I'm a small business - why do I need a brand?
If you are a small firm or a sole trader, you could be forgiven for thinking that branding is not for you. "Big names spend money on branding, small companies just get on with the job" is a typical response when small businesses are asked about their brand activities. But this perception is wrong, as Rachel Miller writes
Even if you do "believe in branding", it may come low on your to-do list after vital day-to-day tasks that keep your customers happy and keep revenue coming in. That's understandable.
Why do small firms need a brand?
So how can I convince you that branding matters - whether you are a window cleaner, a solicitor or run a restaurant?
Perhaps the first thing to do is to tackle the wording. If you were to replace the word "branding" with "reputation" I might get your attention. You care about your reputation, right?
Well branding is all about the impression you make. If you want to succeed, that impression should do two jobs - it should convey what is special about your business and it should show you in a positive light.
Of course, many small businesses make a good impression most of the time without ever giving a thought to their brand. But think how much more successful you would be if you gave a good impression all of the time.
What I am advocating is that you think about the impression you want to make - your brand - and actively take steps to manage it.
There are two parts to this process. Firstly, you have to decide what you stand for - what your USPs are, who you are aiming at and how you want to position yourself. Then you need to make sure that all aspects of your business are in line with this.
It's about applying your values to everything you do, clearly and consistently.
There are many small firms that have seen real financial benefits as a result of improving their brand. Fiona Humberstone, managing director of Flourish Studios, has worked with many one-man-bands and small businesses. "For instance, we worked with a plumber on his logo," reveals Fiona. "He used it on some new business cards which he distributed in his area and immediately got three new jobs. We've also helped a management consultant with her branding. We redesigned her proposal document as well as providing a new logo and website. As a result, every proposal that she has made that year was accepted - a 100% success rate."
Mark McCulloch, founder of Spectacular Marketing says, "You have a brand whether you like it or not. It's best to embrace that and find the best way to connect your brand with your target audience."
Mark worked with a company called Exhilaration some years ago that sold experience days out and was run by a husband and wife team that loved sky-diving. The business came to a crossroads when it had to develop its online presence.
"It was a tiny company with a tiny marketing spend," says Mark. "The name was good - Exhilaration summed up what they did - but their communications were very dry and didn't convey the excitement of what they were selling at all."
Mark transformed the company's literature and their website and injected the excitement that was missing. "Personality was everything, so we gave all the communications a new tone of voice," he says. Not only did customers respond but suppliers and investors also sat up and took notice. The result? "Their turnover rose from £1 million to £3.5 million and they became second in the market," Mark reveals. Exhilaration went on to be bought by Lastminute.com.
Creating the right impression
But if you don't think branding is for you, you are not alone.
"Many small business owners I meet think that brands are something that only large companies need or can afford," says Bryony Thomas of Watertight Marketing. "But your company name, the way you answer the phone, what your customers say when they're asked about you - these things all build to create an impression of your company and what it's like to do business with you - and that is your brand. So, you can either just let whatever impression you give happen haphazardly, or you can take control and manage it to your advantage."
One small firm that has benefited by developing its brand is Gradwell, the Bath-based small business ISP. "I tended to pick marketing up on the rainy days, and then drop it again. I'd never really given it much focus," reveals managing director, Peter Gradwell. "We had grown organically among tech enthusiasts, but knew that for major growth we'd need to appeal much more widely."
Bryony undertook market research and discovered that Gradwell's existing image was off-putting to less tech-savvy small business owners. A new brand identity addressed this.
"It was a really tough decision to spend money on something that wouldn't directly generate leads. It was about building the foundations," says Peter. "But, I'm absolutely sure that it was the right thing to do. It has had huge benefits across everything we do. To give a tangible example, we were approached by Hewlett-Packard to appear as a pretty high profile case study, and I'm sure they wouldn't have shared a stage with us if we hadn't looked as polished as we now do."
It goes to show that your brand may be just as important to your relationships with partners and suppliers as it is to your customers. Take Best Years, a supplier of knitted toys to independent and high street retailers. " Brand is extremely important to us," says commercial director, Gaynor Humphrey. "We have worked hard to put a distance between ourselves and our price-driven competitors. A strong brand boosts traffic to our website. And if our brand values chime with the values of retailers they are more inclined to buy from us. Our foot is halfway through the door before they have even met us!"
Dee Blick, author of Powerful Marketing on a Shoestring Budget for Small Businesses, has worked with many small businesses on their branding. "Branding doesn't take shed-loads of money. It takes passion and time and thought," she says. But you neglect your brand at your peril, she warns. "Businesses don't own their own brand, they are custodians of it. Perceptions can alter quickly. Brands are constantly evolving and they need a lot of tending."
