Corporate Design · Kaeding Anderson

Why we think big and realise brand presences with attention to detail

When a client says, “I need a new logo,” the question behind it is usually, “Who am I, and how do I communicate that to my clients?”

Corporate design ensures a uniform, visual appearance and contributes significantly to the identity of a brand. It therefore also takes much more than “just” a logo to convey the representation, the unmistakable appearance of a company: Colour climate, signet, typography, layout, infographics, illustration, photography, video, animation, sound, media selection, etc. all add up to an overall impression that makes the brand visible and tangible for your customers. Multimedia.

Brand development: Questions about questions …

The heart of the corporate design is, of course, the brand. When designing the brand mark, far-reaching decisions are made for the overall appearance. The decision on typography alone says a lot about the company and its positioning:

Which style of writing makes the right statement – historical, humanist, geometric, handwritten, scribbled, modernist, coded …?
Which letterforms support the statement – uppercase, lowercase, unicase?
Which detail shapes are appropriate – sharp-edged, rounded, playful?
How should the font be set – right-aligned, left-aligned or lord-centred?
Should the logotype also be used as a house font?
Which writing systems are then necessary – Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic …?

The details matter

Almost every emotional statement can be typographically reinforced – or counteracted. And once the right font has been found, we already ask the next questions: Which colour promotes the statements? Is a signet, a figurative mark, meaningful, necessary and desirable here? Does the sign harmonise with the typography? Does the brand need to be supplemented with a claim? And so on …

This may read as an exaggeration, but it is essential on the way to the goal: although the viewer with an “untrained eye” does not consciously notice many details in the split second of perception, this does not mean that they are not effective. It is precisely the details that have a major influence on the image of a brand. Loosely based on Charles Eames: The detail is the design!