Brand marketing: brand logo and symbol design

When we want to identify a brand, the fastest way is to look at the brand logo. So, regarding brand identity, how should we design the brand’s LOGO, VI, and symbols?

1. Brand 4321

In the book "Inquiry into Mind: The Origins and Evolution of the Human Mind", the famous cognitive psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker believes that the human mind has four major abilities:

1. Visual Perception
2. reasoning
3. emotion
4. Social Relationships

(1) Visual perception helps us describe external scenes

But our visual perception is not just about "taking pictures" of the outside world through our eyes, but describing the external scenes with our heart language. For example, the Nike logo is not just an arc to us, but a “hook” with rich meaning.

(2) Reasoning helps us understand and interpret the world we live in, using what we know to infer what we don’t know.

For example, if I say that a certain brand has globally original technology and invention patents, you will infer that it has excellent performance, reliable quality, and is expensive.

( 3) Emotions help us adapt to our surroundings and challenges and respond appropriately

Emotions guide actions, and our thoughts and behaviors are often inspired by our feelings. For example, one of the main functions of a brand is to allow us to project emotions onto an inanimate object.

(4) Social relationships help us form groups and organizations and establish connections with the outside world.

Driven by this ability, we, the intelligent beings, had tribes, city-states, countries, and civilizations, and finally stood at the top of the food chain. With this ability, brands can become consumers’ friends, family, partners, etc.

Based on these four capabilities, a brand wants to influence consumers' perception, memory, emotions and attitudes and build relationships with them. Then a brand must include three systems:

1. Symbology
2. Value System
3. Meaning System

What is a brand?

(1) A brand is an identification symbol

Including brand name, LOGO, VI, mascot, virtual image, etc. We use these symbols to identify a brand, remember it, and distinguish it from other brands.

For example, Coca-Cola is red, Pepsi is blue; OPPO is a green factory, VIVO is a blue factory; Nike is a hook, Adidas is three stripes; McDonald's is a golden M, and KFC is an old man with a white beard.

(2) Brand is a set of value labels

Labels are a simplified and condensed version of product information and an anchor for brand awareness. It delivers information to customers at the lowest cost, and customers recognize a brand's core value and differentiated features through labels.

For example, BMW’s “joy”, Volvo’s “safety”, and Coca-Cola’s “refreshment”.

(3) Brand is a social and cultural icon

It is a symbol of some meaning. It can represent the attitude, personality and self-image of a specific group, or it can represent a socially recognized identity status and lifestyle.

For example, buying a niche brand of clothing means that you are different, do not follow the crowd, and have individuality; buying a luxury brand means that you are a successful person. Specific brands such as Apple represent simplicity and fashion aesthetics, and Mercedes-Benz symbolizes nobility and celebrity.

• Identification symbols allow customers to recognize and remember the brand , triggering the audience's memory response ;
• Value labels allow customers to recognize and associate with the brand , triggering cognitive responses from the audience;
• Cultural ICON allows customers to identify with and trust the brand , triggering emotional responses from the audience.

These functional modules of the brand make the brand famous, have a premium, and have loyal fans, which ultimately trigger behavioral responses from customers - purchase and loyalty. This is what I call the process of building a brand: recognition - cognition - identification . First let customers know you, then let customers recognize you, and finally let them identify with you.

Based on these three systems, how should brands output information to the information dissemination end and pass it on to consumers? The core has only two types of information carriers:

1. Vision
2. text

Because of the external information received by the human brain, 83% comes from vision, 11% comes from hearing, and the rest comes from other senses such as touch, smell, taste, and balance. Vision sees images and text, and hearing hears language and sound.

Therefore, a brand must have two communication systems: a visual system and a text system.

The visual system includes brand LOGO, VI (especially standard colors and auxiliary graphics), product design, packaging design, mascot, virtual image, etc.

It mainly affects people's visual perception, helps brands create identification symbols, provides memory hooks, and allows consumers to form an intuitive perception of the brand image and personality style, thereby associating the brand value.

The text system includes brand name, core vocabulary and brand label, SLOGAN (advertising slogan and brand appeal), brand declaration, brand story, brand values, and various text information in brand communication content, such as video scripts and narration, articles and titles, event themes, social topics, etc.

