A good brand guidelines document should give the brand room to breath in the future, to accommodate new ideas, and new strategies. They should not be seen as a straight jacket, more of a comfortable smart top you feel proud to wear at home or in a restaurant.

I have just created a new Icon for a London Photographer called Prince Singh. The brief was to create a new typographic based brand with 2 letters intertwining. The letters were formed out of original scribblings in the note pad, then they were scanned into Adobe Photoshop, then they were brought into Illustrator where the vector drawing was created. here are a couple of other rejected scriblings

Eventually after tweaking a few bits here and there we came to a final brand that we were all happy with.

GC

Coca Cola History: Left to Right 1899 – 1900 – 1915 – 1916 – 1957 – 1986

An interesting image of how the Coca Cola bottle has changed over the years. One of the most recognisable brands in the world, this bottle is the classic representation of what a brand can mean to a company, probably more so than the slightly cheesey Advertising campaigns that they have run over the last few years. However it is an enduring/historic brand that will be with us for many years to come. Notice the logo, this has barely changed, rather tweaked every few years, because it sees its history as key to their brand.

In early 2008 Arena Group in Wakefield contacted me about their branding. They were competing in a technological marketplace with a brand that did not do the business justice. The existing logo was designed by one of the directors when the company first formed in 1991, and whilst initially it ‘did the job’, time and the business had moved on. Arena originally specialised in supplying photocopiers across the North of England, but over time had grown to become an all round office solutions provider, offering services in electronic document management, IT and consultancy, in addition to their thriving photocopier sales. Arena had a well respected standing in the market and wanted to sell on an assured quality of service.

The issue:

A tired and outdated brand, with weak formatting and typography. Within that brand however was a trusted icon, the Arena roundel, which was recognised by the company’s substantial client base. The business also needed to show it was integrated under one umbrella brand, whilst able to sell expertise and products to different markets, i.e. not just a ‘jack of all trades’.

Old Arena Logo

The process:

We worked closely with the client to establish what to keep in the Arena brand, what to dispense with and what to develop. To cut a long story short the roundel survived, with a design refinement, along with the name; otherwise it was a total brand overhaul.

A couple of the ideas

First came the initial concept stage where a few ideas were presented to the Arena Group Board. Two routes were chosen to take through to development stage where we would explore the segmentation of the brand.

After the development stage a final decision was made on the design route. We then tweaked, tested and polished the brand until everyone was happy. We tested different Pantone colours and redrew the font to make it unique to Arena. This was only the first stage of building the new brand; it is necessary to look after it and treat it with the greatest of respect wherever it appears on all future company communications/material/literature. This is where Arena are now.

The final Brand

A brand is not just a logo, it is an important business statement. The logo represents the brand, it is how people instantly recognise your brand and therefore your business and the quality it stands for. If your brand is not right, it will give a poor representation of your business and act as a detractor, no matter how great your product is. If you have the right brand, take care of it and use it in the correct way, it will become a trusted representation of your business and a significant factor in your success.