As ninjas we’re known for (and rather proud of) our stealth and silence… you could say it's our brand.

Despite our natural inclination for sneak-attacks, our super-skilled, kickbutt creative team have kindly agreed to put down their throwing stars and reveal their top secret process to creating a dangerously eye-catching brand identity in Brisbane.

 

Brand vs Brand Identity - are they the same thing?

Simple answer: No. Your brand identity is not the same as your brand (although they work very, very closely together). Your brand is the intangible “essence” or experience of your business, it is more than just a visual element. It’s the personality, feel, promise and style of your business.

On the other hand, your brand identity is the tangible, visual face of your brand. It’s what you and your audience actually see and can include colour, fonts, submarks, photographs and graphic elements. However, for most businesses their brand identity is most commonly depicted as their logo.

 

What is a “logo”?

Most of us have a general idea on what a logo is, but as our brilliant brand design Brisbane ninjas would misquote Freud to tell you, sometimes a logo isn't just a logo. In fact there are several different types of logos, with the main ones being:

• Lettermark/Wordmark logos; and
• Iconic Logos.

So what’s the difference? Your lettermark logo is defined as a typography-based logo that's comprised of a few letters, usually your company’s initials. It uses text to create a unique typographic mark. Similarly, a wordmark logo is a font-based logo that focuses on your business’ name alone. Google's logo is a great example of this.

On the other hand an iconic logo marries a brandmark (icon) with a wordmark. These elements can be used together or independently.

This may seem overly complicated but that’s why experts, such as ourselves, are here to simplify the process for you.

 

But enough chit-chat! How do we actually create a logo that speaks to your brand identity?

There’s actually a lot of steps that our team takes to ensure that your brand identity logo reflects exactly your brand and your business:

Step 1: Brand Discovery Journey 

Before we get our designing on, our first step is to meet with you and run through our specifically developed brand discovery journey. We complete this process in order to both discover and uncover the ins and outs of your business, because we want to find out what makes it unique and most importantly: it’s why. Upon discovery of your why, we then proceed to dive straight in to also understanding your who, what, differences and goals. Once we thoroughly comprehend all of these elements we can comfortably move onto step 2.

Step 2: Creative Brief

At this step we develop what is known in our industry as a “reverse” brief. This summaries the entire project into a simple, one-two page snapshot, which we provide to you for your review. It consists of both the information we acquired from you during your discovery journey, as well as independent research we conducted. This is a vital step as it ensures both of us are on the same page and we do not proceed to step 3 until it has been signed off by you.

Step 3: Moodboard

Now we get to generate a single, research informed moodboard to establish the tone and visual direction of the brand. The beauty of this step is it helps demonstrate to you what’s in our heads and ensure that we have visually interpreted the creative brief correctly. We, again, present this to you for sign off before we start the next step.

Step 4: Logo Concept

Finally, we’re at the fun part: we get to put pencil to paper (or the digital equivalent). We design a single logo which we present to you in black and white only. By presenting without colour, we take colour predispositions out of the equation (for now), helping us focus on what’s truly important: the logo design in its simplest form. We include in this step two minor revisions to ensure that we’re again all satisfied, before moving forward.

Note: that if we’re creating an iconic logo we break this step up into: 4(a) where we work on the brandmark (icon) and present that to you for your approval, before 4(b) where we design and introduce the wordmark (text). It’s important that we do these separately, as they will at times appear separately.

Step 5: Logo Colouration 

Once you have signed off on the logo concept, we get to picking the colours.

You can be rest assured that the colours we select are informed by validated research as well as the original moodboard.

Step 6: Logo Finalisation

Once you’re 100% satisfied with the colour selection we put it all together, finalising the logo, generating it in full colour, greyscale and reversed options in .eps, .jpeg, and .tiff/.png file types, suitable for print and digital use. Sometimes, if we’re feeling extra nice, we also generate complementary social profile pictures. Huston, you have a workable, visually stunning logo!

Step 7: Brand Board/Style Guide

The final step is where we sit down and give you a stern talking to. Kidding, but we do help you establish some ground rules about the application and usage of your logo. This is all about making sure that your brand identity has continuity with your brand.

 

And that folks, is how we work our magic. If you’re wondering how you can improve your brand and your brand identity, contact our brand identity design Brisbane team today.