Design should reflect reality. To design, you need to know what reality is. Reflections on identity are not restricted to debates about being and comings and goings by philosophers such as Heraclitus and Parmenides. They are also of interest to designers aspiring to create works that reflect reality to the same or a greater extent as themselves.
Designers should have a command of a graphic language with as many registers as possible, but beyond all else, they must be perceptive enough to thoroughly understand what they are talking about or drawing.
A logo is both a matter of graphics and a problem of synthesis. It should say as much as possible about the reality it represents in the most direct, succinct and memorable way possible. Designing a logo involves, more than anything else, solving an identity problem. A corporate identity programme should be a graphic expression, the visual synthesis of an identity project. All institutions must define their purposes, culture and philosophy as clearly as possible. Their vision and mission. When all these are understood, a feeling of belonging is achieved, without which its goals are much harder to achieve. This reality and how it is perceived make up what we call Corporate Identity: companies, public or private institutions, from churches to national states, seek and require all their activities to fit into a coherent whole that confirms or blurs their identity. When we undertake Identity projects we do so from an integrated standpoint. We consider all the vehicles through which we communicate identity, marrying reflections on this with design:
Brand architecture
Presentation of products and services
Corporate environments, buildings and spaces
Communication material
Coherence throughout the visual treatment of all the ways in which the brand is expressed makes it stronger and more noticeable. Our works consists of creating a graphic universe that distils the essence of the brand in all its applications; colours, typographies, messages, visual resources or graphic codes empower each other, making an emotional connection with all their audiences.
We have worked on corporate identity projects with numerous clients. Some projects were limited to giving a graphic image a formal status, while others involved wider approaches to image in which, in conjunction with the company or institutions, we approached the brand positioning strategy, choice of name, construction of a visual identity, often reaching the roll-out and external communication stage.
Naming
Names. Identity begins with a name.
Many times a good name is the best way to establish corporate identity. However, building an image on the wrong name is like building a house without a foundation.
At our Studio we know the importance of names and sometimes we create names for the different identities we design for.
Below are a few examples:
Ayre: is the Intranet name created for the City Council of Madrid. It is built on the contraction “Ayuntamiento de Redes”. This space allows Town Hall employees to communicate with one another and shorten work processes.
Simple: is the name created for a computer company that takes complex technical problems and makes them simple.
Línea Madrid: is the trade name that connects citizens with their Town Hall and integrates Madrid City’s Web Service, 010 Telephone Service and Citizen Services.
Gaudir: is a Catalonian construction company that builds houses to be enjoyed. Gaudir, in Catalan, means “to enjoy”.
Visual identity
"Designing a logo is like writing a telegram. This requires a painstaking search through the dictionary for a single word which, if possible, will say it all. Sometimes the word is not there, and one needs to be invented. If the addressees of the telegram don't understand it, forget it quickly and don't find it attractive, then we have not done our job right". (Manuel Estrada)
Designing a brand, projecting a corporate image means, more than anything else, carrying out serious work in summarisation. The designer should find and distil shapes that express the essence of the features of the identity to be transmitted. Frank Memelsdorf wrote, "When Manuel says with apparent modesty "I'm good at logos", he is lying. What Manuel Estrada has is the rare ability to iconize whatever is thrown at him. Generally speaking, designers think in images. I think Manuel thinks in pre-synthesised telegraphic images, already reduced to this initial, essential surprise on which all good icons are based, a good symbol, a good logo"
Brand architecture
The brand architecture systematizes and visually orders the corporate structure. It reveals how a company is organised, whether it is centralised or decentralised, if it has grown in a planned manner or as a result of out of habit or spontaneous decisions.
From a monolithic structure with a unique visual style to identify the organisation, its divisions, its products or its services, to the opposite option of assigning different or independent brands to nominate these partial realities. There are intermediate alternatives that should be evaluated according to the corporate strategy wished to be communicated.
An adequate brand architecture is a very important instrument that makes a decisive contribution to multiplying the efficiency of a Corporate Identity Programme.
Laureate International Universities, is an American company that owns more than 50 universities around the world. In 2008 it commissioned Manuel Estrada Design to change its image. Carrying out this assignment meant creating a common brand architecture for all the universities in the network.
Products and services presentations
The products manufactured or sold by a company or the services offered by an organisation project standards and values. Packaging lines or visual presentation of the services of an organisation are all powerful vehicles for identity that should move to the beat or corporate identity.
Carmencita is Spain's leading spice company. The Studio has been responsible for developing its image over recent years.
Corporate environments and office buildings
The corporate environment, offices, points of sale, their atmosphere and their quality are a source of continuous powerful sensations that contribute to the image of the brand.
P4R. Apertura Española: The image of this Spanish public company was designed by the Manuel Estrada Studio in 2007.
Some brands form part of the city landscape. The GMP and the Ahorro Corporation image was designed by the Studio.
Communication and advertising materials
Everything from the smallest leaflet produced in any of the departments of an organisation to the communications issued by the general management or headquarters has an impact on the transmission of Corporate Identity. A visual style is defined with graphic resources and individual colour codes, which make a decisive contribution to generating the brand image. A visual line expressed in printed matter, digital communications or external communication campaigns.
Repsol
In the case of Repsol, we have defined our own visual style to be applied to corporate publications, the company's presentation brochure, the Annual Reports, Repsol Guide and the Web page. Movement, plasticity and approachability that bring to mind the world of energy that flows for a visual synthesis of values, places or products.
Fundación Repsol
We created the visual image for the Fundación Repsol. From a lineal, cold, bland graphic we have moved towards an image which, following the graphic strategy of the publications created for Repsol, brings back values connected to transparency, energy and innovation.
The fluids with the Repsol corporate colours and human figures that evoke the world bring the company closer to society by transmitting the company's social vocation. The publications and webpage feature the same graphic codes.
"Ciudadano R" campaign
Communicating the essence of the brand through advertising or by sponsorship activities that project its values are powerful tools for transmitting identity. The “Ciudadano R” (Citizen R) campaign, designed to drive responsible group behaviour, was sponsored by the Fundación Repsol and Madrid City Council, featuring the letters R in the company colours and playing with the ambivalence of its double meaning.
The Foundation's logo, the corporate colours used on all the campaign supports and the messages launched have made the Foundation more recognisable as the Company's maximum expression of Social Corporate Responsibility.
