Corporate identity

Choosing your company's visual identity

A strong, recognisable identity is the foundation of any successful business. But what makes a visual identity recognisable, effective and profitable? Real basic element for a companyVisual identity is absolutely crucial and needs to be carefully thought through.

Applying all the moral and commercial values of a brand to visual media - whether tangible or intangible - to clearly identify, differentiate and promote a company. A brand identity is much more than a simple set of recognisable and transposable elements. It's a unique symbol that transcends media to make a lasting impression on the mind of the observer.

Why is corporate identity important?

• Differentiation. First of all, logically, it helps to differentiate one company from another. This is essential if you want to position yourself correctly in the market and reach your target customers.
• The spirit. Since a company is for the most part a moral entity, its visual identity will be its business card, its personality. It will reveal the feelings of the people who work with it.
• Identification. A successful visual identity makes it possible to distinguish a brand from others and establish a powerful contact with the consumer. A brand that is recurrent and clearly identifiable in the eyes of the customer will be better integrated into their memory. The aim here is to describe the company's raison d'être in an artistic way, appealing directly to the emotions of the observer while avoiding lengthy text. Let's take Ryanair as an example. The very bright colours chosen by the airline for its visual identity allow it to have a very wide impact at a very low cost.

Brand colours

Numerous psychological studies have shown that colours have a significant and differentiated impact depending on which ones are chosen. A company's visual identity will often include a dominant colour and a secondary colour.

•  Blue tends to evoke confidence. It is often found in the visual identity of banks, for example.
• Yellow and red express activity, movement and intensity. These colours are preferred by sports event organisers, for example.
• White evokes wisdom

Typography

The typography of a company's visual identity will also have a major psychological impact on the customer. Lettering is a very powerful tool that marketing professionals pay particular attention to when choosing a brand identity. Serif" fonts (in which the letters have a "pointed end") were widely used in the early days of the Internet and web design because they were considered sophisticated. However, they have gradually been discarded in favour of 'sans-serif' characters. By making a small change to the typeface of its logo, Google caused a small earthquake on the web and in the world of web design in the early 2010s. Less aggressive and more legible, the sans-serif typeface is much more widely used in corporate identity these days.

The trend

The beginnings of web design and the Internet generally pushed communications agencies to create complex logos and visual identities, as if they had to prove their ability to create highly elaborate visuals, often filled with special characters, shadows and relief. In recent years, the trend has been reversed. The visual identity of brands has increasingly turned towards simplistic, uncluttered, minimalist forms with no superfluous elements.