Paths of Branding: Exploring the Process of Inspiration
Branding takes many paths during a company’s inception and throughout its lifetime. It’s a circuitous, iterative journey consisting of rounds of planning, sketching, design, and communication as we sweat and toil the smallest changes that will make a client’s brand just that much better. The process can be tiring, but ultimately there is a sense of fulfillment as we release our new little (or not so) creation into the world and hope for the best.
If you’re like me, and the branding project is of a personal nature, it becomes a completely different game. The dial gets set to eleven and the intensity of the project becomes something like a wildfire nearly out of control. Designing for ourselves is hard, but I find that following a logical path of consideration and decision making helps me keep that wildfire from becoming a raging inferno.
I recently underwent a branding and collateral update for my personal site as well as our studio site. The projects were done in conjunction with one of the final classes in my long, beleaguered journey to an MA degree—another story entirely. What follows is a collection of thoughts, ideas, and notes that came from that process.
So much of what a designer learns in graduate school is about the process of critical thought. Not just doing, but understanding why we are doing, how that impacts the project, it’s contextual relevance (both now and in relation to the past), and where does it will fit in the larger world around us as well.
Glean from this process what you will.
A quick note about being precious
For the most part, the process I utilize for my personal projects is no different than what I would do for a client. There is a major difference, though, that I notice when the work is for myself—the introduction of doubt and fear. If you can see this in your process as well then you know it can lead to paralyzation, in-decision, and ultimately, a possible stall of your project.
I’ve found that what works for me (most times) is to clear my mind and move forward with as much emotional detachment as possible in the early stages of the project. There are generally lots of ideas to pursue, and I try to run with that when I’m starting out. If I work too shallow (not enough iteration), I generally develop too few directions at the beginning. I then run the risk of over analyzing my work, sweating too many details too early in the process and often by-pass a better solution because I’m being precious.
Eradicating the preciousness from your work early on is good. There is plenty of time for love affairs down the line.
Start at the beginning: what’s old is new again
With my two projects I was fairly fortunate because the marks were already created. My studio, shop, has survived its first three years, yet despite the small amount of time we’ve been in business the logo has seen two major revamps—the most recent less than a year ago.
My personal branding also underwent a revamp in the last 18 months, but as with so many things I was tired of it already and wanted it to be simpler and more direct. I wanted to evolve the mark a bit more to see what I could pull out of it—hopefully clarifying the message a bit further.
The areas I ended up focusing on for this project were the fine tuning of both marks and the development of a solid collateral system for both brands.
Know the reasons why
The inspiration I’ve taken for each of the logos is varied, but both marks are abstract on purpose. I like the idea of asking people to infer or infuse their own thoughts and meanings into a mark. This causes a small connection between the viewer and the logo that is wholly unique to them. Design, in my mind, should be an organic experience in which we are not simply told what to see and what to think, but rather given an opportunity to experience design and create a space where some aspects/feelings are shared between viewers and others are not.
My personal mark was largely inspired by living in the pacific northwest, a love of the outdoors, and the mountains. I adopted the triple triangles to mimic tree tops or mountain crags with the idea of generating a feeling of stability and strength in my work.
The triple triangle shape also has the added benefit of mimicking a “W”, tying back to the name of my website, “webclique”. A little more abstracted was the relation to an “E” for “Erin” when the mark is turned on its side.
Shop’s logo is also abstract, but intentionally, more deeply abstracted that my personal brand. I wanted to represent both complexity and simplicity through a series of inter-connected points—traits that both live within the design cycle.
The likening to origami would also be a good comparison. The folded paper styling of origami played a role in the conception of the shape a year ago during the re-design. I’m constantly intrigued by the idea that a simple piece of flat paper can be turned into a complex design structure like the ones below. It’s a good reminder for me of the process of design (and fine art) in which we move through a cycle of taking simple elements, combining them, organizing them, and building meaning through simple or complex combinations and treatments.
Both marks are also rooted in minimalism and geometric patterning. The work of the minimalists has always been of interest to me. The painters, architects, and designers from the 1950s onward looked to the practice of reductionism to find true meaning in their work. As they reduced more and more they believed a clearer, un-obscured viewpoint emerged from the work—separating the signal from the noise.
Junking
As with most of my projects, Pinterest is my starting point. It’s my first stop when I need to gain inspiration for a design project. I’ve spent the past couple years amassing close to 20k pins across a wide variety of subjects designed to bring me inspiration whenever I need it. I generally start by create individual mood boards for projects where I can gather together ideas either directly from within Pinterest or clipping from the web and pulling those into Pinterest, but the important part is having a gathering point for as much of my visual reference material as possible.
Once the boards have been created I can refer to them whenever needed. I think of them like mood boards, but internally facing (at first). They might be shown to a client later (or not).
I think of it like a digital “junking” process—a term I will co-opt from designer Aaron Draplin. Aaron uses a process of image finding and inspiration gathering in the physical world in which he collects old design artifacts for future reference in his work. He is adamant that all the inspiration a designer needs to create beautiful work is out there, you just have to look for it.
“Here’s the lesson, you pukes: The shit’s out there. You just gotta find it. Even in the backyard of some old dame who’s got wayyyy too much whimsical yard art and whatever. You just gotta look.” ~ Aaron Draplin
Pinterest provides one solution that is the digital equivalent of a huge yard sale. The process of junking is how I gather inspiration from any source I can and save it for when I really need it.
Color speaks volumes
Color is essential to the branding process. To me it’s a natural, “assistive technology” that infuses additional meaning into the brand and helps to invoke its emotional nature and cement its personality.
