Corporate Brand Design

Developing and Managing Brand Identity

Mohammad Mahdi Foroudi, Pantea Foroudi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000459067
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Marketing

Corporate Brand Design offers a unique and comprehensive exploration of the relationship between companies, their brand design, and their stakeholders.

The book begins its approach with a literature review, to provide an overview of current thinking on the subject and establish a theoretical framework. The following sections cover key stages during the corporate brand development process: Brand signature design, its components and impact on brand reputation; website design and how it builds customer perception of the brand; corporate architecture design and the branding of space and place; brand experience design from a sensuality perspective. International case studies from a range of industries feature in each chapter to demonstrate how the theory translates to practice, alongside case questions to cement learning and definitions of the key constructs.

By combining academic theory with practical case studies and examples, readers will gain a thorough understanding of the corporate brand design process and how it influences customer identification and loyalty to the brand. The book is a useful resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of strategic brand management, corporate brand design and visual identity, and marketing communications.

PART I

Introduction to corporate brand design management

1

THE EMERGENCE, DEVELOPMENT, AND CHANGING USES OF CORPORATE BRAND DESIGN, 1760 TO DATE

Pantea Foroudi

10.4324/9781003054153-2

Introduction

Chapter 1 explores the emergence, development, and changing uses of corporate brand design from 1760 to the present day. It investigates how the current environment is more visually oriented and how corporate brand design is a language used to communicate independent verbal information to consumers.

Research background

In the years between 1760 and 1949, visual identification and distinctiveness were combined. The social revolution that occurred between 1760 and 1840 (Foroudi et al., 2017; West, 1978) gripped the West and was a radical process that historians refer to as an economic and social revolution. This era reformed the ways in which the world produced its merchandise (Deane, 1979). The Industrial Revolution started in the UK (Vries, 1994) with significant technological advances, but socioeconomic (West, 1978) and cultural problems also resulted. Various industries, such as the chemical, electricity, petroleum, and steel industries, produced vast amounts of goods with the mechanisation of the manufacture of food and drink, clothing and transport, and, with the introduction of the gramophone, even entertainment (Greenwood and Jovanovic, 1999). The trademark protection was developed out of early counterfeiting, forgery, and fraud laws in 1905 in the UK (around 50 years after its formation in France). Civil prosecution was launched against those who used another’s mark without authorisation.

The most crucial inventions for the technology of communication were the printing press and the ‘endless web’ paper-making machine, typography and its mechanisation, the revolution in printing, the wood-type poster, the rise of advertising design, the battle of the signboard, and the development of lithography (Vries, 1994). For example, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, corporate brand designs (e.g., logos) were used by factories to specify the value and origin of porcelain and furniture.

Consequently, cities grew rapidly, as significant numbers of urban workers engaged in industrial labour, and political power shifted from the aristocracy to the capitalist manufacturing and working classes. High fertility rates (Clark, 2004), poor education, and low rates of productivity growth were the most significant characteristics of the Industrial Revolution (Becker et al., 1990). In Western European countries, landowners were the most powerful force, and they invested in machines to enable mass production to take place.

Subsequently, the most important consequences of the Industrial Revolution are understood to be education and literacy (Clark, 2004). Moreover, the availability of design technology through the invention of typography and its mechanisation, the revolution in printing, the growth of lithography, the wood-type poster, and the battle of the signboard, and the overall increase in advertising design led to companies identifying themselves (Raizman, 2003). With the beginning of mass communication, the concept of graphic communication became more significant. In the same era, the nature of visual information was such that using colour lithography brought about a significant transformation.

Pre-industrial society crossed a threshold of literacy that was adequate for industrialisation (Clark, 2004). There was an extraordinary population expansion in the pre-factory environment, and the population in the UK increased by 60 percent between 1781 and 1800. However, the literacy rate was low during the Industrial Revolution. On the other hand, it is believed that there is no connection between economic growth and literacy (West, 1978). The national male illiteracy rate crossed the 60 percent threshold before 1750, whereas the female rate exceeded this around 1795 (West, 1978).

