42 Strategic Foundations
It’s easier to create a brand identity on paper than it is to put it into practice. Making the brand promise is one thing. Keeping it is quite another.
Potential customers identify a brand by its artifacts as well as its actions. It makes sense, then, that the process of building brand identity typically begins with an exploration of these artifacts: the graphic identity and program elements. But it quickly goes much deeper. Brand identity work warrants frank, strategic business conversations about an organization’s value proposition and positioning. A solid understanding of the business strategy will result in a brand identity that supports the strategic direction of the business.
Once a business foundation is in place, other important human factors play a role in the brand identity, including the character of the company, its audiences, and the marketplace. Through the iterative process, designers often land on a better understanding of the meaning and values of the brand. Often, the work of building the brand helps to actualize the brand attributes.
PROBLEM FRAMING
Courtesy: Jeremy Alexis, Matt Bebee, IIT Institute of Design
Front-loaded with research and strategy formulation, the design process sometimes takes time before resulting in work that can be easily recognized as progress.
Courtesy: AIGA
A solid but flexible work process yields better results. AIGA endorses this process, which maps a commonsensical approach to strategic problem solving.