The message is clear. If you've got a business, then you've got a brand. What you do with it is up to you.
9 tips for starting out in design
19 hours agoComments
We ask a panel of top designers: if you could give one tip to a designer just starting out, what would it be?
When you're just starting out in you design career, everything can seem like a struggle. You can ease the pain by having the right drawing tools and learning from inspiring design portfolios, but even so there's bound to come a time when you find yourself asking whether it's all worth it.
Everyone's been there, though; even the mightiest creative director has found themselves considering jacking it all in and running away to become an accountant at some point.
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And so we asked nine leading designers to come up with their top tips for anyone starting out in design. Read them and see your career in a whole new way.
For further career-enhancing tips from more top designers, take a look at Computer Arts issue 250.
01. Know your niche
Creative director Mads Jakob Poulsen says: "Think about what you can contribute to the world of design. What's your niche? What's your special secret weapon? Don't be like everyone else – do what you think is fun."
02. Have a singular vision
"If you make things the way you think they ought to be, they're more likely to be what you'll be asked to make going forward," says Spin's Tony Brook. "It took me a long time to fully understand this."
03. Be versatile
Anagrama's Sebastian Padilla comments: "A designer needs to be versatile, like a Swiss Army knife. You need to be comfortable with working in broad fields such as typography, composition and copywriting."
04. Refine your skills
"Hone your skill set," says Matt Howarth of ilovedust. "Whether digitally orby hand, work hard on your craft every day and in time you will find a style that you are comfortable with and, most importantly, enjoy doing."
05. Follow your heart
Dawn Hancock of Firebelly says: "None of us really know what the hell we're doing, but if you think with your heart and go with your gut, it will all work out in the end."
06. Lose the attitude
"My tip for a new, young designer starting their career is to lose any sense of entitlement you may have," says Steve Simmonds of weareseventeen. "Just because you've studied for three or five years doesn't mean you can come into the industry and expect it to be easy. This sounds harsh, but I get young designers all the time telling me what they are and aren't willing to do from day to day.
"You must remember that it's not just graduates fighting for their place in this industry; seasoned pros and entire companies are fighting too and good attitudes make all the difference. Be keen and enthusiastic: it goes a long way. Bread and butter work is a staple in any studio, so expect to be heavily involved in a lot of this at first. Don't expect to be working on all the bigger studio projects. This will happen in time; just approach the bread and butter stuff with bags of enthusiasm and make those projects shine unexpectedly. Do this and your rise through the ranks will be swift."
07. Stay the course
Becky Bolton of Good Wives and Warriors says: "Our general tip for people is to just try and stick with it! A creative career is going to be peppered with rejection and potentially confusing times. Without sounding too trite, it's important to try and believe in the value of your work and keep pushing through the times when you feel like quitting!"
08. Take risks
Ady Bibby of True North says: "Stand for something. Take risks. Don't be happy to merge into the mediocrity of creativity out there."
09. Only work with people you like
Designer and teacher Fred Deakin comments: "Biggest lesson: only work with people you like on projects you care about. If you take your time to make great work then eventually the money will come."
Aman by Construct, United Kingdom
Aman by Construct, United Kingdom
Opinion by Richard Baird.
Aman is a collection of resorts, hotels and luxury residencies that offer access to a wide variety of remote and urban destinations. Its first resort, Amanpuri, was opened in Thailand in 1988. Since then it has expanded across the world, seeking out transformative experiences and awe-inspiring locations throughout Asia, Indonesia, China, Japan, the Americas, North Africa, Europe and the Mediterranean.
Inspired by the earliest forms of alphabets and mark-making, London based graphic design studio Construct developed a new brand identity for Aman that would reflect its values and the high quality of its experiences. This is expressed through custom typography, earthy colour palette, tactile material texture and high quality print finish that links press-pack, business cards and menus.
“The Aman Master Brand Logo is a sophisticated evolution of the earliest form of script; a series of strokes that exemplify a physical sense of ‘above and below’, the natural connection and flow of mountains and valleys, of waves and ocean floor, an inclusion in a natural landscape which directly reflects Aman’s relationship with place.” – Construct.
Where BP&O often favours the contemporary, or a contemporary take on the traditional, Aman feels ancient and slightly mystical in its blend of type and image.
Construct’s references; early alphabets, Futhark and stone carving, and its favour for both reduction and a human component are clearly evident in the build and drawing of logotype; the flaring of terminals and the lightness of line weight. It is well-spaced and balanced, benefits from the repetitive and simple forms intrinsic to the letters and name, and takes a block foil well. This is then extended to the names of over 31 different Aman locations. While ancient in its references, its implementation, the use of space, and choice of colour, appears sophisticated and luxury.
