Developing a Mark for Your Brand

Marketers rely on branding to associate aspirations, attributes and values with functional products and services. The resulting relationships mean target audiences are drawn to the offer as much for its symbolic value as for its utility (Aaker, 1997)(van Osselaer & Janiszewski, 2001). Repeated pairing of branded collateral with positive contexts, colours and symbols create favourable and brand-specific connotations, to the point where a brand alone eventually evokes those associations and the benefits assumed to follow (Nord & Peter, 1980).

Consumers use physical brand attributes to construct imagery that they draw on and personalize; ultimately, brands help consumers to co-create an identity they project to others (Belk et al., 1982). Known as symbolic consumption, this process involves consumers forming relationships with brands, which they use to structure and create meaning in their lives (Gendall et al., 2012).

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In developing a mark for No Hunger BC, boldness and repeatability were key considerations. Primarily typographic logos offer a level of urgency and flexibility that can be beneficial for non-profit brands and campaigns. No Hunger BC is a food bank organization with a fresh food program, which is why the carrot icon was introduced to the wordmark. Even simple marks can convey a brand’s story and goals.

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Brand Guidelines

Once a mark has been developed, you need to set up a set of brand guidelines that explains how the mark should be used in a variety of contexts. It’s a place to present the logo for you brand or campaign along with it’s variations. It’s helpful to create links to download the logo file so other members of your team can also access it. Files recommended are .jpg and .png files, as well as a .svg file which allows the mark to be opened and scaled as a vector.

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Primary:

Download Link:
.png
.jpg
.svg

Reversed (White):

Download Link:
.png
.jpg
.svg

In some cases, you will utilize multiple iterations of a logo for different contexts. It’s important to also provide the files for those versions so your brand is presented the way you envisioned it.

In the below example, No Hunger BC created a secondary application of the logo to more prominently display their icon, which could be used for social media or other web/small scale applications. Download links are also provided for these files.

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Icon with Wordmark:

Download Link:
.png
.jpg
.svgReversed (White):

Download Link:
.png
.jpg
.svg

If you have more iterations of your logo, you can continue to list them. Just be sure that you’re clear on the contexts they’re supposed to be used in and what the limitations are.

The below example is a horizontal application that could be utilized when design space is limited, such as footers, web banners and posters.

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