Why Brands Need to Design with a Why

Com­pa­nies and design­ers need to STOP focus­ing on just mak­ing things pret­ty. Apply­ing con­cep­tu­al and strate­gic design — and one that incor­po­rates your mis­sion — has to be a part of your brand process.

why brands need to design with a why

Unfor­tu­nate­ly our indus­try is sat­u­rat­ed with peo­ple push­ing out logos, web­sites and over­all cam­paigns so quick­ly that it can leave you scratch­ing your head as to the con­cept. While not every case is like this, clients are often on short time­lines and design­ers can use tem­plates and short­cuts just to get the job done… yet your brand is the foun­da­tion to every­thing else you’ll build. It should unques­tion­ably be care­ful­ly cre­at­ed to max­i­mize and com­mu­ni­cate what you stand for.

Brands need to express the rea­son why they are in busi­ness, and not just ver­bal­ly, but visu­al­ly!  At NCD we say “Design with a WHY”. Instead of the self-serv­ing “i” in spelling, we use a “y” to help you think about both “you” and incor­po­rat­ing your “why”. This con­cept was inspired by Simon Sinek’s famous quote:

“Peo­ple don’t buy what you do; they buy WHY you do it.” — Simon Sinek

Cre­at­ing a visu­al empha­sis on your brand’s mis­sion and “why you do what you do” is essen­tial. Brand for the peo­ple you want to empow­er with your mission.

A great exam­ple of this is Char­i­ty Water. Study their web­site and tune in to what your per­son­al reac­tion is to their words, their images, their graph­ics, col­or, and font.

Design and Col­or: Many of the most suc­cess­ful brands in the world involve their design depart­ment in the brand strat­e­gy. And they should! Design plays a strate­gic and vital role, tap­ping into our basic instincts cre­at­ed from our ear­li­est moments in infan­cy. Read more about that on our post about color.

Visu­als and Words: Some­times brands focus more on the copy and less on their visu­al iden­ti­ty. Both mat­ter… but remem­ber to uti­lize the fact that human beings absorb visu­al mean­ings before what we read.

Each of these ele­ments add into the mul­ti-lay­ered rela­tion­ship you want to build with those you serve. If your brand was a build­ing, you’d want it to last a life-time. Would you draw a pic­ture of your dream home and hand it off to any archi­tect and tell them. “Make it look pret­ty”? Wouldn’t you wor­ry about the qual­i­ty of the mate­ri­als from which it’s being made and that the struc­ture is up to code? Every detail mat­ters in the build­ing, and togeth­er they form a sol­id, struc­ture —just how it should for your brand.

So as you build, focus on com­mu­ni­cat­ing the WHY in your busi­ness and cre­at­ing strong brand con­ti­nu­ity.

If you feel stuck and would like some help, make sure to take advan­tage of our free con­sult!