brad, Brand and Brands
Conference by Manon Gruaz, at GWT Con 2015.
Manon Gruaz is Lead Designer and Brand Strategist
at Arcbees.
You can follow Manon on Twitter : @manongruaz
44. Create an assertive and
authentic persona of design,
here are the components:
The Brand and the UI
45. ➔ Overview :
What makes your brand unique ?
➔ Traits :
The picture of a person (someone famous,
or that your team knows well; it could even
be a mascot) that represents the brand
➔ Brand features :
List 5 features that define your brand
and 2 that you absolutely want to avoid
Components
46. ➔ Voice tone:
If your brand could speak,
what would it say and how ?
➔ Visual lexicon:
Glimpse of colors, typography
and visual style
➔ Methods of commitment:
Describe the methods of emotional
commitment to support
your design persona and create
an outstanding experience
Components
49. Design Persona - Arcbees
Brand’s name Arcbees
Overview
The bee is the mascot of Arcbees.
-
The bee is a confident
and strong architecture master
with a furious desire to reach
for the stars
50. Its shape is both simple and logic.
It expresses the quest towards
efficiency, optimization
and smart architecture.
These three are at the core of all
Arcbees' products and projects.
Design Persona - Arcbees
51. Brand Features
The bee is, like all the bees,
a teamworker.
Bees help one another to make
the impossible happen.
-
It is playful, fun and doesn’t take
itself too seriously.
Design Persona - Arcbees
52. The bee is a code fanatic
and can't stop talking about it.
-
It is logic, devoted but it is not
boring.
Design Persona - Arcbees
53. Simplicity lover, it resolves
complex situations,
finds solutions to help developers.
-
The bee is different from
the «real» bees: no hierarchy
and no stings!
Design Persona - Arcbees
54. Voice / Tone
The bee likes to have fun while
remaining serious...
It loves puns, probably too much!
Design Persona - Arcbees
56. Message
BEE THE BEST
-
As programmers, our products
are helpful because they make
coding easy, making
your experience as a user enjoyable
and optimizing your time.
Design Persona - Arcbees
60. Used to (too much) content in a world
where design is put last,
programmers are pleasantly surprised. Being technical, specialized
and beautiful is doable!
68. A way of appeasing the technical
content's complexity and help people
project themselves in the products.
69. HUMOR
Numerous puns are part
of the website
-
The word "Bee" becomes a brand
tool and enables us to express
the funny and generous side
of our team.
74. A poorly designed or thought-out interface
is the same as if you were going to a shop
where the staff is rude, unhelpful
and wants you to leave.
The Brand and the UI
75.
76.
77. « A Brand Is
[...] the product
of a thousand
small gestures. »
Michael Eisner, Former Walt Disney CEO
Hi everybody ! Now. we are not going to talk about technical stuff. Let me rather tell you a story about brad, Brand and Brands.
this is brad
brad is blue /// because everybody loves blue
unfortunately, as you see, everybody else is blue
So brad decided to claim that he is the best to be seen
same again, everybody says that they are the best. That makes brad invisible. try to look for it
So what to do?
Brad has to become a Brand
A brand above the others brands. A brand to rule them all
But, what is a Brand?
A Brand is something that you feel
A brand is what you feel about a product, a service or a company...
It is not a logo, a product, an ad, or a copyright
When you see apple , what do you feel about it? Try to analyse your feelings. Those feelings are the Brand. It is the job of Brand Designers like myself, to create and make you feel those feelings.
So… How to create a Brand?
A Brand is a point of view
It s a difference
Because our brains tend to focus on contrasts and differences.
so now, you gonna ask me : How to find and define your difference. This is not an easy task. but you have to do it. Let me explain.
there are 4 questions you have to ask yourself : Why do you exist ? // Why do you do, what you do? // How do you do it? // What are good at? those questions are fundamentals. If you can’t answer those questions in a simple way, you haven’t found your difference.
To help you find your difference, think like that : A brand is like ...
a human being
it has a name; a personality, a behavior, a vision, and a message
you can like it // adore it // love it or hate it
we can agree or not with what it says
The goal of all brand is …..
to express in a clear and authentic way // its unique personality in every details.
Let me explain these 3 adjectives : Clear > If your Brand is not Clear nobody will understand its message.
Authentic > If your Brand is not itself, If your Brand lies, // your user will figure it out, and will never trust you again.
Unique > If your Brand is not unique, why a user will choose you ?
look at starbucks, // where you can work with free wifi while drinking an overpriced coffee // they changed their coffee machines for silent ones. Customers started to complain that the coffee didn't taste the same and that it wasn't good anymore. The truth is, the machine and the coffee beans were exactly the same. You can see here that even a sound can be part of the experience of a brand.
Now that you understand what is a Brand, and how to define it, let’s see how to create the mark of the brand
take a Brand
it expresses itself through a product; an ad; a website; a smartphone app, on TV and in stores
but it has to do it the same way everywhere, in every details
we call that the CONSISTENCY OF the BRAND
look at apple, again
The brand identity is so simple but powerful that you only need the symbol to know what it is and how it does what it does:
every apple store you go in; you find that simplicity again. they invented their own way to sell their products, aligned with their difference.
even in their packaging; it s a complete experience: that only apple gives you: the chill like when you open a christmas present, it’s magic, intuitive… beautiful.
and they manage to apply that experience of this simplicity on their website.
It looks obvious and so simple to apply this consistency, but it s not.
people tend to forget that The consistency has to remain the same on the UI.
To help you create a UI, you can ask yourself these questions :
We call it a persona of design.
The Brand and its personnality are expressed through 3 things : Visual design // Content // Interactivity
it is like its ID
To create an assertive and authentic persona of design, here are the components :
So let me show you one example of Design Persona
I’m going to tell you all about Arcbees's Brand
the visual lexicon is made out of 3 basic colors just like a bee : yellow black and white. the design is simple and has to be playful.
the message of the brand is very clear. We want you to bee the Best
if you look at vaadin's and Sencha's websites, you can tell that we are a bit different.
like on this page where we use animations to explain our working methods
each pages content is illustrated with the bees that are put in context for a better understanding
there are hidden content with little animations that lead you to little surprises to understand where we come from
each employee / bee has its own profile where they put their own professional and personal achievments
Do you wanna bee with us? your can rate your bee attitude with our little geeky game.
Having an Authentic Brand Means User Engagement.
Nothing less than that.