For a business owner today, looking for branding, marketing or graphic design specialists can be scary and incredibly confusing. It seems like one can just type in logos and find thirty dollar options. Twenty dollars more for a blog template and youre done, right? You could save so much money and it will probably look pretty good too! Especially as a startup, this can be an enticing option, since finances tend to be very tight. Let me tell you one reason that this should not be your choice: Research.
It sounds so boring, right? How is research going to make my logo look better? Honestly, it won’t. It will, however, communicate your brand more effectively with your audience, and start a back and forth communication between the two.
A business card is neither art nor is it only informational. It is designed to convey the brand platform by being visually appealing as well as informational. It is a true blend of communicating to the left and right brain of the brands customers. Research is a collaborative effort between designer and client to learn about the brand, it’s competitors and what will make your brand unlike any other in the category.
When we begin working with a client, we start with a Brand Questionnaire, so we can be brought up to speed on the ins and outs of any particular category. For instance, when we started with Chef Tina Jo, a raw food chef, the client knew far more about the raw lifestyle than we did, so Bex needed to learn about the profession, competitors, who the raw food audience is and their likes and dislikes.
We also ask visual, or right brain questions, to find out what might be appropriate shapes, colors, fonts and so on. Many time it’s difficult for a client to articulate visuals since they’re not designers, so Bex creates a what we call a Brand Inspiration Board.
This is a collage of visual images that we feel are appropriate for the brand, based on what research we’ve done and the input we received from the client. It may be a logo, shape, pattern, color or a letterform. From that point, we’ll meet with the client and we’ll go through the images one by one, placing the images we agree are most like their brand at the center of the circle, while those most unlike the brand will be placed away from the center of the circle. This process ensures that when a client says I want something hip and cool, we are on the same page to know exactly what that means to the client and most importantly, to the brand’s customer.
In conclusion, it’s important to find branding specialists who include research in their process. It’s a crucial step and worth the investment. Without research, it’s nearly impossible to establish strong brand relationships and ultimately a successful brand.
