Creating business through design
- Why design is a key competitive factor in business
- How to make design work for your brand(s)
Rationale of the book
In the 21st Century the business world is fully discovering the (commercial) value of design as a key competitive factor. Yet business professionals still find it hard to use design as a strategic tool that makes brands perform better. And to work with designers. Design professionals find it hard to understand business strategy. And to work with professionals in branding, marketing and communication. A stereotype? Certainly! But true all the same.
The key to bring all this together, to influence your brand and your business, is Visual Branding. It epitomises the modern developments in marketing and communication; explaining why more and more businesses are shifting their focus to design and why this change works for brands.
We live in a time of ‘global warming’ in the field of communication and branding. In developed countries people see approximately 550.0001 brands per year. And a far larger amount of other commercial messages. It is a challenge for companies to survive and be successful in this fierce and constant battle of brands for the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers.
Source; Flickr, Teun Castelein All rights reserved. 2
Reading this book will help you to increase the return on investment of your marketing spend, since it will help you reach and involve your customers in a more effective way. Consumers are thoroughly trained in receiving branded messages; judging them, looking right through them. They do this as effectively and subconsciously (and nearly as often) as breathing.
Foolish consumers only exist in the minds of foolish marketers.
This book helps you to smart up your marketing and branding efforts. It does not give an ‘all purpose model’, neither does it bring eternal and flawless wisdom. It offers an analysis and vision that helps you find the best answer to your own specific situation.
Visual Branding captures what is happening right now in a busy, globalised world of brands.
I invite you to visit this website and be an active contributor. I will release brief outlines of the 8 main topics in the book; every fortnight a new outline will be uploaded. Give your opinion, experience, ideas, examples, data that either confirm (or deny) the relevance of Visual Branding. In this manner the discussion about Visual Branding can continue to evolve even after publication. Business and design professionals from all over the world can share their knowledge and learn from each other.
I will continue to communicate and interact about Visual Branding through the website until it is fully integrated in our way of thinking and doing business.
May this moment arrive soon!
Tom Dorresteijn
P.S. Any input you give to www.visual-branding.com that is regarded valuable might be earmarked on the site or even be used in the first edition of the book or later editions. In that case we will clearly mention you as the source of this particular contribution. In other words: feel free to become a guest contributor to the site or the book.
1 Source: American Trade Association.
2 The Sandberg institute reflect with Artvertising to our current society where we live between the picture marks and the idea of a logo has developed into a life style, surroundings strategy and a business model.
Tom, well done! In visual-branding.com you take the next step in how I know you: aiming for evidenced business results from visual design. Strengthening the strategic basis for excellence in visual design is much needed in a time when images are so much more important than words when aiming to reach and convince people. And in a time where businessleaders demand a sound bass for investments in marketing, visual design included. Congrats! I look forward to participating in the discussion.
Tom, good start! Good and solide evidence for visual design is needed to further improve the field of expertise. I am anxious to read your thoughts on how visual branding can truly add value, improving customer and brand experience. Get out of the standard dimensions, set visual branding free! Looking forward to the next chapters and, knowing your daily challenges, admire your ambitious timeline!
This site was mailed to me. I am happy to see it. My professional background is in b-t-b marketing. I recognise your analysis and I think you touch a point there. I will follow your publications and give more respons.
Branding is nothing new. Visual branding, either. However, visual branding from the business-professional perspective or from the interactive perspective is truly new. Although the title of the book is not sufficiently clear about it, I can see that this is the issue in the author’s mind. Based on my observations, business people are from Mars, and design people Venus. The gap has been there from the beginning, but has never been proactively and effectively bridged. The efforts here seem to be promising in resolving the conflicts. Borrowing the concept of Web 2.0, which is more about interactivity, I like to coin a term - Design 2.0 or Visual Branding 2.0, which is also about interactivity. not between businesses and consumers, but between business people and design people. Interactive visual branding will combine the bests of the two types of people: business people and design people, and enhance productivity, effectivenss, and harmony of the desind process. I also like to call this the partnership approach. Is my understanding on the money?
An original approach, aimed at stimulating discussion on a very interesting subject. You know me as a critical person, critical but constructive criticism is what you will get.
First of all: who is the target group for your book ? Should be stated clearly at the beginning.
At the risk of raising questions that will be dealt with in the next chapters: what exactly distinguishes visual branding from strategic design ? This is the core question which should be asked right at the start of the book. If it is a vision, it begs the question how to operationalize it. Your point about the atomic explosion of brand expressions that any person is bombarded with every day and the need for a company/brand to stand out in the crowd is clear. But what is it that makes visual branding ‘strategic’ ? One could easily argue that limiting branding to the visual aspect of it, it can never bring business on its own. If the brand promise is not followed by prompt delivery, it won’t work. Alternatively, delivering promises that your target group aren’t aware of or can’t place it in context doesn’t work either. I take it this will be dealt with later in the book as well ?
The strategic dimension of visual branding (to be defined...) also brings up the question of responsibility and accountability.