The text system establishes brand differentiation, builds customer awareness, enhances value associations, and creates emotional connections to build relationships with customers. It determines what the brand copy should and should not say, and determines the tone and style of a brand; it represents what a brand wants to say to consumers, and represents how you want users to talk about your brand.

In fact, this happens to be the core division of labor in the advertising industry: copywriting + art. The copywriter is responsible for the text, and the artist is responsible for the pictures. Brand communication is built around these two functions.

Of course, although sensory information such as touch, smell, and taste accounts for a small proportion, they are crucial to shaping customers' feelings and experience of the product. Together with visual information, they form the brand experience and establish a relationship between the brand and the customer. This is how brands play a role in influencing the minds of users. So we say that brand is a mind control system.

This is the 4321 of the brand. Understanding this structure will provide us with a convenient way to interpret the brand and analyze brand marketing in the future. Entering through this door, we officially enter the topic of this lecture, brand identity.

2. Brand Identity

Although the theme of this issue is called brand identity, what we are actually going to talk about is the brand’s visual system. The visual symbol that represents a brand's identity, in addition to basic design elements such as LOGO, VI, etc., also includes product features and packaging design, brand image and mascot, brand IP, etc. For example, when you mention De Rucci, the first thing that comes to your mind is definitely not what its logo looks like, but an Italian old man wearing glasses;

When you think of Oreo, the first thing that comes to your mind is the black and white sandwich cookie shape and the twist-and-lick bubble eating method;

When you think of Marlboro, cowboys come to mind first;

When you see a BMW on the street, the first thing you recognize may be its double-kidney-shaped front face;

When you see a Rolls-Royce, you will first check whether there is a goddess of victory logo on the front of the car.

Lippincott, a famous American brand design company, once selected 20 milestones in the history of brand development.

Among them are the Jesus fish, the British flag, Napoleon's hat (wearing the hat at an angle was Napoleon's personal identity mark), the NBC xylophone logo, the Apple Macintosh computer, NIKE's just do it, Facebook's like symbol, "GOOGLE" entering the dictionary as a verb, and the withdrawal of GAP's new trademark. Among these, the symbols that represent a brand include not only the logo, but also other identifying symbols such as products, slogans, actions, etc.

In this lecture, we will focus on brand logos, but we also need to discuss how to design brand logos, create brand visual systems, and then establish brand identification symbols, value labels, and cultural icons from the perspective of user cognition and brand systems. Instead of considering designing a logo, setting standard colors and auxiliary graphics, and extending the VI as the brand strategy itself. There are 5 major design standards for brand logos:

1. Identifiability : Unique and easy to identify, eye-catching, and enhance brand differentiation
2. Relevance : related to the product, so that customers can perceive the product attributes and benefits after reading it
3. Associative : Connotative, intriguing, and makes people have good associations
4. Deductive : easy to extend, applicable to a variety of media and carriers, conducive to brand integrated communication
5. Popularity : Classic and durable, timeless, and will not easily go out of style

Next, we will discuss brand logo design based on the five major standards.

3. Identification & Relevance

These two points go together because a brand identity needs to find a balance between recognizability and relevance. When it comes to logo design, the first thing to consider is the selection of graphic elements. What elements do you choose to use to design the logo?

However, if the design elements selected are too related, then recognition will be insufficient. Because relevant means common, well-known, and everyone can think of it. For example, in the banking industry, most people probably have no impression of the logos of most domestic bank brands. Why? This is because most bank logos are designed using the copper coin element, and they are all similar to the shape of ancient coins with a round outer circle and a square inner circle.

Furthermore, if we are designing a logo for a stationery brand, the first graphic element that comes to mind may be a pen, the shape of a pencil, the tip of a fountain pen, or a hand holding a pen and writing on paper.

This element is very common, and when it is used in design, the audience can easily associate it with a stationery brand. However, since many brands are using it, its recognizability is much weaker. Of course, I can also use elements such as apples and houses to design a stationery brand, which will be more recognizable, but the relevance will not be enough.

