A person’s experience of your brand forms a continuum or chain of several elements. If any one element in the chain is ignored, the integrity of your brand is threatened; as the saying goes, a chain is only as good as its weakest link.
Brands are essentially about connection through experience, and design shapes virtually everything we experience. Studying brands across the categories of User, Offering, Space and Time helps to illuminate opportunities and solutions. Space begins with physical location, but is much more than the place where an experience occurs. We now experience brands across multiple platforms, networks and devices.The notion of time is key. Our view of time goes beyond the particular instance of experience. efficiency and duration of interaction, as well as our cumulative experiences, play a huge role in brand perceptions and preferences.
Whether it happens by plan or accident, every business develops a public image or identity. Leading companies enjoy the benefits of a well-planned and administered, and therefore, consistent and universally recognized identity. They know their corporate identity inside and out and all the parts that make it up.
A corporate identity includes a system of visual elements - the company's symbol or logotypes, its name, colors, and typography. To ensure consistency throughout an identity system, a graphic designer creates a standards manual that shows how these visual elements should be applied to stationery, signs, brochures, packaging, vehicles, advetising, and other items. Standards manuals work like easy-to-read blueprints that can be followed by the people responsible for supervising the production of communications.
Corporate identities must work on a prima facie level (What you see is what you get). And they must withstand extended visibility because customers and employees see a company's corporate I.D. repeatedly. Good corporate identity systems offer a company a powerful asset that it can leverage in marketing products and services, recruiting staff, and receiving credit for good deeds.
