The New Branding Logic

I was tasked with a thought leadership piece on branding… Not an easy task considering the vast array of thought-leadership in the space so I thought I might give my perspective…

The line between visual and non-visual branding is diminishing. In the age of digital -

Words are more important then ever BECAUSE we need less of them..

Honestly she didn’t even need “I” the visuals convey that. Don’t know what slay is? you do after .5 sec of that gif.

If you can’t describe your brand in 3 words (or one animated gif)…

YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR BRAND

full-stop

Make sure your brand fits in [a box]

The internet, phones, programs, tablets, laptops, AppleTVs, is made of boxes.

LITERALLY EVERYTHING you have ever seen on the internet is a box. Even shapes are boxes that are changed or images in a box.

Websites accomidate the various shapes and content of images by centering them and having them fill the box — social media sites even have you crop your images into a box.

Instagram was built on boxes

box-first thinking allows your brand to go anywhere do anything the ever changing digital world throws at it

… I bet you think this brand is about you

The more media that is thrown at people the less likely they are to engage with any of it. So how do you make your brand relevant to your audience?

Make it about them

This is an insight that I got by working at a political shop… this has always been the case for political. I recently was asked to do a logo exploration for a candidate. In a few min I had created a passible and interesting shape: