Designing Identity

Designing Identity (Phase 3)

Overview

Phase 3 is the creative design process: investigation and analysis are done, the brand brief is agreed, and the work now integrates meaning with form. Design is iterative, working at the intersection of strategic imagination, intuition, design excellence, and experience. The trademark can only convey one or two aspects of a business — it must be supported by a cohesive visual language and vocabulary.

When to use

• The brand brief is signed off and you are ready to make the actual marks, palettes, type, and sensory system.
• Deciding top-level identification (wordmark vs symbol), building color/type/icon systems, or defining look and feel.
• Testing concepts in real applications, or preparing the first major design presentation.
• Not for research/audits (Phase 2) or rollout/guidelines (later phases). The creative brief does not replace the brand brief.

Phase 3 overview (first things first)

1. Understand the brand — what it stands for, offers, its customers, differentiation, competitive advantage; be clear on design goals, constraints, timelines, deliverables, protocols.
2. Review all research — the design team must have reviewed all internal and competitive audits; immerse in the brand's possibilities and challenges.
3. Identify key applications — list the most important real-world applications to test viability; show the solution as if it already exists.
4. Look at top-level identification — wordmark or symbol? Abstract, pictorial, or letterform? What logotype/tagline? On a redesign, extend existing brand equity.
5. Brand architecture — design a logical, cohesive architecture for extensions and sub-brands that anticipates future growth.

Top-level identity design

• Symbol design — reducing a complex idea to its visual essence; designers examine hundreds of ideas before a final choice, then test viability in another round. Look at trial applications early. On redesigns, examine the equity of existing trademarks. Lenses to examine: meaning, attributes, acronyms, inspiration, history, form, counterform, abstract, pictorial, letterform, wordmark, combination, time, space, light, still, motion, transition, perspective, reality, fantasy, straight, curve, angle, intersection, patterns.
• Logotype design — a word(s) in a determined font (standard, modified, or redrawn). Freestanding = wordmark; juxtaposed with a symbol in a formal relationship = signature (with isolation zones; a company may have many: horizontal, vertical, with/without tagline). Driven by legibility at all scales and media, and by what the type itself communicates (all caps vs caps+lowercase; roman/italic/bold; classic/modern).

Look and feel

The visual language that makes a system immediately recognizable and expresses a point of view — the support system of color, imagery, typography, and composition that unifies and differentiates. Bierut's test: cover the logo and still identify the company. Look = color, scale, proportion, typography, motion; feel = experiential and emotional (Abbott Miller). Every element should be intentionally designed to advance brand strategy.

Color

Color evokes emotion, expresses personality, stimulates association, accelerates differentiation. The brain reads color after shape and before content. Some colors unify; others work functionally to clarify brand architecture (differentiating products or business lines). Basics:

• Use color to facilitate recognition and build brand equity.
• Connotations differ by culture — research. Reproduction varies by method — test across monitors, PC/Mac, devices, coated/uncoated stock, web vs print.
• The designer is the ultimate arbiter of consistency across platforms.
• Test effectiveness: distinctive? differentiated from competitors? appropriate to the business? aligned with strategy? sustainable? does it work on white / reverse out of black / at different scales?
• Color systems: name your colors; develop separate web and print palettes; check contrast and color accessibility; make standards easy to use.

Typography

A core building block; supports brand strategy, conveys personality, facilitates information hierarchy. Clarity, legibility, and personality are paramount across mediums. Basics:

• Chosen for legibility, unique character, and range of weights/widths; complement the signature, don't necessarily replicate it.
• A system incorporates one or more typeface families; special display faces allowed for unique situations; high-visibility brands may commission a proprietary font.
• Licensing is legally required — limiting fonts reduces cost. The logotype font is not necessarily the family font.
• Best designers examine numerals, bullets, contextual glyphs, alternates; teams often specify office fonts (Word/PowerPoint/Docs). Parameters: measure, leading, kerning, tracking; weight (light–black); width (compressed–extended); stroke endings (serif/sans/rounded); intended size (display/text/all-purpose).

Iconography

Icons represent people, places, things, ideas in simplified form; they transcend language and cultural barriers and act as wayfinding systems. Branded icon systems take on the brand's look and feel.

• Design: consistent artboards (e.g. 100×100px with 2–5px margin), consistent line weight and style, clearly depict the concept, keep simple/clean, save as vector.
• Usage: same/similar style and weight for cohesion; use in appropriate places (menus, wayfinding, process steps); never use icons without purpose.
• Two techniques: iconic (bold, simple, static — distilling to basic attributes, e.g. a tooth for dentistry) and narrative (tells a story — e.g. a dentist over a patient).

Sound and other senses

• Sound — a powerful, underappreciated opportunity; every brand is a 24/7 audio channel. Forms: sonic logos (audio counterpart to the logo), sound icons (UI bleeps/bloops), product sounds, retail/environment music, jingles, branded songs, hold music, mascot sounds, spokesperson voices, the voice of AI. Fundamentals: sound complements existing brand, intensifies experience, triggers emotion, speeds recall, transcends cultures; many effects are subliminal.
• Other senses — brands use fewer than half the senses available. Smell is uniquely tied to memory (some scents are trademarkable). Taste/flavor differentiates food/beverage brands and enables localization (harder to legally protect than scent). Touch — temperature, weight, texture affect perceptions of quality; let customers feel products.

Trial applications

No mark should ever be shown on a blank page — decision makers must see it as a customer would. Conduct rigorous testing before showing concepts; demonstrate flexibility and durability. Small engagement list: business card, home page, advertisement, brochure cover, letterhead, and something fun (e.g. a cap); larger projects test brand extensions across business lines and markets. Test with real scenarios and real text, examine best- and worst-case scenarios, date/version the sketch process, and go back to the core concept if something doesn't work.

Presentation

The first major presentation is the decisive moment; smart solutions get annihilated in a mismanaged one. Agree the agenda and decision-making process in advance; clarify who attends and their roles; practice; test equipment and the room. Strategies: review decisions to date; present each approach as a strategy with a unique positioning concept — talk meaning, not aesthetics; show each within actual contexts and next to the competition; always have a point of view; steer objections toward functional/marketing criteria; never present what you don't believe in; never allow voting; follow up with a memo. Think carefully about how many concepts to show — often less is more (Paul Rand would show one).

Quick reference — design system components

Common mistakes

• Expecting the trademark to tell the whole story instead of building a supporting visual language and vocabulary.
• Showing a mark on a blank page rather than in real, challenging applications a customer would see.
• Presenting aesthetics instead of strategy and meaning — or allowing voting instead of a predetermined decision process.
• Ignoring cultural connotations of color, or skipping cross-media/device reproduction testing.
• Overlooking font licensing, or assuming the logotype font must be the system's typeface family.
• Treating sound, scent, touch, and taste as afterthoughts when they build recognition and emotional connection.

Source: Wheeler & Meyerson, Designing Brand Identity (6th ed., Wiley 2024).