Face Your Brand! The Visual Language of Branding Explained Sample Book

The visual language
of branding explained
Alexander
Greyling
The cardinal truth about visual
brand creation for the beginner*
What they didn’t, wouldn’t
or couldn’t tell you about
the most important
part of branding!
*Academic, Accountant, Architect, Attorney, Account Executive, Analyst,

Brand Manager, CEO, CFO, Copycat, Creative Director, Design Student,
DTP Operator, Doctor, Engineer, Entrepreneur, Freeloader, Geek, Graphic
Designer, Marketing Executive, Miser, Monopolist, Politician, Scrooge,
Web Developer
www.faceyourbrand.co.za
c
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Alexander Greyling
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ii DIGITAL EDITION NOTES ...
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iv
F A C E Y O U R B R A N D ! THE LANGUAGE OF VISUAL

BRANDING EXPLAINED
Published by Alexander Greyling in August 2009, PO Box

1958, Northcliff, 2115, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
© Pyramid Trust 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any
form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission
of the author.
Set in Tahoma 10,5pt/15pt
Editors: Gillian de Jager, Michael Waddacor
Proofreader: Michael Waddacor
Cover illustration and design, text layout and typesetting:

Alexander Greyling
ISBN 978-0-620-44310-4
v FACE YOUR BRAND! ...
09 1
Interpretation of of the digital edition code: The double-digit

number is the year of the book’s digital edition and the
single-digit number is the number of the book’s digital
edition. Biannual revisions of the text and the updating of
hyperlinks are planned for this book.
Face your brand! is an independent publication and has not

been authorised, sponsored or otherwise approved by Apple
Inc.
Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, the Acrobat logo, Distiller,

PostScript and the PostScript logo are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Inc in the United
States and/or other countries.
Apple, Apple TV, Aqua, eMac, iMac, iPhone, iPod, iTunes,

LaserWriter, Leopard, MacBook, Macintosh, Mac OS, Numbers,
Safari, Snow Leopard and Tiger are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Apple Inc, registered in the United States and
other countries.
Dewar’s and White Label are registered trademarks.
Direct X, Encarta, Excel, Internet Explorer, Microsoft,

Microsoft Office, MS-DOS, MSN, PowerPoint, Tahoma,
Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Media Player, Windows
Mobile, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Xbox, Xbox 360 and
Zune are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Microsoft
group of companies.
Jack Daniel's and Old No.7 are registered trademarks of Jack

Daniel's.
Johnnie Walker, Red Label, Black Label, Green Label, Gold

Label and Blue Label, the Striding Figure/Man device and
vi FACE YOUR BRAND! ...
associated logos are trademarks of Diageo Brands BV,

Molenwerf 10, 1014 BG Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2006. All
rights reserved.
Mozilla, mozilla.org, Firefox, and the Firefox logo are

trademarks or registered trademarks of the Mozilla
Foundation.
Netscape Navigator is a trademark of Netscape

Communications Corporation.
OpenOffice.org is both the name of a software product — the

OpenOffice.org Productivity Suite — and the name of the
open-source project which designs, develops, maintains,
translates, tests, documents, supports and promotes the Suite
- the OpenOffice.org Community.
PowerPC is a trademark of International Business Machines

Corporation.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
The author respects the intellectual property of others and all

copyright material, logos, trademarks and registered
trademarks contained in this publication are and remain the
property of their respective owners.
Currency conversion
In this publication, the author cites financial values in
American dollars (US$) with an equivalent in South African
rands (ZAR). The rand was trading against the dollar at about
10:1 at the time of writing. Exchange rates continue to
fluctuate.
vii FACE YOUR BRAND! ...
Disclaimer
Although every precaution has been taken in preparing this

publication, the publishing author assumes no responsibility
for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for
damages resulting from the use of the information contained
in this publication. While every effort has been made to make
this publication as complete and accurate as possible, no
warranty of fitness is implied. The information in this
publication has been provided on an “as is” basis. The
publishing author shall have neither liability nor responsibility
to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damages
arising from the information contained in this publication.
1
CONTENTS
IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PREFACE
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
1/SOME BRANDING BACKGROUND

Logo, brandmark or brand or what?
Visual branding
Predator/prey behaviour and the herd instinct
Innovate, do not imitate!
Nature’s role in branding
2/WHAT IS BRANDING?
The origins of branding
What makes brands successful?
The water of life: from the monasteries to the
masses
2 CONTENTS ...
The A l i e n that spawned sequels, a quadrilogy

and two crossovers
Horses, bulls, PIs, cops, vice and automobiles
Animals, politicians and the survival of a
century-old brand
From a one-hit wonder to a superbrand band
P r o b o n o affection helps beckon 140-million
tourists annually to the Empire State
If you wish for peace, prepare for war
Jews invented Christmas
The forbidden fruit of information technology:
life before and after Microsoft
3/BATTLES, RAPE, PARASITES, DIAMONDS AND

OTHER BRANDING TALES
Cyber brand battles: David vs. Goliath
The history of Goliath: Copycat Bill and Microsoft
(M$)
Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s OS
Microsoft Office, OpenOffice and Apple iWork
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla’s
Firefox and Apple’s Safari
Microsoft’s Xbox, Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s
PlayStation
Microsoft’s Zune and Apple’s iPod
Microsoft and Apple Retail Stores
Windows Mobile, Symbian OS, Apple OS iPhone
and RIM BlackBerry smartphone operating
systems
Copycat Bill and the law
The brandmark equity of Microsoft and Apple
3 CONTENTS ...
Brand exploitation by the parasites: the myth of

no-name brands
Brand Hitlers and the co-branding coin
Heads
Tails
Brand rape, incest, bastards, hybrids and mutants
Diamonds are forever but monopolies don’t last
A diamond is a girl’s best friend
Brilliant branding and repositioning in a market
you no longer control
4/THE QUALITY AND COST OF GOOD BRANDING

What is quality branding anyway and how do you
define it?
What will it cost?
Brand equity
Short-term profits versus long-term brand
investment and equity
Branding for franchises
5/HOW TO CREATE GOOD BRANDING

Why does it have to be visual?
Create the right perception in your prospect’s mind
The incredible power of association
The seven essential elements of a successful brand
The life of a brand
Birds are clever dinosaurs
Incongruent branding
4 CONTENTS ...
6/CHOOSING A NAME
What’s in a name?
It should be a four-letter word
Personalise it
Professional
Other important considerations
Brand architecture: line extensions, side brands,
families and children
Do your homework
7/THE SCOTTISH WAR CRY: YOUR SLOGAN,

DESCRIPTOR AND POSITIONING STATEMENT
Define your brand
Add your USP
Your slogan
8/THE RIGHT SYMBOL

Symbolism in our society
Brand Barbarians
Abstract or real?
A recognisable symbol
An abstract symbol
9/THE PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE OF COLOUR

Colour legibility
Colour names
The colour wheel
Primary colours: unmixed pure colour and its
associations
Secondary colours: two equally mixed primary
colours
5 CONTENTS ...
Tertiary colours: two unequally mixed primary

colours
Hues
Tones
Shades
Tints
Neutral colours
Discords
Metallic colours
Colour systems
Pantone®
RGB
CMYK
Monochromatic
Control the source
10/TYPE AND TYPOGRAPHY

A brief history
Typography and branding
Primary and secondary type design usage for the
most effective branding
Free type
11/GOD’S SIGNATURE – YOUR BRANDMARK IN THE

RIGHT FORMAT
The perfect face
The boredom of symmetry and the beauty of
harmony in your brandface
Other branding considerations
Less is more: the Japanese design principle
6 8/THE SCOTTISH WAR CRY: YOUR SLOGAN ...
12/EVOLUTION, REVOLUTION AND MAINTENANCE

Evolve or revolt
The law of entropy
Create a brand bible
Different platforms
The two-image file formats
Raster image file format
Vector image file format
How does this work?
Change champion and brand custodian
13/COPYRIGHT, OWNERSHIP, INTELLECTUAL

PROPERTY AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES
Copyright © and ownership
Trademark ™
Registered trademark ®
14/LET YOUR BRAND FACE AN AUDIT

Your brand symbol — possible score: 80
Your brandname – possible score: 123
Your brand descriptor and slogan/positioning
statement – possible score: 44
Your brand colour/s – possible score: 60
Your brandmark in the correct visual format –
possible score: 30
Other factors – possible score: 26
Add up your score and deduct the following
How did your brandmark score?
15/LOGO COMPETITIONS, OUT-OF-THE-BOX LOGOS,

STOCK LOGOS, CHEAPIES, ONLINE LOGO DESIGN,
SAME DAY AND SPEEDY GONZALES
16/USING A DESIGN PROFESSIONAL

Do your homework
How to brief The Suit and The Creative
Your product or service
The competition/opposition
A comparison with other non-related product
categories
The name
The descriptor, positioning platform and slogan
The colour
The symbol: abstract or real?
Type and typography
The look, feel and tone
Quote and quality
Was the design brief met?
It is a process, not an event
17/CONCLUSION
18/FURTHER READING
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

8
IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU?
Read this book if you have decided to:  be a better

entrepreneur  start a business  buy a business  become
a partner in a business  change the name of your company
 change/revamp the logo/trademark/brand identity of your
company  segment your market  diversify into other
markets  add new products to your existing range/core
products  increase market share  have an edge on, or
wipe out the competition  become self-employed  be a
better designer/architect/marketing or communications
manager/politician/entrepreneur.
Monopolists, dictators, medical doctors, lawyers,

chartered accountants and engineers could greatly
benefit from this book but, sadly, their sheltered employment
and/or right-brain amputation does not breed innovation or
encourage good brandmark generation, so it stunts healthy
competition.
If you are from China, Korea or Taiwan the foundation of

brands is intellectual property, a foreign concept to you.
Reading this book may help you on your way to start to
respect, protect and understand branding. If you are from
9 IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU? ...
Korea and eat your own pets, the only thing you could do
with a brand is rape it, like Daewoo, and since this book is
about the contrary – creating brand equity – it may not
satisfy your sick appetite. However, give this book a shot on
your menu – who knows, maybe you’ll learn something by
eating it. I will still not buy anything branded LG or Samsung
or Kia or Hyundai or SsangYong.
If you are from Canada, you should be familiar with visuals

of the cruel and commercial slaughter of seal pups, a poster
of a woman trailing blood from her fur coat with the headline,
“It takes up to 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat – but
only one to wear it”. Powerful stuff that spawned international
superbrand IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare). All
I can say is, I support the culling of seal clubbers. However, if
you support seal clubbing you are lower than snake
excrement at the bottom of the ocean.
You should also be familiar with that brave Canadian, Captain

