Brandtastic

An issue often discussed in design is the concept of brand, which when dissected to its most basic principles boils down to name recognition. Research reveals people make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing, and a brand provides the benefit of a previously established association.

Consumers have a preexisting knowledge of Kellogg's, for example, when they enter the grocery store: they've been bombarded with images, colors, and typefaces associated with the brand through advertisement long before they decided go shopping. A relationship has been established between consumer and product, and the familiarity that follows often encourages consumers to pay a premium to stick with what they know.

The information that relationship is based upon is often times irrelevant to the product itself. “A brand represents the holistic sum of all information about a product or group of products”, and if one's exposure thus far has been limited to the logo, name, and the jingle featured in every commercial, the information reflects more on the marketing team than the product itself. That information forms a powerful association, however, regardless how seemingly irrelevant or trivial.

This association is enormously beneficial to a supplier. When a consumer walks into a store and peruses the soap, the recognition of the Dove logo and form language compels them to look further, even before they consciously realize what it is they're looking at.

This is all old hat, of course; if you've worked in product design you are all too familiar with the zealous fervor with which “brand” is considered and guarded: “No, this is Kitchen Aid. Kitchen Aid is “quality you can feel”, yo. That means the knobs on the grill need to be at least the size of an infant's head, bigger if you can manage it.” or “Forcefully Gentle. Nuemay is Forcefully Gentle. Nevermind that the two terms are antonyms, marketing won't be happy unless the concepts look Forcefully Gentle”. At times it's a bit exhausting, but the more carefully-crafted- and in turn often repeated- the brand, the stronger the association made.

I think it's remarkable that many of us design students understand this concept quite well but fail to apply it to ourselves as designers. We are, after all, a product. When we look for a job, in theory, it would benefit us to use the same color, typeface, form, and presentation every time we update our portfolio (Damn, that Stefanussen girl's jingle is catchy. Let's give her a job!). The moment we put pen to paper in an attempt to begin a design career, we established a brand.

Our brand is the sum of everything we do as designers. It transcends the typeface and color scheme used in our portfolio, and includes our sketching style, the tone with which we write notes on our sketches, what we focus on in our projects, the way we dress, the way we speak with clients, the way we socialize with coworkers, the regard of other professionals, our past and present employment, and our performance at past and present employment.

There are five general reactions to a brand: brand rejection, brand non-recognition, brand recognition, brand preference, and brand loyalty. Failing to establish an online presence will likely result in brand non-recognition, dating three coworkers at the same time will probably result in brand rejection (OOPS), managing to not screw up a project might result in brand preference, and so on and so forth.

The goal, of course, is to achieve brand loyalty from clients in your industry. At this point in time your skills are deemed to be so kick-ass that people will hire and admire you even if, say, the juicer that made you famous only functions if the user is willing to drink his or her juice after it's been mopped up off the floor.

The products designed by a strong brand- be it a company or designer- can be recognized almost immediately, because those brands have worked hard to achieve consistency in their work and the presentation thereof. Popular examples would be Karim Rashid (bold, organic, pink, shaped like a peanut) Apple (white/aluminum, meticulously constructed, shaped like a box), and Eva Solo (geometric, metal, designed with the knowledge that it will be sold for approximately 13 times what it's worth).

How can we achieve this consistency while we're still learning to be designers? I hope to GOD my sketching style doesn't look the same in five years. Technical skills such as sketching and modeling will always be in a state of improvement, but our other assets as designers can be established now.

Our work ethic, willingness to cooperate, professionalism, charisma, creativity, and enthusiasm have already been judged by the companies we've interned for. I think more professionals than we realize have already developed associations with us as designers, be them positive or negative.

What we can do as students is to firstly, establish a positive association by producing the best work possible, and secondly, to capitalize on that association when the time comes with consistent work and a healthy amount of exposure. It's probably a good thing that we didn't keep our “logo” from freshman year and that we no longer use papyrus for our headers. After all, before tide figured out how to best advertise their product they needed to figure out how to make detergent.

Portoflio

A few good resources on ye old Portfolio:

Portfolio Preparation Tips and Suggestions
The One Page Graphic Design Portfolio Guide
Creating A Successful Online Portfolio
Grid and Column Designs
Designing With Grid-Based Approach
My Last Portfolio Sucked, Yours Might Too
50 Beautiful And Creative Portfolio Designs

Hey Y'all

Greetings from the fine city of Cincinnati! My name is Rachael Stefanussen, and I am an Industrial Design student at the University of Cincinnati. The subject of this blog will be design- good design, bad design, design I like to bitch about, design I like to praise, design I wish I could own, design I wish I could call my own, and design that has no right to existence whatsoever. Lots and lots of design.

I've long enjoyed writing and I've long loved design, but very rarely have the two interests collided. I was excited when my design communication professor (this is my first official shout out to the estimable Mike Roller ) announced the requirement to blog and document our musings on design. Few designers suffer a shortage of opinions when it comes to design, but even fewer can really explain why they think something is correct, appropriate or beautiful.

Though technical skill and theory is the foundation behind any design education, much of what a designer prefers personally is born from intuition and subconscious sensibility, formed over a lifetime of scattered, disparate, and oftentimes untraceable influences and events. Most of us don't know why we like the things we do. Even when I think I'm working in as objective a manner as possible, looking to function and brand to dictate style and form, everything turns out similar: the form is understated, often times linear and- strangely enough- phallic, almost always referencing some charming antique from centuries ago, and always, without fail, shown in damned, ever present pale, desaturated powder blue.

I would like to know why things always look best to me in pantone 7457 EC, and I would like to be able to explain why eloquently and concisely. And then, when I am tempted to render something in that wretched 7457 EC though I know I should employ the use of, say, downey blue or tide orange, I can resist and do what is appropriate, and will in turn be most successful.

This is one of my goals for this upcoming quarter. I would like to use this blog as a tool to practice disecting, understanding, and vocalizing my design preferences and opinions. My other goals are as follows: resume sketching religiously and learn to sketch faster, learn Maxwell so as to lessen my dependency on hypershot, and find a restaurant job so as to support my drinking habit.

Just kidding. Kind of.