Designing a Refresh
For many businesses, they’ve had a dedicated brand identity for years, even decades. These antiquated brand guidelines actively inhibit the business, as you are seen as old, or out of touch.
To combat this, companies often do a brand refresh, essentially bringing all their existing assets up to date, so they better fit with their current audience or consumers.
In order to do this, there are some crucial points that businesses need to do to ensure that it is successful for a long time.
Research and Analysis
Being able to do thorough research prior to any project is essential, whether that is through interviews with employees or consumers to evaluate their current perception of the brand, or study into the history of the business in order to pull what has made it special and unique through the years.
Similarly, being able to do outside research on what current design trends look like, and ways that the brand can stand out, especially compared to its competitors are great for ensuring an effective design that can last.
2. Competitive Analysis
Like I mentioned before, it is essential that your brand stands out from your competitors, otherwise risk it blending in and feeling generic. Thus, to properly perform a competitive analysis, designers should research:
Taglines and key messages
Logos, colors, fonts, styles
Value proposition
Thought leadership and content marketing
Website and digital/social presence
3. Visual Identity and Brand Guides
Next comes creating a visual identity that matches your brand’s positioning and key messages you aim to promote. This comes with creating new color palettes, styles, photography, fonts, textures and other brand elements. This can also include a logo refresh as well, though not necessary.
After a visual identity is created, brand guidelines can then come into play, being a beacon of all ways that your visual identity can be used. This is essential for any business, as it gives employees and any partners guidance on how your elements should be properly used, ensuring that your brand experience is consistent across mediums and methods.
4. Audit and Rollout
Finally, it is important to do an audit of all communication methods so that the brand stays consistent. Then, it is time to roll everything out. Creating a plan to gain traction around the refresh can help bring new business as well, while also allowing an opportunity to explain the changes and discuss them more with your partners and consumers.
And at last, its live! Congrats on the hard work! Refreshes are an amazing way to bring life back into a brand, especially when time has taken a toll on the design and elements originally in place.
Consider a refresh next time your brand needs a pick-me-up!
Asimos, T. (2023, February 13). 7 crucial elements of a strategic brand refresh. circle S studio. Retrieved April 25, 2023, from https://circlesstudio.com/blog/elements-brand-refresh/