This comes back to understanding what a brand really is, because when you understand this then you will understand why it’s actually you that needs to work on your brand identity and only once you have a strong idea of that should you then hand over to your designer, marketer, PR guru etc.
You see, all these promotional jobs work best when they are given a strong brief. I have seen it so many times; a business will arrive and explain that they want a logo, or some business cards, a flier perhaps or a brochure etc and of course they know WHAT they do (what product they’re selling etc), they also usually know what they want to TELL the viewer, but very rarely have they truly considered exactly who this printed item will be aimed at and all that comes with that.
I would hazard a guess that 80% of print that is done is based on simply putting a message on paper, or screen, that gets the business’ message across, NOT what the potential client is looking for. That tells the client about how great the product/service is but doesn’t connect with them personally.
Now this may sound like an odd thing to say, and I do harp on about it a lot, but we need to remember that when we get our message across, for it to be effective, we need to get inside our Perfect Client’s mind. Not the ‘could be a client’ or ‘might possibly need it sometime’ client’s mind – you want people to self-select your product as much as possible and to see your offering and instantly think “YES! That is made just for me!”.
So, getting back to the question at hand, yes the graphic designer has a big role to play in
creating your brand from a graphic perspective, but the main job to be done first is to understand what your brand is, once you have that understanding and clarity you can give very clear instruction to your designer and other members of your PR team and they will LOVE you for it.
B (a strong brand) + D (great design) = A (awesomeness)
Plus, and I can tell you from experience, a clear idea of what you want, when it comes to your design and print, and who it’s aimed at is a graphic designer’s dream 🙂
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If you’d like to understand more about your own brand, whether you’ve been in business a while or you’re just starting up, then do take a look at 30 Days to Awesome Branding, it’s a 30 day online course that will set you off on the right course with your brand and give you firm foundations for building your successful business.
