What I learned about branding from newspaper design
There is no greater force on earth than the urge to change someone else’s layout.
People look at a printed out page and bang! They’re commenting on how to “tweak” the design.
But there’s one group of people who don’t: editors.
Editors know just because it’s printed out doesn’t mean it’s right. They really look. Not just spelling and grammar, but question the big idea behind a thing.
Here’s what I learned about how newspaper design is like branding:
- Start with the skeleton. You don’t want to have any major problems here. Make sure the big idea is solid. To be really strong, you want to have a killer concept. Can it move? Weather hits of critique? Bend? Concepting is top priority for Design Kompany’s branding process.
- Build muscle. You’ve got your idea, but how to build it out? This is the sketching phase. You try things out, see what works. Add power and bulk to your idea.
- Fit a skin. Take your sketch to the drawing board. The skin is the thing you present to the world. This is where you come up with the color palette, the typeface families that will pair with an identity scheme. Make sure you’ve got it looking good (the right texture, the perfect colors).
- Apply lotion and (optional) makeup. NOW you get to do the little tweaks. Move margins. Reshape blocks of text. You can worry about the little things now. That’s because you can be sure it’ll rest well on a strong concept. Flash and stuff, those are like accessories. You don’t need it, but if it goes with your look, by all means try it on.
Critique is going to happen. Just like when you launch your new brand, someone’s gonna tell you they think green is dumb.
But you’ll know better than anyone which critiques are worth heeding, and which ones you can ditch.