Material choices and the pencils of the press pack layer identity with a very physical and tactile quality hinted at in the carved qualities of type, while a colour palette of sand, soil and clay, are distinctly earthy. Dyed uncoated papers, embossed boards and a gold foil print finish convey a quality and value without appearing excessive. This simple combination manages to say a lot with just a few assets.
The earthy quality of colour and material texture is explored further and more explicitly in the warm misty landscape of the brochure cover, and inside with brighter but natural tones. Diversity and disparity of image, a contrast of colour, texture and content function well to emphasise the extent of the destinations that Aman offers, and are compelling and impactful in their full bleed double page spreads. Man is clearly selling destinations, rather than a resort experience.
Aesthetically the work is really well-resolved, but it is the connection made between man and enduring environment, and the extent and difference of the destinations, as conveyed through type, texture and image, that really stands out as thoughtful, and ideally-suited to a resort with excess to places throughout the world.
Design: Construct. Opinion Richard Baird
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Reasons Why You Need a Website in 2016
1 : Increase Sales and Revenue
Any professionally run business will make up the cost of a website easily over the course of the first year. And after that, the low annual running costs mean increased profits in the future.
2 : Cheaper Advertising
A website is the most cost–effective form of advertising you could buy. Compare a small advert in the Yellow Pages or Thompson Local with a small website, or compare a large advert with a large website: the website will generally be cheaper.
And a website’s running costs are much lower — just an annual fee for the domain name and hosting. With a paper advert, you pay the same large amountevery year.
A paper advertisement can only give customers a brief overview of your services. Your website will contain all the detailed information your customers need, at a fraction of the long–term cost of a paper advertisement.
3 : Give a Professional Appearance
Most people now expect a business to have a website. Even if a customer doesn’t visit your website, seeing a web address on a business card or in an advertisement gives the impression that you are a solid organisation.
Perhaps you work from home. Perhaps you have just started a small business. With a good–looking, professional website, you can show that you are just asserious as a larger, established competitor.
4 : Your Competitors Will Have Websites
Very few products or services are bought on impulse (apart from chocolate biscuits, perhaps). Customers like to do a bit of research first. Today, a large proportion of sales begin with an internet search, and that proportion is only going to increase. A business without a website is out of the game.
Actually, there is one exception to this rule. For a business, having anamateurish website is often worse than having no website at all. Find out about the dangers of using a cowboy web designer.
5 : Save Time Dealing with Enquiries
How often do you find yourself saying the same thing to prospective customers — describing your services, your products, your prices? If the information that people need is on your website, they can check it out easily, any time it suits them.
How much time do you waste fielding enquiries from people who are nevergoing to buy your products? Give them an easier way of getting the informationthey want, and you won’t have to cope with enquiries that don’t lead anywhere.
Put the information on your website, weed out the tyre–kickers, and concentrate on the serious enquiries!
6 : More Customers, All the Time, Everywhere
The internet doesn’t open at 9 o’clock and close at 5:30. Your website will be attracting customers 24 hours a day, from all over the world.
CORPORATE REBRANDING: IT'S MORE THAN CHANGING A LOGO
When the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) decided to overhaul its brand and visual identity, the executive team asked an important question: How difficult and emotional will this transformation be?
“Like wading into fire,” relates Portia Mount, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing for CCL, “Indeed, as thorough as our process was, when we revealed the [new] logo, we had some people say, ‘This is the best thing we've ever seen—this is amazing!’ and we had others who said, ‘We hate it.’ ”
That was in March. Since then, pockets of trepidation have given way to affirmation and rejuvenation at the venerable leadership-development organization, as the branding initiative evolved into a rallying point for internal change and began to resonate with clients. “Identities are like public art,” states Mount, in a recent conversation about the B2B rebranding effort. “It takes people a little bit of time to get used to it, to understand what it means and to grow into it.”
CCL is a research and client-services organization providing leadership training for individuals, teams, organizations and society at large. It has 3,000 associates around the world, of which roughly 600 are full-time. A sense of personal responsibility for delivering on the new brand promise has taken hold, Mount explains, transforming associates at all levels and across functions into brand ambassadors. “If they don't believe it, we know our clients won't experience it. That was a really important part of the process of coming to this new brand identity.”
So how did CCL successfully embed the change, overcoming challenges and emotions associated with revamping a brand established over four decades ago and steeped in a “quasi-academic” culture?
