TwelveStone Health began as a humble startup with an inconsistent brand identity, an outdated website, and little digital marketing presence. As the client was essentially a solo founder with a small team, they lacked even a company name when they approached us.
The Need
Our client required a complete transformation into a well-established company, starting with a new company name and a corporate identity that signified growth, regardless of their current size.
The Proposal
Our first step was brainstorming a suitable company name. Drawing inspiration from the founder’s Christian values, we identified a favorite biblical verse that led to the creation of “White Stone Health.” We then crafted the logo, designed essential print collateral, and developed a fully responsive website with compelling copy. Experience design played a crucial role in this process. Following this, we meticulously planned and implemented a multi-channel digital marketing strategy.
The Outcome
Throughout our partnership with TwelveStone, we consistently met and exceeded the client’s expectations. White Stone Health has continued to thrive, building upon the foundation we established at the outset. This strong foundation has demonstrated that strategic planning for future growth is a valuable and enduring investment.
Lessons Learned
Our upfront research and planning for TwelveStone Health proved to be invaluable. Regardless of the company’s rapid expansion into new territories, our corporate identity and design remained adaptable. One challenge we encountered was that the branding, while reflecting the gentle sentiment of the biblical verse it was inspired by, required adjustments in terms of color and saturation to accommodate various applications as the company grew.
Examples a few of the hundreds of pieces I’ve created as a part of TwelveStone Health Partners’ ongoing corporate identity I created and have been gradually evolving since 2013.
Corporate Identity:
50+ Companies Branded and Counting
With more than fifty corporate identity successes under my belt, benefitting large and small companies and individuals in about every industry nationwide, I understand the considerations that go into the corporate branding. As your corporate identity advocate, I’ll point out pitfalls and opportunities alike at all stages of the branding or rebranding process, from brainstorming the perfect corporate name to seeing your corporate logo projected 100 feet tall on the side of a skyscraper, and every crucial step between.
Contents
What Is Corporate Identity?
Your Organization’s First Impression
Straight to the point, a corporate identity is your company’s personality. It’s the first impression to prospective clients, partners, investors, etc. A weak corporate identity is the equivalent of a weak handshake. It’s like not being able to look that other person in the eye. A strong corporate identity is just the opposite: it’s a confident handshake and eyes met.
All the pie charts, all the case studies, and all the fancy presentations won’t entirely make up for a weak corporate identity. Personality and professional offerings are great, but if your branding is off-target, amateurish, or dated, there will always be that little bit of doubt in the other party’s mind.
Let’s avoid that, shall we?
My goal is to make your organization look like you want to look in five, ten, fifteen years, the times you dreamed about when you decided to start your business in the first place. You may only be five friends in a tiny office with folding chairs, but to the world, to your prospects, you’ll look like a Fortune 500 company if that’ your aim. Alternatively, if your aim is to look as down home and approachable as possible, then that’s what I’ll create.
Your brand should communicate that marketing message, in as clean, tasteful, and appropriate manner as possible. Correct corporate branding design is not about my personal style — I actively try not to have one, so I can remain malleable — it’s about identifying, bringing into the light, and effectively communicating your company’s innate personality in visual form.
Your Organization’s Lasting Impression: Defending Your Corporate Brand
Once you corporate banding is created, it is very important that it be applied in a consistent professional manner. A professional designer should know this and will likely follow a corporate identity guidelines, but it is equally important that your corporate brand is being applied correctly by others.
You will often distribute your corporate logo to publications so they can create in-house ads, to service bureaus for application on t-shirts or other promotional materials, etc. It is key that you have someone advocate to these parties for correct application of your corporate identity.
Your Organization’s Evolving Impression
Not to confuse the issue — after having spoken strongly about maintaining your organization’s corporate branding — but in the rarest of circumstances, it is possible for a graphic designer skilled in creating, applying, and upholding corporate identity design to gradually modify your corporate brand. This can only be achieved gently, over the span of months, and over many pieces at strategically chosen points.
