Corporate Identity Systems

We're often asked: "How important is my corporate identity to my business or brand?" To answer that we reply, "Have you ever tried to change it?" Anyone who has been through an animated corporate identity redesign meeting knows exactly what we mean. Your corporate identity, sometimes referred to as your logo, is the cornerstone of your marketing system, the seed from which the look and feel of all of your other marketing materials, both print and Web, should organically blossom. So to answer the question more directly, your corporate identity is very important to your business or brand.

Or, let's say you don't have a corporate identity or logo: "How important is it to have a professionally designed corporate identity?" To that we say: If your competition has a well-designed corporate identity, you should probably care about having one as well.

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What is 'corporate identity'? Your corporate identity is not your brand, nor is your brand your corporate identity. Nor is it your brochure or Web site, or all of those things combined. What it should be is a symbol with which your company differentiates itself from its competition, and from other products and services in the marketplace.

Most companies have at least a little competition, and all companies have millions of other products and services competing for their client's budget ? that's a pretty big job for a one to two inch graphic. Therefore, your corporate identity needs to be unique, as well as attractive, memorable, eye-catching and appropriate for your target market(s). It needs to be able to stand the test of time, or at the very least, a few years beyond your first company and/or product launch. It needs to be executed by a designer who understands the subtleties of typography, color and form, and the ability of those design elements to communicate the distinct personality traits of your brand. And it needs to work as well in black and white as it does in color, and also at a variety of different sizes.

Many companies are not aware that their corporate identity, whether or not it is trademarked, is considered to be your intellectual property and therefore an asset that should not only be carefully protected, but also designed to be proprietary. It should therefore also not be comprised of cliched or over-used graphic elements such as the infamous swoosh punctuated with a sphere, and so forth.

Once designed, your corporate identity needs to be extended across all of your marketing materials to create a unified and consistent look and feel that effectively supports your brand. Ideally, you should be able to spread out all of your branded marketing materials ? business cards, stationery, brochures, company t-shirts, etc. ? on a table in front of a computer screen with your Web site ? and everything should look like it comes from the same family. If you put those items together and you see a 'Frankenbrand' looking back at you, you've got a marketing problem that needs immediate attention.

Elevata can assist you with the following types of Corporate Identity Projects:

• Corporate Identity/Logo Design
• Business Card/Stationery System Design
• Identity System Applications
• Corporate Identity Audits: Is it time for me to refresh or redesign my logo?

Help! I don't have a logo, or the logo I've got is a Frankenbrand!

DESIGN AND YOUR BUSINESS

CORPORATE IDENTITY SYSTEMS

WEB SITES

BUSINESS STATIONERY SYSTEMS

PRODUCT LOGOS

PACKAGING + POINT OF SALE

PRINT COLLATERAL

PRINT ADVERTISING

ILLUSTRATION, ICONS + DIAGRAMS

COPYWRITING

PRINT PRODUCTION

BRANDING STRATEGY

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