The color selections for my personal logo were pretty simple and straight forward. I went with a family of greens to, again, primarily tie it back to my locale (the pacific northwest). I’m a California transplant (who isn’t these days) to the northwest, and I have never seen beauty like the natural surroundings of Washington and Oregon state. The weather aside, the beauty that is naturally occurring in this region is a constant source of inspiration. Psychologically green represents stability, growth, and balance — all three things I wanted to convey about my work.
The yellow used in conjunction with the shop logo is largely about bringing energy and warmth to the brand. The tagline I’ve been using is “be wonderful”, and I wanted to use a color that felt wonderful, positive, and bright. On the psychological end of things, yellow is a color of accumulated knowledge—of intellect. It’s non-emotional and analytical. And yet, it is completely emotional and outgoing. Again, these are traits I want to convey to the people we’re working with.
The color selection also reflects me to an extent. I am both analytical and emotional, and I like the dual nature of that existence. The website Empower Yourself With Color Psychology is a bit cheesy in its design, but when I was researching color choices for shop’s logo I came across this passage, which completely resonated with me:
“Within the meaning of colors, yellow is the great communicator and loves to talk. Yellow is the color of the networker and the journalist, all working and communicating on a mental level. Yellow is the scientist, constantly analyzing, looking at both sides before making a decision; methodical and decisive.”
Great communicator; networker; journalist; scientist, these are all words that resonate with me when I think about the future of our studio. Each of those labels represents an aspect that I find it crucial to have in order to be a designer in today’s design professions.
Considering all the considerations: print and purpose
Branding means considering all the possibilities of how these marks should be represented and supported. As I started working through the project I was faced with a few basic truths.
I have a great printer that I use to source work locally. She can work miracles with pretty much anything that needs to be printed on some type of substrate. We also work together on projects from time-to-time, and as a result, she gives me a good deal on printing because of that co-work/networking connection. Yet, despite the removal of the cost barrier, I came upon a larger, more relevant question that I wasn’t expecting. Does it make sense to do a full print run when so much of the work we do these days is digital? For instance, how many envelopes am I really going to send out each month/year? Enough to validate the outlay of cost?
A more detailed inner conversation was required. It went a little like this:
I’ve designed these colored envelopes, and while they were initially meant for more meaningful correspondence, I need to face the fact that they are probably not needed in a larger quantity because of our infrequent need to use physical mailing systems. Realistically, they would probably last such a long time that I’d probably never get through enough of them before some element on them would need to be changed. So, I guess the answer is no, I don’t need to incur the expense.
I did need something to be able to send out on rare occasions, so to counteract this, I developed black and white versions of letterhead and envelopes that can be used when I do need to mail something out, but it can be printed right from a laser printer, saving a ton of money.
Honestly, I struggled throughout the process of thinking about the printing. I’d like to say that I would use printed collateral all the time, but the honest fact is that we live in a print depleted world where email is sufficient and video chats work miracles. In the end, I still decided to get the collateral designs printed, but in much, much reduced quantities.
What’s your purpose: graphic designer vs. writer vs. educator
From the very beginning of this process I was challenged by professor and students alike on why I needed to maintain two sets of branding. They wanted to know why I wasn’t putting everything into my studio and foregoing the personal brand.
The real reason is that as a designer I don’t want to be completely tied to my studio for my identity. Things change, and honestly, a designer should never bury their personal identity in a corporate entity. That way when the two walk away from one another (and that does happen), the designer still has his his/her identity intact.
The other reason for maintaining both is that my professional writing and teaching are separate from shop’s endeavors. As a result, I run most of that work through my personal brand, rather than the studio.
Getting down to brass tacks
There were numerous things to consider as I moved through this project, but getting down to brass tacks is where it’s at.
The first to be tackled was my personal branding. I started exploring by simplifying and minimizing the existing mark even more than it already was. I did away with the simulated 3d shadow under the mountains and re-did the triangle components from scratch—sizing them to work well with one another. I worked on the color version of the mark before jumping in and doing an alternate, outline version that could work where color dared not tread. I also added my name and roles to the mark, which was something new. They had not been tied to one another prior to this, but the resulting solution worked really well.
I settled on a pretty standard collateral set consisting of a business card, letterhead, and envelope. As mentioned earlier, we live in changing times and what we’re using for branding now vs. what we will be using in 5–10 years will be remarkably different. For both brands I developed patterns based off the logo that could be used in a variety of applications (traditional and digital) to enforce and give some diversity to the brand.
For shop, I did minute tweaks to the mark due to how recent the last re-design was. I did in the end, however, spend time finalizing the supporting aspects of the logo—fonts, colors, and pattern elements.
The collateral for shop was a bit more extensive than my personal branding. Aside from the normal business card, letterhead, and envelope I also worked on a mailing sticker that can be used on envelopes and poster tubes and two variants of a thank you card. The goal in designing these artifacts was to ensure they worked together as a collective unit while infusing a little fun into the designs as well.
Know when to call it quits
The by-product of not becoming too precious about your work early on in the branding process is that you can also have a hard time knowing when the project has finished. Going too far in a design can lead to the artifacts looking over designed or too complicated.
I believe I found a solid mixture in my final artifacts. Winding down these projects I see a stronger brand than what I initially had. There is a cohesive mark representing my personal and professional ideas and a strong supporting collateral system to take that out into the world.
Branding, in my estimation, is about 20% design and 80% critical thinking and planning. Looking at the brand from all sides, thinking about what it stands for, the colors it uses, the type, the supporting artifacts, and it’s purpose is what fleshes out that entity. Without critically thinking about your brand it has little soul and will struggle to find its place.