This requires us to select graphic elements that are both relevant and recognizable when designing. Generally speaking, graphic elements come from product attributes, such as product shape and features; secondly, they come from brand attributes, including brand name, founder, business development history, etc.

For example, the Australian Tourism Board’s logo is a kangaroo, which is Australia’s most representative “product” feature.

For example, this LOGO designed by 300million, a top British creative company, for the Association of Food Writers is a clever combination of a pen tip and a spoon, which not only relates to the attributes of the association, but also makes people's eyes light up.

For example, the LOGO of the New Mexico Heart Hospital contains three design elements: the heart is associated with the hospital, the palm symbolizes saving lives and healing the wounded, and the Zia sun symbol represents New Mexico. It is also taken from the indigenous hieroglyphs of the local Indian tribes in New Mexico.

(New Mexico Heart Hospital)

(Zia Sun Symbol)

When using product attribute elements to design, in order to avoid homogeneity with similar brands, the most important task of the designer is creative reorganization, combining different product elements together to create new images and symbols, so that the brand logo is both related to the product and unique.

Starbucks' brand logo is a sexy siren with two fish tails and a crown on her head, which comes from the charming Siren in Greek mythology. This is because Starbucks was founded in Seattle, a coastal city on the west coast of the United States. Every year, a large amount of coffee beans are shipped to the United States from Africa or Latin America via the Port of Seattle. So Starbucks decided to use the ocean as an element to create its brand logo.

There is also Johnnie Walker, whose brand name and LOGO design are a tribute to the founder John Walker. The "Walking Gentleman" not only describes the daily dressing style of the brand founder, but also symbolizes the brand spirit of constantly moving forward and never giving up. It represents the brand's ultimate exploration and pursuit of high quality, and gives the brand a distinct difference.

The above cases are two sources of graphic elements when designing brand logos. Generally speaking, there are three types of brand logos: text logos, letter logos, and graphic logos .

Of course, this applies to Chinese brands. If the brand name is in English, then the text logo and the letter logo are the same thing. Many brands do not use graphic elements when designing their brand logos, but directly use the brand name, English name or phonetic abbreviation as elements (i.e. text logos and letter logos).

The advantage of this design approach is that it increases the recognition and memorability of the brand name, but the disadvantage is that it may lack association with product attributes. For example, Hupu’s early logo was “HUPU”, with the Chinese name + pinyin letters as design elements; later it was changed to “Hupu JR”, removing the pinyin letters and adding “JR” to emphasize the connection between Hupu and users. Because Hupu users are used to calling themselves "JR", but I don't know whether its original meaning is "bitch" or "family".

In fact, for Chinese brands, the Chinese name is the most important brand asset. Using English letters for LOGO design does not have much practical significance except that it looks more fashionable and international. Word logo is better than letter logo.

The graphic logo is closely related to the product attributes and brand attributes, but it does not highlight the brand name, which is disadvantageous for start-up brands because a new brand must first make people remember the brand name. For a new brand, a text logo is better than a graphic logo.

Like NIKE, although its hook logo is world-famous, it is a classic in the design industry. But in the early years, the logo commonly used by Nike was a combination of a hook and the four letters NIKE. Later, as Nike became more and more well-known and the Nike Swoosh became more and more popular, Nike began to use the Swoosh as its only brand logo.

Therefore, a compromise is to include both the brand name and product-related graphic elements when designing the brand LOGO. For example, Burger King’s early logo was a “king” holding a Coke and sitting on a hamburger.

Later, the brand was simplified, and the latest version became a hamburger graphic with the brand name in the middle. On the mobile side, Burger King has a more simplified version, with an English letter "K" in the middle of the burger. "K" stands for "KING". Its design elements are the combination of product attributes + brand name.

After selecting the design elements, the next thing to consider in the design is the application of color. Color is also an important way to enhance brand recognition.

Generally speaking, the leading brand in an industry likes to use red as its standard VI color, while the second-largest brand often uses blue to differentiate itself from the leader. In addition to red and blue, black and white are also very common choices.