Paul Watson, who heads the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society (SSCS). The Captain’s aggressive and no-nonsense
efforts and intervention contrast starkly with Greenpeace’s
passive stance. He is commendable for trying to stop illegal
whale hunting (masquerading as research) by the Japanese
whaling fleet in the Antarctic Ocean south of Australia.
The Captain knows how to use branding effectively by sailing

a black-painted ship called the Steve Irwin. Named after the
Crocodile Hunter and christened by his wife Terri, who said:
“If Steve were alive, he’d be aboard with them!” This clever
bit of branding helped Captain Watson to gain not only
support from the Australian public and territorial and logistical
support, but also global backing for the SSCS.
In the widely published Whale Wars , the documentary reality

TV series that aired on Animal Planet , Captain Watson
harasses and attacks the Japanese under the pirates’ black
flag of old, featuring the dreaded skull and crossbones. But
his version of the crossbones features a shepherd’s staff
(representing the care and protection the SSCS affords the
sea creatures) crossed with Neptune’s spear (signifying direct
intervention as the best way of defence at sea). In
recognition of the only organisation that has saved the lives
of nearly 500 whales, 5% of proceeds from the sale of this
book will go to the SSCS.
If you are a miser or a scrooge, do read further. You

will save a lot of money but be warned – branding involves
investing money, like buying this book, which is a risky
business, since past results are no guarantee of future
performance. Then go give this book to your wife’s sister’s
brother-in-law’s daughter who has just bought a PC with
CorelDraw and bully her into doing a freebie brand for you.
And lastly, copycats, please buy this book and read it after
repeating the following: I understand original and creative
thinking might damage the few cells left between my ears,
and that it could also be a hazard to the health of the rest of
my body. I am, however, sincerely interested in discovering
the reasons for my conduct and how to adjust this parasitic
behaviour so that I can contribute to my society in a
meaningful way. Oh, just before you put down this book, turn
the pages back to the title page and read the bit about
“©Pyramid Trust ...” You have been warned!
This book (or owning a PC for that matter) will not

turn you into a designer. For that you need talent (something
that cannot be added as an optional extra after birth), lots of
it and dedication so you can pass an entrance exam at a

tertiary learning institution where you will spend at least
three years of full-time training in graphic design and
associated disciplines, followed by many years of practice in
the industry, aided by very expensive specialist computer
hardware and software, usually from Apple Inc.
After reading this book, you should be able to brand a

company or product, brief and converse with a designer (if
you are a designer, you should be able to develop a proper
brief and converse with the client) and manage the creative
process with ease, implement and maintain a brand identity
programme and hopefully, help create, build and nurture a
successful brand that will continuously pay handsome
dividends in terms of your career and, yes, your bank
balance.
If you are a designer and want to be smart, buy two or

more copies of this book. Give one to the client on
commencement of his branding programme; it will make your
life so much easier and you could look like a hero. (Repeat
this with every prospective or new client.) Read a copy
yourself, so that you know what the client now knows and so
that you don’t look like an idiot. If you found you knew
everything already, well then, thanks for supporting a fellow
designer. Then give that copy to another designer or the next
prospective client, or if all else fails, a miser or scrooge. And
maybe I can learn something from you; email me at
alex@faceyourbrand.co.za
15
PREFACE
In commerce and industry, on TV, billboards and shopfronts,

in magazines and newspapers, on the World Wide Web, in the
high-street stores and supermarkets, in fact nearly
everywhere, there is generally bad, bleak or no visual
branding. With the worst economic recession since the 1930s,
it is now more important than ever to have a brand that is
visually fit or beautiful to give you a chance of survival.
So what is beauty and can we quantify it? A substantial

amount of work by scientists supports a Darwinian theory of
selection, which predicts a survival advantage based on
physical attractiveness or beauty. “Beauty is defined as the
quality or combination of qualities in an entity which evokes
in the perceiver a combination of a sense of ‘strong
attraction’ and a sense of ‘strong positive emotion’.” – Dr
Stephen Marquardt, oral and facial reconstructive surgeon and
inventor, famous for his patented beauty mask.
Dr Marquardt asserts that it is possible to figure out exactly

what makes a beautiful face. He used his professional
experience, along with his studies in engineering, to build a
patented mask that he believes defines the ideal face. The
mask is based on a mathematical construction which uses the
16 PREFACE ...
ancient Greek ratio known as the golden mean (the

mathematical ratio of 1:1,618, otherwise known as phi or the
golden ratio), a proportion that for centuries has helped
artists, architects and others create eye-pleasing forms and
works of art (see Chapter 11: GOD’S SIGNATURE – YOUR
BRANDMARK IN THE RIGHT FORMAT).
He claims to find that people of either sex who are considered

attractive in various cultures have facial features that fit this
mask. The mask shows the structure of a beautiful face and
when placed as a transparency over pictures of various
beautiful people – men, women, Caucasian, black, Asian – it
always lines up and fits.
Still think beauty is in the eye of the beholder? I think not.

Face your brand! is the brandmark’s beauty mask. It deals in
detail with the seven compelling visual elements that result in
the visual brand beauty and attractiveness that could give
your brandmark the edge for survival. Take the brand audit in
Chapter 14: LET YOUR BRAND FACE AN AUDIT, and find out if
your existing or intended brandmark has brand beauty and is
visually fit. This is the first book to address visual branding
for the beginner by a design professional with vast experience
in branding, ranging from small family businesses to
multinational corporations.
Although this book was written from an African perspective,

the branding lessons we learnt in South Africa, the jewel of
Africa, are universally applicable. Proof of this are the South
African brands that produced multibillion-dollar global players,
such as De Beers and SABMiller. The De Beers diamond
advertising and marketing campaign that promoted diamonds
as a symbol of love and commitment is acknowledged as one
of the most successful and innovative in history and in 2000,
“A Diamond is Forever”, the company’s slogan since 1947, was
named as the best advertising slogan of the 20th century.
17 PREFACE ...
The Oppenheimer family is worth US$5,7-billion (ZAR57-

billion), placing them in position 62 on the Forbes 400 list of
the richest people in early February 2009 and making clan
leader Nicky Oppenheimer the richest man in South Africa.
Afrikaans tycoon, the late Dr Anton Rupert, founded the
Rembrandt group that has now been split into two entities
after restructuring: Swiss luxury goods company Richemont
and investment holding company Remgro Limited.
Richemont is the third-largest luxury goods company in the

world by turnover and owns such luxury brands as Cartier
(jewellery), Alfred Dunhill and Sulka (designer clothing),
Seeger (leather bags), Piaget, Baume & Mercier and Vacheron
Constantin (Swiss watches) and Montblanc (pens). Son Johan
Rupert’s shareholding in these respective companies makes
him worth an estimated US$900-million (ZAR8,59-billion) and
the second-wealthiest man in South Africa.
We are at the forefront with our supermarkets and banking

systems. Raymond Ackerman, the supermarket king, amassed
in excess of a billion dollars and Lauritz (“Laurie”) Dippenaar,
the king of banking, with more than half a billion US dollars
(ZAR5,23-billion) is not far behind. Our advertising industry is
one of the most respected in the world and our design talent
is sought after in the USA, UK, Canada, the Middle East and
Australasia. We perfected the electronic vehicle security that
helped to make Bill Venter the tenth-richest man in South
Africa with a US$220-million (ZAR2,22-billion) fortune.
We invented the first automatic pool cleaner. Our

controversial brand of rugby players, the Springboks, that
played their first game more than 100 years ago, have won
the prestigious Rugby World Cup twice. We have fielded
formidable players in cricket, golf and other sport. Celebrities
such as Gary Player, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen have become
legendary brands.
18 PREFACE ...
Bruce Fordyce, who won the Comrades Marathon for an

unprecedented eight consecutive years between 1981 and
1988 and again in 1990, is still the current world record
holder over 50 miles (set during the 1983 London to Brighton
ultra marathon) as well as the 50-mile record for the United
States All Comers Race. He is the former world record holder
over 100 km set in 1989, the year he skipped the Comrades
Marathon.
Mark Shuttleworth (the second self-funded space flight

participant) made world headlines when he sold his Cape
Town-based Internet security company to VeriSign, earning
ZAR3,5-billion, about US$575-million at the time. Even
apartheid created one of the best-known and respected
brands (as well as a string of Nobel Peace Prize winners) in
the world: Nelson Mandela. South Africa, the cradle of
humankind and the face of a peaceful Africa, has a lot of
brand wisdom to share.
Regardless of where in the world your brand lives, if its face

is just in need of some fresh make-up, a makeover, minor
cosmetic surgery, a facelift or a complete face transplant, I
sincerely hope the expert information in this book will help
you become a successful brander who will leave a prosperous
legacy for your children.
May the face of your brand evoke in the perceiver a

combination of a sense of strong attraction and a sense of
strong positive emotion that will peak their dopamine levels.
Alex Greyling
Johannesburg, South Africa
August 2009
19
FOREWORD
This book’s manuscript was emailed to me on a cold winter

morning as I was preparing a lecture to colleagues to
celebrate the “teaching and learning” that was taking place at
the group of educational institutions where I am privileged to
have taught visual communication for the last 10 years. On
reading the first few chapters, my paper took a turn, as they
say, for the worse as I became completely engaged with the
manuscript and lost track of my work at hand.
Two or three frosty mornings later, as I was attempting to

finish my presentation, I realised the proposition, which this
book delivers, formed the core of the lecture I was about to
deliver. An introduction to the visual language of branding
was essentially the same departure point for my presentation.
After 25 years in the brand communications industry, I believe

