the corporate identity hell

from the philosophical ranting dept.

i’m a lot confronted with the aspects of corporate design and it’s inclusion into existing corporate identities of companys and/or other organisations. (fucking subjective:) corporate design is cool if you can start something from scratch or if the already existing base is useful to expand and build upon. sometimes tho, all you get to start with is a somewhat unlucky 80s style it-logo and the company using it is totally into the hardcore corporate design use. “no we won’t change anything, people will not recognize us”. is it just me or is it sometimes necessary to break up existing structures? if a company changes it’s direction, if it tries to get on a defined track (by fixing identity and stuff), isn’t that the best time to think about throwing old ideas over board?

of course, if we’re talking about mass products like chocolate bars, it would be the worst idea to change the logo if sales are doing well. but we’re talking about a company which isn’t international, still beeing rated “medium size” company.

don’t misunderstand me, i’m very into pushing a corporate design thru every aspect of a company’s view from the outside. but that needs to be a good corporate design. it has to fit to everything identity related stuff. i’m not a friend of half-baken things. either you do it 110% well or you just leave it as is.

again, if the basematerial (read: the existing logo) is done well and represents a certain up-to-date/timeless style, i’m fine with creating everything around it. but there needs to be a conceptual link from the logo to the wishes and expectations a company connects to their wish of haveing a “simple, effective and timeless” corporate design.

i’m a friend of headroom - haveing headroom for graphic design is what you need to make things which are individual, which fit to a concept as much as fit to the given taste of the given time, the atmosphere of a company, the goals they want to achieve, identity wise. but then, if i run into already taken decisions, i don’t feel very good. and of course, this feeling also inflicts my approach, the creative flow. if you have limitations, you still need to take into account everything and do everything - and then cut it down until it fits the customers needs.

maybe graphic designers and corporate identity knights have a very different approach on this issue. enough for a holy war. :) on the other side, that’s exactly what you need to come up with new ideas. hell, the idea doesn’t even need to be new. it just needs to be fitting perfectly to an identity. and to achieve that, one needs to think about the identity aswell probably ..