No matter where your organization’s needs fall, I am the person who you need. Creating, applying, and defending corporate identity is my area of greatest passion and experience.
Corporate Identity and Your Professional Organization
What is included in a corporate identity?
What is included in a corporate identity is something designers have been trying to answer since the dawn of the undertaking. In my many years in the trenches, I’ve found two ways to “package” branding so that my clients can budget for the work.
Branding packages
Logo only: The simplest corporate ID package is just a logo. Early on in a company’s life especially, that’s all that a new company can afford. And frankly, sometimes it’s all that’s needed. Because I had the rare luxury of never needing to market my services for my first couple years in business — I was working as a plugin design department for a plugin marketing company — I sometimes felt silly or vain for even having a logo.
Basic: The next and most common tier is considered Basic. It usually includes a logo, business cards, letterhead, and an envelope (though envelopes are being requested less and less each year), all of what is traditionally called a stationery set. I will also include one or two additional pieces, based on the client’s understanding of what “basic” is for their business,. On occasion, I’ll be asked to add one or two items that would normally be considered special, like email template, etc., but more on that later.
Presentation-centric companies will consider a PowerPoint/Keynote template as much or more essential than even business cards. In that case, I’ll throw in a template with three slides — cover, internal page, and internal page with sidebar. Another client who is very personable, will place a note pad at that same level. Regardless, whatever is included, the work will be estimated and billed per item.
Marketing: Here again, there is room for discussion as to what makes a comprehensive corporate identity, but it will include any or all of the items that are ever considered basic — logo design, business cards, letterhead, envelope, notecard, pocketed folder, and presentation template.
Additionally, a comprehensive set will also include pieces geared toward marketing — templates for sales sheets, case studies, white papers, digital and print ads, infographics, reports, and anything else specific to a client company’s needs.
This can be a challenging proposition because unless the client has actual content they won’t really know what layouts may serve them best. For this reason, I usually suggest creating pieces in their corporate identity one-at-a-time as they arise naturally. This doesn’t allow for a bulk design discount, but it’s my experience that more is saved overall when the actual content does come in and the client recognizes the need for template edits.
Special: Sometimes, usually prompted by change or a sudden need to take advantage of a new opportunity, a client will need special pieces/projects designed. Any first-ofs must be designed to seamlessly fit with the company’s corporate identity, old or new, to avoid the jarring or unprofessional effects I mentioned earlier.
There are a few common scenarios:
When a client changes locations, they will rely on me for internal and external signage design and framed wall art showing displaying company information.
A client’s first trade show will require the creation of any number of materials and digital products ranging from digital and print ads, to branded merchandise, to trade show display, handouts, t-shirts, and on an on, depending on the client’s budget and marketing goals.
Often with client growth comes a need for graphical wrap design for new fleet vehicles.
The list of special circumstances is extensive. The number of different directions along that trade show support can go with all of the different types and different dimensions of materials that can be included in a trade show presentation necessitates the services of someone like me who has 30+ trade shows under his belt. You need someone who understands individual printer’s specifications, has trusted vendor relationships, and who can oversee and guarantee timely production and shipping of materials to your office or the trade show venue.
Branding Stages
With all of what I’ve laid out regarding branding packages, I’ve had far more success creating the starting corporate identity set initially then designing each of the additional pieces one-at-a-time as the need arises.
This requires the client to be willing to possibly pay a little more per piece, but as I mentioned earlier, they save overall by reducing the likelihood of template edits when the work is done blind at the beginning of our relationship. Working in this way also reducing the chance that a particular piece will be unnecessarily designed early on. If I design a case study template but you never find the need to use it, that effort and expense will have been wasted.
The bottom line though is no matter which path you choose to go, I’ll be your advocate, offering suggestions along the way based on my experience helping organization of all sizes. Corporate identity is hugely important undertaking for any company. And though it may seem simple in some ways, the work lies in the dedication to consistency, from the outset and as new work arises. I have that dedication and the experience to see even the most complex of branding jobs through, on time and on budget.
