Visuality in Corporate Communication

This paper wishes to emphasize the necessity and importance of the communicational capital of a business, in the midst of fierce competition and ‚bombarding' of all clients with a great deal of data through classical methods of advertising. The overcrowding of media channels with information about different products, the excessive advertising through classical methods (e.g. TV, radio, media) has led to a negative attitude of potential clients towards such items. Hence, a boomerang effect has occured as a result of the above-mentioned excess of advertising products and services. Furthermore, marketing specialists have come to the conclusion that the single promoting of a product through TV, radio, media will not make the consummer choose a certain product / service or a brand. But the integrated concept of communication will...

2017

Aalto-yliopisto, PL 11000, 00076 AALTO www.aalto.fi Taiteen kandidaatin opinnäytteen tiivistelmä Tekijä Riikka Iivanainen Työn nimi Branding through visual design: A case study of a company's visual identity guided by brand values and story Laitos Design Koulutusohjelma Design Vuosi 2017 Sivumäärä 57 Kieli English Tiivistelmä This thesis is a study on how a company can use visual design in branding. A company's visual identity has previously been studied mostly through corporate identity and from the perspective of designing individual identity elements. Visual design in all of its applications including products, environments and information has received less attention. The objective was to investigate what kind of considerations building and managing a visual identity requires and in which parts of branding visual design can play a role. Evaluating the effectiveness of the chosen approach to visual design was left outside the scope. The topic was studied through a literature review and case study. The Finnish distillery Kyrö Distillery Company was selected as the case company because of its active branding efforts and broad use of visual material. The case study was divided into visual research and interview with the company's marketing manager. The objective of the visual research was to gain an initial understanding of the case company's visual identity. The interview was conducted to shed light on the decision-making and challenges behind the visual identity. Since the study was a single case study of a company in the distinctive alcohol industry there are limitations to applying the findings to all businesses. In branding visual design can be used to differentiate products, create brand awareness and justify a premium price. The case study findings suggest that companies can approach creating a visual identity through their brand values and story. Companies should consider how different visual identity elements relate to each other as well as to the other senses. One of the biggest challenges is maintaining a coherent and consistent visual identity when collaborating with various other parties. Companies can benefit from clear instructions, a design manual and especially from centralizing visual design to one trusted design agency. This thesis provides a starting point for companies planning to create or redesign their visual identity as it highlights some of the main considerations and challenges when managing visual design. Visual design can be a powerful tool in branding and an alternative to traditional advertising.

Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the International Committee for Design History and Design Studies, 2014

In visual identity context, graphic designer has the difficult task to optimize the emission of an intangible message, and give it graphical form, trying to communicate complex information to the audience by the most understandable way possible. During graphic signs selection, the designer's intention attends to the Corporate Visual Identity goals concerning the public's perception, in order to control the Corporate Image. In a globalized and increasingly digital world, small businesses appear to be large, markets are broader and brand communication strategies appear to be on the customization and fascination of the masses. However, in Portuguese context it isn't strange to find companies that do not know themselves, they haven't done a work of inner reflection on their values, mission and goals. In this system, the designer has assumed greater responsibilities in brand communication process, both in defining strategies and in graphic codes selection and orientation. This paper is based on literature review, seeking to contribute to knowledge about the graphic designer role during the materialization of brand speech, including how the graphic signs personality expression in a cultural context.

Human Factors and Ergonomics, 2016

The competition in the 21 st century is among brands. The two conventional tools for brand management today are brand identity, specifying the facets of brands' uniqueness and value, and brand positioning – a short claim that contains a set of a few differentiating properties, communicated to a target audience. Brand identity, when used as a source for brand positioning, helps the brand change its communication style by different positioning strategies, yet remain coherent, consistent and true to itself over time. This paper identifies and explains the types of elements of a visual brand identity program such as logo(s), typography, colour, symbols, imagery, composition, etc., used to tangibly express characteristics and intangible added values of identity such as personality traits, character qualities and sensations. The result of the analysis is a framework for planning the design of visual identity programs in order to encode and convey particular meanings and to strengthen brands' perceptions and images.