First came the task of identifying attributes to redefine the brand. CCL had over the years developed a broad portfolio of experience globally, yet was known mostly for training individual corporate leaders. In reality, CCL was driving results not only for better businesses, but a better world — the common denominator being what Mount calls “sustainable impact” delivered on behalf of clients. Frequently overlooked was CCL’s societal impact — working with non-governmental organizations and accelerating leadership development in conflict zones and developing countries.
Achieving sustainable impact through proven, cutting-edge research and training, tailored to a variety of disciplines and types of engagement, became something of a “clarion call” for the organization as it embarked on its rebranding mission, according to Mount. Initially, most team members associated the concept of brand merely with the logo – not a promise of distinction or the reputation they want to earn in the marketplace. So before introducing any visual rebranding, CCL undertook a carefully planned “socialization of the new identity” internally, at the business-unit and team level, via town halls, task forces and small group meetings. Voice of the Brand workshops set the tone for how to communicate values and attributes associated with the new identity.
So when it came time to change the Face of the Brand — CCL’s original, 40-year-old logo — the case for doing so was already internalized. Which is not to say it was easy: Many board members and long-time staffers shared a strong attachment to the original brand “look.” At international offices comprised mostly of newer team members, the prospect of a new visual identity received a warmer welcome.
Emphasizing the importance of consistency in messaging, Face of the Brand workshops demonstrated how the identity would translate across a range of communication tools, from email signatures and letterhead to PowerPoint templates. The purpose, says Mount, is not to come off as “brand police” but rather “to present a certain image to the market. We're trying to earn a reputation, and when we framed it that way we got so much more compliance.”
The key drivers of success? Securing up-front buy-in to the brand promise and making it into a rallying point for team-building and the exchange of information, so that employees feel personally invested in “living the brand” and fulfilling its mission and values was key. Achieving continuity and consistency in the rollout of the new identity across the entire organization, not just in terms of sales and marketing initiatives was just as important. Too often there is a lack of ongoing communication at all levels, as executives sometimes don’t engage in the outreach equivalent of a full-court press.
Let’s face it: Rebranding can be a fraught, and the healthiest organizations are comprised of people who care. So you have to connect with hearts and minds from the outset, and recognize the powerful impact organizational culture has on implementing change. As Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
CCL’s leader, John Ryan, understood this. As the lead advocate for change as an imperative to remain relevant in a global marketplace, he undoubtedly took the brunt of the emails and phone calls from concerned board members and long-term employees. He was, nevertheless, resolute in supporting Mount, the process she orchestrated, and her partnership with our team and The Brand Consultancy.
And the process, in her view, is as important as the outcome. “We're seeing the organization, if you will, mature around the brand identity. To me, that says that we did our homework in building the case for change way up front — helping people understand the reputation we were trying to earn, and then ultimately use the tools to be able to really present a polished, professional and consistent organization around and the world. That's really exciting.”
How to jog your creative mojo with paint #creative #design #inspiration #graphicdesign
Recently had our painter decorator in to finally splash some colour into our offices! I get to stare at a not so luminous lime green wall for the best part of 9 hours which surprisingly is quite nice!
Only time will tell on how these colours affect my daily creative juices.
when you look at the psychology of colour and creative minds there's a lot to take in, paint has a massive effect on our mood whether it be at home or in the office, try staring at a red wall for 8 hours then have a nice conversation with someone.
if you're stuck in a creative mud puddle up to your neck and can't see how you lost it, change your view.
Copyright infringes are all too common, not cool to steal
This post is short and sweet to outline the fact that copyright, stealing and borrowing are all too common nowerdays that we're simply not taking the time to look at how things have been made and what sort of complexity goes into each vector you spend 2 minutes to download and slap into your mates flyer design.
someone, somewhere has taken time to create this particular vector from the stroke up, check out the Infograph below to see the final piece being dissected.
Spread the love... Fanks
Orion #carwrapping the future of #highend vehicles #brandidentity
Early in the year we created a logo and brand identity for OrionExlusive
It's been great seeing the transformation from an empty warehouse in the middle of England to a fully functioning Car wrapping business pulling cars in and out their doors with a cool £100k+ price tag on them!
This was a great project for us as we got to see the transformation, it took us, from idea generation to finished .eps around 2 and a half weeks, we really tried to strengthen the logo and name whilst keeping a sophisticated elegant English gentleman style. We decided on a serif font type that was bold and striking but also had a sense of class.
We for one can't wait to see what these guys produce by the years end.
Birthday for one!
24 today! Fack!
Thanks to the rents for making this website possible with invested funds!
