The bare grain of your brand

Your product is the epitome of quality, your service is second to none, you’ve invested a great deal of time, love and hard-earned money to creating the perfect brand identity. Your identity is unmistakably unique to your business and conveys every essence of what you deliver, and how you want your clients to see you – high-end quality in everything that you do.

So what will your customers expect when they log onto your website, receive a printed mail piece, brochure, business card, or walk into your store? Cost cutting print… slightly fuzzy around the edges, your name slightly wonkey on the card – but only just that they can’t quite place what’s not right? A home page that looks just like the last guys they looked at – but crammed to the edges with messages and products, images that don’t quite align, objects that nudge in position from page to page, photography that they just can’t quite decipher…colours that don’t quite match what they’re looking for… or do they…? Does this reflect the standard of your product and service? Clearly not. You could argue that these are only noticeable to the trained eye, or that the quality of the products speak for themselves, however even the untrained eye will see that the something looks ‘just a bit off’, ‘grubby’, ‘makeshift’ and will blemish the overall impression of your brand. Just like your approach to your business, everything that represents your business should do so in the style and standard that your customers do expect.

I had a client who was a prime example of this. I won’t name names, but they were a luxury brand who offered the highest possible quality product and keep a very loyal customer base. When I first walked into their main store I was astounded to see that the majority of their point of sale, marketing materials were printed from the computer in the office, on standard white paper stock. The fonts were all different, the colours were dirty looking and some were crinkled. No consistency of brand, tone of voice and I was, as you can tell, quite shocked. “We have a very small print run”, “We needed a sign fast, and only one”… Do you just ‘knock up’ any old product for a customer that just wants one? No you don’t. And do you really need all of these prints? Needless to say this situation changed. Processes were put in place to action requests on an ad hoc basis, guidelines were issued and the designs and finishes were pulled inline with the brand values, all within their limited budget. Customers did notice the new POS straight away, many positive comments (and none negative) were made to staff and this was reflected in the product sales themselves. Through reward this client saw the true value of a pixel-perfect approach to design and quality over quantity.

I have a strong belief that brands should be taking every single detail relating to their company seriously into consideration – no matter how insignificant it may seem at the time. Whether it is the product you offer, the way you present it, your website, marketing materials, or even the colour of your walls. Yes it will make a difference if your logo is two pixels off to the left – if you’re going to do it, don’t ‘make do’ without that last 10%.