Focus - Institute of Videography

Articlefor you to be considering whenstarting your business, but weare operating in a creativeindustry and you do have theopportunity within your openingprogramme captions and on yourwebsite to establish a uniquesound as part of your brandidentity. I did say it wasadvanced – but if you alsoinclude in this any audiobranding (including songs,jingles, tunes and audio slogans)you’ll appreciate just how seriousbig businesses take these. If youstill don’t believe me see if thisstarts off an earworm for you...“Go compare!”I’m going to look at logodesigns in more detail in amoment, but once you havedefined your branding elementsthese should be adhered to ineverything you produce. Themore closely you stick to this rulethe easier it will be to develop aninstantly recognisable brand.Three rules of logo designLike every design challengereally great logos are a result ofcreativity and originality. But,there are three golden rules tofollow that will help even themost uncreative mind come upwith something that works.1 - Keep it simpleIf you are going to use a designor mark as a logo (it needn’thave one – just think of Sony orPanasonic) make sure its not toointricate. A good way tomeasure this is to make surethat its easy to draw prettyaccurately by hand.Your logo will need to workon business cards, posters,websites, on video, on exhibitiondisplays… If it’s too intricate itwill become indistinct on abusiness card. And one of thedefinite no-no’s in my mind is touse pictures of your camerawithin your logo as these willdefinitely date your business.2 – Font EconomyIf you study the logos of leadingbrands you will notice that theywill generally only use one fontstyle (again – think of Sony andPanasonic). Fonts that haveweight (thickness) will stand outbetter – and even better arethose which come in variousweights as these can be used inaccompanying slogans orheadlines. Avoid gimmicky fonts(as they will portray that image)or those that do not reproducewell on a smaller scale.3 – Use of ColourAs with the fonts, don’tovercomplicate the colour. Oneis ideal but two is OK if you areusing a combination of a markand text - with the text ideally inblack. Avoid gradients as thesecan be difficult to replicateaccurately and consistentlyacross all the things that yourlogo might appear on.Final thoughtsThere are plenty of goodexamples of clear and concisebranding amongst the IOVmembership - but lots ofexamples of those with poorbranding. I’m not going toembarrass either side by givingout names but hopefully fromthis article you can skip througha few websites and see whichones adhere to the principlescovered here. Whilst this is notalways the case, those with clearand well defined brands will bethe more financially successfulvideographers.There will be some readingthis that have bumbled along foryears with their stale, out ofdate, and irrelevant brands andhave managed to do quite nicelythank you very much! However,I would bet these same peopleare the ones who get somewhattaken aback when faced withnew competition who have gottheir branding just right. Ifthere’s no alternative in themarket your customers won’t beinspired to go elsewhere – butwhen there is they’ll be avoidingyou like the plague.The good news is that it’srarely too late to put things right.Whilst it’s important for new andemerging businesses to get theirbranding right it’s probably evenmore important when you cometo the point of selling on yourbusiness or retiring. Your exitstrategy will greatly depend onthe options you have available toyou and having a well definedand sellable brand will basicallygive you more options.So, this is where this serieswill be heading next month –planning where you want to be atthe end of your business journey.It’s not something we tend tothink about when starting abusiness but planning for it willgive you a definite goal to aimfor. Kevin Cook F.Inst.V.