No flip-chart required: Branding, Crafted style

When I got my first opportunity to run a brand workshop at our Ipswich studio, Crafted proved that it’s not afraid to practice what it preaches when it comes to taking ownership of a traditional format and giving it the bespoke treatment. 

The birth of a brand is an exciting thing. It’s the result of much collaboration, collective energy and the expectation of launches, promotion and lasting success.  It’s also an activity which carries considerable responsibility; establishing an identity which provides the cornerstone for long-term marketing success isn’t something anyone wants to ‘get wrong’. 

Which begs the question, ‘what’s the right approach to conceiving a successful brand?’

At Crafted, the process of extracting brand D.N.A. acknowledges that having the right input from the right people early in the process is a fundamental catalyst to generating memorable and meaningful brands. 

Brand team assemble

Enter the experts. These people understand your company, product or service to the n^th degree. They understand your objectives and already have pretty clear opinions about how you should achieve them too.  They’re owners, operators, workers, customers, prospects, representatives and, sometimes, even competitors. They’re the people right behind your drive to create a new brand, but are also those armed with the insight to challenge pre-conceptions and push creative boundaries. 

At this point, tradition would have us believe that it’s time to dust down the note pads, sharpen pencils, screen the office flip chart for undiscovered obscenity and settle in for the long-haul thought extraction procedure (cue yawn and reaching for copious amounts of caffeine). 

Put down your pencils

Crafted prefer to cast tradition aside. We take a fresh approach to creating brands, which starts with harnessing the enthusiasm of your brand experts. We use their knowledge and passion to power through a series of specially tailored, interactive exercises designed to explore every aspect of your brand ambition and refine the output into a list of ingredients that set the tone for success. 

You can expect to leave a Crafted branding workshop with a clear idea of the visual and descriptive elements of your brand, who your customers really are and how you’re positioned in the competitive landscape. 

The creative bit

Armed with valuable brand data, Crafted’s creative team get to work taking raw concepts and turning them into tangible brand options. In a process of constant refinement, we evaluate, hone, judge and debate before anything makes the final cut.

Colour palates, typefaces, logo’s, names, strap lines, URL availability – every aspect of your new brand is defined and lovingly prepared for presentation as a set of complete options for you to deliberate over.

Brand aclimatization

We like to let clients live with their new brand options for a while to get a proper feel for which elements make the final cut. Like all new relationships, there will be idiosyncrasies, chemistry (or not) and passion to contend with along the way. Thus it’s important that those elements you don’t want to settle down with and start a harmonious future are ejected in favour of the perfect brand. 

These final ‘tweaks’ pave the way to sign-off and allow Crafted to document visual identity, brand guidelines and set the cornerstone for marketing success. 

Whether it’s creating new company or product brands, re-branding or brand evolution, why not talk to Crafted and see how we can help. 

Could our next beautifully Crafted brand be yours? 

Written by Tom Gillman