A Critical Reflection on Branding and Identity

In this modern day, the graphic design industry has become saturated, resulting in high competition in the field. From my Crit in the Professional Design Practice module, I learnt that as a graphic design professional, I have to be unique and have a specific artistic voice to stand out from the crowd and stay relevant. In this critical reflection, I will be delving into what elements make a brand unique and also relating it to my brand.

What is Branding and Identity to me?

In the past, I simply thought branding and identity was just about a company’s logo design and simply creating mock-up images that align with the logo, after the Branding workshop in the Professional Design Practice module, I realized it was more than that. I was able to learn the distinctive meaning of branding being related to how a brand is seen by its audience from its tone of voice, core values, and the message it intends to convey. And identity as the visual elements of a brand. A combination of both branding and identity helps to convey your brand story to your audience. This knowledge served as a foundation for how I intend to build my brand identity by keeping in mind my brand tone of voice of being formal because I lean towards being very professional when it comes to my work and relating with my clients. I was also able to figure out my core values as being an adaptable and resilient person both professionally and socially.

Creating a Branding Brief

In other to figure out my company’s branding and identity, I started by drafting out a brand brief. This brief encompasses all the information needed to build a company’s brand. This was an essential tool for my group work in the Professional Design Practice module whereby we were able to create a collage/ mood board as a planning phase in getting our brand identity using four key points: offer (what you do), image (how you sound and talk), place (where you do it), value (how you do it). Having all these in mind we were able to create a brand identity for a mental health app we called “Teen Talk Buddy” and a campaign video to showcase the brand. The brand brief was an essential tool in helping me plan my brand identity because it gave me a vast knowledge of my brand and made me consider things (like goals and objectives, key audiences and so on) I usually wouldn’t consider when creating a brand identity design. 

Brand Personality/Tone of voice

The branding workshop gave me a clear-cut description of a brand’s tone of voice/personality and its importance in communicating with audiences. For my group work, being that it was a mental health app we opted for a tone of voice that is respectful and caring to put our target audience at ease. From the colour choice to the logo design and the campaign voiceover, it showcased the brand as one that deeply cares about the state of its users' well-being. Considering my brand identity design, my tone of voice being geared towards being formal I utilised a minimalistic design approach to represent this. This can be seen in my choice of colours gearing towards a blue tone which is related to professionalism and a simple typography that showcases my formal approach to my work.

Core Values

From the knowledge gathered in the Branding workshop, a brand’s core values should not only be able to reflect what the brand does but should be seen in the way it treats its employees and customers. For example, a notable company like Apple with its core value “Think Different” summarizes its commitment to encouraging its audience to approach technology and design with a fresh, innovative perspective. One key quote to note here according to Cecilia Martin is “Stand out by standing for something” If you stand for something that alone makes one unique. What makes me unique as a graphic designer is being able to adapt to trying or challenging situations and being resilient.

Self-Reflection/Defining my brand

Upon reflection, I ask the question, what does the brand "Adrian Agbi" stand for? The Adrian Agbi brand represents a strong, resilient, adaptable, professional female graphic designer. Her minimalistic approach to creating simple but memorable designs for her audience. She strongly believes in the term “less is more” and usually gears towards simplicity in most of her designs. The brand’s identifiable symbol is that of an abstract minimalistic drawing of a woodpecker which is one bird she has always admired and seen as a strong representation of her core values of being adaptable, resilient and professional.