According to Laqueur (1974), who measured marriage register signatures in Britain between 1814 and 1816, 48 percent of men, representing 17 percent of the population, were only able to sign their names. The low level of education was caused by the large-scale factories with workers employed from a young age. This was the start of real social dislocation (West, 1978). There was little association among changes in the literacy rates and modifications in fertility rates (Clark, 2004). Although literacy rates increased noticeably, the skill premium remained constant in the period between 1600 and 1900.

After 1900, fertility rates fell, and the labour market decreased significantly. At that time, education belonged to a specific class of people. Working-class parents did not invest in education for their children, as the need to pay fees in most schools was an important barrier. For this reason, the majority of people were not able to read and write. The number of educated people was low, and producers identified their goods and indicated the quality and origin of their products to the public using a corporate brand design, such as trademarks and logos (Murphy and Rowe, 1988). Merchants used ‘production marks’ in order to identify their work as distinct from inferior quality goods (West, 1978). This made goods instantly recognisable and memorable to all those members of society who could not read. It is widely thought that trademarks evolved in response to the emergence of a society in which goods circulated in commerce (West, 1978). The significance of corporate identity design was recognised during the Industrial Revolution as a pre-requisite to an organisation’s achievement, as numerous developing firms required trademarks to communicate the company’s goals. The earliest trademarks, such as Coca Cola, Singer, Kodak, and Heinz, appeared in this time.

However, despite the growth in productive technology and the socioeconomic and cultural advancements, low levels of literacy among people in Western Europe held sway. According to Bowman and Anderson (1963), levels of literacy fell during the Industrial Revolution, and people slowly became more literate (West, 1978).

The first industrial design was made by Peter Behrens who was the first industrial designer in the first decade of the twentieth century (Anderson, 2000). The comprehensive visual identity designed by Behrens was for the German manufacturer, Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft (AEG). This major event in his career occurred in 1907. AEG had grown into one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies (Anderson, 2000). Walther Rathenau, a visionary industrialist, sensed the need for a unified visual character for the firm’s products, environments, and communications. Thus, Behrens, who was well known for his pioneering abilities and sensitive handling of materials and colour, began to focus upon the design needs of industry, with design responsibility ranging from stationery to buildings. Other companies also began to redesign their products to meet consumers’ desires and achieve product differentiation (Collins and Porras, 1994; Pine, 1993; Utterback, 1994).

In the same year, 1907, the German Association of Craftsmen (the Deutscher Werkbund in Munich) advocated a marriage of art with technology design in manufactured goods and architecture. A union of artists and craftsmen in industry would elevate the functional and aesthetic qualities of mass production, particularly in low-cost consumer products, and would identify the individual artistic expression (Napoles, 1988). The AEG’s graphic identity programme began to use its corporate brand design in all types of advertising (Meggs, 1992).

The First World War (1914–1918) established the importance of visual design (Fiell and Fiell, 2003) due to the need for signs and symbols for military identification and a unique code of status that could be immediately understood. The regimental badge with its heraldic device and its motto had much in common with the equally economical design and the lean, powerful images and slogans of the new posters. Consequently, the government created a visual identity to use as an identification bedrock.

Another important factor at this time was the influence of the Bauhaus School on corporate communication (packaging, the printed page, etc.). Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus School in Germany in 1919, where he combined his joint knowledge of materials and craft techniques with modern industrial production methods. More schools soon followed his concept (Bayer et al., 1938).

Then, in 1940, with a new widespread globalised communications, organisations realised the crucial need for a visual identity to control the organsiation image through merchants’ trade logos, symbols, or prototypes (Napoles, 1988). Lippincott and Margulies created the first design consultancy in 1943.

The years 1950 and 1979 are recognised as turning points in the profession, and design was employed as a decoration, sales, and marketing tool (Napoles, 1988). At this time, many organisations tried to modified their old corporate brand designs to a new design to illustrate the scale and size of the organisation (Capitman, 1976). Also, the trademark was used as a chief characteristics of packaging to encourage the purchaser that the product had a co...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• CONTRIBUTORS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I INTRODUCTION TO CORPORATE BRAND DESIGN MANAGEMENT
• PART II CORPORATE BRAND SIGNATURE MANAGEMENT
• PART III CORPORATE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN
• PART IV CORPORATE BRAND WEBSITE DESIGN
• PART V CORPORATE BRAND SENSUALITY
• INDEX