Since you can’t just close your current business, reopen, and expect to return to your previous company’s size immediately, you must strategically choose how and when to rebrand. We’re going to tell you how you can successfully execute your company’s rebranding as a whole and specifically on social media. Keep reading to learn more!

Update Your Logo

When you choose to completely rebrand your company on social media and as a whole, you should consider updating your logo. You don’t necessarily need to get rid of the old one – and sometimes it’s better if you keep parts of it. Instead, you might choose to update your old logo into something more modern by following current graphic design trends. Paying attention to these trends can help bring your logo and, therefore, your brand from the 90s (or earlier) up to speed with the current year.

You’ll want to consider the color palette used in your logo, as well as the use of text, lines, and shapes. For the best possible logo design, you’ll want something easy to remember and associate with your brand, fits your company as a whole, and is relatively timeless – you don’t want to have to change/update logos every other year!

Bakery logo design

The case study of logo redesign for a landscape company

Opt for Professionals

One of the easy ways to begin the rebranding process is to hire a social media marketing agency. This type of agency differs from other marketing agencies because it focuses specifically on your brand’s social media presence and positioning your company as an industry leader on the world’s fastest-growing group of social networks.

There are currently more than 3.8 billion social media users in the world, this means that the (proper) use of social media for your rebranding strategy is a must. Social media is where people turn to find and give recommendations, learn about new products, and share their experiences with a brand.

As you begin the process of rebranding, a social media marketing agency can step in and ensure that your social presence is as visible as possible. They can also help people understand why you are choosing to rebrand, reach new potential customers, and help you learn the right way to engage with your followers.

Consider Improving Marketing with Video Content

If your brand has never incorporated the use of videos into their marketing strategy, now is the time to do so. Opting to include video marketing in your rebranding strategy will help your company appeal to a wide range of customers while offering a variety of content. Using video content allows potential customers to see your product or service being used, hear a customer or expert testimonials, and visualize how they might benefit from choosing your brand.

When you decide to use video content in your marketing strategy, you will want to find the best video hosting site available to upload, store, play, and share videos on the internet. Ideally, the video host you choose will give users a great watching experience while giving your company the ability to customize the video player.

A great video marketing strategy is particularly effective when rebranding your company because it can help people visualize the changes you are working to make, how you’re becoming better, and even why you’re making a choice to improve. It also will give your company exciting new content to share and promote your rebranding efforts.

The example of explainer video for OffCents

Example of a showcase video by Tubik that can be used to promote and show services via social networks

Improve Your User Experience & Customer Service

While your company can focus on its social media presence, marketing strategy, and logo design, all of these will mean nothing if your website’s user experience and product’s customer service are lacking or completely non-existent. Your website must be intuitive and quick to load all pages. The visual aspects are important, but how it functions matters even more. If a customer gets lost on your website or can’t figure out how to purchase your product, your rebranding efforts are almost null.

Furthermore, having a user-friendly website only counts for so much if your company has poor customer service. Poor customer service will wreck a company’s rebranding strategy and its new reputation faster than almost any other potential problem. Having terrible customer service be the cause of bad reviews and negative word-of-mouth; it will turn potential customers against you before they give you a second look.

So how can you fix a customer service issue? Make sure that your company’s contact information is visible and easy to find; consider offering a live-chat option or at least quickly respond to any emails/messages within 24 hours. Engage with your followers on social media by liking and replying to their comments – it shows your team cares!

Additionally, try to ensure that your customer service representatives are empowered to help customers and solve problems without their supervisor’s approval – this will help quickly resolve issues without the annoyance of long holds/lengthy response times. This small step can go a long way toward improving and keeping a great reputation when it comes to your brand’s new image.

The rebranding of your company will only be successful if you can retain old customers and attract new ones. It is difficult, if not impossible, to do this without excellent customer service, and whether these aspects are positive or negative, will spread like wildfire on social media!

What Will Your Company Look Like After Rebranding?

If you are curious as to what your company and sales will be like after you’ve entirely rebranded your company on social media, the answer is actually up to you! If you put forth the time and effort to rebrand the business and stick with positive changes completely, you’ll likely see an increase in sales and customer retention. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true if you choose to allow your company to revert to the way it was before the rebranding process.

The key to successfully rebranding your company on social media will be to demonstrate all changes and allow people to see it for themselves. When this happens, your conversions will improve, and people will naturally want to be part of your success!