that to fulfil the expectations placed on brand communicators,
they will need to employ a set of skills that will include a few
beyond today’s typical scope of skills. No single designer, let
alone brand communicator, is likely to have all the skills
required, yet the body of information contained in these
chapters begins to reveal the range of competencies effective
20 FOREWORD ...
brand communicators will need to start understanding and

applying if they want to meet future visual branding demands.
Without doubt, the brand communicator working in Africa or

anywhere else in the world must have the ability to create
and develop visual responses to many communication
problems and challenges. They will need to solve vast and
often complex communication problems over a range of
branding-related disciplines.
This mission can only be successfully achieved through a

broad understanding of the diverse issues relating to the
cognitive, social, cultural, technological and economic
contexts of brand communication. Responding to audience
contexts by recognising physical, cognitive, cultural and social
human factors that shape visual communication decisions can
be aided by an understanding of, and an ability to utilise,
tools and technology.
To be such a flexible and nimble practitioner of visual brand

language, you could do well to keep a copy of this book close
to you for whatever the morning you have to confront
because the information herein is incredibly useful. I certainly
found it so on a cold morning.
Kevin Collins
Academic navigator
Vega School of Brand Communications
Johannesburg, South Africa
August 2009
www.vegaschool.co.za
21
INTRODUCTION
What was possibly the most significant event of the 20th

century, the Second World War, would not have occurred
without the power of branding. The most powerful, potent
and controversial brand and branding programme ever must
be that of the National Socialists of Germany, the Nazis,
supported and underscored by Hitler’s personality.
Look at the identity of the Nazis: the infamous black, bold,

angular and perfectly proportioned, modular, clockwise-
hooked swastika — the base turned through a 45° angle for
more of a dynamo-like, dramatic effect — symmetrically
centred and restricted on a contrasting, formal, clinical white
circle against a dominant field of blood red.
Applied as an armband, it was punched out on neutral grey or

blue uniforms and even more so on black, exclusively worn by
the elite Gestapo. Red was reserved for use in insignia for the
generals and senior staff officers, and for trim such as the
lapels of a general’s greatcoat and the vertical stripe down
uniform trousers. Borrowed from Roman times, and not by
coincidence, are the standards (or banners) so effectively
used in mass rallies, capped by the spread-winged noble
22 INTRODUCTION ...
eagle, clutching the wreathed swastika as well as the

prominent use of the Black Letter type design.
In the late 1930s, Germany was at the forefront of the arts

with the Bauhaus movement, headed by the architect Walter
Gropius, who designed some modern sans-serif type, still in
use today. Not surprisingly, the Nazis saw this institute as too
liberal and freethinking and chose a type design that was in
total contrast and reflected instead the proud heritage of the
Fatherland and the far-right nationalists. What could be more
perfect than the decorative, heavy gothic type, dating back to
the Rhineland of the fourteenth century, contrasting so
beautifully with the contemporary clean lines of the swastika?
National Socialists
of Germany Gestapo
As worn The enemy:

by Hitler die Juden
Before the advent of colour TV and when black-and-white TV

was still in its infancy, the Nuremberg mass rallies on Partei-
Tage (Party Days) helped to play the role of building the
visual brand. Massive multiple red standards, emblazoned with
27
Chapter 1
SOME BRANDING BACKGROUND
Logo, brandmark or brand or what?

Logo is the traditional term used to describe a symbol such as
a pictograph forming the centrepiece of a corporation or
organisation’s corporate identity. It could also be called a
logotype in the absence of a symbol and if made up of a
group of type characters. A brandmark is not just another
word for a logo, but stands for a group of essential elements,
which could include the brand symbol, the brandname,
descriptor and slogan all appearing in a single distinctive and
dominant colour in the correct visual format. However, in time
and with mass exposure, superbrands such as Shell, Nike and
Apple use the brand symbol as the only element of their
brandmark. For more details, see Chapter 5: THE SEVEN
ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL BRAND.
The term brand is used to describe all aspects associated with

a brand and its positioning in terms of price, product offering
and market share.
Accordingly, in this book I do not refer to a logo but to a

brandmark. The only exception is in Chapter 15: LOGO
COMPETITIONS, OUT-OF-THE-BOX LOGOS, STOCK LOGOS,
28 1/SOME BRANDING BACKGROUND ...
CHEAPIES, ONLINE LOGO DESIGN, SAME DAY AND SPEEDY

GONZALES. In this context, logo is the traditional term used
to describe only the symbol of a brandmark.
Visual branding
The first encounter that the prospective consumer or client
has with your brand will be verbal or visual. Face your brand!
is about lining up the visual with the verbal; to present a
cohesive, concrete image for the abstract concept it
represents: the right name combined with the right visual
elements. This book is not about financing your brand, nor
costing you branded products at the correct price. Nor is it
about the correct choice of services or products or the day-to-
day administrative support of your brand. It does not concern
your human resources or your distribution network, your
location or your IT infrastructure.
Naturally, all of that and a lot more play a role in the success
of a brand. If you do not have adequate finance to execute a
large order, and your product or service is substandard as a
result, this will influence your brand. Face your brand! is
solely about the visual branding of your product or service,
wherever that occurs. After reading some of the information
in this book, you may ask: But how come such-and-such-a-
brand lacks the recommended visual elements yet the entity
is number one in their category and doing very well?
The answer is that there is a lot of bad branding out there

and the reason for that entity’s success (which could be
short-lived) is not always evident. A bad brand could have a
total or partial monopoly in terms of distribution – such as a
national franchise – price or location. It could be a well-
established and entrenched brand that has been around for
decades and has had little or no competition so far.
34
Chapter 2
WHAT IS BRANDING?
The origins of branding

When the first comments about this book came back, one
reader said I had not explained enough about brands,
branding and examples of the application of successful and
failed branding. Branding used to be perceived as the domain
of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) but is practised across
the board now that the power of branding has been realised.
In this chapter, I have used various examples of brands that
sometimes date back decades or even a century, or are
brand-new. From the first brand that was expanded to a
global market in 1896 by the Scots with their water of life, to
horses and bulls on supercars in the 1960s, to aliens in
Hollywood in the 1970s. From the pro bono affection that
saved New York in the late 1970s to the latest forbidden fruits
now available in your local Apple Retail Store. From “make my
day” to the day that all retailers love.
These brands are all well known and illustrate that success is
possible across a broad range of products and services,
provided you have the correct branding. No matter how
uninteresting or exciting your product or service is or whether
35 2/WHAT IS BRANDING ...
you own a mom-and-pop store or a multimillion-dollar

business, survival today without proper branding is highly
unlikely.
The Bible says that God branded Cain for killing his brother.
The Greeks, Romans and the cowboys of the American Wild
West all used branding to give their property a distinctive
mark to prove ownership. In Nazi Germany, Jews were
required to wear a Star of David as an indicator of being a
marginalised group in German society. Branding literally
means “to burn with a branding iron to indicate ownership of
animals” and at that time, brands were designed by using
initials and graphics in a way that would make it difficult for
others to imitate. In commerce today, letters, numbers,
words, names, symbols, or any combination of these elements
forming a single visual brandmark, are used as a sign of
identity to signal a company’s pedigree and business. In
addition, a brandmark distinguishes a company’s products or
services from the similar products or services of rival
businesses.
What makes brands successful?

A successful brand creates an instant association with a
product or service. The highest level of achievement in the
world of branding is to create a brandmark that is instantly
recognisable, even if the name of the brand is not present.
Examples are Nike, McDonald’s, Shell, Mercedes-Benz and
Apple.
Brandmarks are associated with linguistic and visual

representations. These are usually formed of the brandname
with a symbol or sometimes, although not ideal, both
representations rolled into one. Even though the Coca-Cola
brandmark lacks a symbol, it is set in a unique type (script)
The progression of the Striding Man starting with cartoonist Tom Browne’s
1908 cartoon. In 1999 the Striding Man was mirrored, now facing the other
way, and appears in gold only against black in advertising campaigns.
Take the famous cartoonist, Tom Browne, to lunch, buy him a

drink and then ask him to draw a figure on the back of the
menu to personify your brand. That’s how the Johnnie Walker
Striding Man, one of the first globally recognised advertising
figures, was born. It has reportedly become one of the
world’s first internationally recognised brandmarks, ahead of
the distinctive Coca-Cola script.
The “Keep Walking” advertising campaign was launched in

1999, the first global campaign for the brand. The character
keeps walking through history in “Striding”, the 2008
television commercial that marked 100 years since the
rebranding of the whisky. In the same year, the world’s
largest Striding Man made its appearance in the form of a
building wrap in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is visible
from many vantage points in the city. The billboard spans
three sides of a 35-floor skyscraper in the central business
district and is the size of 70 rugby fields. The wrap covers
almost the entire building’s surface, except for the windows,
Animals, politicians and the survival of a century-old

brand
This is the story of a brand which has matured over the past
100 years into a global superbrand and an example of the
power of branding regardless of time, politics, race or culture.
It helped heal the wounds after a bitter war over a century
ago. It caused national sportsmen to rebel against their own
governments and later united a nation after apartheid was
dismantled and, as a result, yielded what is widely viewed as
one of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments in history. Today,
after repeated onslaughts by politicians with racial quota
systems and unsuccessful threats to change its name, the
brand has emerged stronger than ever, and stands proudly for
winners and the ultimate respect a sporting side could earn:
world champions.
The Springbok brandmark does not legally belong

to the South African government but to the SA
Rugby Union (SARU), previously known as the SA
Rugby Football Union (SARFU), which registered
the trademark in 1996
The South Africa national rugby union team, commonly

referred to as the Springboks or Boks for short in English,
Springbokke or Bokke for short in Afrikaans and Amabokoboko
in Zulu, has won the Rugby World Cup twice (1995 and 2007)
and is currently ranked number two in the International
Rugby Board (IRB) World Rankings.
The Springboks play in green and gold jerseys, and officially

their emblems are the Springbok, a South African antelope
which is also South Africa’s national animal, and the king
“Bohemian Rhapsody” that was voted, several times, the

