Humans are inherently creative. No matter the medium or the task, that creative impulse is always there, waiting to be used.
In agencies, creativity is the air everyone breathes. But what’s often missing aren’t ideas, but it’s process, clear timelines, defined operational plans.
When a new project is born (or sold), it becomes the perfect playground for creatives to run with their best ideas. And that’s a good thing.
For branding, this ocean of ideas naturally pushes us to reshape what exists today in the name of creating something better. But here’s where it gets tricky – in that process, we sometimes lose things that actually holds a lot of value. A naming convention. A logo. Even if it’s not the most award-winning design, it’s something people in that sector already recognize and connect with.
When familiarity and recognition exist, the natural first step should be to investigate and, in many cases, preserve a good part of what’s already there.
But then the creatives step in. Often driven by ambition and the desire to bring every brilliant idea to life, they can overlook a fundamental element of branding – building familiarity to create trust.
That’s where strategists step in, or where client feedback plays its crucial role. They apply the brakes. And contrary to what some might think, that’s not a constraint, it’s essential. After all, no one understands their sector better than the client who lives and breathes it every day.
Building a brand from scratch isn’t always the best path forward. That’s why a well-structured branding process always begins with listening. A phase dedicated to hearing different stakeholders’ perspectives, challenges, and understandings of the current reality.
When I joke about the “problem” of branding being the rebranding, I’m pointing to what happens when creative momentum leads us to reshape a brand into something entirely unrecognizable. In other cases, that same impulse results in a house of brands, which becomes a nightmare for a small NGO with one or two people handling communications. Instead of focusing on impact, they’re stuck managing multiple brand identities.
So while we often think of branding as purely visual, it’s actually the foundation for effective internal and external communication.
So, next time you embark on a new project or revisit your brand, remember to honor what people already recognize. Then, from that solid foundation, let your creativity fly.