< back Advantage by Design – Art Direction in Brand - South East Business August 2010

Last month I discussed the starting point for creating, developing and evolving any brand; tone-of-voice. How you talk to your audience should be the most important part of your business and your brand strategy.

I’ll be developing thoughts on how your brand should speak in the coming months but now want to discuss the other major factor in developing a brand. This is the visual aspect or art-direction as we call it.

Recently we transformed the brand of a major commercial cleaning company looking to develop its green credentials and capitalise on a significant gap in the London market.

Strategic work carried out by Impact to support brand development actually pointed towards a more significant change to appeal to this new market including a name change and developing a brand identity to complement it.

Initial creative produced a tone-of-voice that was in-tune with the way its potential clients wanted to be spoken to. Our team then created the visual feel for the brand.

Crucially this “green” brand had to appeal to major corporations in the property and facilities management market. The art-direction had to give confidence that Citrica were green, but could handle significant and prestigious London contracts. They couldn’t look eco-warrior or they would alienate potential clients.

Citrica are now the UK’s Greenest Commercial Cleaning Company serving an enviable client base and look the part. You can see the visual aspects of how the brand developed at www.impact-im.co.uk

Now we have an idea of how you speak and what you look like, next month I’ll discuss the one thing most people think is actually a brand. A logo.

Tune in next month or alternatively email me to discuss how your business can gain advantage by design.