greatest song of all time. The band decided to make a video
to go with the single. The result is generally considered to
have been one of the first “true” music videos produced and
was the first musical video offered free of charge to any
programme, network or station which would air it. In 2003, A
Night at the Opera was ranked number 230 on Rolling Stone
magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
The brandmark, affectionately known as Queen’s Crest, is in

the form of a heraldic design resembling the royal coat of
arms of the United Kingdom. Its focus is the queen’s crown,
positioned on an oval shield which is created by a ribbon
simultaneously forming the capital letter Q. Stylised
illustrations of the four member’s zodiac sun signs; two lions
for Leo (Deacon and Taylor), a crab for Cancer (Bryan May),
and two fairies for Virgo (Freddie Mercury born as Farrokh
Bulsara) surround the Q
shield in various positions. In
astrology, the planet Mercury
is the ruler of Virgo and was
obviously the inspiration for
Freddie’s surname. These
design elements are all set
against the background of a
phoenix rising from the
flames.
I remember walking past a

record shop back in 1977 in
Johannesburg when for the
first time I heard “Bohemian
The definitive album of the classic British Rhapsody”. Bryan May’s guitar
rock band featuring Queen’s Crest playing stopped me dead in
Pro bono affection helps beckon 140-million tourists

annually to the Empire State
The need to brand New York City came during the city’s fiscal
crisis in the late 1970s. Crime was rampant, the city’s coffers
were empty, businesses and their employees were deserting
New York City and tourism was suffering. The State of New
York commissioned graphic artist Milton Glaser to develop a
campaign, and the “ I NY ” slogan was born, with its goal to
promote tourism.
The I Love New York brandmark is a rebus, a pictogram or

picture representation of a name or phrase, consisting of the
capital letter I, followed by a red heart symbol , below
which are the capital letters N and Y, set in a rounded slab
serif typeface called American Typewriter. Glaser expected the
campaign to last only a few months and did the work pro
bono .
Launched in 1977, the “ I NY ” design became the most

recognisable brandmark of any city in the world. The
campaign was so successful it was plastered on everything
from coffee mugs to buttons and bumper stickers. John
Lennon and other famous names have all been photographed
wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan. This innovative
pop-style icon became a major success and has continued to
sell for decades.
The image became especially prominent when

the Twin Towers fell on September 11 2001
after terrorist attacks on the city, which
created a sense of unity among the people of
New York. After September 11, many visitors
to the city bought and wore the shirts bearing
the “ I NY ” brandmark as a sign of their
Eastwood reportedly made it famous as “the most powerful

handgun in the world” in the movie Dirty Harry . It was also
featured in the popular film Taxi Driver in 1976.
Although at the time of its introduction, the Model 29 was the

most powerful production handgun and it certainly looked the
part as well, it was soon overtaken by competitors. After the
movie’s release, Smith & Wesson could not keep up with the
demand for the Model 29. In the late 1990s, Smith & Wesson
discontinued production of the basic Model 29 but have since
then at various times manufactured the model in limited or
custom configurations.
The Smith & Wesson Model 29, made

famous by and is still most often associated
with the Dirty Harry series of films starring
Clint Eastwood
“Go ahead, make my day” is a phrase written by Joseph C

Stinson and spoken by the character Harry Callahan (played
by Clint Eastwood) from the 1983 film Sudden Impact . In
2005, it was chosen as number six on the American Film
Institute list, AFI’s 100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes.
And how true that is today, with the bonus cheque and
annual holidays over the festive season, extended shopping
hours at one’s favourite mall, bargains to be had at almost
every shop with plenty of months to pay. In the Western
world and a large part of the Eastern bloc, no other event
lasting for only 24 hours generates so much income for
retailers. According to a survey in Britain on Boxing Day 2007,
£1,2-billion (ZAR16-billion) was spent on unwanted gifts the
preceding day and Sky News reported that sales of £1 000
per hour in individual shops in malls on Boxing Day were not
uncommon.
As a result of this
commercialism of Christmas,
consumers (including my
wife who is incidentally
Jewish) erroneously believe
the urban legend that the
red-suited Santa Claus was
created as a marketing tool
by Coca-Cola. What a
powerful association and
clever piece of brand
manipulation that Coca-Cola
started back in 1931!
To boost sales during the

slow winter months,
memorable drawings (based
on an 1881 illustration by
Thomas Nast) were created,
Thomas Nast's famous drawing, "Merry featuring a figure larger than
Old Santa Claus", from Harper's Weekly, life, the red-and-white
January 1 1881, p8-9 garbed Santa holding,
The forbidden fruit of information technology: life

before and after Microsoft
Today the Apple brandmark stands for innovation, reliability
and cool products. It reflects functionality, balanced with
product beauty. The company has managed to turn the box of
wires hidden in the study into a “must-have” lifestyle item.
Few people realise that we could have had iPod and iPhone
mobile digital devices (iPod and iPhone) and iMac computers
(iMac) 10 years earlier. Still fewer people realise how Apple is
going to change their lives and affect their future.
The ultimate brandmark; the symbol that stands for

innovation, reliability and cool products. Obviously you
know the brandname!
In the late 1970s, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created the
Apple Macintosh, commonly shortened to Apple Mac, the first
commercially successful personal computer to feature a
mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI, pronounced
gooey) instead of a command-line interface.
In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the
commercial potential of the mouse-driven GUI. Jef Raskin, an
Apple employee, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost
computer for the average consumer, wanted to name the
computer after his favourite type of apple, the McIntosh, but
the name had to be changed for legal reasons. The
brandmark, an apple with a bite taken out of it signifying the
tasting of the forbidden fruit, truly delivered just that. In
1985, the combination of the Mac, Apple’s LaserWriter printer
102
Chapter 3
BATTLES, RAPE, PARASITES, DIAMONDS AND OTHER

BRANDING TALES
Remember the VHS/Betamax video format battle? VHS won

and became the standard for home entertainment, but
Betamax became the standard format for the professional
entertainment industry because of its superior quality. Proof
that the client or customer is not always right.
But my story here is about monopolies and about David

versus Goliath. In South Africa in the 1970s, a beer named
Colt 45 was intended for marketing by Luyt Breweries (yes
this is the infamous Louis Luyt of SA Rugby fame, see Chapter
2: ANIMALS, POLITICIANS AND THE SURVIVAL OF A
CENTURY-OLD BRAND). About a week before the launch of
Colt 45, SA Breweries (now SABMiller, a major South African
player in the international market) advertised its intention to
market a beer called Stallion 54. Advertisements were placed
in the press and Stallion 54 was launched before Colt 45 was
available.
Not surprisingly, both beer labels sported a rearing horse.

Luyt took SA Breweries to court, but lost. Luyt breweries
stood no chance against the SA Breweries monopoly and Colt
45 soon disappeared into the sunset. At the time, I was a 20-
103 3/BATTLES, RAPE, PARASITES ...
year old design student who thought the Colt 45 label looked
cool and fancied drinking it (it was also supposed to be a
stronger beer than the usual offering from SA Breweries) so I
took its demise very personally. Since then I have avoided
buying SA Breweries products, settling instead for Scotch and
the occasional Windhoek Lager from neighbouring Namibia.
Goliath 1, David 0.
In 2007, Heineken terminated its 40-year-old contract with

SABMiller to brew Amstel Lager under licence in South Africa.
This lager accounts for 9% of the local beer market. The
move had the result that SAB lost control of the most popular
premium beer brand in South Africa. At the time it accounted
for about 70% of SABMiller's premium beer offering, which
remains the fastest-growing market segment at an annual
growth of 22,5%.
SABMiller, facing a major challenge to its beer monopoly in

South Africa, responded with a similar trick to the one used in
the 1970s, by launching Hansa Marzen Gold in a green bottle
with a gold foil top, looking not surprisingly much like
Amstel’s packaging, in an attempt to leverage the SABMiller
distribution chain and the temporary gap in the market.
Commenting on the termination of the licence, SABMiller CEO
Graham Mackay said: “Our consumers remain our first priority
and we are confident of our continuing ability to provide them
with a comprehensive choice of superior and differentiated
brands, backed by our strong marketing and distribution
capability.”
However, this time around Mr Mackay's “strong marketing and

distribution” and a bit of gold and green will not cut it for
Hansa Marzen Gold. It does not stand a chance, simply
because it lacks the brand equity that was built over 40 years
Brand rape, incest, bastards, hybrids and mutants

Supercar and sportcar manufacturers have a reputation for
getting into one another’s beds, and the relationship is rife
with inbreeding, incest and rape. They are also notorious for
extending their brands into the competition’s niche market to
“make more profit” and, in the process, end up looking like
their competition. Look at any exotic or luxury car company’s
showroom and you will find most Range Rover, Mercedes-
Benz, BMW and Porsche vehicles are boring black, white or
silver. Now take a look at the supercars: orange
Lamborghinis, red Ferraris and bottle-green Aston Martins.
The sooner motorcar manufacturers stop their promiscuous
behaviour and realise that being unique and distinctive is
synonymous with successful branding, the sooner they will
start making a profit.
When Chrysler bought Lamborghini in the late 1980s,

everyone seemed delirious with happiness. Phrases such as
cash injection, plant makeover and accessibility to foreign
markets had everyone in a seventh heaven. The 25th
Anniversary model, the Countach’s swansong, saw that
famous icon being put out to pasture. Once Chrysler had
satisfied its lust when Lamborghini had developed and
produced the V10 power plant for the Chrysler’s Dodge Viper,
the liaison ended. Sure, the legendary Lamborghini Diablo
(Italian for “little devil”) was also conceived through this
unlikely alliance, but at what cost?
Luckily, the Diablo – with lots of love and nurturing from the
recovering Italian single parent – grew into a 6-litre, 550
horsepower, refined monster and ultimate supercar. Then
came a new romance for Lamborghini. Once again, the usual
overtures were made, this time from Audi (part of Volkswagen
AG). Unfortunately, this resulted again in brand rape with the
plain-looking Murciélago the offspring. No longer sounding

like a Lamborghini should and styled by a Belgian, only some
vague lines indicated its Italian bloodline. Sure, it is fast.
Sure, it is refined. But it is also sterile, boring and
unimaginative. A very expensive Audi? What happened to the
aggressive, revolutionary and outrageous design that made
Lamborghini the envy and dream of every boy and adult for
almost 40 years?
Many believe the Lamborghini Diablo – the last model before the Murciélago
– was the end of an era: the end of the thoroughbred bloodline and
anything after that lacks proper breeding
Lamborghini’s next forced liaison resulted in the multiple

conception of the Gallardo – a much better-looking Baby
Lambo that looks and sounds like the real thing and has
become the top-selling supercar of all time – and a boring,
ugly grey twin, a concept car called Audi Nuvolari, the vision
of Audi’s next grand tourer (GT). Its power plant has the
same V10 Lamborghini Gallardo engine with the top speed
electronically governed to 250 km/h. Same parents, same
engine, different looks. So what is left that’s Italian? And
what are you buying?
Diamonds are forever but monopolies don’t last