About Author: this is the guest post by Hazel Pan, a copywriter whose expertise includes Funnel Copywriting & Inbound Marketing.

Welcome to read more about the importance of design for digital marketing, review the creative stages of branding design, and learn how to use mascots in marketing and user experience design.

Сообщение How to Execute Successful Rebranding of Your Business on Social Media появились сначала на Design4Users.

It may seem difficult to design an absolutely unique symbol because there are so many brands around. However, skilled and experienced designers can find the way to creating a brand sign which will stand out among thousands of others.

Today we share a case study showing the creative process of a logo design for a digital agency from Sweden. The designer assigned to this case was Arthur Avakyan, whom you may remember from identity design case studies for Binned, Andre, Passfold, Tubik, Saily, Ribbet, and SwiftyBeaver.

Task

Logo redesign and branded items for a full-service digital agency.

Process

Recently, we provided branding services for a digital agency called App Shack. The team from Sweden specializes in web and mobile product development for companies of different sizes. They made a request for the redesign of the already existing sign. The client set the task to renovate the logo since it looked old, plain and weak with a poor color palette. A new brand sign was expected to modernize the appearance of the current company profile so that it could correspond to the peculiarities of the target audience which includes tech-savvy people.

The client liked the idea of the previous logo and asked to improve its styling and color palette. The style chosen for it then had to be developed into the set of branded items such as a business card, envelope, T-shirt, and stickers. The major client’s request was to keep the present logo symbol — a shack illustration. It wasn’t random and had a history. The thing was that the agency started their way as a business in a building similar to a shack so they had lots of warm memories with that which had become a starting point for a new experience.

Logo

The creative process of branding for digital agency set off with logo redesign. It started with brainstorming and analyzing the client’s vision of a new symbol. As they wanted modernization, a new brand sign was expected to be more playful and fresh still simple with abstract elements. In addition, the client asked to keep a blue color palette as it corresponds to their vision of the brand image.

When all the tasks were considered and the direction was chosen, the designer started the creative process. The first stage was silhouette searching. The pencil sketching technique was applied to quickly visualize the first ideas on the paper. Such an approach allows for picturing various concepts without significant efforts and within a short time. Moreover, sketches make the communication much more effective in helping clients and managers to understand designers’ ideas. In addition, if clients want to make some changes, it’s much easier to make them at this creative stage than in a digital version with elaborate details. Here are quick sketches for the App Shack logo.

Also, one of the client’s requests was adding abstract shapes in their brand sign. So, the designer experimented with vector forms trying to illustrate a shack. Flat vector graphics gained a huge popularity a long time ago and remain one of the basic directions for logo design. Simple geometric shapes are elegant and transparent so they are pleasant to our eyes. Considering all the aspects, the designer created several variants in an abstract style followed by the wordmark.

Geometric options based on a rhombus

Geometric option based on a hexagon with rounded angles

Geometric option based on a hexagon with sharp angles

Options offered to agree upon a possible color palette

After some discussions, it was decided to step back to less abstract shape with the minimum of details.

Iteration featuring a less abstract logo with an easily recognizable shape of a house and playing with negative space

Iteration featuring a less abstract logo with an easily recognizable shape of a house and playing with negative space

Iteration featuring a less abstract logo with a recognizable shape of a house with sharp angles

Iteration featuring a less abstract logo with a recognizable shape of a house with rounded angles

App Shack team liked the minimalistic option of a shack which is shown the second in the set above, so the designer moved to the next stage which requires working with colors and polishing the details.

The final logo was completed in a flat minimalistic style. A symbol represented a shack in a rhombic frame. This way designer managed to combine both the illustration of a shack and an abstract element. In one of our previous articles, we’ve mentioned that shapes applied in symbols have a significant influence on a human mind. The psychology of shapes states that our mood can be changed according to the shapes we are looking at. A rhombus is usually associated with clarity and wisdom so such a frame may work effectively for the positive brand image.

The color palette was chosen according to the clients’ expectations. The light blue color gave the feeling of stability and the slight gradient made the logo more playful and modern-looking which responded to a current brand strategy. Also, a monochromatic variant was provided to be used in cases when color couldn’t be applied.

The wordmark typography was chosen that way so it could work in harmony with the brand sign and represent a brand character.

Icon

When the logo was accomplished, the designer started another task — an icon. To support brand recognizability, the icon was based on the brand symbol. The icon frame is wider than in the logo which makes it look clickable. The white symbol on the blue gradient background created enough of contrast so the icon would be noticeable on the different digital screens.