Where is your corporate identity?
Scenario 1: You Need a new or redesigned Corporate Identity
New organizations: There’s little more exciting to an entrepreneur, regardless of how many companies they’ve started, than creating the corporate name and corporate logo, seeing that new name on business cards. Then later seeing it appear on any first item of its kind. As sentimentally important as the design of your corporate identity is, it is even more so a step in your corporate evolution to take a step away from emotions.
Existing organizations: You may be a company who started out under one business model but finds itself in different enough a situation to justify a name change. This can happen any number of ways:
Some businesses move horizontally, finding success in a peripheral field, i.e. — Larry’s Lawns now makes a killing installing residential fountains. So, Larry’s Fountains.
Some business evolve from specific to general, i.e. — Larry’s Lawns does lawns but also, those fountains, gardening, home security installation, solar, roofing, etc. Now “Lawns” has become a marketing limitation.
Some businesses grow in the opposite direction. Maybe Larry’s General Contracting should just be Larry’s Lawns after all.
And some businesses find surprising growth, so that logo your daughter-in-law drew doesn’t convey the next-level professionalism your organization now needs.
Sadly, some companies just get cheated, left with a inappropriate, unattractive logo that did the job for as long as the business owner could stand it but now it’s got to go.
Whatever the reason, good or bad, your corporate identity design or redesign should be handled with lawyer-like care, with attention to detail and giving consideration to a large number of factors you as a business owner may not think of without professional guidance. I’ve rescued designs for more than a few companies, and I’ve given birth to a good many more.
Scenario 1: You Need a new or redesigned Corporate Identity
In many cases, you will be content with your corporate identity but are for whatever reason no longer working with the designer or form who created it. But time goes on and as new events, products, etc., come into play, they must appear as seamless additions to your current site, trade show setup, collateral or whatever you need.
I have continued about as many corporate identities as I have created from scratch. And that includes continuing the look and feel for companies whose current branding the organizations knew were outdated, unattractive, or for whatever reason was in need of updating, but they weren’t yet ready for a professional update.
No problem. Whatever your corporate identity need is — new, renewed, or continued — that’s where an experienced graphic designer dedicated to your brand comes in. I can design “down” as easily as I can design “up” if you want to think about the topic in those terms. So regardless where you are at with your corporate identity, design, redesign, or continuation, I’m your company man.
Simply put, white space is an empty area surrounding a design element. And don’t be mislead by “white” and “empty” because the design element isn’t always surrounded by a field of pristine white, but possibly a texture like grass or sky or some other regular background. But the effect is that in relation to the featured design element, the area around it is empty. “White space” is simply a convenient term.
Why Is White Space a “Beautiful Thing”?
Now you know WHAT it is, WHY is it? And what makes it a “beautiful thing”? To understand why designers have relied on white space since the beginning of Design, one must understand its effect on a viewer.
Because we’re basically animals, when any of us with normal, healthy vision looks at a designed piece, they generally see elements in a predictable order:
Faces
Color
Symbols
Edges
Text
You can imaging how difficult things could get for a designer if this order were set in stone. Fortunately, we have work-arounds and among the most powerful of them is white space.
There’s one thing I left off the list above because it’s not really a thing, but the phenomenon of comparison. You see, more than any specific type of element, humans pick on differences more strongly than about anything else. Our eye shoots right to the piece of spinach between the boss’s teeth. We can’t NOT see the one out-of-step solider. We notice the child among adults at the business meeting. And it seems there is no turning off command of our focus.
And that’s where the magic of white space finally comes into play. If you need the text to be seen before or more prominently than, say, the model who is speaking, leverage white space in two directions:
Framing. By placing the element of focus—the text, in this case—in a semi-central location in the design and by giving it a lot of room on all sides, we see it as special or important.
Diminishing. Conversely, by removing white space from around a design elements that might otherwise steal attention, we communicate to a viewer that the element is less consequential.
Of course there are better and worse ways to utilize the concept of white space but at its root, it really is that simple.
