The cost of an identity! 12/Sep/08 (Business)

I know special offers are often made (some from people I know and respect) for the production of a company logo but does this denegrate the logo to a symbol rather than a corporate identity or brand?

The following is a precied version of an excercise that I have just gone through in colaboration with a freelance designer and serves, I hope, to show that real thoughtful design, should be expected to be paid for. I should say that the last company I worked for paid a leading brand agency over £500,000 for their identity so I may be coming at this from a different direction to most.

We were invited to visit this prospective client because they had not been happy with what had been presented to them by other organisations. The meeting went well, we listned and absorbed what they were looking to do. An established company, they were looking to expand their offer and broaden their customer base.

After the meeting, the designer and I went through the notes and decided to meet a couple of days later and discuss the thoughts we had had. During the next day and half I spent several hours playing with ideas, doing research, asking questions and eventualy coming up with a concept that I considered to be the basis for an identity that would be distinct but not clash or dilute the companies existing brand.

Getting together with the designer we then spent around 5 hours turning that concept into a visual idea that would work both now and have the ability to grow as hopefully the division grew. It's amazing how making just the smallest tweak to an idea it can make all the difference - this of course takes time. Once we were happy with the identity and had made sure it would work in all the mediums we would expect the client to use, a few mock ups were produced to show it working and I produced a creative rationale to show the client how the idea had come about.

In all, between us, we had probably spent about 15 - 20 hours on the project AND WAS PRESENTING ONLY ONE IDEA. Reaction was fantastic and they congratulated us on understanding and interpreting what they were looking for. We are now working on costings for a full campaign and that prospective client is looking good to be converted.

I don't post this to be self congratulatory but to emphasise the point that a logo/identity is more than a colourful graphic on a piece of paper and should be given the respect it deserves. Working with a marketeer and a designer in tandem may cost more but will give you better results in the end. 

If you want to pay peanuts for one of your most important pieces of marketing get a monkey to do it. 

www.dlhvisualcommunications.co.uk