As anyone who’s talked to me within the past 3 weeks can attest, I have been slammed with oceans and oceans of new clients. While this is always glorious news, it does leave me a bit feeling like a tape recorder as I try to explain the differences between a logo and a brand countless times a day.
But I don’t think anything will do it quite like this. While shopping the other day, I got stuck on a large scale “C R E”, and I was convinced I knew where I had seen this someplace else before. It took me a minute, but then it totally hit me in the face. Victoria’s Secret and j.crew use the same logo. Mind you there are absolutely tweaks divided up between the two brands, but make no mistake- they use the same traditional serif, in a clear, crisp way– and BOTH are masters of using the surrounding elements to speak to the overall message of the two companies.
I don’t have to tell you what to think about when I say Victoria’s Secret. Bold, confident commercials, boasting dark saturations of color, bright lights and flashy sexiness. Meanwhile, I cannot dredge to mind a single image of a j.crew commercial.
This is branding.
The choice in how you market yourself, the decisions of a color palette; and even more than that, how you apply those colors, for what purpose, and to what end?
What is the tone of your blog posts? How do you meet customers, and even more than that, how do you decide which customer’s to work with, and which ones you’d rather gently move away from?
While these decisions and questions are far less sexy than looking at delish images on pinterest, they really set the stage in terms of how to approach branding, especially when it becomes an attempt to brand something so personal.
Just some things to think about!
xo,
jne