How to design a brand mission

Whether you create everything from scratch or have a rebranding task in front of you - it's vital to tell a story. The one about brand.The role of a brand mission Is definitely hard to underestimate, but not every company puts enough effort into forming it.Talking about these amazing examples, let's find out how to imply best ideas and deliver the mission of your brand through design, giving customers what they want.

Getting to know your client

Brand mission provides the way of development and pushing the limits to every person in the company. You, as a designer who have been asked to create the “face” of a brand have the responsibility to show it's purpose to everyone who will see it. Does the color you choose feel appropriate to brand's industry? Does the logo has a meaning behind of it?

 Do your research - starting with the mission statement would be your best idea. It tells the customer what the company does, why it's different and why it can solve the problem. Before diving into your design, count on the company's values, history, strong sides, products and customer's profile. The company may change it's goals over time, but as for now you got to show what it represents. 

Asana's mission:

“To help humanity thrive by enabling the world's teams to work together effortlessly”

LinkedIn's mission:

“Connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful”

TED's mission:

“Spread ideas”

Semiotics, colors and fonts

Semiotics

Some company logos are entered our life forever because of the dedicated team's work behind of it. This is the main thing we see when connected to the company, via website, ad, packaging, store and many other sources. Best logos are easy to remember and captivating. Nowadays the world's main tendency is to simplify everything around us - in a higly loud and informative world visual elements and design become cleaner and neater.There're many different ways to imply the meaning into your logo. Apart from colors and typography, you can use negative space, symbols and numbers, distinct shapes and many other things - all stand for semiotics.

Numbers and symbols

Vaio logo

Vaio is known worldwide for its technology, but not everyone knows the meaning behind its logo. Vaio represents the integration of both analog and digital technologies in its products. “Va” letters here stand for sine wave, while the “io” resembles the 1 and 0 numbers as a digital signal or binary code. 

Baskin Robbins logo

31 flavor, that's what BR logo is saying. Keeping the history and reminding everyone where they've started from, Baskin Robbins today is a huge brand that is still devoted to their concept of “31 flavors” - each for every day of the month.

Amazon Logo

From a bookstore to world's largest e-commerce giant, Amazon has changed it's logo several times to fit their renewed representation. The arrow holds the bulk of the logo's message; it symbolizes that Amazon carries everything – from “A” to “Z” and client will be satisfied after getting the package. 

Negative space

Let's look into the way brands can use negative space to sustain dual or hidden meaning:

FedEx logo

FedEx is a delivery service, so putting an arrow from “E” to “X” is a correct way of demonstrating company's qualified work and fast delivery, accuracy. When being criticized for keeping such a piece of space white, design representative said that it clearly stands for space, packages are usually lacking. We would also add, that logo colors represent different operating units, Express and Freight, but will get back to this part below.

Levi's logo

Negative space here stands for Levi's pockets, formed in the shape of a batwing on every pair of pants they produce. And the rebranding went well - look at the picture logo, Levi's had from 1892 to 1925. Besides, new logo distinctly reminds the old one…

Levi's old logo

History

The Museum of London has very organic look. The dimensional color shapes represent evolving London history and geography. The museum is a charitable institution, supported by a variety of organizations and individuals. These organizations include the City of London Corporation and GLA, so they have a strong bond with the city itself. The logo shows how everything has changed over time, representing the constant progress of London and its people in the past, the present, and looking towards the future. By the way, the museum is the largest urban history collection in the world, with more than six million objects.

Cisco logo

Cisco, one of the most Influential IT companies of the world and network leader, is named after its headquarters' location - San Francisco. The blue stripes above the logotype not only represent an electromagnet but also, the Golden Gate Bridge, which inspired the founders while they were driving to Sacramento to register their startup.

Colors

A strong example, we have already highlighted - Knoll brand poster by the late Massimo Vignelli, which most smoothly reflects his design principles. It has two meanings: first symbolizes Knoll as a paint brand, which we can literally see on their brand poster as the letters are put as paint layers. As for the second - it symbolizes Knoll as a textile brand. By different colors we can see the ability of choice, the way their products can be styled to fit any design.

Unchanged since 1980 year, CNN logo just got two colors instead of being black and white - red of CNN represents excitement, passion and courage of the network, while the white color stands for truth, perfection and authority. These two colors reflect stability, as well as power and world's presence of the network. The line, by the way, symbolizes the television cable.

Blue color traditionally used by medical and pharma companies to symbolize professionalism, power and trust, is greatly needed by patients all over the world. Apart from medical companies, blue is used by banks, government, financial and software businesses. Blue says “Brand is professional and logical, but not invasive”. Blue gives the strongest sense of confidence, which is so valued by people all over the world. 

A company “going green” sounds great, not even counting on dollar currency, we would believe it succeeds and grows. As for a reason, green stands for renewal, safety and abilities - human eye is the most sensitive for this color. Starbucks demonstrate prosperity and natural origin of it's coffee, Fiverr tells everyone about the amount of talented professionals that can deliver any task.

Yahoo logo

Less common, but definitely not less meaningful - dying fabric in purple color was extremely expensive and people still feel that energy of devotion. Worn by emperors and religious leaders, purple can bring magic and luxury into anyone's life. 'We were purple before it was cool to be purple,” said co-founders of Yahoo, back to when they were Stanford students. In fact, purple is associated with fantasy, wizards and everything can match the gaming industry, toys, shows, themed channels. Taco Bell, though, changed the color from red, yellow and green to show new approach to Mexican food.

Fonts

The finishing element to your brand's identics - the choice of Font. By font, you can show if the brand is modern or has roots in the past, meant for particular audience or particular area. How does this work?

Serifs

Use serif font to add some kind of sophistication to your brand. Traditional, established - all these impressions can be formed by it's tails and strokes. Popular among luxury brands, newspapers, books and many other, serif adds a strong point on their wealth. Serifs are perfect, if you want to show a strong link to roots, legacy and history, and to reflect the fundamental approach to quality, design, and beauty.

P. S. Looking good in all capitals!

Sans serifs

What do you see, when you look at neo-grotesque Helvetica font? Perfectly curved (horizontally and vertically), tight spacing between the letters, means “Swiss” in Latin, by the way. Meant to be as neutral as possible, ultra-modern and versatile and able to adapt to any design. It can be used equally among make-up brands, tech startups and manufacturers. The same principle works with other Sans, as they represent new era, the one after Serifs, it's ornaments and massiveness. They are digital, adaptive and neat. Is simplicity really the future? 

Scripts and Display fonts

Are way too ornament for most brands, but you'll find them on logos of sophisticated restaurants, elegant liquor bottles, beauty brands and posters, etc. It can symbolize the beauty area, taste, but this is not always the best choice for digital and web. It may look good as a contrast though, if you will only use it with one-two words on your website. If your brand logo will be associated with this type of font once, it will be kept in it's history forever. If you will choose script font, make sure you create something remarkable.

Friendly enough? The one you may choose for book cover or kid's brand - its expressive, memorable and gives playful, same time comfortable feeling. The whole idea of these types of font is to show that your brand is different and artistic, confident enough to let everyone see it.You may want to look at the list of most actual Fonts and Typography trends of 2021 we have prepared. If you're still searching for the right one, you can find it there!

What does it all mean

To wrap up, everything you got to tell by creating your design, you can tell by semiotics, colors, typography and strong affinity of brand's representation. Know your brand, apply smartest historical decisions and be sure that the Client will face exactly what the company can give. By the way, how would you explain our logo?