Branded Items

After the key elements of brand identity were approved and tested, the designer continued to work on branded items design. The items included a business card, an envelope, T-shirt, and stickers.

Business card

For many years, this component remains quite important for successful business communication. Moreover, an effective business card creates a positive image for people in the business community as well as shows the reliability of the company to the customers.

The designer created a business card applying the same color palette as in logo design to support brand recognizability. One side includes the core signs of brand identity — a symbol and wordmark, and the other side provides short information about the person and the contacts. Due to the minimalistic design, the card looks stylish and easily readable.

Envelope

Envelopes are important elements of business correspondence so they should have a substantial and official design. An envelope for App Shack is created in consistency with the overall brand identity. It features a branding sign and corporate color palette. Blue is darker than in logo aiming at elegant looks on both physical and digital letters creating deeper contrast and ensuring readability.

T-shirt

Сlothes featuring brand identity elements are used to evaluate corporate spirit within a team as well as mark out the employees of the company on exhibitions, conferences etc. The T-shirt includes a small white logo placed on the blue background with an additional white spot making the T-shirt less official.

Stickers

Stylish stickers are the right choice for brand recognizability. They can be used for various marketing needs. The designer optimized the logo turning it into modern stickers in both monochromatic and colorful versions.

When you design a logo for a full-service digital company, it may be challenging since there are a lot of competitors in this field and it’s hard to create something unique. Nevertheless, creativity and communication with clients can make this process productive and easy.

Useful Case Studies

For those, who are interested to see more practical case studies with creative flows for a logo and identity design, here is the set of them.

LunnScape. Identity Design for a Landscape Company
Binned. Brand Identity Design for Cleaning Service
Reborn. Identity Design for a Restaurant
Andre. Logo and Identity Redesign for Landscape Firm
SwiftyBeaver. Logo for Mac Application
Saily. Logo for Local C2C E-commerce Application
Creative Stages of Logo Design

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Design Case Study: Creating Logo for a Digital Agency появились сначала на Design4Users.

Some people got used to thinking that only marketing specialists do all the job in branding. However, if you say it to professional designers, they’ll tell you how wrong you are. As an American graphic designer Paul Rand said: «Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.» The article tells about the essence of branding as well as the role of design in it. Also, we’ll define the key stages of effective brand creation.

What is branding?

Lately, the word “brand” has been commonly used as some trendy thing, especially in the fashion industry, so many people forget its true essence. According to BusinessDictionary, a brand is a unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product and differentiates it from its competitors. In other words, a brand is a visual representation which people correlate with a company or a product. An effective brand identity is the one which customers associate with a high level of credibility and quality.

However, powerful branding depends not only on aesthetic features of brand elements but on the details such as message and emotional appeal standing behind it. To create a proper brand identity, designers need to get deep into the details about business goals as well as do research on the market and its target audience. Here we’ve divided a branding process into six essential stages which designers need to go through on the way of brand creation.

The creative process of branding design for Andre

Stage 1. Business goals and brand personality

Of course, it’s not a designer who sets the goals of a company or defines its personality still it is a foundation for all the branding processes. To receive the expected results, the company has to set the priorities and values at the start point so that the crew working on branding could see which way to go. They do not necessarily need to be defined and used for all the cycle of brand existence. The goals can be modified later during a creative process but it’s vital to have some directives in the beginning.

Moreover, before designers start working on a visual part, they need to identify the character which the company or product wants to present. Designing a brand without this knowledge is like drawing a portrait from a photograph. You can do the copy quite right but the work won’t have an emotion in it. The same is with branding. If the clients didn’t provide a designer with a description characterizing their company, it’s good to ask for it. For example, designers can ask customers to make a list of 4-5 keywords describing their business, or at least what they want a company to be.

Practice shows that not all clients come to designers prepared. They may not think of details and ask only for an attractive visual presentation that will bring success to their business. There is nothing remarkable about it. Clients often see designers like artists creating beautiful pictures and you can’t expect them to know all the peculiarities of designers’ workflow.

In one of our previous articles, we’ve mentioned the role of psychology in design. It can be quite helpful on the way of understanding users’ behavior and their possible reactions to the design. Moreover, psychology principles can help designers establish effective communication with clients. There are many customers who are not certain about their desires and preferences and that’s when psychology assists. If a designer finds proper questions to ask, it will be easier to create a guide based on the client’s wish.

