Pre-Game warmup for Brand Strategy + Design
Designing a visual brand identity presents many design decisions, such as:
How will you approach the logo design?
Should it have both a typemark and graphic mark?
What typeface should you choose? Will this be used in the logo?
What type of colour palette will you employ?
What imagery style is best?
Does the brand need iconography? If so, does this need to be simple or complex design?
What type of imagery should we use?
There are two ways you can approach this:
‘Gut feelings’ and intuition (window dressing); or
Decisions made from a collaborative marketing and brand strategy.
I’m totally here for #2!
As a designer, being able to ask some simple but incisive questions of the client allows you to weave strategy into design decision-making. You’ll have more confidence when presenting ideas, as it turns what otherwise may be seen as personal creative preferences into data-driven decisions that land with more conviction.
You’ll find much greater alignment between everyone across the client and agency teams, design decisions will be made faster with more conviction, and there will be less guessing and more ‘yes-ing’ to creative proposals.
Find a step-by-step resource below where you’ll learn a simple, four-step process that asks all the right questions to get exactly the background you need for design and brand projects that really deliver.
The CASP Model
I’m going to declare here that the CASP model is not rocket science.
I probably learned something like it in my marketing studies. But 15 years on, my recall is as good as a goldfish, and this is the model and process I’ve come to organically land on in the years that I’ve been practicing as a brand designer.
The answers to these questions provide the most reliable background for any business or brand challenge and get reliable insights – fast.
Challenge
What pressing challenge or problem exists in the world?
Start with the:
Name of your organisation
Industry/Area of focus
What is the problem that exists that needs to be solved?
Problems and challenges exist on a spectrum. Some clients may be saving the world, whilst some are solving what we may consider much less pressing problems. It doesn’t matter - all are equally important when approaching brand strategy.
If you’re dealing with a perfume brand, for example, the problem may go something like:
Perfume can instil a strong sense of identity and confidence in its wearer, yet 65% of people report not wearing any’.
If they’re working to end capital punishment, this may look like:
‘Capital Punishment is a total breach of human rights and an affront to human dignity, yet is still retained in 55 countries around the world’.
Audience
For whom is it a challenge or problem?
This will vary for every business and organisation, but here’s a few below to guide your thinking:
Age or Stage in Lifecycle (for example Retirees, Young Families, Graduates)
Education level
Geographical location - are they urban, suburban or rural?
Worker type: blue or white collar, self-employed, business owner
Income: low, medium or high
Political: what way are they likely to vote?
Buying habits: luxury, value or in-between?
Values: what do they value i.e. big ideas, conforming, convenience
Before any marketing, communications or design decisions can be made, you need to be clear about who you are talking to. Which segment of the population is facing this problem? Work to define these groups as clearly as possible (there is likely more than one), and see if there are any characteristics or demographics that they share. Defining these groups and characteristics allows for informed consideration when making visual decisions later on.
For an industry gender diversity initiative, this may be articulated as:
“Females, fund management industry, 25-45 years, tertiary educated, ambitious”
For a local beauty studio, this may be more like:
“Female, 30-60 years, medium to high disposable income, may have specific concern about appearance”
Solution
How can your brand solve this challenge?
What are you presenting as a solution?
What ‘good’ will this provide to the world at large?
The solution focuses on two questions that fit together: the highest level solution the brand is providing, and the ‘good’ this provides the world at large.
For [1], try to summarise into a few words what the solution is; it could be a physical product, or program or service. For [2], go big picture: what ‘good’ does it provide?
For the gender diversity initiative:
“[A]The organisation creates programs specifically to [B] nurture female talent, and educate/shift industry perceptions”
For a career consultant for mid-career professionals:
“I provide [A] career coaching programs so that [B] people can change careers with confidence”
Product
Are there different methods you are going to use to solve the problem?
What are the specific verticals, or product/services that are being offered?
Here’s where we can get granular. List the various pathways that the brand is choosing as part of their solution to the challenge. Aim for no more than six: if there are more, they may need to be grouped or categorised to avoid dilution. (Give it a shot, but this is not a dealbreaker).
For the gender diversity initiative:
“Programs, Mentoring Initiatives, Seminars, Networking Events, Competitions”
For a career consultant for mid-career professionals:
“1:1 coaching sessions, group coaching sessions, coaching downloadables”
What’s next?
These answers should lead to a clearly articulated summary of your brand’s:
Market challenge
Target market/audience
Overarching solution; and
Products/services
You’re now prepped and ready to find out what your Brand Purpose, Mission and Vision could be — click here for the next step in building your brand for big things.
Free worksheet
All yours, no strings! If you find this useful, please share the wealth (email to a friend, share a post on socials). That way more people can create great brand strategies, and we can network in an authentic way ✌️
