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Why Branding Is More Than a Logo and Color Palette
Brands are a lot like people, each having a purpose, personality, and voice all its own
Branding is a thing designers have to explain a lot.
“That’s not your brand.”
“Let’s make this more on brand.”
“Let’s look one more time at our brand guidelines and see if we can find Giddyup anywhere near the section on brand fonts.”
But recently, I had to explain brands to a bunch of people who already knew what they were in a class at Rice University, which meant I finally had to sit down and define exactly how I think about brands — what they are, how they work, what they need to do.
Brands live within culture, and so they are a reaction to us and our world and the things that are happening in it. That’s huge. A brand is so much more than a logo and a color palette and not-terrible typefaces. We should be building brands people are excited by and curious about, brands they’ll rally around. We should be building brands that actually make a difference. Why? Because that’s what humanity needs. Because every little bit helps, whether it comes from an individual or a brand. And because if you don’t, someone else will.
