The Demise of Unique Brand Design
Sadly these days unique and fresh brand identity design is the exception rather than the rule. As more brands seek to become global, the trend has been for the visual language of their brand images to become more and more similar. Global branding firm Landor’s recent 2010 Trend Forecast agrees that ‘A global homogenization of design is taking place, with design blogs and online portfolios as the major culprits.’ They say ‘Companies need to rely less heavily on testing and research, which tend to nullify originality. Brands can’t just follow the herd and hope to succeed.’ And they predict ‘We’ll find larger companies willing to take risks, break the rules, and appear imperfect. Shaking up the status quo will be considered far better than disappearing into oblivion.’
A Rare Combination
There are still some brands who achieve a unique identity design, and some which are beautiful. However, it is the combination of beautiful and unique that is rare to find. Beauty remains as powerful-a-force as ever when it comes to capturing the heart. Recently I came across a beautiful piece of typographic imagery by Andrew van der Merwe that transcended brand design to be more like an artistic expression of mood, culture and nature. I was immediately struck by how powerful it would be for a brand such as a five star eco-beach resort to be able to harness and associate itself with imagery such as this.
Andrew’s images were a great reminder for me that beyond the evolving visual code of global brands and the current trends of visual language, the timeless power of beauty to capture the hearts of a market remains unchanged.
David Ansett, Brandamentalist
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Graphic Design Melbourne
Tags: African-beach-caligraphy, Andrew-van-der-Merwe, Brand Agency, Brand Design, Brand Strategy, code of visual langauge, Corporate Image, corporate-communications, creative-typography, Graphic Design Melbourne, Visual Language
A timely reminder that many brands can achieve an emotional connection to the human spirit but that it requires us to venture beyond the cliches
Beautiful made, beautifully photographed
Malcolm, it is indeed. There will always be room for beauty to touch the soul in the expression of brands – some more than others though.
Derek – couldn’t agree more. Captivating.
It’s well documented that connection with nature is an innate impulse in all of us. Pure class to harness this connection with lyrical man made ‘mark making’
You’re right Sal. It’s almost like harnessing nature through brand association. It would need to be managed very sensitively from any brand’s perspective.
Awesome work, but also the contextual thought around how such talent could be harnessed in the brand world ie the contextual thought around high end eco-beach resort. Beats making sand castles.
Yes Reg, but harnessed with ever-so-much sensitivity.
Just sensational! Such a simple idea and so perfectly captured in every sense of the word.
Hey David, thanks for the lekker write-up!
You make a good point. I do a lot of hand lettering for branding (see this Facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30398&id=100000573925612) and my biggest hassle with clients is how they always come to me with stuff they’ve seen somewhere else and ask me if I can match that. When I do something apt and original, they are always measuring it up to some other been-there-done-that idea from Europe or wherever. I have more fonts in my little finger than they have on their hard drive but 90% of the time I have to put that aside or get my work rejected. A lot of the time I have to straight-jacket my lettering into neat blocks with short ascenders and descenders because that is what type usually looks like.
Usually, it’s bad news when a marketing consultant is consulted, not because of what they can bring to the process but because of what they take out of it. They tend to see no further than what has been done before and their input invariably results in a has-been design.
Anyway, it’s all very tiresome and the beach calligraphy is a great release for me.
&rew
Hi Andrew, nice to hear from you. I’ve just presented a talk today in Singapore on brand design and that same topic was part of the conversation; the way many clients, marketers and even designers suffer from ‘me-too-ism’ rather than allowing for fresh brand vision to create unique, ownable brand assets with the visual identities. Keep making beautiful typography and eventually the world may catch-on.
Regards, Dave