WHAT IS GOOD CORPORATE DESIGN?

“Corporate design is part of a company’s corporate identity. This includes everything that belongs to the appearance, including graphics, and allows it to appear uniformly both externally and internally.”

Definitions can fundamentally clarify the term “corporate design” and even clarify points of view because they can be distinguished from other definitions. But they cannot deal with the subject in depth.

This is exactly why you are reading this article and, of course, it is the most exciting question for all businessmen. It doesn’t harm you if you take some free suggestions from any graphic design services provider. It may help you with valuable advice that enables you to come up with some great and new ideas.

Corporate design: why at all?

The short answer is effectiveness. The corporate design makes companies more effective.

Of course — you can talk about corporate design by presenting definitions and beating each other with buzzwords. Most of these conversations end suddenly when a results-oriented CEO asks a question like this:

“What in three devil names do I get out of it as an entrepreneur?”

So here is the answer again (in a slightly longer form):

“Corporate design makes your company more effective. If it’s the right corporate design. When it’s well done, unique and distinctive. A corporate design helps you to get the right message across to the right people in the right way.”

Because effective messages are what every corporate communication needs. Why? They attract attention, they convince, and they help sell or entertain.

A letterhead is a statement

If your letterhead is designed as lovingly as the doorbell signs on a prefabricated housing estate from the 1970s, that’s already a message.

It is:

“We don’t care what our customers think of us.”

That is not to say that they cannot be effective that way. Perhaps, you are the only company in your target market that sells the exact product described in this letter.

But it doesn’t matter. If your corporate design conveys indifference, your customers will resent you just like the design of your Facebook page, your business card, or your Christmas card. Consciously or unconsciously.

To put it simply: indifference in appearance can only create indifference on the part of the customer.

But it’s not always about selling. For many companies, corporate design is an important part of corporate communication. For example, authorities or health insurance can effectively create recognition values ​​and convey appreciation and competence with a good corporate design.

I claim that you will be better off economically when your customers (and your employees) have a positive image of you that is in line with your values ​​and product promises.

Effective corporate design can be used

The corporate design has something to do with aesthetics. Without doubt. If we were only talking about beauty and harmony, the matter would be simple: Your corporate design should be created by the best designers with the very best training and the best ideas.

What these best in their field should not have in mind when designing are their colleagues, in front of whom they want to shine. A corporate design shouldn’t be a purely aesthetic test field — it has to do more.

A corporate design has to be well done because it has to work. It has to create a visual appearance that creates identity and recognition value. And it has to be part of the company’s day-to-day work and be integrated and usable within all processes — from the business card to all communication media and forms to the appearance of your company in the digital space.

Good corporate design is easy

If your new corporate design is shown to you at some point after it has been successfully created, you will hopefully see many beautiful applications in a long PowerPoint presentation.

Very different media with very different formats. Now it depends on how the application is conveyed to you.

What definitely doesn’t help is a corporate design manual

· Countless chapters,

· An infinite number of sub-items,

· Full of instructions (about shelters, proportions, and mandatory positions).

They won’t help you any further when it comes to the design and production of specific media.

Only when the first pencil is printed, the first product sticker is to be glued and the first social media profile picture is to be uploaded, unfortunately, the theory usually shows that it was the theory.

The reality shows its ugly face three months later:

The corporate design manual is with the Head of PR — in the drawer or on the desktop. You think your PR staff has read it before, which unfortunately is not entirely true. What did he/she do? His / her eyes flew gently over the pages of the corporate design manual for a few minutes on the edge of everyday work — nothing more. And if someone wants to produce something, the corporate design manual is taken out briefly and the appropriate logo is quickly found.

In the end, what is always taken will be taken anyway. The problem with this is that it looks good on the business cards, but unfortunately not on your website. And it goes even further: You cannot read the subline in PowerPoint. It looks squeaky on the company truck and the accountant quickly made one himself for the pens.

My tip: ask for a corporate design that is easy to use. It should come with a few exceptions and customizations as possible. A well-made corporate design should be able to be explained on a few pages and work on as much media as possible. And the accompanying manual is intended to convey exactly how it should look on the media that are important to you.

Good corporate design is understandable

Good design is like good humor. If you have to explain it, the air is simply gone.

So be careful not to make your corporate design dependent on a derivation that is similar to the story of creation.

Where we are already on vacation. Somebody once said that a logo has to be so simple that you can draw it in the sand with your big toe on the beach.

Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but there is a wonderful truth in it:

A logo is a symbol/design if it is easy to remember. Then and only then does it stay in your head. In your and your customers’ minds.

My tip: Make sure that your corporate design does not require complex explanations. And don’t take your own company and its history more seriously than they are to your customers. The hard truth is: Nobody really cares about your business. But very much for the benefit, it creates.

Good corporate design enables fast and inexpensive production

So here we have a great new logo. Design top, statement top, the rest also top. But what if it contains elements that make it difficult to use in the design or in the production of tangible means of communication?

What do I mean by that?

Show a neon orange or a metallic tone on a screen. Or print a filigree design, which is actually no longer recognizable from a size of 10 by 10 millimeters, on a pencil.

A corporate design that can be used saves you from making statements such as:

· “This giveaway is far too expensive to produce.”

· “We can’t do that without specialists.”

· “That doesn’t work on the cool promotional items that we want.”

· “It looks different on the monitor than on the printed matter. And especially on the cars.”

And especially:

“This whole corporate design topic is annoying.”

My tip: Make sure that your beautiful new corporate design can be used for production with comprehensible processes. So that colors and structures are used that are also defined for different worlds in such a way that they are very similar. Or that it should contain clear instructions through a good structure.

Conclusion

Corporate design is not a visual adornment, nothing for “on top”, no varnish on the surface. Your corporate design must be the tool, no, the whole tool case with which you communicate — internally and externally. Your corporate design is there: to greet, to say goodbye, to convince, to invite and to thank, to attract or guide employees, to guide paths, and to label goods.

And of course, and above all, your corporate design should help you sell.

Therefore, it has to be simple, communicative, and usable. So that it can be effective both internally and externally.

Do you have any questions about the corporate design? Or are you looking for someone who can help you achieve your goals? Just contact us. We are happy to hear from them.

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