A potted history of brand guidelines
When you first set about creating a brand, it’s not long before you have to try to lay down guidelines about how it should be used. This document is often referred to as a bible: a sacred text that has to be deferred to. A set of rules that are set down in stone.
Which raises two questions: when to start laying down the guidelines, and when to finish.
“A good gardener never puts a trellis right next to a plant, and never hems it in with rigid lines.”
Some people think that the earlier the brand is defined, the faster it will start shooting upwards. That’s OK for a brand that doesn’t need to live and expand, but I don’t know many entrepreneurs for whom that is the goal. Observing a gardener can teach us a lot. A good gardener never puts a trellis right next to a plant, and never hems it in with rigid lines. Instead, they leave enough space for the plant to work and lay down roots, become stronger and more stable on its own. …
5 tips on typography
We all know and recognise that typography has its own character. So it’s not a choice that you should leave to chance.
- Approachable or well established?
Use capitals if you want to come across as determined, and lower case — even for the initial of a name — to express proximity. - History vs modernity.
If you want to position yourself in the present day, choose a sans serif font, but if you want to come across as a benchmark, go for a serif font. - ‘Italicise’ with care.
Don’t abuse italics, as they tire the eye, especially when using all capitals. …
When emotion makes a brand.
These days, a brand can’t just be about appearances, it has to epitomise something. It has to be about its product, its employees and its clients. It has to bring a story to life rather than just tell stories. It has to be an experience that triggers emotions.
“The message and the messenger should have the same distance between each other. The same distance as between the brand and its audience.”
Many brands use neuroscience to steer their advertising messages towards a particular area of consumers’ brains and arouse interest or stimulate a desire to buy or to engage. By just focusing on the message, they have forgotten the basics, the messenger, thus creating an element of vagueness. Arousing an element of doubt about the brand’s sincerity. …
