Creating a Brilliant Brand: Visual Adaptability is Key

As we boldly and brilliantly head into 2021, we want to continue the dialogue about creating modern and brilliant brands that allow companies to navigate changes within their industry and shifting needs of their consumers to successfully grow their business.

Today, a brand not only needs to be everywhere and engage with a wider, diverse group of targets, but it also needs to continually build equity in its marks to drive uniqueness among competitors and a connection with consumers. Add to these the growing need for brands to potentially address societal issues in branding, it can be confusing and daunting for marketers to create or refresh their brand look.

To create a modern brand, companies must approach branding with one key focus in mind: adaptability. Adaptability is not simply updating or changing a logo to be featured across packaging and digital channels. A true adaptable visual identity grows with your brand to reflect everything from your values and mission to new offerings and services to standing with consumers on relevant issues.

Growth from the Beginning

A good logo and set of marks visually set a brand apart. A great logo and marks set you apart by bringing your brand essence to life and quickly establishing an immediate emotional connection with your audience. Adaptability in your brand begins at the creation of your visual identity.

Your visual identity needs to be created for growth. Look to your mission and values to define a base for your visual style and include vision growth to inform everything from color to typography. Also, focus on creating a set of adaptable icons that you can use (and update) across packaging, social media, and your Website or any other usage occasion.

I’m enamored with the new Whitney Museum logo as it illustrates how a modern brand can honor its legacy while creating a new, adaptable look to engage a new set of diverse patrons and artists. You can find a great article on the new logo design here.

Planning for Adapting

Modern Brands must include planned adaptability in your branding to be used across marketing, sales, and communications. Develop a logo and marks that can be updated and adapted to communicate key times throughout the year such as business anniversaries, holidays, and other unique time pegs that are relevant to your consumers, your mission, and your offering. Also, as you develop or refresh your visual identity, plan for adapting for the next social media platform or new packaging option.

Google does a great job of planned adaptability with its Google Doodles. Evolving their instantly recognizable logo to drive deeper interaction with consumer globally is genius. Each year Google maps out opportunities to educate its users (it is a search engine after all) while continuing to engage its users to deepen emotional connections to the brand through unique and artistic updates to the logo on its homepage. From artists to architecture to breaking world events, these logo adaptations are much more than a simple doodle.

Reactive Adapting

One of the toughest and most critical tenants around adaptability is responsiveness. As we’ve all seen this past year, businesses and brands across all sectors and industries have needed to adapt their brand strategy. Brands have also adapted their visual marks to show solidarity and support for wide-ranging causes and groups. With each new issue, there are a set of challenges each brand must identify and filter to ensure they are being responsive in an organic and supporting manner. Not every brand will or should address every issue. Identify the key issues that most impact your mission and your customers, plan to adapt your logo or marks to show support and understanding. Brands have muted their colors or incorporated iconography into their marks. With responsive adaptability, the key is to be authentic to your brand, team, and customers.

I thought Facebook did an excellent job of honoring the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg by updating its logo to reflect her iconic style and importance to the country and encouraging its users to vote.

Logo adaptability is one piece of the modern branding puzzle. No matter where you are in your brand journey, we’re here to help you create a modern brand to meet the evolving demands companies are facing. Let us know how we can help you and your brand grow.