Empaths for logo and brand
Logos (UK: /ˈloʊɡɒs, ˈlɒɡɒs/, US: /ˈloʊɡoʊs/; Ancient Greek: λόγος, romanized: lógos; from λέγω, légō, lit. ”I say”) is a term in Western philosophy, psychology, rhetoric, and religion derived from a Greek word variously meaning “ground”, “plea”, “opinion”, “expectation”, “word”, “speech”, “account”, “reason”, “proportion”, and “discourse”.[1][2] It became a technical term in Western philosophy beginning with Heraclitus (c. 535 – c. 475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge
The visual logo can be looked at as an expression of the entity it represents. This expression sits at the front of a company. It colours how people interpret it, engage with it and ultimately how they feel about it.
The logos you see in the image below have been designed (with love) for clients current and past of Nephronim Studio. These logos became the heart of visual identities and the cornerstone of how we built their brand identity.
The process of discovery with each client involved us diving deeply into the core business. This really is for me the most interesting part of the design process. As a designer you get to learn why that company works, who are their market and what are their core values (implicit and explicit). The variety of clients of Nephronim has offered the opportunity to explore worlds like art installations to kite surfing to carbon capture companies. We need to become experts in these areas to full immerse ourselves in the space and become empaths for the brand.
Building out an appropriate empathic identity takes lots of time, interviews and research. But sometimes you don’t have the luxury of time and lots of budget. So, what to do?
Learn how well the company knows itself and it’s product.
Know thyself. It’s a mistake to assume a company will be an expert on itself. The first port of call for a studio is to outline what they know as the core truths of their company. Understand where they pitch their tent-pole ideologically and more importantly what kinds of perceptions they want to avoid. Establish their comfort zones and start the process of building relationships.
Since the identity, logo and brand ideals are the company advocates and will be judged by everyone that comes in contact with it, it’s paramount to address initial perceptions and longer term relationship building. How does the identity feel when your eyes first graze it and after repeat exposure how does it settle with it’s intended audience. In a lot of ways it’s like a hair cut that you need to grow accustomed to after time. It will grow out into something more and it is the shape, lines and form you start with that will cultivate the growth from the beginning.
In the end building an identity with a client requires lots of listening, thinking and understanding upfront. In the realm of tech companies we have learnt that our ideas had been too precious and our approach too tight. To work in this area we pushed the work out there and let it evolve with the company. Sometimes we completely through the brand out the window when it just didn’t work with the client. Shit happens. This failure taught us invaluable lessons. Mostly to build your structure well and then find the logo, colours, photos or even feel that can be looked at as a more modular approach to building that tech companies brand identity.
