đ Your Brand Design Needs a Story
Removing personal aesthetic preferences for the greater good.
Yellow is fine. I have a yellow hoodie Iâll break out every so often, but really donât wear the color much. My desk lacks yellow tchotchkes. I donât have any yellow accents in my house and itâs not the color of my true loveâs hair.Â
And yet yellow â and very specifically Royal Gold (#FFBC00) â is all over everything at Robin. So why would a tepid appreciator of Van Goghâs favorite color wash his companyâs brand with it? Simple. Robinâs story is not my story.
TL;DR:
Personal aesthetics more often than not get in the way of good creative output. Having a strong story as a foundation through which your team can evaluate design allows you to remove individual taste biases, and start building creative capital that is truly evocative of your brand.
The details:
Every brand has a story. Roll your eyes all you want, but itâs true. Donât think you have one? Then step one is to unearth it. The rest will follow.
1. Find your story
Is it in your name? Your history? Your brand narrative? Think back on all of these things and determine what it is you want to establish as your baseline for creative output.Â
Letâs look at us as an example. Robin began as a to-be-named-later EIR project at Elysian Park Ventures, the private investment arm affiliated with the ownership group of the Los Angeles Dodgers. My apartment at the time happened to be located directly across the street from Washington Park, one of the first homes of the Brooklyn Baseball Club that would eventually become the 2020 World Series Champions.Â
Looking to that eraâs history for our name, I discovered that from 1914 - 1931 â the year before they would become the Dodgers â the team was affectionately known as the Robins. Our name came to be, and with it a treasure trove of history and ephemera to build a visual system around.Â
2. Create and curate the right visuals
This wonât be fast or easy, but it will pay dividends. Using a service like Arena, start scouring the web for imagery and insights that tie back to your story. Create a moodboard and go wide at first. Iâm talking about historical references, architecture, geographic surroundings, videos, sketches, photos â all of it! Inspiration can come from the places you least expect. Eventually the right visual patterns that convey your narrative will begin to emerge.Â
Iâll use us as an example here again. We thought a lot about the experience of going to a sporting event, particularly what it would have been like in early 20th Century Brooklyn. This led us to period-specific signage one would find taking the BMT to Ebbets Field. The Art Deco letterforms got the wheels turning on typefaces. We looked at many, and ultimately landed on Pacaembu by Naipe Foundry, a typeface that â much like Robin â has its roots in sport.
3. Codify
Youâve done it! Your colors, your typography, your patterns, your photo treatments â everything you could imagine needing to create compelling brand visuals has been decided on. So what now?
We recommend creating guidelines using a service like Brandpad. These guidelines should not only define usage, but also display why the design decisions were made. This sets the table for all of the stakeholders involved, and allows them to develop creative based on whatâs right for the brand.
4. Use It
Time and time again we see startups that have been through a brand design process throw it all away because someone on a team didnât like a color or an illustration style.Â
Be malleable and willing to change things for the right reasons (poor performance, not resonating with customers, etc.). Donât cave on the whim of one person. The aesthetic preferences of teammates and friends arenât necessarily aligned with your brand. Remember why you did the exercise in the first place and put it to work. The more you do, the more buy in youâll get from everyone involved. It will streamline your design workflows and take personal feelings out of the equation.
5. Yellow
If youâve made it this far, youâve earned it. So, why yellow?Â
In addition to our Dodgers heritage, our name is a nod to our working ethos. Weâre the Robin to our partnerâs Batman â the ultimate sidekick ready to support wherever weâre needed. The yellow on Robinâs suit was a starting point we ultimately tweaked towards gold to symbolize any dynamic duoâs ultimate goal: victory. âď¸
đ¤Â Letâs work together. If you would like to learn more about Robin, or want to talk about your brandâs marketing, communications, and product development initiatives, contact us at hello@androbin.co.
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P.P.S. Weâre hiring a Junior Designer, Junior Marketing Associate, Junior Communications Associate, and Junior Copywriter. If you know anyone whoâd be a good fit, weâd appreciate it if you could pass the opportunity along.