On brand versus logo: 5 essential questions to determine your brand

Brand is not a Logo by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

Often when I first work with a new client, especially in a design consult, I have no idea what or who they are, organizationally speaking. The thing that often surprises me though, is that they don’t either. We might know their industry (e.g. education), their product (e.g. books), and their intent (e.g. sell more books to educational institutions). None of this, however, speaks to brand.

I like to think of brands as flavors. Licorice has a very distinct taste. To some, it is repulsive, while others consider it their favorite flavor. Many foods and flavors are described in this way. Cilantro comes to mind. At any rate, you should have some idea of what your flavor is, so that you can begin to speak to the audience that finds your flavor irresistible.

Very often, organizations think of their logo as the entirety of their branding, not thinking of their logo as just a visual representation of their overall brand. Brand is extended to include so many other elements of your business, as you’ll see below.

The design work for your branding should reflect and not define your brand. If and when you know your brand, making a visual representation of it is so much easier, because we can use fonts, colors, shapes, symbols and other graphic elements that show, underscore, and represent you better.

Five easy questions to find your brand:

What 5 words best represent your organization? If I was to answer this, I would say design, technology, open source, nutrition, and creativity. These are the core ideas that I try to impart about my organization when I post, speak, share, converse, or interact in any way with others about my work.
If I was to ask a customer what 5 words best represented your organization, would they be able to match your 5 words? This is an important question. You can believe that your organization is a certain way, and it may even be true, but if your clients and customers are coming up with a different impression, it forces us to reassess our brand, work, and communication to either match or redefine customer impressions.
In what ways do the sensory elements (sights, sounds, feeling, taste, and smell) of the place where we do our work reinforce our brand? What art is on the walls of your workplace? What color is the rug? Is it clean? Is it a silent place, where people value quiet above music or conversation? Maybe you work electronically, and most people meet you in a neutral space, or only online. In those situations, these questions still apply, because even an email can have a culture to it: spelling, attachments, grammar, frequency, and tone come to the forefront as elements of your brand. Do you offer refreshments? How do the refreshments show your brand? Do you smell nothing? Trash? Baking bread? A meadow? Exhaust?
If your organization was a person, who would it be? How would you describe that person? I’d like to think of my brand as Gandhi. I like to think that my work is kind, empowering, wise, and reserved. Maybe your brand is Jimmy Stewart? Ronald Reagan? Justin Bieber? Tom Hanks? Einstein? When you think about the differences between these people, you are understanding brand.
If working with or using your organization was a meal, what would the courses, flavors, and hosts be like? Are you a fast food drive-thru? Are you a 3 Michelin Star world-class restaurant? Are you a New Jersey Diner? A New York City pizza joint? Do you use herbs from your roof garden in a whole foods feast? Do you deep fry everything? All of these metaphors are potentially valid, and should not be dismissed as a metaphor just because you may be averse to diners, for instance. Diners are casual spaces, with comfortable, easy, affordable food, informal conversations, and free refills of coffee. I’d like to think of my brand as a diner.

Hopefully after answering these questions, you have a better sense of your brand. With that in mind, what do you need to do to match your organization’s culture and sensory elements, visual branding, and service interactions to match your brand?

I can help you with that part. Email me at lemasney@gmail.com so that we can start that conversation.