What is branding?
“A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association). “Branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B. An effective brand strategy gives you a major edge in increasingly competitive markets” (entreprenuer.com).
At Veer90, we are here to help take your brand in the right direction. It’s all about creating your unique and identifiable “look.” Part of our methodology is understanding you, your organization, company, institution – our client. We invest the time to learn about your products, services and target markets. We know that getting your branding right means we can tell your story and articulate your promises to your audiences. This is the place we begin before pen hits paper.
Yes, you read that correctly…we still like to sketch ideas. Even in this highly technological era, we are viseral in our creative process. When a client needs a new corporate logo, that becomes the foundation for everything that follows. The direction can take many turns, especially since we present a wide variety of options when developing and designing corporate logos. That’s why it’s usually best to wait until the logo is complete before developing other collateral. At the same time, and this does often happen…several pieces start to take shape simultaneously. This usually occurs when the client is under a deadline. In those cases, the approach is challenging and exciting since working under pressure has resulted in many great marketing solutions.
Human Factor Rebrand
We did say “quick”, so going back to the case study of topic, we have Human Factor…a customized and personalized music studio for basically everything. This is how they sum it up:
The Essence of Great Music…Music is a strange business. We spend a lot of time thinking about music on a technical, even mathematical, level. But when it comes right down to it, we measure its success on a purely emotional level. Did our music evoke the right feeling in the listener to help you tell your story? That’s the human factor. That’s what matters to us. You’ll find it in our original compositions, our sound design and even in our carefully curated music catalog.
You just have to love how they have completely honed in on their branding…their particular WHY.
When we first started talking with the founders of Human Factor, many of the buzz words focused somewhere between the emotional and technological aspects of the music that they created. It was essential to sample some of the fruits of their labor. What they had created and essentially offer is a vast array of music compositions and soundbites that can be used with original music, advertising, film scores, everything. There is a “human factor” to it all. With that, we came up with a myriad of ideas/comps and it was unanimously agreed that the barcode/music bar was the perfect route to take. This was the beginning of their “look.”
As this was a complete rebranding, we quickly moved on to the next order of business/essentials, which was their stationery, brochures, website, and all other material. Most of the pieces just needed to get their new logo on there to begin the brand recognition. Other pieces needed to be developed from scratch. This is a case where we were simultaneously working on several projects and they just flowed seamlessly. Starting with taking advantage of white space, we positioned the barcode-styled logo slightly off-kilter while still keeping a white box. The result was a hint of defiance and a pinch of attitude…something “human.” Type commonly bleeding off the edge and a look of carefully crafted randomness became the theme.
Their Sampler CDs timely came about while we were developing this look. This gave us the opportunity to put our photo collaging skills to use. We would discuss catch terms to describe each CD…tailored, rotation, random, metamorphosis…and so began a music library that had an identifiable look while working as stand-alone pieces as well. All maintaining the feel and “attitude” of the original logo.
From start to finish, this was a fantastic opportunity to be able to take an idea and make it into something more. We’d love to do the same for you. For more information or for a complementary consultation, please feel free to contact us.