Brand Design
For a moment, let’s step into your customer’s shoes: How does interacting with your brand make them feel, even if at an unconscious level?
Making every aspect of this a pleasurable and memorable experience for your customers (and colleagues, and competition) is how we at CRU define ‹Extraordinary Brand Design›.
But getting to that point is about a lot more than just making some pretty pictures and trendy colors, we have a dedicated approach to creating Brand Design with real business impact.
The CRU Design Philsophy
We take the craft of design itself very seriously, but a brand identity has to exist in many different dimensions beyond just the visual. Over the years we’ve developed a few principles that guide our design process so as to yield the most effective results.
Pretty isn’t the (only) point.
Every creative decision we make is always done to accomplish your business goals—and in the case of design—as beautifully and distinctly as possible. Because even the prettiest design, logo, typography, or layouts are worthless if they aren’t created with your business in mind.
We design with emotions in mind—because connection matters.
We think that the most effective Brand Design Identities will help customers develop an instant emotional connection with your brand, while also conveying important information about your values, ambitions, vision and offering.
Designers and clients shape the outcome together.
We also believe that it’s our job to create a brand that not only reflects who you are today—but who you aspire to be tomorrow. This means the designer's job is also to expand your comfort zone and create room for you and your company to grow into. And we believe this only works, if we work closely together on an outcome that you love.
What goes into a Brand Design (or redesign)?
Brand Design is more than just a cool logo. It’s made up of a complex web of parts: colors, typography, graphical elements or illustrations, photography, layouts, even how big your logo should appear—these are all considerations that we work with you to define. It may seem like an overwhelming amount of things to consider, which is where we come into the picture. Our process begins first in Strategy.
As we discuss on our page on Brand Strategy, we must first inform ourselves about your company, your industry, your goals, and develop an approach that is grounded in facts and desired outcomes. We take all of the considerations that we establish during our strategy sessions and then begin work on a Creative Route.
Creative Routes
Our Designers work closely with our Storytellers to develop Creative Routes, which distill the unique aspects of your brand into distinct approaches that we can take. Creative Routes are a combination of Brand Storytelling (an emotionally impactful version of your brand strategy) and Design Moodboards.
Design Moodboards
Design Moodboards are based on the themes and strategic framing of your brand, and are a compilation of inspirational imagery that we can use before we create finalized designs. The images on the moodboard can be a wide variety of things that showcase different photography styles, graphical elements, typographies, and more. We can look at these inspirational images together and decide which things speak to you, and your brand, and what we should avoid.
The feedback we collect on Design Moodboards help us immensely during the design phase so that we can take the time to explore one direction and gain more depth in our research and exploration.When we align on a Creative Route, our Designers can then begin the process of building your Brand Identity. This means creating proposals for everything in your brand: a new logo, colors that can represent your brand, different layouts, your website, even how to take photographs of your team or your product. Depending on what you need we will create a comprehensive understanding of how the visual elements of your brand should look.
What's your Type?
A hallmark of CRU's design work is our emphasis on custom typefaces and wordmarks. By crafting bespoke typographic solutions, we can provide an unprecedented level of uniqueness. In times of copycats and fast design, typography gives us nowadays still a chance to create something (almost) uncopyable. It may be one of the most underestimated design elements that exists, but studies have shown that typefaces are more recognizable than logos.
If you are using the same stock typefaces as everybody else, you lose what could be an otherwise powerful asset in brand distinction.
Typography is our secret weapon. We’ll explain to you how it can give your brand distinction, even if you’re not a type nerd (yet). We love to consider every line, curve, and the gentle but important interaction between them.
Your new Brand Identity
The end result of a Brand Design Project? An entirely new look that stands out in your field (in the best way possible), that lends distinction, trustworthiness, and an emotional entry point to your brand. Together we’ll finalize and scale your Brand Design to the most important touchpoints and stress test the brand core. We define where the brand gives value in the customer journey and define how exactly we will roll it out.
Every detail is tested and we follow the credo: Embrace clarity. Eliminate the unnecessary. Focus on what truly matters. We package all of the different elements into a Brand Guideline that helps your team understand how to use this powerful new tool. It’s an easy to understand document that can help your in house creative team, or agencies you want to work with to create designs that reflect your new look.
Launching your new Brand Design should be a big celebration: ideally you’d have a party (and invite us) where you reveal it to the team. It should feel like a custom tailored suit that you can’t wait to put on for the whole world to see—and we can’t wait to make it for you.
Logos
At CRU our specialty are unique signets and wordmarks using either «customized» foundry typefaces or fully bespoke designs. But we also love creating graphical logos that are memorable and stand out from the crowd.
Colors
A color palette helps define which colors in particular are associated with your brand. We will find combinations that are both unique to your brand and work together harmoniously.
Typography
We are obsessed with typography and can work with you to find custom typefaces, or discover the unique foundry made types that can set you apart from the competition and add an unprecedented level of uniqueness.
Imagery
How you visually represent yourself also extends to the way that you take photographs of your team, your product, and more. We develop a dedicated look & feel for your imagery to help find your best side.
Icons
Across your website, app, or even in presentations, we design custom icons that fit your overall brand identity, and communicate aspects of your brand or product clearly.
Illustrations
A powerful tool for relating to your brand or understanding your product, we can help define a unique illustration style and find the illustrators who can bring this aspect of your brand to life.
Layouts
Whether for the web, presentations, or more, we create layouts and templates that are easy for you and your team to use and establish consistency in your brand communications.
Brand Guidelines
To make your Brand Design usable by your team or other agencies you partner with, we prepare a very simple to understand and comprehensive Brand Guidline that explains in great detail every element of your visual design.
FAQ
How long does a Brand Design Project take?
This depends on the scope of the project of course, but anywhere from 4-6 weeks. We can discuss what you need and figure out a timeline that works best for you.
I don’t want to redo everything, can you help us refresh our current identity?
We can definitely help update your brand’s visual identity without having to toss everything out. We also want to ensure that you’re getting the most value for your money and time so we always suggest making as big of changes as your budget and deadlines allow. But we can also work with you depending on what specifically you need to update.
How do I know if I need a refresh or full redesign?
If you are 90% satisfied with your brand but need a tiny bit of help to get it across the line to bring it to life then you are probably looking for a brand design refresh. But, if you really need to make your brand feel more distinctive, professional, or helpful in meeting your business goals—then we recommend doing a full redesign.
What do I need to think about after redesigning my brand?
Your first consideration is making sure that your entire team adopts the new visual identity, and ensuring that every touch point that is facing a customer is consistent with this new identity. Then, depending on your industry, it may be useful to let your customers know that you have updated your website or look and feel but are still committed to offering the same high quality service.
Is a massive brand redesign really worth the time and money?
We aren’t just saying this because we want your business, but in short: absolutely. Brand Design is not a luxury, it is a necessity in order to have a business that stands out amongst the competition and is distinct in the minds of your customers. The work that we do is not just a set of standard cosmetic changes, we create measurable business impact that will help you grow into the goals you’re striving for.
You have a glimpse about us and how we like to work and consult. In the end every business and situation is different. So tell us about yours.
