OCTOBER 2013 BRANDING VS IDENTITY BUILD Dsigndot www
SPECIAL REPORT OCTOBER 2013 My personal view is that the role there’s a strong hint of anti-designer of design in branding is about the creation of sentiment there. the symbolic or outward face of companies, If we accept that the ‘design’ – the institutions and services. But as soon as logo, graphic architecture, and so on – is branding becomes about depicting or the badge of recognition and the point of conveying the less tangible assets such as identification for all brands, then we must ‘brand essence’, ‘brand promise’, or any of the also acknowledge that designers are pretty other clichés of branding, I become skeptical important factors in the making of brands about what designers can contribute. Anyway, – perhaps more important than any other telling customers what to think in the age of individual or group in the entire brand social media is simply a waste of time. Not creation process. If this is true, then it only that, it’s also a form of fundamentalism. puts a great deal of power directly into the hands of the designers. THE BRAND EFFECT And here’s where the problem lies: As Seth Godin makes clear, brand people designers are notoriously tricky and love to proclaim that a brand isn’t just a logo. mercurial characters. They’re difcult to And if you are looking at the total footprint control and stubborn about their ideas. As of a brand, then that’s absolutely true. But far as the brand consultants, the marketing try building a brand without a logo or graphic people and the PR busybodies are concerned, architecture, and you’ll find that it simply life would be much easier if it could be proved cannot be done. that design is only a minor part of brand So whether the brand gurus like building, and much better if non-designers it or not, the logo is still king in the world were in control of it. of branding, which in turn prompts the By making branding into something question, why are so many brand theorists other than a graphic design discipline, in such a rush to downgrade the importance clients have leveraged control of design of logos and design in general? Remember away from designers and into the hands Godin’s phrase – “it takes more than a of various non-designers. You can see this designer prattling on about texture to make most clearly in the big branding groups, a brand”. Unless I’m very much mistaken, who employ dozens of ‘suits’ – strategists, WWW
OCTOBER 2013 BRANDING VS IDENTITY BIBLIOTHÈQUE Black
SPECIAL REPORT OCTOBER 2013 EXPERIMENTAL
OCTOBER 2013 BRANDING VS IDENTITY WWW
SPECIAL REPORT OCTOBER 2013 So when I say that I think it was For him, identity is “building the a mistake that designers stopped being essential elements that an organisation is “DESIGNERS SHOULD STICK identity designers and became brand known by: name, logo or symbol, colour, designers, I’m not being backward-looking. typographic style and visual language, TO DESIGN, AND FIRMS Instead, I’m saying that it is more progressive and how you uniquely put these together, SHOULD NOT CONFUSE to be concerned with the visual image of an how you express these to create a sign, entity than it is to be concerned with its an image. We create the building bricks BRANDING WITH THE ACTUAL ‘brand values’, which in the end are mostly of an organisation’s DNA.” SERVICES OR PRODUCTS just smoke and mirrors. Perkins sees a clear difference Plus, and this is the really important between brand creation and identity design: THEY OFFER” bit, the other stuff is no longer controllable. “The brand is the whole experience, the Firms and organisations can say that they service, product, personality and expression, are ‘ethical’, ‘customer centric’ or ‘service and I can’t see how people claim to do the focused’, but unless they really are these branding, the total experience. We build things, they are wasting their time saying that identities, not brands.” they are. For me, this is why designers should He also sees a clear difference between stick to design, and firms should not confuse North and conventional brand agencies: branding with the actual services or products “We are different because we are probably a they offer. bit old fashioned; we believe in strong, honest, uncomplicated communications, usually KEEPING IT SIMPLE minimal symbols and trust marks. We keep The designer Sean Perkins founded North, it simple.” Far from being old fashioned, one of the most admired design studios of Perkins has recognised that the greatest the past 20 years. The company has created service a designer can offer to an organisation groundbreaking identities for RAC, First is clarity and integrity of image. Direct, the Barbican and The Photographer’s In Perkins’ view, Vitra, Mercedes, Audi, Gallery. Its work is always robust, distinctive Apple and Lufthansa all have great brand and highly attuned to its client’s needs. But identities. He calls them “timeless, and no Perkins is adamant that he is an identity matter what the climate, consistently strong.” designer, not a brand designer. But significantly, all these identities were WWW
OCTOBER 2013 BRANDING VS IDENTITY NORTH The
SPECIAL REPORT OCTOBER 2013 SPIN Green–Fuse
OCTOBER 2013 BRANDING VS IDENTITY APFEL
AT A GLANCE: IMAGINARY FORCES DATE FOUNDED: NUMBER OF STAFF: LOCATION:
OCTOBER 2013 IMAGINARY FORCES PROJECT FOCUS Shot
OCTOBER 2013 IMAGINARY FORCES PROJECT FOCUS GOD OF WAR Work on the acclaimed video game allowed the studio to add another string to its bow “I don’t know that there’s just one,” Gabriel Marquez says, ruminating on the project that best encapsulates what Imaginary Forces does. “We’ve done so much over the years, in different contexts, that I think every job shows different things.” Pushed
OCTOBER 2013 DESIGN FOR NONPROFITS GOOD DESIGN FOR GOOD REASONS Four
INDUSTRY ISSUES OCTOBER 2013 use
OCTOBER 2013 DESIGN FOR NONPROFITS doesn’t
INDUSTRY ISSUES OCTOBER 2013 at
TAILORED FOR TABLET. Experience
OCTOBER 2013 PABLO BERGER LEARNING TO LEARN Pablo Berger’s pursuit of knowledge has taken him from his native Mexico to Spain, Switzerland and everywhere in-between. He tells us why he’s on a life-long quest to ignite discussion PABLO
OCTOBER 2013 PABLO BERGER “LEARNING
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OCTOBER 2013 INTRO PROJECTS Computer Arts goes behind the scenes with world-leading designers as they reveal their working processesÉ EXCLUSIVE VIDEO! Get great access to top studios with The Designer Series Page 10 TYPECON 2013 IDENTITY: PLAYING WITH WORDS Creative director Michael Cina walks through how he rebranded the typography-focused convention when it headed to Portland 84 TEMPORARY TREES: HUMAN NATURE PAINT IT BLACK: MUSIC IN MONOCHROME How Raw Color and MKGK teamed David Mahoney reveals up to create artificial how a music-based trees for a conceptual personal project helped exhibition 94 develop his distinctive ‘tradigital’ style 91 WWW
PROJECTS OCTOBER 2013 PROJECT FACTFILE TYPECON 2013 IDENTITY: BRIEF To
OCTOBER 2013 DIARY˚1: MICHAEL CINA PROJECT AT A GLANCE A
PROJECTS OCTOBER 2013 MICHAEL
OCTOBER 2013 DIARY˚1: MICHAEL CINA 08.21-25.13 DESIGNING BY GRIDS MICHAEL
PROJECTS OCTOBER 2013 CONCLUSION Michael Cina Once the concept was decided upon, the whole production process went really smoothly. I had no major problems and always came in ahead of schedule. In fact, the main challenge I faced was having too much time. I had some really big projects come in half way through, meaning I had to switch focus and spend some time on them instead. Whenever I come back to a project, I want to redo and rethink things and this happened a lot during this project. Knowing this about myself, I let TypeCon know in advance that the look would range from minimally clean designs, like on the poster, to crazy disjointed work, like on the programme. That’s how I see things – I think there are always a million ideas inside one direction. You will rarely see me cling to a single idea because there are an infinite amount of solutions and approaches to take. I wanted it to feel like every part of TypeCon was held together by the Portland marque, but that it was re-imagined each time within the brand that I had set up. I am most proud of the concept behind it all. I felt that the design approach almost contradicted the goals of the type conference – to be new, and current – and liked the way the style incorporated ideas from Portland’s design history. My main goal was to re-envision it into something new that worked for the conference. It couldn’t have been more exciting to me, but I felt that the final identity could easily be misunderstood. People have made many comments on the design so far and each one is insightful in a different way. Everyone seems to pull out a different aspect of the idea. I’ve noticed that seasoned designers eventually work through the concept and love it. That, I feel, is the ultimate compliment. The
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OCTOBER 2013 DIARY˚2: DAVID MAHONEY PROJECT FACTFILE PAINT IT BLACK: BRIEF In
PROJECTS OCTOBER 2013 THE DESIGN BRIEF David Mahoney My Paint It Black project takes its title from the song by the Rolling Stones. Over time, my work has become monochromatic, with a strong contrast between black and white. I decided to communicate this use of harsh black on white, which has become my signature style, with a collection of illustrations celebrating British music. I focused the project on British icons primarily because they’re STAGE
OCTOBER 2013 DIARY˚2: DAVID MAHONEY HOW I WORK DAVID
PROJECTS OCTOBER 2013 TEMPORARY TREES: HUMAN NATURE Using long exposure photography and a variety of props, design studios Raw Color and MKGK teamed up to create artificial trees for the Make A Forest exhibition THE DESIGN BRIEF Guus Kusters PROJECT FACTFILE We first became aware of Temporary Trees when BRIEF Angelique Spaninks of MU Eindhoven invited us to get To
OCTOBER 2013 DIARY˚3: MKGK AND RAW COLOR GUUS
PROJECTS OCTOBER 2013 MAARTEN
NEXT MONTH HOW TO KEEP YOUR CLIENTS HAPPY SPECIAL REPORT A masterclass in great advertising: the story behind W+K’s pioneering work for Honda THE DESIGNER SERIES Exclusive video insights: two Wolff Olins design directors reveal their brand design secrets Plus: inspiring work, current issues and expert analysis from the global design scene ON SALE 17 OCT WWW
CREATIVE INSPIRATIONS OCTOBER 2013 Rick Berkelmans Roman statues and famous paintings were given an irreverent makeover for this big, bold and humorous illustration ick
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