Corporate identity for Binned

Stage 2. Market and user research

When the goals are set and a company’s personality seems clear, designers go to the research work. This step is essential for all kinds of designer’s job, be it a logo or a mobile app. The research helps to immerse into the environment of the future brand and comprehend the peculiarities which may influence its success.

First goes the market research. Designers dig out the information about the market and potential competitors. It’s good to learn from someone’s experience be it good or bad. Having the necessary data experts can create a unique and efficient logo and build a brand identity that will stand out from the competition.

Designers and clients’ preferences should step aside to the needs of the target audience. A brand needs to make a good impression on its potential buyers or users to gain their trust. User research helps to get deeper into the preferences and psychological peculiarities of the target audience.

The design is not pure art. If you rely exceptionally on the sense of beauty and talent, there is a risk of failing the task. Research takes less time compared to doing the job over.

Stickers designed for Reborn

Stage 3. Logo design

Some people often mistake a logo for a brand but it is only one stage in the process of branding. However, it would be wrong to underestimate the role of logo design. It is the basic mark of brand identity, the most prominent symbol of brand image and the foundation of an effective marketing strategy enabling its connection with the target audience.

In our article Creative Stages of Efficient Logo Design, we’ve described essential stages of the creative process in logo design. They are:

• setting the task
• user research
• marketing research
• creative search
• choice of style direction
• choice of color palette
• testing in different sizes and environments
• creating a style guide setting right and wrong cases of logo use etc.

Logo design for Passfold

One of the aspects the research includes is exploring logos of the competitive companies. It helps to avoid unnecessary similarity with other logos in the sector and make an original brand identity.

When all the core information is gathered, designers move to the more artistic stage – the creative process itself. By the means of various experiments, they choose the style direction and color palette which will work best for a brand.

After the logo is complete, designers start the testing part. The thing is that not everything looking good on a digital screen will be the same in a different environment or variety of surfaces. That’s why it’s vital to test the logo in all possible situations and placements to make sure there won’t be an unpleasant surprise.

Logo design plays a big part in branding, so designers are recommended to pay a big attention to its creative process. A well-thought logo is worth time investment.

Logo animation for Binned

Stage 4. Visual elements of brand

Logo design is not the only visual representation of a brand. Certainly, the major focus will always be a logo but there are some more elements deserving the attention such as mascots and typography.

Companies often look for ways of personalizing a brand and designers have a solution. Mascots are the custom design characters created to represent the brand in a quite symbolic way. They can be created as a part of a logo or exist as an individual brand element. Such characters can establish a connection with users as nothing else. A mascot serves as a tool for communication and interaction with users helping to transfer the message in an unusual manner. People start to see a mascot as a major representative of a company introducing them a product or a service. The efficient mascot guarantees recognizability and memorability to a brand and easily draws users’ attention.

Mascot design for Saily

Another visual element responsible for brand identity is typography. Many logos are created via typography or contain fonts in it but typography doesn’t end here. Banners, business cards, correspondence a company applies should involve brand identity signs as well. You can make fonts also speak for your brand. Designers often create custom fonts for companies to be unique even in such small details. However, it’s not the only option. Experts may choose a combination of regular fonts that will suit a certain brand best. This way users will easier remember a brand because of its consistency in every detail.

Logo design for Reborn

Stage 5. Corporate brand style

When the logo is ready, the color palette is chosen, and other visual elements are prepared, it’s time to unite them into harmonic corporate style. It is required when a designer works on branding for companies providing services. Various attributes can become a branded item depending on the type of company. There are some common brand items which are used by different companies:

Business card. Today it’s a must-have item in business communication so it’s vital to make sure a business card represents a brand properly.

Business cards designed for Binned

Correspondence. Business communication always has a formal style. To show a brand is a reliable partner and service provider, designers need to work on its correspondence presentation. Letterheads and envelopes need to contain brand identity elements showing the professional level.

Envelope design for Reborn

Billboards and banners. They are a core part of branding and marketing so clients often ask designers to work on a creative idea for outdoor adverts and web banners.

Poster designed for Andre

Vehicle branding. Companies that provide product delivery need an effective decoration of the vehicle. Brand identity elements on the company cars or trucks are an efficient way of outdoor promotion.

Vehicle livery designed for Andre

T-shirt and hats. Clothes with brand marks bring the team spirit into a company so employers often take care of these attributes. Branded T-shirts and hats can be a good alternative to a uniform if it’s required or they can be used as presents.

