Your brand and your logo are two different things.
More accurately, your logo is part of the bigger picture known as your brand’s identity system. From this perspective, your identity system, including your logo, is an intentional expression of everything that makes your brand unique, attractive, and relevant to your target customer.
Although we now offer a wide variety of services to help companies grow in different ways, Enclave Marketing was originally conceived as a Brand Management agency. We wanted to help business owners create identity systems that worked at any scale.
Your logo is a symbol that should represent your brand and fit your audience. It helps people remember and recognize your business and products in the marketplace.
Because of this, your logo and style don’t exist in a vacuum, and shouldn’t be too limited by your own personal taste and preferences. Ideally, of course your logo should be a design that you understand and appreciate, but its function is to reflect the experience of your brand, and resonate with the majority of the people who are buying your product or service.
A logo should make sense to your customers on its own, but it also needs to make sense in the context of your competitors and peers, as well as the context of the other brands and symbols with which your customers are likely to associate.
What all goes into defining a visual identity?
Our brand development process has several stages, and approaching the visual identity itself is not the first step. The stages that come first are the parts of the process where we research, define, and articulate everything needed to fully understand the business and its customers, before designing the logo, building a website, or running an ad campaign.
By articulating these core truths about the business, and making certain important decisions up front, it becomes much easier to understand the overall goal of the design project.
A clear brand strategy means more certainty and less guess work during the creative process.
Having a better understanding of your business from the inside out, knowing your customer on a deep level, and clearly defining your products or services (and how they are delivered), all contribute to synthesizing a solid identity system. Ultimately, while you obviously want something that looks good, having good looks without substance means your logo isn’t necessarily pulling its weight.
Your visual identity needs to provide the right communication and validation at all points along your customer journey and buying cycle.
What if you already have a great logo?
We won’t recommend a new logo for your brand unless we believe it’s truly necessary. Every situation is unique, but we still take everyone through roughly the same process. The difference is, the journey would focus on validating your logo and visual identity by uncovering the roots of what makes your logo right for your business. This gives everyone involved a deeper, more scientific understanding of your brand and business to make the most informed and strategic decisions about the rest of your marketing and advertising.
Contact us today if you need help with your brand identity
Reach out to us if you would like to learn more about our process, and what we would recommend for your specific circumstances and business goals.
