Why you're the star of a brand project

Ever wonder how brands and logos magically get developed? It’s because of YOUR vision. That doesn’t mean you have to come up with a literal logo concept and design, but good designers and branding strategists need you as the guiding light to reflect your brand, graphically.

A great and authentic logo is a reflection of what your business is, its personality, and is a visual cue as to why customers should choose your business and its products. A great logo is never just pulled out of a design hat by a design professional. It comes from really listening to you tell the story of your company, your values, and what you want your market to know or perceive about your food business products.

What’s very cool about the agri-food sector is that it’s full of personality. You see inflections of business values, and more importantly how to appeal to all the senses to stimulate emotions or memories in the consumer.

For us, that’s just plain fun and is super rewarding.

When Farm Food Drink Creative starts on your design project, you become an integral part of the creative team. You’ll contribute your direction, values, concepts, goals, perspectives, and if you have them, ideas or examples (from other sectors) on what the design could look like.

The more you give us to work with, the better we can create a visual image that reflects the personality of your business and its distinct and authentic position in the market place.

You’ll be asked to complete a creative brief, which is a series of critical, thought-provoking questions (but easy when clients live in their business as our farm food drink clients do) on who you are and the values that drive your business. We talk through your answers together, so we get to know the heart of your business, the key to the products, and all the subtleties that goes with this. So, we understand what’s important to you, this method combines our brand design expertise and your food business expertise to help focus the conversation, and the result creates a road map to great logo ideas.

Creative Brief Overview

Here are some examples of the information we ask you to share creating a starting point to percolate ideas for your business’s brand.

As you move through the information think about what excites you, what gives you energy. What do you want the consumer to feel, or what memory to conjure when they see your brand or taste your product?

This industry has an advantage in that it’s different and easier to brand a food business. That bodes well in your favour, so why not have some fun with it!

Background Information – All about you

- What is the purpose or goal of the project?
  - Are you launching a new product? Do you want to improve appeal to new consumers? Are you transitioning to retail or online sales?
- A Review of Current Materials.
  - e.g., what’s working, and what’s not
- Key Messages.
  - e.g., what do you want consumers to understand about your company?
- Your Perspective.
  - e.g., what do you hope to achieve (goals, objectives)?
- Challenges/Opportunities.
  - e.g., past experiences, future potential

Market Position

- Who is your target consumer?
- Why your customers buy from you?
- What obstacles prevent a customer from buying from you?
- Who would you say are your top 3 competitors?
- What do your competitors offer that is different from what you offer?
- What sets your product apart from competitors?
- Why would a customer choose a competitor’s product over yours?

Design Baseline

- What is the name to be used in the logo?
- What MUST the logo/brand include?
- What must NOT be included in the logo/brand?
- Tone & Style – what emotions should this design evoke?
- What are industry or sector-wide design or colour elements?
- Where do you market your product? e.g., local, regional, provincial, cross-border
- How will you be using the brand? e.g., website, social media, email, labels and other print materials, etc.
- What should the design communicate?
- Any words/phrases to be avoided?

Brand & Design Influences

- What brand do you love that is already out there? e.g., any website or images that arouse the feeling you want to convey
- What do you like about the above brands? What don’t you like about them?
- What are your design preferences? e.g., what colours would you like included, specific images or icons to represent

We’re passionate about the farm food drink sector, just like you. We know why it’s important and why it’s usually better (taste, health, freshness, etc.), and our team attracts food business owners who share this passion to grow local food economies and get good food to good people.

So, when we develop your brand, we pursue authenticity and fight against the corporate world (the ads we all grew up with) tendency to over inflate or look like something you’re not.

Because you don’t have to. Your authentic, artisanal, fresh, healthy, local truth is your niche.

How great is that?!

Our client, BeeKind Honey Bees is an example of this.

A Real Client Example

After working through the creative brief with our client BeeKind Honey Bees, we started with some research to fill the gaps in the creative brief, and then moved into creative mode.

Sometimes, we start from scratch and sometimes we build on our client’s initial ideas. In the case of BeeKind, there wasn’t an established look yet, but the client provided a clip art file for inspiration.

The creative team reviewed the image and felt that the bee looked too angry, plus it had already been used by other companies. However, the line work style and bright blended colours were of interest.

Wanting a logo that truly reflected the company and their belief of being part of something bigger (providing support to the bee community and education to everyone), we set out to build a line-style drawing of the logo that reflected this company’s vision of kindness and quality.

Starting with the Bee, it was created from petal shapes (part of something more) and a little halo on our Bee’s head (representing the desire to do good).

It took a couple of drafts to get the design just right, but it was difficult for the client to visualize its use. So, we happily created some mock-ups of the logo in use on different scenarios (on jars, t-shirts, hats, etc.). Sometimes seeing the possibilities is exciting.

Together with the client, we worked to refine the logo design into its final form. Now we’re excited to work on the next phase of creating labelling and packaging.

Whether your projects are simple or detailed, your role as a member of our design team is a vital one. No one is more of an expert then you in your company vision, values and goals, and letting us hear what you feel is the first step to great design ideas.

Your Homework

We appreciate that this is a busy time of year, but if you’re thinking about starting a brand or design project, take note of the questions we asked in the creative brief outline above. Start formulating answers, doing research, and observing senses and emotions that arise.

Ask your customers what they like about your products or company. What senses are stimulated? Make note of the language they use, their words.
What stories do you hear about consumer experiences, flavour descriptions, dinner table conversations?
Notice what products, logos, or displays stand out for you at the Farmer’s Market, in the grocery or specialty store, or online
Keep your phone handy. Take pictures and make notes of what others are doing and what excites you, and what you don’t like.

You’re living in such a cool sector to develop a brand. When you’re ready to start a food business creative project, contact us to find out what’s involved. We’d love to have you as a part of the Farm Food Drink creative team to build you a great design.

Why you’re the star of a brand project