06 Jan 5 Tips When Creating a Character for Your Brand
Five Things to Consider When Creating a Brand Character
Creating a character to represent your brand is a great way to add a flare of creativity to your products, however, there are a few things to remember when you decide to visually represent your brand or products. The design team at VMP decided to investigate some of the top designs available and why they’re so successful, creating a list of 5 tips for when creating a character for your brand.
1. Why do you want to create a brand character?
Character design is like the sweet gooey centre of brand strategy, used for decades to raise brand awareness and encourage and entice customers of all ages. Web design has paved the way for increasingly relevant use of character illustrations as a branding strategy, but one needs to understand when and how characters should be used in conjunction with a brand name, product, website, or even themselves.
Character illustrations can be a playful way of bringing humour or interest to a brand or product. This can be especially successful if the product or brand is trying to break into an already saturated market, adding a unique identity and recognisability to your product. Character illustrations can also be used to help customers navigate your website or use your product.
It is important to decide why you want to create a character for your brand first as it will heavily influence the design and creation of your character.
2. Where will it be seen?
Marketing is no longer as simple as having a blacksmith symbol on your storefront signage. Since the advent of the web, there are now literally millions of unique ways to reach potential customers. Whether it’s advertising on a t-shirt or a viral video campaign, branding characters can be utilised everywhere, however, it is best to consider where your character will be seen before you start designing. Where your character will be seen will have a heavy impact on the design of your character. If your character is going to be printed in a black and white newspaper, it’s probably not wise to heavily rely on colour for your character’s design. Alternatively, if your character is going to be 3D printed, it’s probably not wise to design your character inspired by M.C Escher. Designing characters for specific mediums is the key to creating memorable and engaging characters.
3. What does the character say about you?
Character design is more than what a character looks like, it’s also about what it visually represents and how it speaks to your audience. Visual representation has a huge impact on the audience’s perception of your brand or product. For example, if your product is tissues and you decide to use a cute duckling as your brand character, your audience may associate the fluffy and soft quality of the duckling with your product. However, if your product is flight simulators, your audience may have an entirely different interpretation of how that fluffy duck represents your product. Get to know your target audience as this will influence how they perceive your character. Consider the traits associated with the character you’re creating and how they could highlight key areas of your product.
4. What style should it be?
There is an infinite number of character styles and each with vary from artist to artist. Choosing a style could be as simple as finding one that suits your tastes or it could be a powerful way of communicating between you and your audience. Choose a style that will evoke an emotional response from your audience. But don’t be afraid to change the conventions. Style can have a dramatic impact on the uniqueness of your brand or product. Stand out from the crowd with a different approach to your competitors.
5. Be creative, challenge the market, break the rules
As Steve Jobs once said, “You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far”. Success, in all fields, is achieved by the game changers and the rule breakers. Don’t be afraid to bend or even break the rules. If all your competitors are using the same design guidelines, go in a different direction. Be bold and make challenging decisions as that is what will get you noticed.
We challenge you to try something bold and let us know about your brand ideas. Or if you’re struggling for ideas, contact us at VMP on 07 3324 0900 or send us a message through our contact page.
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Tue, 06/01/2015 – 3:55am