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What are Brand Design trends and why is it important for businesses to leverage them? Tracking trends in brand design as we do has proven to be fascinating over the years. When a brands seek to connect with their audience and communicate their strategic positioning…

The Pinnacle of Place Brand Reports. Each year Saffron, a global branding agency with specialist experience in Place Brands publishes a report looking at the strongest city brands around the world. The Saffron City Brand Barometer 2020 explores which cities have built the strongest brands…

Time for a brand strategy re-calibration. If I read one more coronavirus article stating how we’re all going to need to adjust to the new normal I’ll punch myself in the face. But like it or loath it, for brands of every shape and size…

Love Conquers All – And Builds Brand Affinity. The relationships we have with brands are alot like the relationships we have with people. Our friends and loved ones reflect who we are, the values we hold dear and behaviors we want to associate with. Social…

An activist font designed for our times. Over our thirties years as an agency developing branding for clients across almost every sector we’ve seen, used and designed alot of fonts, but never have we seen anything quite like this. TietoEVRY, a leading Nordic digital services…

  Healthy Place Brand Management. In July this year the Australian Government launched its new international place brand logo. It’s fair to say at the time of launch it received a lukewarm response from public and media with many pointing out it’s similarities to the…

Have Apple overstepped the mark and caused more harm than good to their brand? Apple has files a notice of opposition with the US Trademark office, against a start-up trying to trademark a logo based-on a pear. The developers of Prepear, an app that helps…

  A fitting brand gesture. To mark the final Boeing 747 swansong for Australian airline Qantas, the pilot en route to drop the jet to storage at a boneyard in the Mojave Desert flew a flight path that sketched-out the airlines iconic brand mark of…

When Clients Design Their Own Logos… In my 30 years of running our branding agency, the one thing that hasn’t changed is business owners and marketers thinking brand design is so simple they can do it themselves. There’s a well worn truism; ‘A little learning…

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t – A challenging brand management dilemma. Following-on from our recent article out the re-branding of the Washington Redskins NFL team in the US, this recent announcement (among many) about Mutual of Omaha, a Fortune 500 insurance and…

Sporting team brands have an important role to play in evolving social equity. It’s not every day a National league team in the US re-brands. The brand value of the National franchises is so incredibly high, that re-naming and rebranding is almost unheard of. But…

A brandertainment masterclass from Apple. There have been few times if-any over the last few decades where life has been thrown on it’s head for much of the world as has been the case due to coronavirus. One of the most significant changes has been…

Designer of possibly one of the world’s most iconic brand marks, Milton Glaser died this week on his 91st birthday. In an industry that burns-out most of it’s brightest stars in years, Glaser’s creative career lasted decades as he inspired multiple generations of designers and…

Heinz Rebranding is a delicious blend of balance and skill. Whilst we rarely write about another agencies branding projects the recently released rebrand for Heinz by global brand agency; Jones Knowles Ritchie is an example of strategic brand design worth writing about. Rebranding for FMCG…

A timely lesson for brands with a social conscience. Global sportswear brand, Nike recently took a public stance to condemn racism, seeking to tap into the social tinderbox inflaming North America and spreading around the world. Adapting their iconic tagline, Nike created a campaign around;…

When was the last time your brand thinking came from left field? The say; ‘Necessity is the mother of all invention’, and for many brands things have never been more ‘necessary’ than they are now. Budgets are tight, consumer behavior is shifting, the world is…

Inspiring Brands Innovating for the New Reality. WFH is a Japanese start-up who’s brand name is an acronym for ‘Work From Home’. Their first product which we spotted on Kickstarter is a range of Jammies designed specifically for working from home. Brainchild of design agency;…

Geoff Quinlan in previous roles as Tournament Director, Brisbane International 2017 with Sieger Grigor Dimitrov and Finalist Kei Nishikori – Pat Rafter Arena – Brisbane – QLD – Australia – 8 January 2017. © Juergen Hasenkopf The one thing I’ve learned about branding is… be…

Branding Madness or Genius? As part of its Quarter Pounder Fan Club, McDonald’s have released a set of candles that smell like the ingredients of a Quarter Pounder, including; 100% Fresh Beef, Ketchup, Pickle, Cheese, Onion, and Sesame Seed Bun. Before we claim this as…

When it comes to brand identity briefs, they don’t get grander than this. Every four years when the Olympic Games roll around we are treated to perhaps the most plumb job in the world of branding. The games combine the perfect branding brief – a…

The Holy Grail of Branding. When designing a brand identity for any brand, but especially a consumer brand, we look to develop visual brand assets than can become instantly recognizable to their loyal fans. These assets allow a brand to be creative in what it…

The power of brandless branding. Loving these new ads for McDonald’s by Leo Burnett in London. The holy grail for branding is when you’re able to remove your logo and the visual language of the brand, the product or the product description alone communicates who…

The 2020 Barbie range steps-out with inclusiveness. Loving the way the Barbie brand has kept pace with society and arguably takes a leadership role in diversity and inclusiveness. The range of Barbie dolls includes35 skin tones, 9 body types, a Barbie in a wheel chair,…

A Right Royal Bit of Branding Fun. I’m loving this brand campaign from Burger King leveraging the global interest in the current Royal family split. Creating timely brand ads that connect with something as newsworthy as the royal split is not a new idea, but…

The changing face of consumer behavior raises a red flag for retail brands. When I think back even just a decade ago, the demands of retail customers were not so different from the decades before. Essentially most retailers could add a functional web site and…

