the carpet store has to use a distinctive font with its company name (though that would be nice) or has to have an illustrated logo. The store name doesn’t have to be the largest visual element on the van or storefront. But at a minimum it should position the store’s name where one would expect to see it, with enough white space around it to discern what it is, and use the name in the same manner every time it’s used.
Maybe the van and store do have the company name on them, somewhere in the sea of words. I’ll look…again, the next time I drive by.
Links to Related topics:
Naming Your Business:
http://www.rengraphicdesign.com/pages/naming-your-business.html
Considerations in Logo Design:
http://rengraphicdesign.com/blog/2008/03/07/considerations-in-logo-design/