Graphic Designers, Lets Take Back Control of Branding
There is a lot of confusion about branding and what it actually is and and isn’t. The new wave of so called ‘branding experts’ is in my opinion are making matters worse. They often speak a lot of jargon and fluff, producing massive reports that paralyse anyone actually trying to implement a strategy and move a business forward.
I am not saying branding isn’t important. Spend five minutes on this website and you will see we highly value branding, marketing and strategic thinking for business. The problem is the growing trend for consultants to position themselves in this new ‘branding’ space, trying to call everything strategic within a business, ‘branding’. They are not qualified to work in this space. More often than not, the words vision, values or marketing would much better fit what they are trying to communicate and business owners would actually understand it.
There are many branding experts running around, talking about branding and confusing business owners. In fact they often go as far as to under-mind the value of a logo design or other visual aids within a branding strategy. This is crazy! The term branding comes from the practice of taking a hot iron and pressing it to a beast in order to create a mark of identification, a visual representation of belonging… a lot like a corporate identity device such as a logo design wouldn’t you say? Step aside ‘branding experts’, the term branding belongs to graphic designers.
If these ‘experts’ simply rephrased their messages and used the appropriate terminology the average business owner would be a lot better off. Instead they continue to develop long-winded, mind-numbing branding strategies and reports that have little use for a business in the real world. The people responsible for setting the vision of the business are the people who should be calling the shots and working with graphic designers and marketing people to implement their vision. This would be a lot more effective and productive than what I see happening in many businesses right now. It frustrates me to see the so called ‘branding experts’ racking up the dollars and not producing any real results. It’s the graphic designers role to create a visual style to communicate the intended message for a business. They are the people qualified to visually communicate your vision through your brand.
If you have been following this website/blog for any length of time, you would know I value branding, marketing and strategy, having produce many resources and ebooks on the topic. I also believe strongly in creating vision, values and mission statements but let’s just call it what it is and remove the hocus pocus. I believe in creating consistency and communicating a visual message but I believe it’s the graphic designers role to interpret and create the brand in line with the key decision makers within the business. The people who set the vision, understand the values of the company and know who their target market is.