Powerful, emotional and consistent branding helped to create
the De Beers diamond monopoly. When it was threatened in
the 1990s by conflict diamonds and producers such as Russia
distributing diamonds outside the De Beers-controlled
channel, De Beers again turned to branding to save the day.
They repositioned themselves in a market they no longer
control and are now more profitable with a 40% market share
than when they had an 80% market share in the 1990s. Let
me bring you into the picture.
De Beers engages in exploration for diamonds, diamond

mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacture.
Mining takes place in Botswana and Namibia (through its
joint-venture partnerships with the respective governments),
as well as South Africa and Canada, in every category of
industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale
alluvial, coastal and deep-sea. The Diamond Trading
Company, the rough-diamond sales and distribution arm of
the De Beers Group, sorted, valued and sold about 80% of
the world’s rough diamonds by value until the early 1990s.
These diamonds were then sold to the Diamond Trading

Company Sightholders whose representatives travelled to
London several times a year for the sale or Sight as it was
called. Today Sightholders (now numbering only 79) are
required to comply with the De Beers’ best practice principles,
which set out various objective standards of conduct in three
main areas: business, social and environmental
responsibilities. (I designed brandmarks for two of the
Sightholders at the turn of the century and no mention was
made of these noble standards; Mr $ and his rare
appearances were the only standard I was reminded about.)
Get the picture? De Beers is big – very, very big! It is well

known for its monopolistic practices throughout the previous
century, when the company used its dominant position to
manipulate the international diamond market by persuading
independent producers to join its single-channel monopoly
and then flooding the market with diamonds similar to those
of producers who refused to join.
The company purchased and stockpiled the diamonds

produced by other manufacturers in order to control prices
through supply. Ernest Oppenheimer stated: “Commonsense
tells us that the only way to increase the value of diamonds is
to make them scarce, that is to reduce production.” Now all
that was left for the monopoly to become fully fledged was to
increase consumer demand.
A diamond is a girl’s best friend

Consider this: a diamond – the rarest and hardest natural
mineral known – is worth no more that half its retail value.
There is no hard-and-fast rule for the pricing of polished
diamonds, but professionals in the polished-diamond industry
use a worldwide market price list, the Rapaport, based on the
four Cs, which are carat, cut, colour and clarity, as a general
guideline for evaluating polished diamond prices. And a
jeweller usually adds a 100% mark-up to the Rapaport quoted
price. Apart from industrial applications, diamonds have no
other value except when polished for their perceived beauty,
which we all know is in the eye of the beholder. This brings
us to another aspect: the power of emotion.
In 1999, I experienced this first-hand while prospecting for

diamonds (just like the diamond diggers did at the turn of the
century) along the Orange River, a stone’s throw away from
where the first diamond was found in South Africa. There are
167
Chapter 4
THE QUALITY AND COST OF GOOD BRANDING
What is quality branding anyway and how do you

define it?
In one of the most profoundly important bestselling novels of
our time, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974),
Mr Robert M Pirsig describes his quest (very strenuous
judging from the shock treatment he had to endure along the
way) to define quality. In short, quality spawns both classic
and romantic form. Both have to be present.
Take a motorcycle. The classic underlying and practical form

consists of precisely machined parts and, when assembled,
result in near-perfect mechanics, capable of outstanding
performance with the function of transporting an individual
(and in some cases a passenger) from point A to B.
The romantic and often overt form is the paint job, highly
polished and finished, complemented by lots of shining
chrome and a badge forming a pleasing shape that appeals to
the eye and the emotions. The yin and the yang. Science and
Art. Left-brainers and right-brainers. The rational and the
emotional. The masculine and the feminine. Blue and pink.
You can play this game with professions too: the accountant
168 4/THE QUALITY AND COST OF GOOD BRANDING ...
versus the designer, the engineer versus the gourmet chef.

Lawyers and philanthropists. Politicians and ... well, you
guess that one. Or with countries, such as Germany and Italy.
Britain and France. Or your brand.
Your brandname, the ingredients or components of the

product, the nature of the service, these are all classic. The
emotions your brandname evokes, its appearance and
typographical construction, the visual symbol and association
with your name, the colour, these are all romantic. I know
you will question the use of the romantic form if let’s say you
sell classic form products such as motorbike clutches. You will
argue that a classic type of person (the mechanic) will buy it
and besides, once it is installed, who will ever see it? So of
what use is the romantic form?
Let me tell you about the clutch plate of the most popular
French car in central and northern Africa. They use a well-
known quality brand (also French) manufactured in South
Africa at a dirt cheap price: less than US$1 (ZAR10). (To save
costs, production runs are tagged on to the back of large
orders of other brands or during quiet times.) Now there is
nothing wrong with this, except for the word “France”,
stamped on the clutch plate. The metal chassis of the clutch
plate is also painted a bright, almost luminous green.
It is shipped to France in a cheap plastic bag by the

container-load, where it is repacked in a sturdy but cheap
fluted box and flexo-printed (the cheapest form of printing on
fluted boxes en masse ), once again in bright, almost luminous
green with a plain and bold slab-serif brandmark. This
branded and packaged clutch plate is now exported to
northern and central Africa and sold at an absolute premium
and, in turn, a huge profit. Also note how the cost was
178
Chapter 5
HOW TO CREATE GOOD BRANDING
Why does it have to be visual?

Seeing is believing. When you first heard a favourite song on
the radio and before you saw the music video, what picture
did you form in your mind of the singer? And were you
disappointed or pleasantly surprised when you finally saw the
singer on TV?
When you spoke to someone over the phone for the first time
but had not met them in person, you try to put a face to the
name and voice. You search your memory for a face that
resembles the name and that is how you make yourself
remember the person. Were you disappointed or surprised
when you met the person face to face? Most of the time, you
are surprised by the person’s actual face. But, now, you will
never forget. Why? Because you filed the face with the name
in your memory, reinforced by the visual evidence of meeting
the person. Don’t you think it is better to give people the
perfect picture to remember your product by, instead of
leaving it to their imagination or lack of imagination?
Something you can control and manipulate to suit your brand
values and promise, and leave a positive first and repeat
impressions.
179 5/HOW TO CREATE GOOD BRANDING ...
Create the right perception in your prospect’s mind

In The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (1993), Al Ries and
Jack Trout end the chapter describing the law of perception
with the following conclusion: “Marketing is not a battle of
products. It is a battle about perceptions.” The same can be
said about branding. Perceptions of which brand is the best
are in the client’s, customer’s or prospect’s mind and are
often opposite to the truth. A good brander’s job is to create
this perception cleverly with the correct visual imagery and
elements. A picture speaks a thousand words. If you build the
right perception into your picture, you make it a lot easier for
your client, customer or prospect to believe. After all, don’t
they say seeing is believing?
In South Africa, the boundary walls around our properties

have a lot in common with perceptions and branding. Drive
through any average neighbourhood and you will see the
walls. As a result of the alarming increase in crime since the
birth of democracy in 1994, homeowners have had to increase
the height of their property’s boundary walls from a metre to
sometimes three metres to keep the criminals out. However,
this security improvement now obscures the view of the
house from outside and that could be exploited if the house is
not very attractive.
The boundary wall now effectively becomes the face of the

house and this presents a unique opportunity to improve or
even totally change, at a relatively low cost, the (perceived)
look of the house that is now hidden from sight. Up goes
decorative face brick or texture-plastered finished walls in a
variety of colours, from bright to natural earth colours. Lights
are cleverly recessed or prominent as a design feature. First
impressions and perceptions are often lasting impressions and
an impressive boundary wall will definitely influence a
186
Chapter 6
CHOOSING A NAME
If you have just started a business, the chances are that you
have already been at the lawyers or accountants and
registered a company or brand. The chances are also that you
have made your first mistake. These wonderful professionals
have probably advised you about an area of expertise never
covered in their training at university: the name of this new
legal financial entity or brand.
Marketing, branding, creativity and consumer perceptions are,

frankly, not included in the curriculum of understanding the
law/vulturing/tax/profit/undertaking or embalming. If they are
guilty of this offence, call them right now and ask them to
start the process of changing the name. You can give them
another name after you have read this chapter. The cost of
this call and the name change is negligible in comparison with
the money you will save now and make in future!
The next mistake you have most probably made was to call
your company or brand a generic name, such as the Paint
Company or Fruity Juice. If the cliché “the name says it all” in
more than a single word is true of your brandname, then you
know it is the wrong choice. Instinct is once again at play;
187 6/CHOOSING A NAME ...
you want people to know what you do or sell. And so do all

your competitors. People do not remember generic names;
they remember proper nouns like your name. If you were
called “dark male with brown eyes” or “tall blonde female
with blue eyes” and there are so many millions of them
around, how on Earth will anybody be able to remember your
name?
Don’t make the mistake of confusing your product or service

description with your brandname. They should be separated.
Brandname – one short word and no more – followed by your
product or service description, integrated if possible, with
your positioning statement or slogan. Dell is a word which has
no meaning, but today stands for personal computers.
You build a brand by offering the prospective client or

customer a very short word that will, in time, represent your
product or service in their mind. And stay away from generic
names; in addition to your competition using it in all sorts of
combinations and so confusing the client or customer even
more, you cannot register a generic brandname as a
trademark.
The legal entity that owns the brand could be a combination

of the brandname and the product or service description. In
South Africa, CIPRO (Companies and Intellectual Property
Rights Registration Office) requires that part of the name of a
legal entity, be it a close corporation or a company, must
include the product or service description so as to aid them
with registering the entity in the right category and, in
addition, protecting your name by not registering a similar
name in your category of business. So, by using a proper
noun as your brandname, combined with the product or
service description, you kill two birds with one stone. That
194
Chapter 7
THE SCOTTISH WAR CRY: YOUR SLOGAN, DESCRIPTOR

