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Katharine Roan
Professor Refaei
Intermediate Composition
10 August 2014
Branding and Design
Branding largely influences the products and services that we buy, and aesthetics are a
large part of branding, which is where design comes in. By manipulating appearance a product
can convey any message a company chooses to communicate to the consumers. “The meaning
the appearance of a product communicates helps consumers to assess the product on functional,
aesthetic, symbolic or ergonomic motives.” [1]. Meaning that many factors that may not directly
influence a product’s functionality, such as the color, are still important when designing the
product because it contributes to the overall brand image and product experience. To best take
advantage of the creation of a brand image there should be a consistency in all aesthetic
attributes that unifies the brand image and helps “visual recognition”. “Through design
consistency brands can become solid and unmistakable” [5]. It is consistently agreed upon by
various experts in the the fields of business and design that the most effective way to work
within branding to create a visual brand identity is to analyze the components of a brand’s
makeup and then use design principles in a consistent manner to create the message the brand
wants to convey and create brand recognition.
Visual brand recognition ultimately boils down to the brand communicating to its
customers. Creating specific visual product design guidelines serves not only to communicate
brand qualities, but also to distinguish that product from its competitors. [5]. “Aesthetic
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experiences” are pleasurable experiences that the consumer gains from the purchase experience.
[4]. Design factors done in the name of aesthetics, such as color, shape, and texture, made early
on in the design process highly affect the shopping experience for the consumer later on. If the
meaning that a product is trying to convey is unclear, the customer will not be able to fully assess
and appreciate the product [1].
It is important for these visual cues in the product design to remain consistent so that a
brand may be easily identified based off of nothing more than its physical attributes. For
example, one could easily differentiate an HP laptop from an Apple brand laptop, without ever
needing to see a logo, but based purely off of the aesthetic qualities. These qualities serve
multiple purposes, in addition to differentiating brands, these qualities are “value-based”, which
contribute to a solid and consistent recognition while also evoking “references that are closely
linked to the brand’s core values” [5]. Take the automobile BMW as an example: “strong shapes
and dynamic forms in its cars that clearly communicate the BMW values of power and
performance, equating making BMW cars to ‘ultimate driving machines’, as the brand slogan
has suggested” [5]. Knowing just how important these design cues are, the consistency becomes
even more important, so as to convey a strong, clear message.
Different design features can convey different messages, so designers combine brand
communication goals with design principles to make sure the product communicates what the
brand wants to say. Considerable research exists to determine that product appearance attributes
“can be derived from product appearance, as well as from packaging, typefaces or logos” [1].
Designers have very clear intentions when making decisions on even the most minute of product
appearance decisions, including “shapes, forms, colours, materials, surfaces, textures, graphical
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elements, and logos” [5]. All of these elements combine to say something about the product to
the designer, initially that being the brand, such as “I’m an Apple product”, but within that
message, it is also saying “I’m a hip, modern Apple product”.
In today’s modern consumer environment, the emotional response that a product’s visuals
elicits is just as important as the functionality of the product itself. For example, customers base
their perceived trustworthiness of a website largely on how professional the appearance seems.
Non-physical environments for purchase, such as web and mobile, are growing increasingly
popular, with “the growth rate of the smart phone market, increasing by 74 per cent worldwide
year on year” [6]. With the ever-increasing number of options available and the highly
competitive market, “quality is expected” and in some markets, such as apparel, “aesthetics are
of primary importance in selection and purchase” [4]. This, combined with the elements of
increased brand loyalty, market differentiation, simplified customer decision-making processes,
reduce consumer risk and generate consumer expectations makes design in branding all the more
important [6].
Recent scholarly journals have attempted to create a framework for designing within
brand guidelines; this helps designers be creative while maintaining a brand’s visual cues and
message. One model developed for university teaching use uses the study of semiotics as a base.
The idea behind this model is that “brand DNA” can be deconstructed through semiotics, by
identifying brand attributes and what the brand is trying to convey. These “style grammar”
words, such as shapes, forms, patterns, etc. are the breakdown of the brand, and are then
reconstructed for their new purpose [3].
Modern selling must be heavily reliant on visual product attributes in order to survive.
Identifiable visual cues serve not only practical purposes, such as helping differentiate a product
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on a shelf from its competitors, but can also elicit psychological and emotional responses to the
product, and “as in Apple’s case, can even contribute to the creation of entirely new lifestyles
and social phenomena” [5]. While the effects aesthetics have on consumers have long been
studied, methods for designers to work with branding are still being researched. Branding is a
powerful tool which continues to flourish and find new outputs, providing design guidelines, and
being a powerful selling tool.
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Works Cited
[1] Blijlevens, J., Creusen, M. E., & Schoormans, J. P. How consumers perceive product
appearance: the identification of three product appearance attributes. International Journal
of Design, 3, 27-35.
[2] Egger, F. Affective design of e-commerce user interfaces: how to maximise perceived
trustworthiness. Proceedings of CAHD2001: Conference on Affective Human Factors
Design, 317-324. Retrieved July 27, 2014.
[3] Eves, B., & Hewitt, J. Style-branding, aesthetic design DNA. International Conference on
Engineering and Product Design Education, 9, 478-482.
[4] Fiore, A. M. (2010). Preface. Understanding Aesthetics for the Merchandising and Design
Professional (). : Fairchild Books.
[5] Karjalainen, T. It looks like a toyota: educational approaches to designing for visual brand
recognition. International Journal of Design, 1. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
[6] Magrath, V., & McCormick, H. Branding design elements of mobile fashion retail
apps. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 17, 98-114.
[7] Nistorescu, T., & Barbu, C. M. Retail store design and environment branding support in the
services marketing. Management & Marketing Craiova, 11-18.
[8] Sunley, P., Pinch, S., Reimer, S., & Macmillen, J. Innovation in a creative production
system: the case of design. Journal of Economic Geography.