A brand isn't what you say. It's what survives getting repeated. Someone sees your work, likes it...A brand isn't what you say. It's what survives getting repeated. Someone sees your work, likes it...
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A brand isn't what you say. It's what survives getting repeated.
Someone sees your work, likes it, then tries to describe you to a friend three days later. Whatever comes out of their mouth — that's your brand. Not the deck. Not the guidelines.
Most of the time what comes out is: "there's this candle place, it's like, minimal? I think it's on Instagram."
That's a brand that didn't survive the trip.
Three things I look for.
One thing that's easy to say.
Not a tagline. A fact. "They make the bread in-house." "Everything is one price." "The founder answers the DMs." Short enough to survive being half-remembered.
One thing that's easy to picture.
A colour, a shape, a format someone can hold in their head. If the identity only works assembled at full size, it won't travel. Most things get seen cropped, compressed, small.
One reason to bring it up at all.
People don't repeat brands. They repeat things that make them look like they know something. Give them that and they'll carry it for you.
The third one is almost always what's missing. Plenty of brands are perfectly nice and give nobody a reason to mention them.
Pretty gets you saved. Sayable gets you spread.
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