AND POSITIONING STATEMENT
Define your brand

“The goal of a positioning statement is to create and occupy
a space inside the target clients’ or customers’ head for your
brand and the function is to control your company and its
stakeholders so it stays on this strategy, clear and precise.”
From Crossing the Chasm (1991, 1999) by Geoffrey A Moore.
The word slogan comes from the 16th-century Scots Gaelic

word for war cry: sluagh-gairm , literally meaning “army
shout”. This is the time when you need to distil your war cry
into one sentence (preferably in no more than seven words;
the ideal maximum still found to be effective on billboards)
what your brand is about and why your product or service
offering is unique and, therefore, better than that of your
competitor.
Add your USP

Now you must talk the walk. The generic description of your
business folded into your brand’s unique special property or
proposition (USP). What is your claim to authenticity? What
makes you uniquely valuable to your client or customer? This
will also force you to define what differentiates your product
or service. Take a good look at all your competition and what

they claim and do not claim. Write this down. Now examine
your product or service and decide on your USP. Are you the:
first, original, biggest, best, leader, only, quickest, hungriest,
nearest, most exclusive, most convenient, most expensive,
most professional, most personal, most experienced? Do you
cater for a niche market?
This statement must be outward-looking and spell out the

direct benefit of your brand’s differentiation to the
prospective client. What are the added value and benefits of
your product or service that matter to the prospective client,
what cannot be obtained anywhere or with difficulty at a
higher price somewhere else? And it is no use simply to claim
you are cheaper or faster or give better service – you have to
spell out why there is added value to make it believable and
credible.
Start by summarising your company’s service or products (the

descriptor) and your claim to authenticity (USP) in one
paragraph. Be concise with your descriptor. If read on its
own, your prospective client or customer should know exactly
what you sell. Include the product or business category and
do not assume people know this.
I often pass a new restaurant in a revamped shopping centre

close to my home. It has very expensive neon signage that
reads Blah-Blah Restaurant, but with no hint of what kind of
food they serve. For health reasons, I am very selective about
my choice of restaurants and, therefore, I am always on the
lookout for a possible new eating venue. The intersection is
busy and the name is too long to remember, so the telephone
directory is not an option. Whenever I pass that way, I am
always in a rush and promise myself one day I am going to
stop and ask them what kind of food they serve.
198
Chapter 8
THE RIGHT SYMBOL
Symbolism in our society

“What we call a symbol is a term, a name, or even a picture
that may be familiar in daily life, yet that possesses specific
connotations in addition to its conventional and obvious
meaning”. The words of Carl Jung.
Symbols are objects, characters, or other concrete

representations of ideas, concepts, or other abstractions. A
symbol may be an object, picture or a written word, sound, or
particular mark, which represents something else by
association, resemblance, or convention. Numerals are
symbols for numbers and that is why brandnames containing
numerals are so confusing. The only thing that language
consists of is symbols. The word “cat” is not a cat, but
represents the idea of a cat.
Psychology has found that people, and even animals, can

respond to symbols as if they were the objects they
represent. Pavlov’s dogs salivated when they heard a sound
that they associated with food, even if there was no food.
Common psychological symbols include a gun to represent a
penis or a tunnel to represent a vagina.
199 8/THE RIGHT SYMBOL ...
The interpretation of abstract symbols has had an important

role in religion and psychoanalysis. As envisioned by Sigmund
Freud and Carl Jung, symbols are not the creations of mind,
but are distinct capacities inside the mind to hold a distinct
piece of information. In the mind, the symbol can find free
association with any number of other symbols, can be
organised in any number of ways, and can hold the connected
meanings between symbols as symbols in themselves.
Brand barbarians
Take PricewaterhouseCoopers. Their brandmark consists of a
rather small emblem to the right of the initials PWC. There is
no strong symbol associated with their name. If you have
never heard of them and somebody recommended them to
you and a few months later you need an auditor, will you
remember PricewaterhouseCoopers – a 22-letter word that
makes no sense? I think not. Have you ever met Mr Price or
Mr Waterhouse (or is it Mr Pricewaterhouse) or Mr Coopers?
People are often very bad at remembering a person’s name so

how are you going to remember three names strung together
in some illogical fashion with no face or symbol attached to
it? And imagine sending an email to
allison.vanderbilt@pricewaterhousecoopers.com? That gives
you a 22-plus chance to make a mistake. The chartered
accountants’ solution to branding; create it with a
spreadsheet! And that is not all – pick the one day of the
week with the most negative associations attached to it and
read on:
SAN FRANCISCO, June 11 2002. Greg Brenneman, president

and chief executive officer of PwC Consulting, said: “The
PricewaterhouseCoopers brand has given us a great heritage.
Our new name – Monday – is exactly what we want it to be
205
Chapter 9
THE PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE OF COLOUR
I am going to say it again: whatever your opposition does,

whenever possible do the opposite. If his corporate colour is
green, make yours red. Because emotion and personal taste
play such a large role, this becomes a very difficult task
indeed. Some people have intense emotions about certain
colours: either for or against. See this as part of aligning your
brand.
You should choose a colour not used by your competition, and

then work on making it your colour. Let your brand own it.
Sometimes a second colour is needed to contrast with the
colour of choice. Yellow needs a darker colour to offset it,
such as purple or red. But apply the cardinal rule as always:
one colour must always dominate and multiple colours should
never clash or compete.
The negative associations of a colour may not necessary

apply to your brand, unless you choose to punctuate that.
The dominant use of black does not always mean death, evil
or the unknown. Used with white or yellow, for instance,
black could spell quite the opposite: illumination, hope and
clarity. Sometimes we need the negative to emphasise the
206 9/THE PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE OF COLOUR ...
positive. What would daylight be without knowing the

darkness of night? If an undertaker uses black, this might be
disastrous. However, if other firms use it, black could be
highly successful, practical and economical, for example
black-and-white newspaper advertising for a lighting
warehouse retailer.
Be sensible about aligning your brand with the right colours –

blue and purple are not good colours for food. Look at the
colours of fruit and vegetables, or cooked meat. Reds,
oranges, yellows and greens and their tints and tones are
suitable for food. Pastel colours (light tints) are feminine and
do well when used as part of the branding of perfume, soaps
and feminine products. Browns (dark shades) are very
masculine and earthy, and ideal for male cosmetics, clothes,
the building industry, et cetera.
Stay away from the dated and boring – such as maroon or

dark blue and grey for corporate brandmarks. Never use
shocking pink for an expensive, upmarket product. Look at
the darker tones of colours to find something more sober and
exclusive. Colours have many tints, tones, shades and hues to
choose from that will help you make your brandmark unique
and distinctive in its category.
Colours mean different things in different countries. In China,

red is the colour of the dragon and means luck and
prosperity, and white is associated with funerals – though the
impact of Hollywood and globalisation is changing this. Check
colour associations against local culture to avoid any
confusion or incorrect connotations.
Colour legibility
Certain colour combinations are more legible than others.
Research studies have proven that the colours with maximum
209 9/THE PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE OF COLOUR ...
PRIMARY
Tertiary Tertiary
Secondary Secondary
TINTS
Tertiary Tertiary
PRIMARY PRIMARY
Tertiary Tertiary
Secondary
SHADES TONES
Grey added
Black added White added

NEUTRAL COLOURS
Green (blue mixed with yellow) – cold, pleasing, money,

growth, wealth, fertile, neutral, safe, soothing and one of the
most common colours appearing in nature, also a good food
216
Chapter 10
TYPE AND TYPOGRAPHY
“Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best

calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus
every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully
hand calligraphed.
“Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the

normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn
how to do this.
“I learnt about serif and sans-serif type, about varying the

amount of space between different letter combinations, about
what makes great typography great. It was beautiful,
historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t
capture, and I found it fascinating.
“None of this had even a hope of any practical application in

my life. But, 10 years later, when we were designing the first
Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed
it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful
typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in
college, the Mac would have never had multiple type or
proportionally spaced fonts.
217 10/TYPE AND TYPOGRAPHY ...
“And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no
personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped
out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class,
and personal computers might not have the wonderful
typography that they do.”
Extract from a speech given by Steve Jobs (CEO and co-

founder of Apple Computers) to Stanford University graduates
in June 2005.
A brief history
What is typography? The art or skill of arranging type so it is
pleasing to the eye. Making words or text readable, legible
and attractive. Revealing that which it was meant to contain.
Bringing the idea through the window of type into the mind of
the spectator. To understand type and the use of it, we will
have to journey briefly back in time to the invention of
writing.
This was the origin of type as we know it today. It started

with alphabetic writing, which people tried to make beautiful.
Manuscripts were illuminated, decorated and illustrated by
scribes while writing books entirely by hand. The invention of
movable type by Gutenberg in Germany, around 1440, made it
possible to reproduce books on a relatively large scale.
The first known book printed in the Western world was

Gutenberg’s Bible, using type that simulated the writing then
used for Bibles and church service books north of the Alps. As
printing spread across Europe from the Rhineland, the type
called gothic or black used at that time was copied and was
adjusted over time in Italy, being consummated in roman
type.
218 10/TYPE AND TYPOGRAPHY ...
Italic script was invented as a result of copying a fast writing

style used in Italy for official documents and letters. It
remained around as an alternative text style for another two
centuries. Gradually roman type almost replaced black type as
the standard in Europe. Some use of black type, also called
Old English, has survived, for example in newspaper
mastheads and legal documents.
Squared, Deletion of Deletion

