Brand Formation at Amplified

Amplified’s design studio produces software designs, digital animations, and brand identities. This blog post describes our methodology as it relates to brand formation. For insight on Amplified’s approach towards software design, read this blog post instead.

What is a brand? At Amplified we believe that brands are emotional, magnetic, clarifying, energizing, and earned.

A brand is emotional. A brand is a set of sentiments that people associate with an organization, product, service, or person.

A brand is magnetic. A brand attracts people who naturally want to identify with whatever the brand represents and invokes.

A brand is clarifying. A brand establishes an identity and a set of values that makes it easy for the brand’s leaders to make the tough decisions.

A brand is energizing. A brand motivates and inspires its team, customers, and partners to work together and achieve common goals.

A brand is earned. Clever phrases and pretty graphics are superficial, great brands promise something and then deliver.

What is your brand? Amplified’s Design Studio loves to partner with startups to help them answer this question. Our brand formation engagement usually lasts 10 to 16 weeks and is broken down in the following phases:

1. Initial Investigation

We start by looking outwards to understand the broader market. We interview and survey past and present customers of the brand. If possible, we’d like to interview non-customers too. We also perform basic market research to understand how competitors are presenting themselves. We look inwards to the company itself. We interview team members and try to understand their individual values and the culture of the team at large. Amplified then synthesizes all of this information to identify common themes that resonate across the various stakeholders. Additionally, the initial investigation may surface possible brand or strategic disconnects among the stakeholders, which could warrant additional exploration.

2. Brand Strategy

Common insights and themes that surfaced from the initial investigation will form the basis of the new brand identity. Amplified will brainstorm attributes of a brand personality, which includes a tone of voice and a general posture that it may adopt — a brand persona. Additionally, Amplified will think strategically about how to position the brand. What is this company uniquely exceptional at? What really matters to the end customer? What unique market space or product category can this company truly own as the indisputable leader? We anchor our brand insights around a dominant selling idea — whom is the brand targeting, and what is the unique insight that informs the brand’s identity and attracts people to the brand? We organize these insights in a short document called a Brand Brief.

3. Brand Language

Once the Brand Brief is produced, we then begin to prototype with language and visual assets. We write copy that includes mission/vision statements, slogans or taglines, an elevator pitch, a brand story, and other language threads. We write and rewrite these language samples, iterating with the brand’s tone and voice, while also pursuing the most concise and effective ways of communicating the brand’s dominant selling idea.

4. Brand Visuals

Just as we prototype with language, we also prototype with visuals to design the brand aesthetic. We explore color palettes, typography, and logo constructions. We play with different combinations of visual assets to find those that seem most aligned with the brand persona. We also try to develop visual metaphors and patterns that can be used across marketing assets. This process is highly iterative and collaborative with the client.

5. Final Implementation

After the language and visual elements are finalized, Amplified organizes and implements all of the brand assets. We produce a Brand Guide — a document that defines the brand, organizes its elements, and introduces taste rules that distinguish on-brand versus off-brand usage. We may also be tasked to develop a presentation website. Depending on the ambition of the website, Amplified may or may not involve a software engineer in its development. Otherwise, an Amplified designer can produce the website on their own. Oftentimes we work with Webflow, or we can just build a website from scratch. Finally, Amplified produces additional brand collateral. Namely, we prepare marketing materials like business cards, templated documents, and social media banners.

At the end of the day, brand formation is a creative and non-linear process that involves some risk taking. As your brand partner, our promise to you that our service will be highly devoted and collaborative. If you are interested in starting up a new brand with Amplified, email us at hello@amplified.software.