How can you recognize a company or its brands? “By its logo!” most would say, and that wouldn’t be wrong. However, recognizing a brand again is made possible through a combination of many different factors, which go far beyond the logo itself. This blog post will explain what these factors are and why they become especially relevant when starting a business.
Corporate Design is More than Just Design
Few aspects are as important in building an organization’s identity (Corporate Identity) as Corporate Design (CD or appearance). These two topics are closely interrelated, because without one, the other cannot be perceived to exist. The task of Corporate Design is to consistently communicate the Corporate Identity to all stakeholders. Therefore, CD has a major impact on the design of communication tools, such as word and image marks, product design, and website appearance.
But more on that later. To provide better clarity, let’s first differentiate between the terms Corporate Identity and Corporate Design. The former is understood as the sum of all characteristics that define a company. It answers the question of how an organization wants to be perceived and is therefore in competition with the Corporate Image, the external perception of the company.
CI is defined by its various core elements, which together make up the Corporate Identity. The three main factors are Corporate Design (CD), Corporate Culture, and Corporate Communication (CC).
Corporate Culture describes an organization’s exact behaviors and its underlying ethical direction. It is strongly influenced by the founders’ philosophy (Corporate Philosophy) and can be understood as a moral compass.
Corporate Communication (CC) determines its communicative identity, both externally and internally. What choice of words is used, whether customers should be addressed informally or formally—these aspects are determined by CC. Corporate Behavior (CB), or the company’s behavior, is also included here. It defines the actions and demeanor of individual employees, including their tone of interaction, team spirit, and even dress code.
Corporate Identity is a multifaceted and highly complex topic. If you want to refresh your knowledge before continuing, this blog post is perfect: “What is Corporate Identity?”
Corporate Design is such an important pillar of CI because it enables the perception of a company and its underlying values. This is why CD is also understood as the audiovisual identity of an organization. From color choice, jingles, to logos, Corporate Design determines the entire appearance of a company, its products, and its employees. The ultimate goal is to achieve company-wide consistency.
The paradox here is that Corporate Design cannot be developed if there is no CI concept in place. How can a designer decide what colors to use or whether a logo should be playful or sharp-edged? To make such decisions, the designer needs to know what values the organization represents and what its self-image is. If no design exists, it will seem to external stakeholders as though the organization doesn’t exist at all. Without CD, a company cannot communicate its values consistently and, consequently, will lack recognition value.
Therefore, it is especially crucial for startups to define and implement these two areas from the very beginning and in coordination with one another. This ensures that the CI is truly reflected in the CD from the outset.
“And What If Not?”—Advantages and Disadvantages of a Unified Corporate Design
As mentioned above, consistency is key when it comes to Corporate Design. As the visual embodiment of the company’s identity, it speaks directly to the target audience, conveying the values that have already been established. The main advantage of a unified design lies in its increased recognition value. This was first recognized by the pioneer of Corporate Design, Peter Behrens, in 1907, when he introduced the first unified corporate image for the electrical company AEG, influencing the world of design profoundly. A unified design not only allows for a highly professional appearance, but it also boosts sales and even helps with employee recruitment.
Those who do not adhere to this will have a harder time communicating clear values and will be less recognized. For example, a bakery producer could make excellent products, but without a unique logo, work clothes, or packaging, customers would not return, even if they loved the pastries. How could they, if they didn’t even know who was responsible for their happiness? A clothing manufacturer without a logo on its products would likely face revenue losses.
Good design, therefore, fulfills the clear purpose of highlighting the uniqueness of a company or brand and making it visible in the market. Only then can satisfied consumers return to your company and recommend it to friends and acquaintances.
What Definitely Shouldn’t Be Missed—Core Elements of Corporate Design
Corporate Design encompasses so many different (sub)elements that it is nearly impossible to list them all here. Nevertheless, it is useful to look into some of the particularly essential and well-known elements. This will give you a better insight into how complex the topic is and which parts of CD must not be missing in your organization. Keep in mind that this is by no means an exhaustive list.
The Logo as an Anchor of Perception in Corporate Design
One of the first and most recognizable identifiers of a company is its logo. This graphic symbol, also referred to as a signet in some versions, is crucial because it is absolutely unique. It allows anyone to instantly recognize which entity is being represented. With its wide range of applications and countless areas for projection, it runs like a red thread through all aspects of a company.
The uniqueness of a logo is so important that it can even be registered as a trademark for legal protection. It is crucial for businesses that other market players do not benefit from the “good reputation” of the company by using a similar logo. On the other hand, it can be extremely damaging for a company if others use the logo to market their own products. If their product quality doesn’t meet consumer expectations, the quality failure will be associated with the logo and not with the “free rider.” Therefore, it is critical for companies to carefully monitor the use of their logo to prevent devaluation of their corporate brand.
