Sub-branding
Branding has been an elusive goal at our company for awhile. Being a relatively large company with a diverse range of disciplines representing hundreds of tribes has its difficulties. Recently, our department has made ground by the “ask for forgiveness not permission” model of change. And so far, no forgiveness has been necessary. Its not that leadership are completely against a corporate identity, just that they don’t necessarily see the immediate benefits or confusion with not having anything at all.
So with the being said, we are not at a point where we need to create a subbrand template for certain programs that need to have their materials stand out while still belonging to the company as a whole. It’s a tricky balance. So it the spirit of just going for it I started throwing stuff around to see how a program name/logo might look in relation to our company logo.
A few things I learned:
The original logo has so many words in it already, it would be insane to add text for the program name. We’d basically have a small paragraph for a mark.
Using an apostrophe “s” introducing the program name as it relates to the mother company is a really interesting and successful way to show ownership. This is a theme that we try to convey constantly.
Having stacked letters to the right with the middle layer larger than the rest keeps with the visual identity of the original logo while still calling out what is important and different about this program’s logo.
It’s a work in progress and I hope to have more examples and more pieces of collateral to share as this becomes more developed.
