Companies hire corporate designers to craft solutions that clearly and memorably communicate their brand’s message, directly to their market. They understand that without a full comprehension of consumer psychology and the user experience (UX), they may as well be chucking paint into a corner.

Effective strategic design is somewhat like a composition written for a symphony orchestra, in that it requires several instruments working symbiotically in order to achieve the desired result.

One of the biggest mistakes made by business owners and inexperienced designers is to attempt to build a brand in a vacuum. It may seem a bit odd to hear this coming from a designer, but to focus on visuals alone is foolish.

Unfortunately, the design field is filled with people who don’t know what design for business really is – and they’re selling this lack of context to business owners taken in by a flashy (but ultimately meaningless) portfolio.

Being mindful of your actions is not simply good advice for living… in business, it is a requirement.

A few days ago, my incoming Twitter feed took on a fiery tone. Anger spewed forth with abandon from one of my fellow business owner contacts. He was incensed, having discovered that a particular spammer had gone the extra mile to target his company’s clients as a group.

Once in a while, I get the feeling that everything’s been done. I become bored with what’s being toted as the latest and greatest – and these days, the buzzword is green.

My mother was a carpenter and a forest ranger… also an intellectual, a bit of a flower child, and an intensely caring individual. So as you might imagine, I was raised with a certain amount of appreciation and respect for the natural world. When it became apparent that more people in my own demographic seemed to be acknowledging and embracing concepts like social responsibility and environmental awareness, I was thrilled. I thought, finally – the middle class is starting to open their eyes.

You’ve spent countless hours coming up with the perfect name for your business. It’s unique, brief, descriptive, and expandable. Beautiful. The next step is one that is often given a bit of a short stick… after all that brand naming wordplay, you now need to come up with a short, positive and catchy slogan for your business.

Many people are simply tired of words at this point. And that’s fine, but your tagline is important enough to warrant your full attention. So take a break, and come back to it when your mind is refreshed.

Life is all about the little things.

I often wonder why so many of the business owners and brand managers who approach us are so obsessed with the overall machine, without giving so much as a nod to the cogs that make it work. I’m not talking about employee recognition here (that’s another topic entirely) but rather, the less tangible qualities that impact the customer’s experience in doing business with you.

How many times have you avoided returning to a restaurant with a shoddy bathroom? And how wonderful is that free tea or cappuccino at your favourite spa?

In today’s highly competitive environment, the strongest brands are the ones that transcend the products and services they represent, and form a solid connection with the consumer.

While new business owners invest substantial amounts of time and resources into product and concept development, package design, advertising, PR and distribution, the act of choosing a name for their brand is often treated as an afterthought. As a result, we end up with generic and damaging brand names like ‘x place’ or ‘y barn’… or names that are already shared with dozens of other companies.

The fields of branding and marketing have a credibility problem.

More often than not, consumers associate brand-speak with trickery, exaggeration, misdirection and outright deception. The sad thing is, I don’t blame them. A lot of brands are disingenuous. What those brand managers don’t realize is that tricking someone into buying once is far less profitable than earning customer loyalty and trust over the long term.

Investing in your Brand for the Long Haul

Branding is so much more than just looking good. You need to pick up where we leave off.

If there is one thing copywriters love to talk about it’s “Features vs. Benefits“. To us it makes all the sense in the world. However, many business owners who want to learn to write their own powerful copy struggle with the concept.

Features are the properties of a product or service. The features of a car might be anti-lock brakes, leather seats, or rear-window defrost. Benefits, on the other hand, show how those features will actually be of benefit (hence the name) to the user. Anti-lock brakes keep you safe if you have to stop quickly. Leather seats are more durable and luxurious than cloth. In copywriting, benefits are much, much more important than features.

From disparate beginnings, Christmas has become largely a cultural celebration for my generation – one meant to bring people together and place our focus on the people we love.

It has also become an uber-brand that represents intangible, un-buy-able values (peace, love, joy, family, selflessness) simultaneously with supreme commercialism.