By the Way: How a striking logo can make your company or brand successful is covered in this blog: “The Key to Branding: How a Striking Logo Defines Your Company.”
In Corporate Design, Colors Convey Emotions
Even the best-designed logo can only fulfill its purpose if it has the right color(s). Colors convey emotions, which is the focus of color psychology. It establishes connections between different colors and the reactions they provoke in the viewer. Red, for example, stands for anger or passion, while green represents hope and life. There is no clear answer to which color is the right one; what matters is which values the organization wants to convey to its consumers. At the very least, the designer must be aware of the effect of the chosen color palette. If a company wants to undergo a transformation, this can easily and quickly be communicated through a change in color and signal a mental shift.
Anyone who has always been fascinated by colors and their psychological effect will definitely get their money’s worth here: “The importance of colors for websites”
Typography and the Choice of a House Font Are Essential
Not only colors but also different typefaces have a very different effect on the reader. Therefore, in Corporate Design, it is important to choose a consistent typeface. Based on the target audience and the values to be conveyed, the best font from a wide variety of options is selected as the company’s house font. Here, too, the one that promises the most success based on its psychological effects should be chosen.
Straightforward, high-contrast fonts are especially suitable for modern brands, such as those in technological industries. Script or serif fonts convey a personal touch, making them ideal for addressing children or luxury items. As explained earlier, there is no right or wrong in this area; the design must serve its purpose. Thus, the typography chosen must promise the most success with the target audience.
The Topic of Typography is Much More Complex than This Brief Overview Suggests.You can find more information in this blog post: “The Function of Typography in Corporate Branding.”
An Appealing Image Language Helps Convey Your Values in Corporate Design
Illustrations, graphics, and photographs are also excellent for conveying data and evoking emotions. Unlike text, we can process images much more quickly, as they do not need to be decoded by the brain. Images have conveyed information in the form of cave paintings since the beginning of human history, which is why we have developed a sort of direct access to such processing.
Therefore, they are especially useful for communicating company values and messages. The style of images used should primarily match the core and identity of the brand. Which image styles to use cannot be answered generally, as there are countless different ones. The most common include landscape photos, still lifes, and portraits. Which one is best for your CD can be best advised by design or branding agencies.
Step by Step—What to Keep in Mind When Building a Strong Corporate Design
There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to developing and implementing a Corporate Design, as it varies greatly between organizations and industries. However, there are some central considerations that are mandatory for implementing a well-thought-out CD. One core principle, the motto of design, must always be followed: Form must follow function. This means that practical utility must take precedence over aesthetic considerations or recognition value. For example, using Sütterlin exclusively as a house font is highly individual and easy to distinguish from competitors, but it would make the written content unreadable for most people today, making such a design impractical. This is especially critical when establishing an organization, and these basic principles must be considered.
First, one must be clear about the goals that the CD should pursue. A CD briefing will outline the framework and structure for the project. This includes the time and budget needed for realization, which benefits external partners like agencies by giving them clear guidelines for design collaboration. It simplifies communication, as project partners can answer many questions on their own.
Next, a more in-depth analysis of the company’s brand, market position, and branding strategy is conducted. This helps develop a concept that will serve as a guideline for implementing the Corporate Design. What challenges does the company face, how will it stand out in the market, and what values should be communicated through the design? These considerations are followed by selecting or developing the appropriate design elements. These can include a new or adjusted logo, color palette, typeface, and images.
Once all the conditions have been met, an individual strategy can be drawn up as the basis for the design. All uniqueness, characteristics and individual features of a company must be defined. These aspects in their entirety are also referred to as brand personality. As a clear guiding principle, it is important to always keep in mind the area in which an organization wants to shine in the future. Once these questions have been answered, the corporate design can be created based on this content.
The implementation phase follows, where design and creation come to life, and individual designs are rolled out across different communication media (print, digital, etc.). Once the basic design elements are finalized, the project concludes with the launch of the final product.
Now that the CD has been developed, it can finally be applied. Design manuals or brand guidelines must be drawn up to ensure that the considerations made regarding the use of the design continue to be observed in the future. They enable practical users who were not involved in the development of the concept to reproduce the results in detail. This is because they contain individually defined guidelines for all means of communication in order to achieve company-wide and uniform communication. This also avoids too much communication effort and external designers can get to work according to these guidelines without any intermediate steps.
