Corporate Identity

A corporate identity isn't just about a logo. A good corporate identity should apply itself to every aspect of an organisation, from stationery, signage, interiors, livery and publicity materials.  It should be flexible, but rigid enough to be recognisable. This is not to be confused with a brand. But we will come on to that later.

We are not going to sit you down and talk you through what a logo is and how effective it should be or how we will dream one up for your organisation or anything like that. Every job is different, and it should be. Every organisation is different.

However, to cover some of the boxes that we tick, any logo will;

• Work on a tiny postage stamp size as well as on the side of a lorry.
• Perform well in black and white, mono, reversed out and of course, full colour.
• Translate to screen without losing definition.
• Communicate your organisation's hopes, dreams, values and services.
• Look really good.

An effective brand should communicate what you want to portray to every market you come into contact with. Internally and externally, the 'mark' and associated elements should reflect the ideals of the organisation and fit within brand. If we were to use Marmite as an example of a brand in the context of identity, we can see that Marmite's distinctive bottle shape and scrolled title are part of its identity, how consumers identify it on the shelf. But it's brand is 'love it or hate it', part of our childhood, good for you, got us through the War, even a topic of discussion and argument.

Brand and identity are not the same thing, they work together, but changing your logo won't be enough to build up your brand.

We do branding development too, by the way.

As part of a corporate identity review we look into all the issues  that 'relate' to the identity and it's production, consistency and implementation.

Paper

The weight, colour and finish of a paper can enhance a feel or message. When we look at the paper issue, whether it's coated or uncoated we can make a recommendation to help enhance your message whilst lowering the costs.

Fonts

Aside from the style of lettering that makes up your name, we often suggest associated fonts to use with materials. Firstly we would select a font that compliments the new mark. This might mean purchasing a number of weights from a foundry. Secondly we would suggest any further fonts needed, for instance; a generic 'letter writing' font and a website font. These fonts would be selected from the generic fonts found on PCs.

Colour

During a review we will look at various different colour ways, or perhaps a palette. Before selecting colours, we will research into 'tints', percentages of the colours and how they print, for instance if you choose, red and you produce a lot of one or two colour publications, you will end up with a lot of pink. Unless you choose a red with a bit of black in it. We will also consider overprinting techniques, conversions to different colour spaces for onscreen rendition and 'web safe' colours. There is quite a lot of work in it really, very little of it is based on taste or 'picking something pretty'.

Images

For almost everybody, publicity materials require accompanying images. They can be photographs, diagrams, charts or illustrations. A corporate identity review provides a fantastic opportunity to consider what style of imagery you should use in publicity materials and how they should be treated.

Areas to be addressed

Areas that need to be addressed in the process of a corporate identity review are listed below:

• Research and opinion forming on current values
• Opinion forming, focus groups and consultation
• Developing avenues of approach
• Logo concepts and design
• Complimentary typefaces
• Paper specification
• Colour issues
• Flexibility of application of the new logo
• Producing an identity system of implementation
• Application to printed materials
• Production issues, costs, timescales, etc...
• Identity guidelines and the production of a style guide manual
• Application to new media or any other 'specific' application
• In-house templates and forms
• Launch of the new identity
• Event and press and media campaigns
• Ongoing support and monitoring
• Future activities, eg recruitment campaigns

Templates

For one organisation, the Community Development Fund (CDF) we designed ourselves out of a job. CDF produce oodles of publications, from two sided A5 flyers to huge reports telling the government to pull their finger out. When we say huge, we mean huge. Navig8 devised a set of the usual internal templates; fax headers, Word, Power Point templates and email signatures.

We also devised a compete publishing system, with colour palettes, Quark templates, style sheets, master pages, in all of the common sizes and in two or full colour. Don't underestimate the size and scope here – it took a considerable amount of time and effort to devise something simple enough, flexible enough and creative enough to be able to be handed to a Mac operator or fellow designer and give them the ability to make stunning, on brand and within style, publications.

Alternatively, some people ask us just to design them a logo and that's fine too.

Because we're experts in both print and online media, our corporate identity systems always consider all applications and deliver an identity that hits the mark.

Examples include:

	Community Development Foundation identity An identity project focused on delivering a set of templates for all of CDF's marketing, publications and web-based needs. »more
	ContinYou identity This identity project utilised all of our core services: naming, branding, design for both print and web, as well as a launch event. »more
	AIDS Portal identity A redefined brand turned this complex global organisation's website into a high-performance communications portal for AIDS/HIV research, funding and policy-making. »more
	Unison Open College identity Logo design and identity design »more