In order to examine the application of conceptual communication of branding, this paper reviews and analyzes three contemporary design cases so as to bring a broad view as well as to synthesize the visual representation from a visual-communication perspective. The purpose of this study is to: 1) analyze the processes of brand concept delivery and its effectiveness from a visual-communication perspective, 2) interpret brand concept delivering from various visual representations through three case studies, and 3) discuss how visual representation can play a value-added role in a contemporary setting. There are two stages in this study: the first is to collect and to review documents related to brand concept and visual communication; while the second is to analyze the content by using case study method, with which to investigate visual communication in terms of industry types, representations and features, so as to understand the application of conceptual communication for branding image and its delivery.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF TODAY: INTERSECTORAL ISSUES AND DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCES VOLUME2, 2021

Introduction. Modern social communications research identifies brand identity as one of the dominant components of image communication and brand formation. Within the framework of our study, brand identity is defined as a set of internal characteristics that embody, distinguish, personify a brand, as well as external characteristics or visual features that represent the brand for a specific communicative purpose (attracting attention, creating a certain emotion or motivating to interact with the brand, etc.). Visualization of identity as a communication practice is implemented as a syncretic combination of various forms of fixation information that is decoded by the audience. A balanced and effectively designed identity can be a fundamental basis for the formation of consumer loyalty, their retention and the creation of competitive advantage. Without comprehensive, well-defined brand identity, the audience may not identify the brand, not distinguish it from others, which lead to the impossibility of effective communication between the brand and the consumer. It is important to note, that the concept of "brand identity" is not identical with the concept of "branding" because brand identity is a product of effective branding. The purpose of the article is to determine the role of identity in image communication in the modern information field and to reveal the meaning of identity in its various manifestations in the process of designing an effective communicative environment for image communication. The important role of identity, especially in today's communicative and interactive information environment, is evidenced by researches in the field of identity, marketing and design, in particular, such as David Airey (Identity Designed: The Definitive Guide to Visual Branding), Pat Matson Knapp (Designing Corporate Identity: graphic design as a business strategy), Donald Miller (Building a StoryBrand), Alina Wheeler (Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands) and many others.

Psychology & Marketing, 2014

Most brands are represented visually in print advertisements, and these visual representations must consistently identify the brand to the consumers who encounter it. At the same time, some of the particular visual elements used to represent the brand must change over time, because it is not acceptable to run the same ad year after year without refreshing its visual content. To explore these issues, a qualitative exploration was conducted with ad agency art directors and ordinary consumers. The focus was the criteria used by each group to determine when changes in the visual representation of the brand succeed, by staying consistent with the brand's identity, or fail, by violating expectations. Professionals, with their greater aesthetic sensitivity, had a more narrow latitude of acceptance for changes. A follow-up experiment with consumers showed that aesthetically aware consumers were likewise more sensitive to alterations in visual brand identity than consumers for whom aesthetics were not central. Results are interpreted in terms of assimilation effects and degree of incongruity along with the moderating effect of aesthetic skill. C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

C. Soddu & E. Colabella (Eds.), "GA2014 - Proceedings of XVII Generative Art Conference", 2014

In the communication design field, main applications of a generative approach are for information graphics and flexible visual identities. Looking to recent practices we can observe cases of visual identities – that can be defined as dynamic or post-logo – that present a completely opposite approach compared to the traditional production in the field of corporate image. The use of visual languages that are more fluid and expressive, variable, context related, processual, performative, non-linear, consistent are now preferred to the usual and static repetition of a logo or an imposed series of rules. The classical structure of corporate identity – a subject representation through a series of primary and subsidiary visual elements which has in the manual his book of rules – is reactivated by the use of meta-design tools and processes that can be compared to the transition from closed to open systems. Galanter affirmed that generative art refers to any practice where an artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art. This definition emphasizes the artist proactive role in the definition of rules or guidelines that allow the production of multiple solutions consistently to the framework. This is the same in the generative design practices, that look to be something more than just a generation Y passion. In generative design practices, the user of computer and ready-made digital tools (professional softwares) becomes the programmer of personalized digital toolboxes – often developed by using Processing, VVVV or java-script codes –. This approach deeply changes the design process and the perspective of practitioners, introducing the idea of a new craftsmanship. Technical issues remain in the background, abstraction and data parameters come into the foreground. This new scenario in the creative and design process empowers the designer, freeing he from the constraints of predefined computational tools, and promoting creative freedom in the construction of visual metaphors. The aim of this paper is to argue this recent evolution in the field of visual identities and in the wider area of communication design practice. by showing a series of case histories as well as presenting the results of some experimental projects.