Bracketed less rounded bracketed of serif
serif serif serif altogether
OLD FACE TRANSITIONAL MODERN/ SANS-SERIF

SLAB-SERIF
The evolution of type from serif to sans serif
As can be seen in the example of roman type, serifs (small

strokes) were added to the ends of letters for decoration and
to finish lettering cut into stone. This was called serif type
and evolved over time through subtle changes into different
type.
The earliest, called Old face, was based on the forms made
by a broad-nibbed pen at an angle of 45°, as held most easily
by a writer. Rather obvious in the round letters “e” and “o”,
this was called oblique shading as depicted in Caslon.
Transitional was the name of the next stage in doing away

with this oblique angle, and as Times was prominent in this
category. Modern face/slab serif was the next logical step in
not bracketing the serif and is today still very popular in
France. A type design illustrating this is the well-known
226
Chapter 11
GOD’S SIGNATURE – YOUR BRANDMARK IN THE

RIGHT FORMAT
The Greeks said that all beauty is mathematics and, in fact,

there is a number that can describe visual beauty: the golden
ratio. It is a mathematical ratio which seems to recur in
beautiful things in nature, as well as in other objects which
are regarded as “beautiful”. It is a mathematical ratio of
1:1,618 and this number is called phi.
Phi appears throughout life and the universe. Some believe it

is the most efficient outcome, the result of natural forces.
Some believe it is a universal constant of design, the
signature of God. Whatever you believe, the pervasive
appearance of phi in all we see and experience creates a
sense of balance, harmony and beauty in the design of
everything we find in nature. It should be no surprise,
therefore, that humankind would use this same proportion
1:1,618 to achieve balance, harmony and beauty in its own
creations of art, architecture, colours, design, composition,
space and even music. The ratio of 1:1,618 (the golden ratio)
is also referred to by other names, such as the phi ratio, the
Fibonacci ratio, the divine ratio, the golden mean and the
golden section.
227 11/GOD’S SIGNATURE – YOUR BRANDMARK IN ...
Two equal ratios are called a proportion. Since all golden

ratios are equal to each other, two golden ratios shown as
equalling each other are referred to as a golden proportion.
As the golden ratio is found in the design and beauty of
nature, it can also be used as an incredibly effective tool to
achieve beauty and balance in design and art.
The golden section, golden or divine proportion was used

extensively by Leonardo da Vinci. All the key dimensions of
the room and the table in da Vinci’s The Last Supper were
based on the golden ratio, which was known in the
Renaissance period as the divine proportion. In the human
hand, each succeeding joint of the finger-bone is 1:1,618 the
length of the preceding joint. The distance from elbow to
wrist is 1:1,618 of the distance
1 from wrist to fingertip. It even
shows up in a heartbeat on an
ECG (electrocardiogram); the
distance between the last two
peaks is 1:1,618 of the distance
between the first two peaks.
There are religious references to

1,618 the divine proportion. Noah’s ark
uses a golden rectangle. In the
Book of Genesis, God commands
Noah to build an ark saying: “And
this is the fashion which thou
shalt make it of; the length of the
ark shall be three hundred cubits,
An equiangular spiral as seen the breadth of it fifty cubits, and
in nature in the shape of the height of it thirty cubits.” The
Nautilus , the spiral of a galaxy most beautiful spiral is based on
and shape of a hurricane the divine proportion.
236
Chapter 12
EVOLUTION, REVOLUTION AND MAINTENANCE
Evolve or revolt?
Few brands enter adulthood with the same face they started
life with. Financial pressure and budget constraints at the
birth of a brand often do not allow for the use of a
professional designer. A friend or relative or somebody artistic
(most of the time with no skills except art as a subject at
school) is given the task of creating a brand. Bad designers,
the personal taste and interference of a non-designer (“I want
to show it to my wife/PA and ask her opinion”) also cause
mistakes along the way.
Uninteresting, rigid and dull shapes such as squares, circles

and impractical long, thin horizontal or vertical formats are
often a problem. The size of the name in relation to other
graphic elements and pay-off lines might be out of kilter.
Taste, trends and fashions change, and so may the elements
of your branding. A type design in vogue 10 years ago may
have fallen from grace since; one of the dangers of using
type which have been overused and hence become tired and
passé. A classic type design or, better still, a type designed
for your brand is much better. It does not date, is unique and
237 12/EVOLUTION, REVOLUTION AND MAINTENANCE ...
gives your brandmark some insulation against mercurial fads.

There is nothing wrong with correcting and refining the visual
elements to stay in line with the brand positioning, but do it
in moderation. Evolve your brandmark and position it for
tomorrow to avoid unnecessary changes. Subtle changes are
not easily noticed and a facelift is sometimes welcomed,
whereas a revolution could cost your brand its life.
Sure, if the brandmark reflects a dated, old-fashioned image,

the best time to update it is right now. The longer you wait,
the more it will cost, and the more you will speak with a
forked tongue. But do understand the cost implications.
Things have to be really awful to justify a revolution; like a

nuclear power station that had a prompt reactivity excursion.
A revolution is also bloody and costly because you will have
to start from the beginning, from scratch. Kill the old brand
and create a new brand. That means spending all that money,
time and effort all over again, and then some more. This all
done while your competitor is taking advantage of your self-
imposed handicap. Remember Lenin and Stalin? Be warned,
you might be a casualty of your own revolution.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I have seen perfectly good

brandmarks changed for no good reason or simply because of
personal dislikes. This leads to date rape: some smart
marketing executive raping the brand to show his worth and
justify his fringe benefits. Get a second and a third and a
fourth opinion from a reputable design specialist before you
change, otherwise change the marketing executive. You might
be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The law of entropy

If you leave your brandmark alone long enough, it will at best
be corrupted or at worst devolve into a state of boring
245
Chapter 13
COPYRIGHT, OWNERSHIP, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

AND OTHER LEGAL ISSUES
Copyright © and ownership

Copyright is the right of a person who creates an original
work to protect that work by controlling how and where it
may be reproduced. This means that if you paid for a design
or artwork, it does not follow that you own the copyright.
Physical ownership of original work also does not
automatically signify ownership of copyright. That normally is
vested in the creator, unless it has been assigned in writing to
the new owner. Simply put: if you buy a painting from an
artist, you may not copy or duplicate that artwork in any way
without the written permission of the artist.
If you let any designer or DTP (desktop publishing) operator

create any brandmark, symbol, brochure, leaflet or company
stationery for you, that person owns the copyright to that
intellectual property (IP). You should get the copyright
assigned to you in writing before you start doing anything.
The best way is to get an estimate up front for any work you
intend doing and, then in the terms and conditions, include
the proviso that all copyright to the work in that estimate is
assigned to you upon payment.
246 13/COPYRIGHT, OWNERSHIP, INTELLECTUAL ...
Get the copyright to the IP, otherwise this could come to bite
you later when you franchise your business and some out-of-
work creative gets sober and all of a sudden recognises the
brandmark and brand identity you are using wholesale, as one
of his more successful creations.
Today, with the exception of countries such as China and

Taiwan, intellectual property and copyright have become
increasingly better protected as the power of branding has
become more evident. Laws differ from country to country, so
please check with a legal type or bean counter in your
country.
“Whenever you introduce a brand, make sure you clear it

before you start using it. If you don’t, you may well find
yourself being sued for trademark infringement, passing off,
infringement of a well-known brand, copyright infringement or
even infringement of a registered trademark,” Hans Muhlberg,
The Law of the Brand .
Grave words from Hans Muhlberg, LLM, an attorney, a UK

solicitor and a UK and European trademark attorney, straight
from the inside back cover of his book. See how careful even
I am about the credits. By the way, The Law of the Brand
tells you how to go about registering, administering and
protecting brands in South Africa.
People with qualifications like his are extremely well paid and
therefore strongly motivated to come after you if you mess
with their clients’ rights. So do your homework: clear the
name – you do not want Mr Muhlberg or Mr Adams or Mr
Fischer to pick the flesh off your bones while you look on.
In South Africa, start with the Company and Intellectual

Property Registration Office (CIPRO) in Pretoria and do a
252
Chapter 14
LET YOUR BRAND FACE AN AUDIT
You now know in summary that the perfect brandmark is

formed by a symbol, the brandname, a descriptor and a
slogan to position or promote the brand, all in a single
distinctive and dominant colour and in the correct visual
format. But now let’s look at more details of the various
elements, score them and so do an audit of your brandmark
to see how perfect or ineffective your brandmark is. For an
online version that you are also allowed to print, go to
www.faceyourbrand.co.za/audit.
The highest possible score attainable is 373. Your score will

fall into one of five categories, and comments on these
categories appear at the end of the questions below. From
the question and how it scores, you will also immediately be
able to pinpoint and identify the weaknesses in your
brandmark. Some aspects you may not be able to correct, but
others may be easy to adjust or add. If you plan to create a
new brand, here is a unique opportunity to test and build a
powerful brand, which is positioned for the future and will
help guarantee success in a sea of conformity or in the face
of serious competition.
253 14/LET YOUR BRAND FACE AN AUDIT ...
As a bonus, use this audit to evaluate your competition.