A blunt but successful example of using white space is how we always see “Got Milk” campaign or the Nike swoosh presented, by themselves and with ample space around them. But an experienced designer will consider white space in every aspect of design. The spacing between headlines and paragraphs, the tightness of lines in the title of a book, or how much space there is between elements of a business card are all examples of how white space is a conscious decision a seasoned professional makes at every point of design.
It is often the single most notable difference between design work that a viewer will subconsciously categorize as “pro” versus “amateur”.
Posters are big, colorful, attention-grabbing and relatively inexpensive to product. However, the particulars of their design and production present unique challenges best left to a professional.
Regarding design, amateurs or less-experienced designers are frequently tempted to fill a poster corner-to-corner with text and images until the viewer’s eye is has no clear starting point or natural flow.
Regarding production, due to their size, posters often require special printing vendors, paper stock, mounting, and framing.
Since posters are such a good value-for-effect proposition, let me handle the design, production, and delivery of your posters to ensure optimal quality and effect.
The simple 8 1/2 x 11 sheet remains one of the most-utilized media for direct and indirect marketing. It’s hand-held and immediate and if designed well can store a wealth of information, images, and contact information.
Sales Sheets
Sales sheets give prospective clients overviews of your products, services, and your company itself as well as how to see more online, and how to engage with you. They should strongly support your corporate identity as well as establish a targeted connection between the information being offered and the demographic to which it will be presented. The viewer’s eye will start at a predictable point and flow through the content until the call-to-action is reached.
Case Study Sheets
Case study sheets are testimonials on steroids. They present your customer’s successful experience by stating their starting point, your role in their improvement, proof of that improvement, and a statement of the client’s analytical and emotional takeaways in their own words. Similar to sales sheets, case study sheets will lead the viewer’s eye through relevant and persuasive information to a clear call-to-action. Case studies are strong tools for the hope and security they offer your prospective clients.
Postcards and flyers differ from other types of advertisement in that they often will be viewed “cold”, meaning they won’t be handed directly to a prospective client—besides band promotion and protests —but be viewed without introduction or context. So these special designed pieces can be more of a marketing challenge than most other types of advertisement. The designer must communicate a clear, engaging message that resonates with its targeted demographic before the viewer instinctively flicks it into the trash.
Postcards
Yes, postcards are still useful, effective marketing pieces. Admittedly, it’s a numbers game, but it’s an arguably good investment because you know that your advertisement will be in the literal hands of your prospective customer. And since postcards are cheap to produce and mail, they start to look like a very attractive marketing option.
Flyers
Like postcards, flyers are a numbers game. They can be sent but are more commonly placed strategically where the highest number of eyes from your target demographic are ensured. However, marketing using flyers presents two additional challenges postcards don’t present:
You’re competing against any other flyers in the area rather than against the other pieces of mail as postcards do. So there are potentially more competitors; and,
Since you’re competing for viewer’s eyes, you’re design for viewer attention. But this must be achieved tastefully. The temptation may be to go bold and garish, but doing always compromises corporate identity. It’s like wrapping the organization in a skimpy club dress: it’s not the type of attention they need. Use of white space and simple messaging does a better job, if only by standing out from the other bad designs near it.
Event/Holiday Card Design
Cards are similar to brochures and flyers, but the feelings around them are usually friendlier. They’re less “marketing”—at least at first glance. It’s important not to get lulled into thinking card design is a complete design reprieve. Though it may seem like it in this case, there’s always a marketing angle to any design, and cards are no exception. The only meaningful difference between brochures, flyers, and other print advertising and cards is that the former are overt and are intended to build sales, while the latter are subtle and intended to build good feelings…which, like it or not, is aimed ultimately at building sales, even if only in part. At the very least, cards are a method of communication that touches the soft underbelly of business. If only out of sensitivity to this vulnerable position, the tone and message of a card design should be taken as seriously as any other design project.
Let Company Man Design protect your corporate identity and deliver your message.
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