We have already announced above what the second “BITE” in this process is going to be – Designing your visual identity as cultural operator. This should be an easy one, considering artistic world as most creative part of the society. Still, there are some aspects we would like to draw your attention to when defining your visual identity.
When talking about visual identity we are meaning on designs of the brand that comes out of its work. This includes logo of the cultural operator, colours, typography, illustrations, iconography, photos, videos, web pages, online and hard copy material, etc. In most cases, people who are managing work of cultural operator are not the one who are designing visual elements themselves, but rather higher artists or other professionals to do this. However, they still need to provide a good design brief to those artists and professional to ensure that their visual identity should be:
Distinct:
They stands out among competitors and catch your audience’s attention.
Memorable:
They make a visual impact.
Scalable and flexible:
They can grow and evolve with the organization or artistic program.
Cohesive and complementary
Each piece complements the brand identity.
Easy to apply:
It’s intuitive and clear for designers to use.
Design brief can range from formal to informal document, one or more pages long. Nevertheless, you should approach to creating a design brief in serious manner as it will drastically save your time in communication with designer and get more tailored made solutions, adjusted to your needs and expectations.
Here are some questions you can use to provide a good design brief for visual identity of your artistic organization/institution, which you are free to narrow down according to your needs and, of course, budget.
For defining your purpose
- Why does your gallery/museum/organization/institutions exist?
- What would you like to achieve in the society?
- What is your approach?
For positioning your cultural organization/institution
- What makes you different?
- Why do you do what you do?
- What is your vision?
For background and current objectives
- What is the background of your organization/institution?
- What are your current marketing goals/communication objectives?
- What is your current communication challenge?
- Audience - Who uses your services and how? Whose services do you use or depend on?