Finally, I hope the unfolding of your vision on visual branding will also touch upon the relationship between corporate branding and product branding.
All the best with the book, I am anxious to see the next outlines.
hi tom
sounds good so far, any debate or dialogue that helps break down the barriers is a good thing, i also read the interview in adformatie… the problem i often have with these kind of models is that they tend to remain rather ethereal and abstract, i will follow your progress on this one with great interest… although it’s easy to point the finger i still miss a breed of client that is daring enough to go beyond his own taste and values to allow his brand to exploit it’s real potential, in other words i still find that most clients are themselves the barrier to making a real difference in what you call visual branding, as a designer (and consumer) i am constantly surrounded by evidence of the power of design in my own world but also sadly too often what happens when a brand falls short of it’s promise… good luck with the book
Dear Tom,
We don’t know each other yet. But as mentioned in my email, I really think it is a great idea to develop your book in such an ‘open’ manner. And as promised I will contribute the discussion with a constructive attitude.
After reading the interview in Adformatie, I am really curious about how you define and create a brand personality. As sayd before (in my email), a personality is always a part of an identity, but maybe you can convince me of your truth ; )).
For now. Good luck with the writing. I am really looking forward to Juy 18th.
Kind regards,
Marcel
Tom, great initiative!
looking forward to see your vision on how to connect/synthesize, the “reasoning” with the “imagination”, the “logic” with the “magic”, the “ratio” with the “emotion”, the “business” with the “art”.
Both, being Brand Driven (based on a Point-of-View) and Consumer Centred (with relevance for consumers) should be important business attitudes,
developing a share-of-mind by engaging and inspiring consumers and employees in brand development/evolution processes.
Looking forward to your next chapters and the final book,
hopefully with a lot of visual and pragmatic examples!
rgds,
Max van Lingen
Tom, are you defining the logo as the brand?
Dear Tom,
Great idea, great challenge. Haven’t got a precise clue on what will follow the next months but herewith some thoughts. The rationale is clear. From my point of view I strongly believe that branding ‘works’ when you have a certain amount of control over the total experience of, or interaction with the brand. What would than be the exact domain of visual branding? Is it limited to graphic manifestations or does it also include the style of products? How does it relate to product experience, especially in places where things are interwoven (the web)? I’m convinced you will come up with a lot of great insights!
ciao, Jeroen
Dear Tom,
I am impressed by the messages you send me. It is a relief to learn that theory and practice seldom match.
I admire your effort and will certainly help me and many others to get organised. However, I fully agree with the statements of Hans Wolbers regarding emotions, enthousiasm as the key factors for succes in business and thus branding.
Respect and an open mind for long term values is often the missing factor among decission makers.
When the average working period of a ceo is 4 year you can’t expect the dedication and loyalty a brand needs to flourish.
Nevertheless we are in a nice and promising era where your book can be a stimulating factor.
Frans Passet
Paul Rand already stated: the logo does not represent the company, it is the company that represents the logo.
I am a University lecturer. I reside within the business school but have a background of 14 years in design. I am currently writing a new course of study for business and marketing students which aims to address the gap between designers and business managers. The working title for the new course ‘an appreciation of visual branding for non design led management’. I was interested to read your work to date and would value your input on my module.
Larissa
Hi Tom,
how valuable is a contribution like yours that can add to the clarity on communication. I strongly support models and handles for clients that can help them make choices in their strategy, that do NOT limit design companies in their hunt for quality. I agree with a comment above: the clients themselves are often the brakes on developing good visual communication. Therefor you should consider the target group of your book: it could be most effective when people at companies would read it, they often lack enough information and knowledge to manage an energetic and visionary design process. In a period of 10 or 20 years different designers stop by, with diferent visions, I can imagine that it is hard to manage this, and we experience that every day on the other end. Especiallly marketing strategists are a steering power in a negative way, underestimate the possibilities of design and visual branding, and focus too much on the proces itself.
In the time we live in it is clear that product innovation and visual branding are the main tools to keep reviving your brand.
Grtz, Rob
I highly subscribe to the issues you put forward here. Our company, Liever, is a website about design. Design is the bedrock of our company culture and the CEO is a designer. Good stuff.
We both know that there is no recipe for a strong brand. Otherwise everyone would be able to create strong brands.
Web Design
SEO Company
SEO Expert
Hi Tom and others!
Very interesting and original concept and approach to the Branding. It is not the secret that several types of companies offering similar services in the field. I mean Advertising Agencies, Branding Agencies, Design Studios and Communication Agencies.
So I have one question. If it is true that outcome of Branding is design.
Please can you explain what is the key difference between such similar companies and their places on market. And where is the place of Visual Marketing Companies among them.
Visual branding is more important than ever and much more challenging than ever. Not only do we need to create an identifiable brand on traditional media, not we have to design that brand to look good on web pages, and even more challenging, on mobile devices. It is worth the effort in the end though.
Wilma
magneticmessenger