Brand Platform

I didn’t design those logos up there, but they represent some of the clients I’ve developed Brand Platforms for over the past few years. But I didn’t start out doing this work, I developed this skill by way of necessity. My undergraduate training in Design Communication at University of Houston was very content oriented, but I quickly learned in my first real world job that visual design, while critical, can only be so effective without a proper strategic foundation. Who is your audience? What do you want to say? How do you want to say it? Who is the competition you need to stand out from? What is the external market environment that your brand needs to react to be successful? Internally, what does your brand stand for? What drives it emotionally, where will it be in 40 years, what makes it unique in the market and what about it is most relevant to your target customer? To give your customer the clues that will allow them to write their own story about your brand you need to consider all these things. 

Not only does a Brand Platform allow you to craft the tools you need to impart your brand story, it also makes that process less time-consuming and more efficient. Launching, re-directing, growing or simply maintaining a brand is difficult enough as it is, by creating this foundation a brand can cut out painful repetition and costly mistakes. The direction a Brand Platform provides not only helps marketing activation, but it also guides product development so that the customer experiences a product and brand story that is absolutely consistent, relevant and powerful. And lastly, while no creative process is free from subjective bias, a Brand Platform gives your team clear objective criteria by which to critique the brand-building work you are creating.

Every brand challenge is different. Sometimes you have the opportunity to do a full brand discovery process and create your Brand Platform from whole cloth. In other cases discovery work has already been executed and other forms of research exist, but then needs to be audited, edited and synthesized into something useful for your team. Regardless of where you start, three critical steps have to happen: Discovery, Definition and finally, Design. My experience in design over the past (almost) 20 years has found me the unique ability to execute at all three levels.