To make a difference, you might consider going for a bolder and brighter color scheme. If you want to show youthfulness, you can use orange; if you want to express vitality, you can use green; if you want to show your personality, you can also use the TikTok-style dazzling black and fluorescent style. In addition, you can also consider the combination and matching of colors. For example, FedEx, the early FedEx logo looked like this:

Not only is it not recognizable enough, but American consumers also can't remember the brand name "Federal Express". All express delivery companies are called "Express", while "Federal" reminds people of government and bureaucracy.

In the process of redesigning the brand logo, the design company discovered through research that employees and consumers have given FedEx an abbreviation "FedEx", and they use this abbreviation as a verb - "Please help me FedEx this package." Just like we say Baidu search and Pulse comes back. So the new LOGO was a natural progression.

This color scheme is highly recognizable and is extremely eye-catching no matter where it is used, such as on airplanes, cars, employee uniforms, or express boxes. It also created a new identifier for FedEx - "FedEx".

The recognizability of color is not only reflected in the LOGO and VI, but also in the products. Like the classic "Blue Bottle Calcium" back then, consumers don't know what upgrades Blue Bottle Calcium has in terms of technology, functions, and ingredients, but they remember that Blue Bottle Calcium is pure calcium, delicious calcium, and upgraded calcium. Sanjin Pharmaceutical uses the "blue bottle" to differentiate itself from other calcium supplement brands.

In the beer industry, the French brand 1664 also uses small blue bottles to differentiate itself from the traditional big green beer sticks.

When I was working for Red Star Erguotou, it launched the Blue Bottle Erguotou, which promoted itself as "super classic and a little soft", thus achieving brand upgrading and differentiating itself from the traditional Erguotou brands, thus improving itself in the minds of consumers.

Another example is the automotive industry. In the past, when business needs dominated the automobile industry, the body colors of automobile products appearing in advertisements were either black or white, serious and stable. However, as private consumption dominates the automotive industry and becomes increasingly younger, the body colors in car advertisements are becoming more and more brilliant. Blue and red are just the basics. Bean paste color, fluorescent green, and macaron pink are becoming the key for car brands to attract consumers and make their brands more unique and distinctive.

In the computer industry, when early computers all had black shells, Apple used beige and white to create a sharp difference and highlight its brand.

In 1998, Apple launched the iMac G3 desktop computer, which adopted a translucent design and came in a series of colors including Bondi Blue, Strawberry Red, Lime Green, Grape Purple, and Tangerine Orange, sweeping away the dull style of PC products. The iMac G3 pulled Apple back from the brink of bankruptcy with its unique color scheme and improved its brand awareness.

After choosing the design elements and color scheme, the third step of brand identity is to establish the style. Like the Umeda Hospital designed by Kashiwa Sato. He used cotton material to present the brand's visual system. In addition to ensuring the basic attributes of seriousness and professionalism of the medical brand, he also gave the brand human care and emotional warmth.

Where does style come from? This requires us to talk about the next concept, associativity.

4. Associative

In addition to identification, a very important role of a brand logo is to make consumers have good associations and imaginations about the brand. It should be meaningful, intriguing, evoke unforgettable experiences in people's memories, and generate a desire and yearning for all beautiful things.

Therefore, when designing a brand logo, companies must think clearly about what they want to convey and what associations they want consumers to have. The logo design should be based on the requirements of the brand strategy, and should be developed based on the company's business scope, product attributes, and population characteristics, and should be consistent and coherent with the brand's tone and style.

In 2009, Li Ning topped the sales ranking of domestic sports brands, and subsequently launched a high-end and internationalization strategy, targeting its competitors such as Nike and Adidas, and locking in the market in core domestic cities and overseas.

Based on this new brand strategy, Li Ning changed its brand logo from the original fluttering flag to a more three-dimensional, fashionable and sharper "person" shape. The brand name uses LI-NING more often instead of the Chinese Li Ning. The slogan was changed from "Everything is possible" in Chinese to "Make the change" in English.

Although Li Ning's brand strategy was not completely successful, the change of the brand logo was designed entirely based on strategic requirements. In recent years, as Li Ning followed the revival of the national trend, Li Ning launched a sub-series called "China Li Ning". The LOGO design of this series of products is in the shape of a seal and traditional Chinese characters.

In October 2021, Li Ning launched a high-end sports fashion series named "LI-NING 1990" (1990 is the founding year of Li Ning). The LOGO design of this series of products used Li Ning's old LOGO, trying to recall the brand's past history and memory.

