I can remember putting together a 'persona" for a UK based company during a long-haul flight from London to Jakarta. If there was ever a place to kill time it was on a plane. Actually if I had flown with Lufthansa Airlines I would have probably got more done because they don't have those cool video screens in the back of their seats, however; Singapore Airlines do so I found myself distracted by watching all the action scenes from King Kong and Spiderman.
I have never been able to sleep when flying (nerves) so I tend to doodle. On this particular occasion my doodling would fill several sheets of A4 paper with words, phrases and what might be loosely described as drawings. My goal was to fully work up a corporate identity before I landed. Now some people might think that a corporate identity is just a logo, how long can that take to create, eh? Perhaps it comes down to individual perception but for me developing a corporate identity is more than just designing a logo. Earlier I mentioned the word "persona" and if you could have seen my sheets of paper you would instantly understand the problem I was attempting to solve. I already understood what the business was going to provide in terms of services and products, I had a complete grasp of its target audience. All I had to do was give it a believable and trustworthy personality.
The first phase of research had already been completed so for the next 14 hours I could let lose on design. It's a personal thing but the way I prefer to work is to start by designing a logo and I always work in black and white at this stage of the game, colour being an unnecessary distraction. I'm a firm believer that if a logo can work well in black and white, it will work equally well when colour is introduced to it.
I look at a company's "persona", even judge it if I'm honest, in the same way I make that initial accessment of a person when I meet them for the first time. Often this assessment is subliminal, I can't speak for anyone else but I for one make certain initial assessments and I am fully aware I am making them. To break this down in its simplest terms, physical appearence, dress sense, body language, voice delivery and word choice all can have a near instant impact on your own perception of a person you have just met but know nothing about.
We make instant judgements about corporate indentities in the same way. Can I trust this company? Will its products enhance my life? Will its services deliver on the promise? Will I be treated with respect? Will they value my opinion? Was my entire experience when dealing with them a pleasent one Have they captured my loyalty?
Part of any company's journey toward positive perception will find its way down the path of corporate identity creation and brand development. My sheets of paper were fast becoming strategic road maps to a set of solutions, even if they were incoherent scribbles to the fellow sitting next to me and suffering from "Long Leg Sydrome". To me they were a recipe for success.
I had covered and in as much detail as I could manage with pen and paper and a considerable lack of elbow space, the concepts of look and feel, tone of voice, positioning statements, brand mechanisms, individuality, visual impact, the recognition factor, design values, continuity and down right attractiveness. I think I was somewhere over India when I realised that I would be perfect for answering this company's help desk phone in a branded yet friendly and approachable manor.
I was about 2 hours out of Jakarta and my pressure stockings where giving me jip. The processed food wasn't the only thing I had digested during the flight, the process of creating my scribbles had reaffirmed my belief that corporate identity is far more than coming up with a logo that works large and small and across different delivery platforms and environments, it's about the development of an engaging personality and it includes everything from the fonts that will be used throughout a company's marketing literature, the colours that reflect its core values, the way staff answer their business phones, the style of the carpet that covers the company floor, the list goes on, depending on budget.
Companies of all sizes should invest a great deal of energy in a thoroughly realised corporate identity, because it's this persona that will influence the way people think about them for years to come.