Branded clothes designed for Binned

Stage 6. A style guide

The work is done. The visual material is complete. The last task for the designer is to make sure clients will use all the assets properly. A style guide is a document providing instructions about correct and wrong ways to use the graphics created for the brand. Traditionally, a style guide includes the explanation of the idea standing behind a logo as well as the presentation of a corporate color palette which can be used for different purposes. It can be good to demonstrate examples of incorrect usage in order to avoid poor visual performance.

Styleguide for Reborn

As you can see branding is a complex process. Each step should be well-thought, based on the needs of the target audience and business goals. To see more, welcome to check case studies on recent branding projects. Stay tuned!

Recommended reading

How to Use the Power of Mascots in Branding and UI Design

Animated Logos: Why, Where and How to Use

How Shape and Color Work in Logo Design: Practical Cases

Design Case Study. Corporate Brand Identity for a Landscape Firm

Logo Design. Creative Path to Effective Branding. Free E-Book.

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение 6 Creative Stages of Design for Branding появились сначала на Design4Users.

Wonderful World of IKEA

Sand Of Time: HBO Asia Commercial

Geoff

Audi A5 2017: Pure imagination

temi – Breakthrough Robotic Technology

Tough day: Leo’s amazing day and his breton top

Monster

The Race from EDF

iPhone X

Little moments from HP

If you want more nice and stylish commercials with great stories, check our previous set of Christmas commercials and catch some holiday vibes.

Сообщение Art of Video Design: Beautifully Crafted Commercials появились сначала на Design4Users.

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. Charles Dickens

Christmas has always been a special holiday, full of coziness, kindness and love, family warmth, and the flavor of a fairy-tale. Lots of people all over the world look forward to it as the most desired holiday full of rest, pleasure, nice meetings, beauty, and gifts, for sure.

Still, there are also people for whom Christmas starts much earlier, and advertisers are obviously among them. Advertising created for Christmas takes its highly special place applying a wide variety of artistic and branding techniques to amaze viewers and make their brand recognizable. It has to be mentioned that the best of them do not just present the brand, company, or service: they tell the stories and show the amazing graphics close to our feelings and making us believe in better things on this wonderful day.

Today’s post also opens the Christmas season here in Design4Users with a collection of stunning commercials, aka advertising videos, mostly from brands famous all over the world. It seems like they already see it as their responsibility to amazing their clients with new touching and bright stories of higher and higher quality. And we thankfully take that for granted and get amazed and touched as it actually was intended. So, let’s catch those vibes of Christmas magic wrapped up in the form of short and moving videos.

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 – BusterTheBoxer

This commercial is the short story of a little girl called Bridget who loves to bounce. When her mum and dad buy her a trampoline for Christmas, they soon discover that she isn’t the only one with a passion for jumping.

Sainsbury’s OFFICIAL Christmas advert 2016 -The Greatest Gift

This Christmas advert is a joyous Christmas musical created in stop frame animation featuring vocals by James Corden. It tells the story of Dave, a hard-working and devoted Dad, who realizes that the greatest gift he can give people this Christmas is his time.

Lidl Christmas Ad 2016: Homecoming

This video shares the latest Christmas campaign for Lidl. Homecoming captures the deep sense of place that each of us associates with Christmas, as grown-up siblings come together to reinvigorate the old family home as a surprise for their elderly father and soon the old home is filled with long-absent Christmas joy, as new memories are created and poignant ones set aside.

Seanytunes – Harrods Christmas Advert 2016

The commercial presenting an adventurous cartoon in British style produced for Harrods advertising campaign.

BBC Good Food’s Christmas Advert 2016

Funny Christmas advert from BBC Food fully loaded with extra cuteness of kids interviewed about this special celebration.

M&S 2016 Christmas Ad: Christmas with love from Mrs Claus

Epic and classy commercial “Meet Mrs Claus” for Marks and Spencer. This year the company launches the Christmas 2016 TV Advert campaign with a modern twist on the much-loved character Mrs Claus.

Lily & the Snowman advert for Cineplex

A little Christmas story about a magical snowman who annually puts on a show for a little girl. Still, over time, life pulls them apart. Will she remember to take the time for what she loved?

Holidays are coming – Coca-Cola Christmas

This is a classic and eternal commercial for Coca-Cola and it definitely couldn’t miss this list. Holidays are coming! See the famous parade of Coca-Cola trucks as they come to share the Christmas happiness.

