Identity Design and Rebranding

Before you can even set up shop for business, your business should have an identity design. Your identity will determine your target market’s initial reaction to you, particularly if they see your company represented (on the web, on a sign, in an advertisement, etc.) before they interact with your company by meeting you or contracting a service or product you provide. Corporate identities evolve and shift over time, but the most successful companies build — from the very inception of their business — on a solid foundation of outstanding identity design.

Calvert Creative has helped many new businesses build their brands, and we also have plenty experience in rebranding. If you are just getting started (or restarted), the following information may help you begin to think about how you want to present your business to the world.

What’s the difference between brand, identity, and logo?

Brand — Brand is the way people perceive your company as a whole. Your brand is the personality of your business.

Identity – Your identity is made up of the visuals and other items associated with your brand. Identity includes your logo and tagline, the color palette in your retail stores, your letterhead, product packaging, signage, and even such items as a sound signature that is always heard in your commercials.

Logo – The unique mark or icon with which your business is identified. Logos are simple and easy to remember, and appropriately related to your business. Even the way a business name is written can be a logo, or a part of the logo. For example, Facebook doesn’t have a particular mark, but the name Facebook is set in a specially modified font (Klavika, for you font geeks who want to know!) with particular colors.

Do I really need a logo mark?

No, you don’t. Plenty of companies — Google is a great example — use a logo font (the Catull font, for you font geeks) and logo colors. But all businesses should have excellent, high-quality identity systems even if they don’t have an identifiable icon. This is what prevents you from ever being totally confused by seeing the McDonald’s golden arches in purple or green, for instance.

How does a brand get built?

When you are working to build a brand, you start by answering the Big Questions about your company. Once you can answer these questions, you’ll have a great starting point for building a solid brand strategy.

• What makes us an incredible company?
• How are we different from our competition?
• What are we really known for?
• Who, precisely, is our target market?
• What does our target market believe about our company?
• What do we want them to think?
• How can we engage the emotions of our audience?
• Where do we want our brand to be 5 years from now?
• What kind of investment of time, effort, and money are we willing to make to power our brand expansion?
• Who do we need on our team in order to help us take our brand where we intend to go?