But where do you start? For The Engine Room’s managing director, Lesley Gulliver, understanding the fundamental objectives is key to a successful and strategic project.
Alongside a host of expert panellists in Mills & Reeve’s exclusive Women in Tech webinar on February 9th, she provided some useful building blocks to encourage businesses on their brand journey and boost project success…
Perfect your brief
A comprehensive, well-structured brief has the power to completely transform your brand project by streamlining processes, maintaining a consistent vision, keeping budgets watertight, and achieving a great end result.
Must-have elements of a perfectly polished brief include, but are not limited to:
Go out to tender
While you may have a preferred brand partner in mind, it is usually advisable to approach two to three different specialists. The organisation you choose should demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of your brief, ideally a portfolio of experience, and cultural fit.
However, it’s important to consider the incredible behind-the-scenes effort involved in understanding and researching brand projects, so be realistic and fair as to the depth of ideas that will be requested during the pitch process – not all brands will work for free.
Don’t overindulge on visual identity
While appearance is certainly of importance when it comes to brand, it’s vital to remember that there is so much more to the ‘soul’ that gives your business a cohesive personality. Overindulging on visual identity – whether it’s the style of your logo, or your colour palette – and neglecting valuable research and strategy, usually leads to a lacklustre, ‘style over substance’ result.
Stick to guidelines
No matter the size or scope of your business, brand guidelines are a key tool in maintaining consistency and recognisability – without them, the concept you’ve spent so much time and resources curating can quickly become distorted.
Your brand guidelines should include more than just colour and size instructions for logo use, though. They should explore direct and specific clarifications for the use and misuse of various brand assets – including language – to ensure full compliance throughout your organisation and beyond. This makes the time and effort put into your project worthwhile.
Think about launch
Your employees are your business’ most important ambassadors and front-line storytellers, so involving them in every aspect of the brand process and encouraging them to embrace this new chapter, is a must. Through expert workshops, The Engine Room gets under the skin of businesses and finds out what makes them tick as a collective, so the story can unfold in the most passionate and authentic way possible.
To hear more of Lesley’s advice, and to catch up on the thoughts of other panellists, watch the webinar in full, here: https://lnkd.in/dNSs2bbB