Very.co.uk Christmas Advert 2016 – Get More Out of Giving

This one presents the story of a big-hearted woman as she makes her Christmas journey home from work. She spreads festive cheer by giving gifts and is accompanied by a flying heart. With each gift she gives, her heart reacts delightedly; growing in size as the faces of the men, women and children she gives to light up with Christmas glee. Once finally home she is awoken with a present from her little girl, and she sees that her daughter has the same love of giving as her.

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2014 – MontyThePenguin

Another funny story from John Lewis about the sincere friendship making people decide on the best possible Christmas presents.

Heathrow Airport Christmas Ad 2016 Coming Home

The fresh Christmas commercial for Heathrow Airport deeply positioning family values making people come home for Christmas as there is nothing better.

Cartier Christmas Ad 2016 – Winter Tale

New Light New York and Paris – the epic commercial created for Cartier Christmas Campaign.

Mercedes Benz Christmas Ad 2016 – Snow Date

Another romantic and touching story from Mercedes Benz showing that there is nothing that could stop love and devotion.

“The Wish Writer” – Macy’s Christmas Film 2015

Just when a young girl is finding it hard to believe in the spirit of the holidays, she and her brother discover a pen with magical wish-granting powers. The video lets us watch how they spread the magic of giving and generosity throughout town — one wish at a time.

Hopefully, this day got its dose of magic for you. Merry upcoming Christmas, don’t miss the new posts on the theme!

Don’t miss the inspirational collection of Christmas and New Year illustrations, atmospheric winter art, and another set of impressive commercials

Сообщение 14 Stunning Commercials Made of Christmas Magic появились сначала на Design4Users.

In our article about illustration potential in user interfaces, we have already mentioned mascots and characters, providing some general ideas on how their implementation can improve UI concepts as well as become the foundation for solid and strong branding. So, today let’s analyze in more detail what are the advantages and secrets of mascot magic and when they are applicable.

The essence of a mascot

Mascots are images, usually personified, which in most cases represent the brand, product, or service identity and therefore become its symbolic convention via the whole application or website as well as the branded items and promotional activities.

Andre Landscape mascot concept

Mascot becomes the element of identity and inter-connector between the user and the product. In many cases, the mascot is the basic element of communication and interaction; therefore, in different states, it can become the basic way to deliver the message to the user.

The business practice of successful companies shows that thoughtfully designed mascots can work even better than product endorsements with the help of a famous person. Mascots can reflect any traits of character, follow any style needed for product positioning and communicate with the customer via a wide set of visual techniques. Mascots push the limits of personification and give a chance to create unexpected combinations of elements or make fantastic and non-existing characters alive.

Designing mascots for our numerous customers as well as our own studio brand, we have already checked their great power as a multipurpose and comprehensive design element. Efficient mascots should be based on thorough user research, analyzing needs, wishes, and expectations of the target audience, and also an attentive study of the market environment to support the appropriate level of originality as the basis for effective design solutions.

Saily mascot design process

Advantages of mascots

Let’s see what the important practical advantages of mascots are applied in branding and content strategy.

Memorability

People tend to remember substantial and actual images much longer than abstract ones, and characters reflecting human-like features are the favorites of this technique. No doubt, it can have a significant influence on the level of brand awareness.

Recognizability

Mascot can become a strong element of an original and unique piece of the content presenting a particular product or service. A well-done analysis of the target audience, as well as a sophisticated and thought-out design, can provide the brand with an important element making it recognizable in seconds. This advantage is also directly connected with the previous one. As long as it is easier to remember the mascot, it is also easier to recognize the product and its features, among others.

Visual marking

Mascot allows marking visually anything connected with the product creating an additional field for promotional activity. A mascot can work as a logo, transform into illustrations, elements of gamification, printed stickers, and every time, it will support a strong visual connection with a brand.

Personalization

As has already been mentioned, users usually appreciate the element of direct communication and personal attention to them. Mascot is one of the best ways to provide it. It can communicate directly with the speech bubbles, provide visual prompts via various facial expressions, reflect the mood of the user with different graphic variations of the mascot, provide helpful instructions in the tutorial and congratulate the achievements. There are hundreds of ways to strengthen the element of personal communication using mascots. For users, it can make a big difference, especially in cases of interaction: communication with a particular character often provides a much more positive and dynamic user experience than impersonal instruction sent by the system.

