To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson 

 

Today’s post will be an introduction to the most creatively challenging & exciting type of work for me when it comes to bigger projects. We will be talking about BRANDING and how we do it at Tier S. I will walk you through the processes which will help you understand your brand, what you want out of it and answer all the questions which will make it unique enough to be recognized in the endless sea of brands today.

The initial steps of Tier S in branding projects.

 

When we kicked off as a company in early 2015, we were fortunate enough to land a couple of projects such as OG, G2 and later on H2k. Most of the branding projects we had worked on included the logo (re)design and barely any of those had any strategy or digital assets creation involved.

 

The foundation of OG as a brand, created back in 2015.

 

OG was an exception as we fully developed the brand identity. Or so we thought at the time as it was ultra simple compared to the processes and the levels of detail we go into today. Even though it worked and was loved by the community, we would have done a much better job today.

 

The essence of the 2015 OG including core values & role models the brand idea was built on.

 

In the following content series, we will be going into what levels of branding you need to cover in order to have a fully developed brand. What processes you have to go through in order to understand what you want out of your brand. What questions you need to answer. What documents you need to have in place as a foundation, a mandatory support for what you are growing. The naming & logo creation will have their own dedicated post.

 

Crush your competitors by using different branding assets in your arsenal. For Vancouver Titans, we used the logo itself.

 

 

When we are about to kick a branding project off, I remind everyone of the levels of branding that exist. As I mentioned in the previous posts, I take a high level approach to the project, divide the work into layers and plan the responsibilities for all team members.

 

A branding project (without logo creation), for Tier S has four levels. They are VOICE, VISUAL, MOTION, SOUND. I’m already working on expanding this into six levels. Will explain the new levels once we finish the current branding project we are working on.

 

It’s important to explain to the team what the necessary steps to solving the every day issues are. Reinforce what you want to do with how you want to do it.

 

Every level I will explain through a dedicated post. But before we dive into each level, we will talk about the biggest mistake creatives make when setting out to create or refresh a brand.

 

You need to make sure that you understand your client’s vision. Even though you think something might look super cool for the brand, it doesn’t necessarily mean this will be in line with the client’s goals and what they want.

 

Trello can be your go-to project tool for both the project overview and client communication. This is only a part of the OG x RedBull rebrand board.

 

In order to overcome such obstacles and make sure you are doing a solid job, you must work very closely with the client, especially in the beginning. The initial phases of the project will have to involve a lot of research and exploration. You have to do your homework and make sure that you learn about the client and their vision. What their brand means to them before it even exists. Then you also need to look at the competitors, the industry and other successful and not so successful brands.

 

Early exploration phase of the OG x RedBull rebrand.

 

This part is especially exciting and complex in the most challenging projects where you also have to come up with the name of the brand and its logo. There are no stupid questions, the more you ask, the more informed you will be to take the step in the right direction that will evolve your client’s vision.

 

In the upcoming posts, I will share our work with brands such as NiceCactus, NYXL, NYSL, OG and others. I will talk about the processes, give examples, try to highlight the key points and also share some resources that were super helpful to me. When we finish, I hope that you will have a clear picture on how to make your brand unique and also set a solid foundation for it to grow beyond where it started.