Can you truly say that your visual brand is intentional?
For many asset and wealth managers, a visual brand (either at the company, capability or product level) may initially develop organically. Perhaps branding exercises happened early on, and now there’s a legacy around how the logo, website and other elements look. Whether due to emotional sentimentalism, internal inertia, or other factors, it can feel difficult to change.
Yet, there comes a point where every firm should refresh their brand, and when they do so, it’s vital to be both intentional and authentic in the process. How? I see four steps as crucial to the process:
1. Pin your visuals to your brand narrative and core messaging.
The first step to creating an intentional visual brand is not to sit down and design. Instead, it’s verifying that you have your brand messaging finalized.
Brand messaging guidelines sit at the core of the design process, because your visuals must reflect what it is you do best, how you do it, and how you speak about it to clients. It is the soil from which a healthy and vibrant visual brand can grow.
If you haven’t yet developed your core messaging for your firm, capability or product – reach out. We’re here to help.
2. Identify core concepts and phrases that suggest visual treatment.
From that core messaging, identify the concepts that invite visual exploration.
These aren’t always “visual” words, in the literal sense. For example, “connection” may be crucial to your brand narrative. Connection invites a number of different visual interpretations – bridges (arguably overdone in this industry), roots, puzzle pieces, etc. As designers, it’s our job to find the few most appropriate ones that we can weave into our work.
Like anything creative, it’s easy for this to become an endless activity. With just a few key words, you can typically explore dozens if not hundreds of ideas. The broadness of that process is important, though; you must push the boundaries of what feels “typical” for the industry to stand out.
However, at some point, you then need to focus on the few concepts that can guide you throughout the execution stage of the process. We do this by again running all the results by our litmus test. Which concepts have the most connection to the idea? Which are the most original, ownable? Narrowing down requires a bit of ruthlessness but it’s worth it in the end.
3. Start to play, using your concepts as a litmus test.
With your core concepts articulated, start to play, using those concepts as a litmus test.
For example, you can play with the logo by typing out the company name in different typefaces, seeing how different elements can come together. I personally enjoy handwriting the firm’s name in different ways, to really sketch out the art of what’s possible.
Build connections between your high-level concepts and the recognizable expressions of your visual brand. By the end of this stage, you should aim to have three options of how different elements – typeface, logo, color, imagery, etc. – come together to form your visual brand.
You can have more or less options, but I find three typically give stakeholders the breadth to understand what’s possible, while keeping the process focused and manageable.
4. When it comes to decision-making, think both creatively and tactically.
Once you have fully fleshed out options, making a final decision of what’s right can feel daunting. This is particularly true because often, the final path forward for your visual brand won’t be one option or another, but some combination of them, integrated and refined over the course of the process.
It’s essential that a firm thinks both creatively and tactically when settling on the new brand, though. Your gut instinct may be to ask – “What feels right, for ourselves and for our clients?” And that’s an important question. But equally as important is – “What gives us the breadth and flexibility to stretch across all our client touchpoints? What branding elements align to our use needs?”
At the end of the day, building an intentional brand is about applying a systematic lens to a deeply creative process. But by blending creativity with strategic intent, asset and wealth managers can build a visual brand that not only stands out in the market but also truly embodies their unique story and values, ensuring every visual touchpoint is purposeful and impactful.
Interested in exploring how you can build a more intentional visual brand? We’re happy to schedule a discovery call to discuss.