"An image... is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service."- Daniel Boorstin
Branding is a very complicated process, probably one of the most challenging for every graphic designer. I believe that creating a successful identity for a multinational company, small business or a local bakery has to have the same professional approach.
Things get complicated later on, since big multinationals, for being multinationals, need to take into account many more issues than our local bakery.
In course of years I have made many logos, for small and big clients, and some of those are shown here.
Each project is a new “scientific” approach to the need of a client. Loads of brainstorming and sketching - good ideas, bad ideas, anything inspiring, with the brief always in mind.
You work on it, you detach for a while and go do something completely different, so that you can have a more objective look at it once you get back.
And once you get back, you start the cleansing until you get the essence, because "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
Creating a new logo is challenging, but maybe not as challenging as restyling the old one, once the company changes it’s target or it just wants to renew its image and stay up-to-date with the new times.
This especially happens to big, well established companies that have been around for a long time, but also to small and new ones who realized that underestimating brand creation at their very beginning, brought them nothing but headaches later on.
Then there is the emotional issue, where the small clients are always more difficult to convince, that if they changed completely the target and look of their shops, restaurants, etc.
they also need to change their brand that doesn’t reflect the new priorities anymore.
Unfortunately for us graphic designers, graphic design has been underestimated for years, since many think, feel and believe that anyone can do it.
It has been reduced to “liking” and “disliking” of clients who don’t understand nor appreciate the process behind and the reasons why some decisions have been made.
Graphic Design is often understood as art - and yes, it can also be art, but in the first place it is a process that has been asking questions along the way in order to produce the results.
In order to produce a good corporate graphic design, you really need to have a client that understands and can think "out of the box" and this is where I very much agree with Mr. Primo Angeli who said that "It can't be stressed enough that in order to produce great graphics, you have to have a good product and a good client capable of making decisions."