Customer Reviews

Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This *is* a great book when it comes to showing how to put together a coherent, soup-to-nuts identity program. But the title of the book is misleading - there's very little in this book about actually creating, building or maintaining strong brands per se. This wilfully confuses the logo for the company behind the logo. As Paul Rand once said of his logo for the ABC television network, it wasn't a matter of whether his logo lived up to the network, but whether the network lived up to the logo! The brand process involves a lot of non-graphical thought regarding the spirit or essence of what that organization is all about. "Is that an IBM thing to do?" The brand identity is, at best, only the surface expression: the brand is the idea of the company in its customers' minds. In that sense, creating and maintaining a strong brand is really about having clear direction, consistent policies and actions, and understanding that markets are conversations, not about whether the carpet matches the business cards and the Web site.

When I put my hands on this book, I thought I would be adding one more point of view to my knowledge about brand identity, but this didn't quite happen.

This book isn't really about designing brand identity itself, but mostly about materializing brand identity into the visual identity of a company, limiting its whole concept. Furthermore, it is known that mere visual identity doesn't make a brand any stronger, as the title suggests.

Anybody with some previous brand identity knowledge in the marketing sense might get a little frustrated, had this person expected deep explanations about the creation of a brand identity plan (for that I would recommend Aaker's work).

On the other hand, if you are a designer willing to understand how to develop a visual identity linked to a brand identity, this book could be very useful.

This could have been a 5star rating. The thing that held me from making it one is the print quality of the book. Honestly, I've got books half this price that are on better paper, and in full color. A book that is printed on two different types of (cheap) paper, and offers only 4 color pages just doesn't impress me. Not at this price. I felt dissapointed for sure.

Now, about the title: it could have been a better one. While it states "designing", it is more about "constructing" and "rationalizing". If you want a book that shows you how to design a logo/trademark, this is not it. The value of this book is that it will explain and deconstruct every single aspect about the total brand identity process, and how it can then apply. The later has visual examples - though as mentioned in extremely low quality bw print. But again: these visuals serve only to underscore the process.

If you need a book that will explain every process, theory and element of brand identity, click ad to shopping cart. It is an easy read, short and to the point paragraphs for us time (or attention spam) challenged people. It is a must-have and must-know for anyone in advertising, marketing or design, regardless of being creative.

If you want a book that depicts and demonstrates how a trademark has been thought of, worked out, presented, fine tuned, etc., this is not it.

This author has tackled the vital topic of brand identity in a new way. In the beginning of the book Alina Wheeler says that she want to provide "an accessible resource that provides a road map to the process, explains some fundamental concepts, and showcases best practices." The book delivers on this promise!

What differentiates it from other books on this topic is that Wheeler's book really IS accessible. This comes from the unique way in which it is organized. You can simply flip open the book to any spread and have a specific concept explained, illustrated, and illuminated by relevant quotations. This makes it an excellent reference work -- keep it by your desk to quickly look up any topic. For example, you might be advocating a particular course of action at your company that you just know is the right way to go. You can turn to Wheeler's book to marshall specific evidence and articulate rationales to make your case.

In the beginning, she discusses 9 brand identity ideals: vision, meaning, authenticity, differentiation, sustainability, coherence, flexibility, commitment and value. Once you have reviewed each concept you understand how each plays a role in successful brand identities.

However, this is not primarily a book of theory. Wheeler breaks down the practical steps involved and outlines each, from the legal process to signage design. Case studies of successful brand identities take up the final portion of the book.

My one criticism is that book is not completely in color, as the topic demands. (There is a color insert showing many of the brands from the case studies.) No doubt this was a decision of the publisher!

Professionals at agencies or design firms may think they have this material mastered, but this book gives you the distilled essentials that you'll find extremely useful. But the key audience, in my view, should be business students or leaders who seek to better understand that, as Wheeler says, "brand identity is an asset that needs to be managed, nourished, invested in, and leveraged."

Too many books targeted to designers err on the side of a "showcase" presentation which exposes designers to the final solutions with little or no substance illuminating the process. This book will provide a comprehensive roadmap for designers and their clients.

"Designing Brand Identity" provides the information and processes to empower designers to transition into a more valuable role as consultants on identity and branding, not just the creator of visual symbols and logotypes. It is a look behind the scenes at a process which others capable of addressing have chosen to protect as proprietary information. Thanks, Alina for sharing your wisdom and experience.

Most of the branding/brand identity books out there are just theories, pictures .. and no practical substance. This books provides a practical set of concise yet understandable definitions, lists on how to achieve what you set out to do, excellent examples, comprehensive topics, ..... buy this book if you want to get your brand/id building and management done.

Most people who study ebusiness at universities either focus on website design, marketing/logistics of ebusiness, or systems/software. This book gets to the heart of conducting business over the internet - combining brand recognition with eye catching design and a quality/product or service. University programs and businesses looking to be successful in ecommerce should make this book required reading.

This book is the best "how-to" guide on brand identity -- it addresses issues no other author has. So many brand identity books are essentially coffee table books, full of illustrations with a little commentary thrown in. Not this book. It has an incredible amount of useful information (words and graphics) pertinent to anyone who has anything to do with identity, not just designers. In fact, this would be a terrific book for every marketing communications, public relations, and senior management person in corporate America.

This is a great resource for anyone responsible for brand management. It is a rare combination of a practical and creative approach to the subject. It is very helpful in outlining the processes involved in brand and identity management and how to carry these processes through to implementation. Any organization could benefit by implementing the ideas and processes the author outlines.

DBI gives a pleasant overlook of the branding process illustrated with various examples. It is however not a guidline to creating/building/maintaining a brand, so in this the title is misleading.

Warning:
There are tons of compairable books around of equal or better quality. Only for those you don't have to fork out +/- $99,- to buy it second hand here!!! The book is not antique, the book not a life altering experience and the content is not worth more than $20,- second hand, so beware not to be tricked into paying quadruple the price it is really worth!