At Truly Deeply we love sharing and celebrating not only our creative branding work but that of our extended brand family. In this case it’s doubly easy when the work includes Oscar the Grouch. Produced for the 50th anniversary of Sesame Street, Square Space New…

Instagram brand; Overheard launches physical newspaper stands. In the latest demonstration of the blurring between new digital and traditional business and brand models, Overheard launched a physical parody paper (think The Onion) along with a pop-up newsstand at Union Square in San Francisco. Overheard was…

Are you missing this important dimension of your brand strategy? Price has always been a key dimension of brand building. Ever since E. Jerome McCarthy identified the Four P’s of marketing (Price, Product, Place and Promotion) brands have understood the relationship between price and brand…

Best intentions don’t always get the branding job done. Following example after example of city and municipal rebrands around the world copping rate payer vitriol, The City of Pocatello decided to get on the front foot with a project and design rationale for their rebrand.…

The recently revealed brand image for the Paris 2025 Olympic and Paralympic games has created something of a stir on the web. As with every other category, the market gets used to a consistent approach to how the brands in that market will present themselves,…

We love a good brand parody. OK, so I have to admit I’m a fan of brand piss-takes of any variety, but when they come to political branding parodies, my appreciation goes up-ten fold. When I first spotted the ‘Make America Great Again’ brand positioning…

The Holy Grail of Brand Effectiveness. One of the toughest parts of rebranding is the risk associated with selecting which brand mark concept to choose. There are few business decisions where so much comes down to a single choice quite as graphically as this. With…

Today’s post is unashamedly for our brand design obsessed readers. Apologies to those who don’t suffer this affliction, but for those who do – enjoy! Archivio Graphica Italiana is an online archive dedicated to the Italian graphic design heritage. This work of passion covers ‘the…

The case for increasing the focus on branding in your business. Watching a video by US brand educator Chris Do recently I came across this simple illustration that captures the concept of the brand circle of behavior. Many brands, especially for start-up, early stage and…

‘Trecking’ is the colour theme for brands to pay attention to. Each year PANTONE Colour Institute announces the colour or colours set to influence the way brands go to market in the year ahead. Driven by consumer psychology, these colours are often reflected through fashion,…

Doritos Clever Thinking Only Outsmarts Themselves. Doritos is set to launch an ‘anti-ad’ campaign to appeal to Gen Z, who is research tells us are averse to traditional advertising tactics. The snack food brand plans to ditch its logo, replacing it with a recognizable triangle…

  How do you launch a category leader to the next phase of growth? This was one of the challenges facing THE:5th when we sat down with them to develop the brand strategy for their next business phase (you can check a case study of…

A place branding guide for the worlds greatest business cities. Brand agency Saffron have just released their City Brand Barometer for 2019 which explores which cities around the world have built the strongest brands to attract businesses and investors. The report gives an insight into…

Truly Deeply’s Branding Excellence Recognized. DesignRush.com, a B2B marketplace connecting brands with agencies recently released their list of the top 25 branding agencies of 2019. The list which combined local as well as global agencies has been published around the world has been published across…

Brand Recognition = Commercial Value. In these times of desktop publishing and 99 Designs when the tools to create logos are at everyone’s fingertips, it is easy to overlook the commercial benefits of a professional brand identity. This clever creative experiment from Berlin Agency ‘Why…

The power of re-imagining a brand icon. In a shift that has even me surprised, iconic global brand Playboy has moved with the times, evolving from a ‘sexist and proud of it’ brand proposition to one of understanding and tolerance. Playboy CMO and Rachel Webber…

What stronger way to use globally recognized branding than to make it disappear? In another example of brands tapping into the growing consumer trend of social and environmental activism, Lacoste has created a bold social brand campaign to raise awareness and funds to help threatened…

The latest branding trend for fashion takes to the streets. As the on again / off again relationship with fashion brands featuring their logos on their clothes continues, the latest trend is high fashion featuring their branding loud and proud on the feet of their…

No more sharing the love. In a move reflecting a growing frustration among brand owners and manager, global beauty brand Lush announced it will be shutting down its social media channels in the UK. For a brand as popular as Lush in a category where…

The argument for breaking the conventions of brand identity design. One of the strongest principles of branding is less is more. A simple brand proposition with a single clear point of difference expressed consistently through a brand mark and brand identity design have long been…

Creating Positive Emotional Place Branding. There’s a reason why we think of place branding it is often the Northern European countries we think of as leaders in this space… it’s because they continually invest time, energy and an open mind in their place making brand…

Finding the hidden opportunities for retail branding. An interesting piece of the puzzle for retailers is managing the reluctant customer. So much focus goes in to setting up the store design and merchandising to cater to the customer whose interest brought them into the store.…

Loving this smart business card design created for Pasta Boy Pete, an Italian cooking instructor in Canada. They say the medium is the message, and in this case the clever crew at Rethink Canada have taken that as their mantra, laser etching the branding and…

Of Show Business & Branding A good mate of mine sent me an email this morning with a link to the trailer of The Greatest Showman, the first feature film of her great friend Michael Gracey. She was proud as punch and so she should…

Setting the colour trend for 2017 Annually global colour standard; Pantone release their trend prediction for the colour of the year, a color that reflects the current cultural climate. The colour of the year is a symbolic color selection; a color snapshot of what we…