Stylistic support

Mascots, being a highly flexible element, can become a central part of the general style concept for the product. It is easy to send the key message to the user via mascot: it won’t take long to understand if the product is serious or entertaining, lively or calm, business-like or easy-breezy, highly private or broadly social, and so on and so forth.

Product voice and tone

In combination with the previous feature, mascots can play a great role in supporting general tone and voice, which is the basis for a branding strategy. Mascot usually reflects the most important feature of the product and transfers the idea much faster and in a user-friendly way. Moreover, it often gives a chance to avoid long copy bulks in product descriptions enabling visual perception of information which is by far faster than text perception.

Onboarding tutorial for Singify

Emotion and interest trigger

Dealing with users, we all should remember that they are unique individuals, unique inner worlds full of their own emotions. Emotions and feelings are often the main power moving people to a particular choice, decision or operations. Mascot is one of the fastest ways to provide this feature of emotional feedback to the user, letting them speak the user’s language, and therefore make the product more user-centered.

Aesthetic satisfaction

Although practical and problem-solving issues mostly come first as the central way of attracting and retaining users, aesthetic satisfaction shouldn’t be neglected. Mascot, as an element of the sophisticated artistic approach, can become the feature supporting this user’s need. A pleasantly looking mascot is a good reason to make a choice in favor of a particular product in the case when it’s compared to the ones with the same functionality but less attractive graphic support.

Long-term strategic potential

Mascots accomplished properly usually become the element of long-term branding strategy and are able to satisfy multiple needs getting transformed and refreshing the experience of product use without losing recognizability.

Saily mascot design process

Diversity of usage

Mascots can be applied in hundreds of various ways, both in digital graphics and physical products, starting from simple stickers and illustrations up to printed stuff, dolls and toys, play characters and cartoons.

Element of virality

Unique and stylish mascot can become a strong element of virality, becoming so popular among users that they will not only spread it to each other but also create new versions, parodies, discussions, and the like. That works especially efficiently in products for kids when the mascot actually becomes a central representative of the product and creates a high level of desirability.

Element of consistency

Mascot applied in various elements of branding and content strategy creates the feeling of consistency which is the basis of strong brand presence and positioning on the market.

Requirements to mascots

Therefore, according to everything mentioned above, we can sum up what requirements for efficient mascots should be considered. Among them, we would insist that a mascot should be:

• memorable
• recognizable
• original
• representing a consistent character
• flexible to adapt and adjust
• applicable for diverse tasks
• looking good in different sizes and resolutions
• stylistically harmonic
• lively and user-friendly.

Mascots in UI

Mascots are very helpful in interfaces: they liven up the general process, catch up user’s attention, become a memorable element, create important support for a stylistic concept, and make the illusion of direct communication with the user.

Also, wisely used in illustrations featuring actions or interactions, a mascot can become a good way to avoid using too much copy on the screen and, in this way, save space for other important elements of the layout or just more “air” really needed to create a good perception of data on the screen or page.

Saily mascot applied to mobile app user interface

Certainly, mascots should be wisely applied in order not to overload the interface where it is not needed. The aim of a mascot in any kind of environment is to simplify and speed up the interaction with a product. If this objective is not achieved, the mascot can play a bad role and create unnecessary distractions instead of improvement for the branding. In our next post, we will continue this topic, considering some pitfalls and issues necessary to consider in the process of creating a mascot as the element of branding. Stay tuned!

Branding Design Case Studies

Here’s a set of more case studies sharing the design solutions and approaches for some of the design projects done by the Tubik team.

Page Turner. Identity and Packaging Design for Bookstore Chain

BlockStock. Brand Identity and Website for Minecraft Models Resource

SwitLuv. Theme Packaging Design About Love for Sweets Brand

Fulfill. Illustrations and Web Design for 3PLs Marketplace

Roebuck. Mobile Design and Illustrations for Educational App

Garden Gates. Identity and Packaging Design for Garden Center

Bikker. Identity Design and Illustrations for Biking Service

Kaiten. Identity and Product Design for Food Marketplace

Glup. Delivery App Branding and UX Design

Crezco. Brand Identity and UI/UX Design for Fintech Service

FarmSense. Identity and Web Design for Agricultural Technology

Originally written for Tubik Blog, graphic and video content by tubik

Сообщение Mascot Power for Effective Branding появились сначала на Design4Users.