There’s a lot to know about brand guidelines! The topic is also covered in this blog post: “How brand guidelines standardize your communication”
How to successfully implement your corporate design and avoid rookie mistakes
Now that the basics have been clarified, here are some tips and tricks for you to successfully implement a developed corporate design. Probably the most important thing is to keep reminding yourself of the purpose of the CD. The aim is to achieve company-wide consistency and uniformity without restricting functionality. The biggest challenge here is not to lose this uniformity even in phases of growth or collaboration with many external partners. The aforementioned style sheets in particular help to pass on the developed design specifications with minimal communication effort.
Keep your target group in mind and make adjustments if necessary
The development and application of corporate design is a continuous, never-ending process. Once a CD has been established, it must always be aligned with the corporate identity and the target groups to be reached. There are various reasons why organizations adapt their design over the years. This visually signals that a company has undergone a change. A generational change in a family business, the acquisition of another company or expansion into new business areas: These are all good reasons to emphasize a change audiovisually and thus communicate it to the outside world.
The target group is of particular importance here. After all, markets and their participants are constantly changing. The needs and preferences of customers and potential employees also adapt over generations. A few decades ago, for example, the focus was on particularly low prices and fast availability. Consumers were generally uninterested in whether fair wages were paid or whether production conditions were sustainable. Today, the tide has turned, which is due to the younger generations and their changed convictions.
Professional corporate design does not come from amateurs
This makes a regular review and adaptation of the CD an absolute must for every organization. Otherwise, important trends can be missed and associations with the corporate brand can be damaging to business. There are various ways to establish such a process:
The first and probably most cost-effective alternative is to hire an individual, self-employed designer. When it comes to corporate design, there are freelancers or sole traders who specialize in certain aspects of the CD, such as web or graphic design. If you only need support in a single area, they are a valid addition to the team. However, if you do not have this expertise under your own roof, hiring a single freelancer to develop a CD will most likely not be enough. All-round talents do exist, but they are very difficult to find.
This is why full-service branding or design agencies are a very popular alternative in practice. They can be seen as an external team of specialists who only provide support for specific projects. They bring considerable know-how in line with the latest state of the art. Operational blindness can also be avoided in this way, as external parties have an unbiased view of things.
One major advantage is their flexibility. Once a project has been successfully completed, the team no longer needs to be employed and paid, but can simply move on to the next assignment. However, this does not mean that long-term cooperation cannot develop from this. Companies of all sizes maintain long-term contractual relationships with agencies, allowing them to adapt more and more to their values and requirements. This saves a lot of effort in communication and makes hiring agencies a flexible, versatile tool.
The final option is to set up a separate department to develop and monitor the company’s own corporate design. Such an “in-house solution” is often only feasible for larger companies or groups due to its high costs. This is exacerbated by the fact that external partners are often consulted anyway for a fresh and unadulterated view of the company’s own organization or in the absence of specialist knowledge.
There is no general answer as to which approach is the right one for you. It depends on the order volume, the expertise you already have in-house and your budget. The decisive factor, however, is that the development of a corporate design represents a long-term orientation that should not be a “quick fix”.
If, then do it right! Choosing the right agency
When choosing the right branding or design agency, the decisive factor is not size, but expertise. The expected project expenditure must be compared with the capacities and know-how. Whether an agency can “handle” a project can be seen above all from its references. If a reference company is comparable to your organization, this is a good first sign that you are at the right address. Full-service agencies with a holistic approach are good places to go to find a partner with whom long-term cooperation is also possible.
In the end, there is no clear answer to the question of the right agency, because “there’s a lid for every pot.” Make sure your online presence is reputable and appealing, and personal sympathy should also play a decisive role in the selection process. Flat-rate prices for projects in particular are considered dubious, as the exact scope of the project and the resulting workload must first be determined for creative work.
Corporate design creates perceptible identification features
A corporate design gives the identity of an organization its perceptible form, ensures uniformity in communication and increases the recognition value of a corporate brand. It is made up of individual core aspects, such as the logo, the corporate typeface or the imagery. Agencies and their experts know the process by which a systematic and structured development of a corporate design is possible. Over the years in particular, a company’s own CD should be repeatedly compared with its self-image and associated values. If a discrepancy arises, all or some elements of the CD need to be adapted.
That’s why it’s worth working with regular partners from the world of branding and design over many years to monitor and adapt these changes. Important moments in the company’s history, such as its foundation, expansion or a change of management, are particularly suitable times to adapt the CD. Because developing a corporate design is a never-ending process. Starting this process right from the beginning and setting the right course is therefore particularly important when founding a company.