Why Is Brand Identity Important - Difference Brand Vs Brand Identity and Logo Design

Why Brand Identity So Important !

There are many misconceptions when it comes to branding and designing your logo. I'm here to tell you that: your visual identity is not your brand; your logo is also not a brand identity.

The word brand originally meant "hot or burning". With this in mind, let's look at a farmer who burns his cattle with a hot iron. Do you think that the mark that is on the cattle is his mark? No. The mark identifies his ownership of that particular animal. My dad used to scribe his name into his tools with the very same principle in mind. 

So if the iron mark left upon the livestock isn't his brand, well, what is? His brand is many things. His visual identity is just an element into identifying what it is that belongs to him. The farmer's actual brand could be his hard working nature, his strictness to deadlines, his breeding and the quality of his animals. In other words, the farmer and his product are the brand. 

How hard the farmer works to make sure he has the best product available and whether he is looked upon as a valued supplier all determine how strong his brand is. 

Apple Computer's brand is not the half bitten apple on the packaging: it's Steve Jobs' vision. I have always looked upon Apple's visual identity as being cutting edge. A half-eaten apple represents biting into a computer, its design is always the best, but Apple has long been overshadowed by Microsoft. It's not because their identity isn't strong enough: it's because the vision of Steve Jobs has been around for a long time - now you associate that identity with the quality of Apple products, their behavior, their design, their purpose ... the head of Steve Jobs.

Brands are more than just artwork, colors and typography. They are thoughts, determination, confidence, drive, ambition, doubt, attitude, products and other companies. Values.

If the mechanic is bad at his job, he delivers recently and isn't worth the money, but pays a top designer to give him the best possible brand identity. Guess what? His identity fails because he himself as a society is not strong enough.

Think about it: we trust brands. Would we really drink a certain type of cola if it tasted bad. Still, it is true that visual identities are cool and quirky and we all have our favourites, however, our favourite brands are just that because of their strength within the market place. 

Remember we are all advocates to our favourite brands. Mainly, in part, because we trust them. 

I have been asked countless times to produce identities for small start up businesses who do not have a business plan. How do I create an identity for a company without knowing its brand? Designers can't invent your brand for you.

There is so much to branding and recognition that I would have to write a book, but now that the basics are covered, I will write a little about brand identities and logos.

Beware of imitations. Because computers and software are so powerful, it's easy for an amateur graphic designer to turn their work into a professional one. However, it probably won't do the job you're hoping for. If you don't know the elements of building a successful brand identity, you can't tell.

Brand Identity Involves Business: Brand identity involves a lot of work. This is important to understand when hiring a graphic designer to go through your brand identity project.

Every graphic designer offers brand identity as a service, but unfortunately we didn't learn these aspects in art school. It is through ones passion for brand identities that we seek further studies. This is why it is probably better from the outset to seek a designer who specialises in brand identity. 

As a brand identity designer you must be able to portray the brand's persona, values, missions, ethos and goals. A logo is just an element within the brand identity. A business should be able to take a logo away and yet still be recognisable to their customers. You need to be able to see, see, feel and sometimes feel the visual identity. The master designer touches it all. Just look at the biggest identity. Notice how simple they are? How they deliver the message; how they use different elements to describe their message. Being human should be easy. It should have touch points that lead the customer to remember just one thing about it. When we read a page from a book, we remember the paragraph, but not the whole page—unless we study it. The famous saying “less is more” could never be truer when it comes to identity design.

The hardest part of a graphic designer's job is finding the elements to make their design as simple as possible. Graphic designers who specialize in identity work spend a lot of time creating a logo that is simple and memorable while also describing the brand's values. From the logo, designers spend more time on color theory and psychology and gestalt theories.

A final thought.

A brand is a company and its mission, ethos and vision. Brand identity is the graphic language that describes the brand, be it typography, color, logo, mark, scent and so on.