Brand identity is the set of fixed signs that make a brand recognisable: logo, typography, colour, form language, image language and tone of voice. Its job is not to make the brand look good, but to identify the brand even when its name is not in view.
The parts that make up an identity
- Logo and mark. The brand's signature. The smallest part of the identity, not the whole of it.
- Typography. The set of display and text typefaces; usually the element most often seen.
- Colour. The primary colour, the supporting colours, and the proportions they are used in.
- Form language. Corner softness, framing, grid, texture and graphic devices.
- Photography and illustration. Which kind of image counts as the brand's, and which does not.
- Tone of voice. How the brand speaks; word choice, sentence length, degree of informality.
A logo is not an identity
Most brand discussions begin with the logo and end there. Yet a customer usually recognises a brand without examining its logo: the colour, the typeface, the tone of an image or the shape of a sentence is enough. The logo is part of that system, not the system itself. We gathered the questions to ask before changing one in a separate article.
What separates a good identity: recognition
Whether an identity is good is measured by recognition, not by taste. Two questions are enough: with the name covered, is it clear whose advertisement this is? And placed next to a competitor's work, is the brand's own image told apart? What creates that distinctiveness is usually not the logo but a few fixed signs that repeat constantly — a colour, a form or a typeface.
This is why identity is built after the positioning decision. If it is not clear which place the brand will hold in the mind, the identity cannot know what it is pointing at; we set out that decision in our brand positioning article.
How the process runs at Circle
- Ground. Reading the positioning, the audience and the channels the brand will appear in.
- Directions. Presenting a small number of genuinely different identity directions, each with its reasoning.
- Building the system. Turning the chosen direction into a system of logo, typography, colour, form and tone of voice.
- Guidelines. Gathering the rules, the examples and the misuse warnings into a single document.
Frequently asked questions
What do we receive when the identity work is finished?
Logo files, the typeface set, colour values, templates, and the brand guidelines explaining how to use them. We wrote about what makes guidelines a document people actually read in a separate article.
Do we have to replace our current identity entirely?
Usually not. The signs that identify the brand today are kept and the parts that do not work are renewed. Deciding what to keep is the first job of an identity project.
How long before an identity dates?
A well-built identity lasts for years; what dates is usually not the identity itself but the channels it is applied to. When a new channel appears the system is extended, not rebuilt.
Next step
We covered how an identity survives in the field in our identity implementation article. To see how recognisable your current identity is, take the Brand Test on our site. At Circle this work runs under Creating a Comprehensive Brand Identity.