Why?
Ensuring that your corporate ID is properly applied can be a difficult
job - especially if your company is large. Yet it is important.
Consistency of look, across all aspects of external (and internal)
communications, can have real marketing benefits. It can, for example:
• Help build market recognition
• Reinforce
brand values
• Enhance brand positioning
• Simplify
the design process
How?
The answer, often called a corporate design guide, or similar, is
used by many companies. This usually takes the form of a document
which provides clear rules for:
• Use of logo in
all situations
• Design of corporate brochures, sales
collateral, advertisements, stationery etc.
Pitfalls
But the creation of a corporate design guide is a skilled job. The
result needs to be a practical document which can be used by internal
or external designers to produce designs which have a clear commonality
in terms of basic elements such as colour, typefaces, positioning
etc. Some typical problem areas are:
• Complexity
- an over-long and complex design guide is likely to be ignored
• Inflexibility - it is often a temptation to attempt to cover
every design possibility. This can result in a guide which is
too rigid to apply in practical terms
• Frequent changes - once a guide is created, changes should
be kept to a minimum (zero, if possible) for a significant
period. Frequent changes will result in an inconsistent suite of
documentation - therefore defeating the object of the
exercise
Examples
We have produced many corporate design guides. Our work on behalf
of STMicroelectronics can be used to illustrate many of the basic
principles.
