Last year’s Brand Impact Award winners share their golden secrets for designing outstanding branding.
Long gone is the era when a branding project involved the agency receiving the brief, traipsing off to the studio to design in isolation, and then handing over a perfectly formed piece of branding to a satisfied client.
It is clear to any agency worth its salt, that design work – and branding design in particular – requires a more collaborative approach these days.
“Without a collaborative relationship, based on mutual trust and respect, clients are only ever going to get a studio’s interpretation of their brand, rather than communication that has been informed by essential dialogue from within a client organisation,” says Simon Elliott, partner at design studio Rose, which won Best of Show at last year’s Computer Arts Brand Impact Awards.
The nature of branding work itself means that a collaborative approach to design is a must. Branding projects tend to support or convey organisational change within a business, says Jon Hewitt, creative director at Moving Brands, winner of a Brand Impact Award in the Entertainment category.
“People within the business that you’re working with need to feel that their voice is being heard. So branding projects tend to have lots of inputs from lots of different people, and the nature of it means that you have to find ways to get people involved. Share regularly, and listen to their point of view.”
Branding design is not about creating a brand in isolation and then handing it over, agrees Karen Hughes, creative director at True North, winner of a Brand Impact Award in the Culture category: “It’s about co-creating something that people can get behind and champion.”
Having the input of the people who live and breathe the brand on a day-to-day basis, will ensure brand design that is meaningful, inspiring and practical for those with the responsibility to deliver it.
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