It can be seen that Li Ning's brand logo was first designed in the direction of internationalization and youthfulness, and recently it has turned to Chineseization, returning to the direction of retro and national trend.

In fact, all the designs of a company, including its logo, color, products, packaging, price, advertising, and virtual image, are conveying information to consumers, allowing them to feel, think, and gain something after seeing it.

The internet-famous brand Zhong Xue Gao uses a tile shape to convey the style of "Chinese ice cream"; another high-end ice cream brand Xu Jinhuan uses an artistic round fan shape to make people feel the high-end and aesthetic of the product.

About ten years ago, around 2012, Yaha, a coffee beverage brand under Uni-President, implemented a brand upgrade and launched new products: Italian classic coffee and Italian mellow latte. The brand appeal was changed to "Taste the concentrated Italy". Therefore, in terms of product packaging, Yaha used the shape of an Italian moka pot to make the bottle, and Italian elements appeared on the packaging. This allows consumers to feel the fashion and romance of Italy from this design.

When a company builds a brand, it must first start with the brand logo, allowing people to intuitively see, feel, and experience the brand’s value and image. If a brand wants to upgrade, reshape, or rejuvenate its original brand awareness, it will usually change its visual style first to make people immediately aware of the brand changes and create new brand associations.

For example, Uniqlo was once regarded as a cheap product in Japan. Customers who bought its products would cut off the labels as soon as they made their purchase, for fear that others would see them.

It was not until the talented designer Kashiwa Sato stepped in and redesigned the entire UNIQLO brand, including a comprehensive transformation and innovation of the logo, VI design, store location, store decoration, website, and advertising, that UNIQLO became a fast fashion ICON and captured the hearts of consumers around the world.

In order to create good brand associations, you must pay attention to the following in the brand logo: the design should not be too abstract, nor too concrete. If the design is too abstract, with only minimalist lines and symbols, consumers will not be able to feel the actual meaning from it.

In 2013, South Korea released the official emblem of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Chen Shaohua, a Chinese design master whom I admire very much, commented on it on Weibo. I very much agree with him, and I have kept this Weibo post until now.

Chen Shaohua said: "This design contains all the common problems of today's design: abstraction without emotion, geometry without life, cleanliness without layers, and internationalization without personality."

I see this all the time in the advertising industry. Whether it is logo design, packaging design or advertising design, companies always put forward many abstract requirements, such as fashion, youthfulness, humanity, high-end, internationalization and so on.

When designers integrate so many opinions, the resulting work often becomes too abstract, conservative, lacking distinct features, and concrete images and elements, causing the design to lose style and be unable to create any associations and implications. This is exactly the "design insuranceism" criticized by Professor Chen Shaohua.

But at the same time, the design should not be too figurative. A design that is too concrete will lose room for imagination. For users, “what you see is what you get” and they will not be able to imagine any wonderful experience.

This is not in line with the psychological characteristics of consumers, and from a commercial perspective, logo design should be able to be extended to various occasions and communication carriers. An overly concrete design will be very rigid when extended, and forced application will look very inconsistent and uncoordinated, causing physical discomfort. A typical example is the word "叔" in Lao Niangjiu. Although it is highly recognizable, it is too concrete, lacks connotation, and is shallow. When it is used on a large scale, it makes people feel uncomfortable.

5. Deductive

Interpretation refers to the extension and use of brand logo, which can be used in a variety of media and carriers to integrate brand information and accelerate brand communication. Where can brand identity extend? How is it applied? This requires us to know what channels the company uses to reach customers and how customers know about your products or services. There are three common application categories:

1. In stores and terminals

That is to say, the logo is applied to offline materials, such as store fronts, shop signs, windows, display racks, piles, in-store posters, price stickers, etc., as well as various items used by terminals, such as table cards, toothpick holders, tissue boxes, tablecloths, plates, etc.

Restaurant brands, for example, generally attach great importance to creating representative visual symbols, because the way they attract customers is through store signs and in-store displays. Xibei’s “I LOVE莜” and red and white plaid cloth are representative examples.

2. Product packaging