Brand Identity for Entrepreneurs; Your Mother Lied to You

You know that saying, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”? Unfortunately, people do. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. People judge others on their appearance first, and instinctively, someone’s face is the first thing you judge. You’re probably just as guilty of it as I am.

How about an analogy? If your business is a person, your logo is its face, and your brand identity is its clothing. People will judge you on it, and make their choices based upon it. Large businesses lose big if they make bad branding choices; Just look at the 2012 London Olympics, the Tropicana rebrand, or in the 90’s, “New” Coke.

Logo design is a specialised field of design. Successful logos should simultaneously communicate multiple business values, inform the consumer of the appropriate business sector, and should influence the target audience’s opinion. They should work as well in monochrome as they do in colour, and they should work as well on a business card or email footer as they do on a billboard. That’s a big ask. Get it wrong, and you can communicate all the wrong things. Get it right, get the consumer on your side, and the battle is all but won. (more…)

This entry was written by xander, posted on January 14, 2010 at 4:09 pm, filed under Words and tagged branding, entrepreneur, graphic design, logo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

My Portfolio website now live…

After a lot of hard work, auto-didactic self-discipline, and cups of tea, I’ve managed to finish and upload my portfolio website. I had designed several self-promotional pieces, but was hanging fire with the printing and distribution until my folio site went online.

Well, the wait is over…as of this friday, http://xanderashwell.co.uk is now live!

(I strongly suggest you check out the hire page too, if not only because I’m wearing a fetching little number on that page)

I’ll now be concentrating on thonlyshape.com, my new zine, featuring loads of creative geniuses.

I’ll also be revamping this blog at some point, as I hate having a generic theme.

This entry was written by xander, posted on October 11, 2009 at 8:52 pm, filed under Images and tagged freelance, graphic design, photography, portfolio, website, xander. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.