Establish their weaknesses and strengths, and use this vital
strategic information to take full advantage of the positioning
of your brand in your market segment and business category.
This audit has been compiled with the utmost care and the
formula proven against many local and successful superbrands
with international status. With continuous input, the formula
is still being refined and the anomalies addressed. Although
the formula was checked by an actuary, if your score within
5% of the next score please take cognisance of the comments
relating to that score.
Since evaluating the visual aspects of a brandmark does not

guarantee overall brand success, the author, his publisher or
agent does not take responsibility for any direct or indirect
losses incurred as a result or consequence of this audit. For
the latest free updated online version go to
www.faceyourbrand.co.za/audit. Your feedback will be
appreciated and, if you still have questions or your score is
incongruent with your perceived or actual brand success (or
failure), please email the author on
alex@faceyourbrand.co.za.
Your brand symbol — possible score: 80

Do you have a brand symbol that stands alone and separate
from the name? If yes, 15 points or
is it integrated with your brandname? (if you remove the

symbol/s, the brandname is minus a letter/s) If yes, 10 points
or
is your brandname made up of unique and distinctive type

only? If yes, 5 points.
264
Chapter 15
LOGO COMPETITIONS, OUT-OF-THE-BOX LOGOS,

STOCK LOGOS, CHEAPIES, ONLINE LOGO DESIGN,
SAME DAY AND SPEEDY GONZALES
The fact that the term logo is used should be an immediate

clue of what is on offer. Remember “logo” is the traditional
term to describe a symbol, such as a pictograph, which forms
the centrepiece of a corporation or organisation’s corporate
brandmark identity. These online sites take a stab at
designing the symbol part of a brandmark, but be warned.
Most of the time it ends up as a very poor effort.
I must warn you that the advertising and design industry is

very promiscuous. I don’t mean this in the context of
prostitutes, at least they charge for their services. I am
talking about repeatedly doing it for free with any John, Dick
or Jane and in the company of many. It is called pitching.
Show me what you and many others can do and I will
consider using your services in the future. (Once when I was
at a briefing for a security company’s brandmark redesign, I
made my excuses when I realised another 15 advertising and
design agencies must have received the same invitation I
did.)
Off go the many loose women and men, returning many

nights (and days) later with their respective designs and ideas
265 15/LOGO COMPETITIONS, OUT-OF-THE-BOX LOGOS ...
free of charge, hoping to be favoured with future work. I am

not aware of any other industry that does this and true
design professionals will refrain from it. They would rather
spend their time on self-promotion and canvassing a client
who is prepared to pay for an honest day’s work. Besides, if
anything is given away free of charge, how can it have any
value?
So, it does not come as a surprise to see the following lewd

proposals on the Web. Offer a prize (as little as US$50
sometimes) and run an online logo competition on one of the
logo competition websites and get hundreds of logos to
choose from or, if you are in a hurry and have very little
money: “For under US$45 choose a logo out-of-the-box!” or
even better still, if you are in a hurry and you have the
money: “Pay enough and you can have your logo within
hours!” From instant “stock logos” for almost no money to
“professional custom logos” within hours; from the ridiculous
to the sublime.
Why on Earth would you want a logo within hours? Since

when should brandmark creation include instant gratification?
If you are so impatient (read unreasonable) or disorganised,
no self-respecting professional designer or maybe even a
client or customer would want to deal with you anyway.
The online logo competitions usually go something like this:

the competition holder (client) registers with the website,
completes a very short standard brief with Yes/No tick boxes.
An option on one of the sites is “Does it need to look like a
Web 2.0 logo?” (although the author of this question
acknowledges in the same sentence there is no definition for
such a style). So what is a Web 2.0 logo anyway? The client
adds a few comments of his/her own, sets a deadline and
277
Chapter 16
USING A DESIGN PROFESSIONAL
After reading this book, especially the previous chapter, you

might decide to use the services of a design professional.
Think of it as a cake (brandmark) you want baked for your
wedding anniversary. As it is very special, you are not going
to risk asking your spouse’s sister’s brother-in-law’s daughter
who does home economics (graphic design student). Nor are
you going to go to the local supermarket (advertising agency)
where you choose a cake off the shelf. You would most likely
choose a specialist and professional for the job: the right
bakery (design firm) with a master baker (designer).
A word of warning: ad agencies are not generally suited to

undertaking visual brand creation. They are great at
marketing, promoting and advertising your brand but, more
often than not, they lack the qualified talent and experience
so they farm the job out. However, some agencies do have
their own in-house design units, which they claim are
competent and specialists in the field of visual branding. Do
check these out carefully, however.
Start by looking at the cakes (brandmarks) they have created

for other clients, then speak to the maestro himself (designer
278 16/USING A DESIGN PROFESSIONAL ...
commonly referred to as “The Creative” and the caps are not

a typographical error). You might at first get the shop
assistant (account executive, commonly referred to as “The
Suit”) but insist on meeting the maestro himself. If they don’t
want you to deal with him directly, find another studio as they
will probably be handing the job to a freelancer, or the
maestro may lack people skills. Freelancers could be good all-
rounders but you want the specialist. You need to put your
mind at ease that the task will be done properly. You also
want a clear line of communication with the maestro.
Question the maestro about his qualifications and any awards

or significant achievements. He should have spent at least
three to four years at a tertiary education institution in full-
time training in graphic design and associated disciplines,
followed by at least 10 years of practice in the industry, with
a substantial portion of that in visual branding. Assure
yourself he has a thorough understanding of typography and
brandmarks. Prima donnas are plentiful in this industry, so
make sure his ego will not get in the way and there is a
rapport between you and his team.
Now show them your recipe (the brief discussed below) for
your very special cake (brand mark) and ask them if they: a)
understand it, b) have the ingredients, c) have the expertise
and experience, d) the utensils and oven, and e) will follow
the recipe to the letter. You want to get a detailed quote and
then decide on specific and critical timelines. This way you
will not be ripped off and be surprised by a hastily baked
cake resulting in a flop, glossed over with some fancy icing.
Oh, and after you have paid and before you leave the bakery,
ask for a receipt (assignment of copyright). You might have to
prove ownership of this now sought-after cake on your way
home.
291
Chapter 17
CONCLUSION
Now that I have explained the visual language of branding

and shared with you the cardinal truths about visual brand
creation, you finally know what they didn’t, wouldn’t or
couldn’t tell you about the most important part of branding.
Now it is time for you to take the next step. Yes, you are no
longer a beginner, you are now a medium-weight well on your
way to becoming a successful brander.
Use the knowledge you have gained from this book and
decide whether your brand’s face needs some fresh make-up
or a makeover. Or does it require minor cosmetic surgery, a
facelift or a complete face transplant? If you are planning to
launch a new brand, then start the process right now so that
you can give your brand the two things it will always be in
short supply and will never have enough of. The two things
are: first, time for your brand to get established and build
equity; and, second, provide ongoing funding in the form of
profit for you to continue with your brand’s sustenance and
active promotion. If you already have an established brand
which needs work, you have no more excuses. Now you know
what to do and there is no reason why you should not
become a real heavyweight brander.
292 17/CONCLUSION ...
If you scored above 280 in my brand audit, your current or

potential brand may be one of the lucky 5% that will make it
to adulthood. Or perhaps it is already an adult and is the one
in 50 that will reach maturity and may be on its way to
becoming a superbrand. A stern warning again: watch out for
date rape by the marketing executive’s idea of growth (of his
career) by expanding into other markets, and murder at the
hands of accountants such as what happened at Enron and
Fidentia.
After you have followed my advice, you may have created the
best visual brand in your category but, if you wink in the
dark, nobody will know about your brand. Remember branding
is a two-part process: creation and promotion. Promote,
publicise and advertise your product or service and, in the
words of the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop,
shout from the rooftops! Learn from Obama; find out how to
use the new media, most notably the World Wide Web. It is
not only a global marketplace but a giant repository of
information and knowledge. There is so much out there, and
most of it is free or dirt cheap if you simply look. And it has
been there since Jim Clark brought us Netscape back in 1994
when he truly made the world our oyster.
Take a look at the titles in my list of recommended reading

and broaden your knowledge of branding even further.
I wish you many years of success and prosperity with plenty

of happy clients and customers.
293
Chapter 18
FURTHER READING
Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-tech

P r o d u c t s t o M a i n s t r e a m C u s t o m e r s , Geoffrey A Moore;
HarperBusiness.
This book focuses on the specifics of marketing high-tech

products and Moore’s explanation and expansion of the
Diffusions of Innovations model has had a significant and
lasting impact on high-tech entrepreneurship. Stanford
University describes it as “still the bible for entrepreneurial
marketing 15 years later”.
Also well worth reading is the book Diffusion of Innovations

by Everett Rogers, (fifth edition, New York, NY: Free Press).
In this widely acclaimed book, Rogers generalises the use of
the Diffusions of Innovations model, describing how new
ideas and technologies spread in different cultures.
In Crossing the Chasm , Moore begins by discussing the

Diffusion of Innovations theory posited by Rogers, and argues
that there is a chasm between the early adopters of the
product (the technology enthusiasts and visionaries) and the
early majority (the pragmatists). Moore believes visionaries
294 18/FURTHER READING ...
and pragmatists have very different expectations, and he

explores those differences and suggests techniques to cross
the “chasm” successfully.
Crossing the Chasm is closely related to the Technology

Adoption Lifecycle model that describes the adoption or
acceptance of a new product or innovation, according to the
demographic and psychological characteristics of defined
adopter groups. The process of adoption over time is typically
described as a bell curve, indicating that the first group of
people to use a new product is called innovators followed by
early adopters. The next groups are the early and late
majority, and the last group to adopt a product is called the
laggards.
Moore states that the marketer should focus on one group of

customers at a time, using each group as the base for
marketing to the next group. The most difficult step, the
chasm, is making the transition between visionaries (early
adopters) and pragmatists (early majority). If done correctly,
a company can successfully create a bandwagon effect, where
the momentum builds and the product becomes a de facto
standard. However, Moore’s theories are only applicable to
disruptive or discontinuous innovations.
The adoption of continuous innovations (which do not force a

significant change in the customer’s behaviour) are still best
described by the original Technology Adoption Lifecycle.
Moore also states that confusion between continuous and
discontinuous innovation is a leading cause of failure for high-
tech products.
Moore’s techniques for successfully crossing the “chasm” offer

interesting insights that a brander would find most
informative, about the target market, understanding the
300
GLOSSARY
brand — mark of ownership used to identify a company’s

goods and services and to distinguish them from those
offered by competitors.
brandmark — formed by a name (frequently set in unique

type), a combination of words (the name and sometimes a
descriptor), a symbol or a combination of a word or words
and a symbol.
brander — a person who creates and maintains a distinct

brand for a product or service.
CMYK — a colour system used in printing, consisting of the

four process colours: cyan (blue), magenta, yellow and black.
K designates black, which stands for key plate and should not
to be confused with B, which could also mean blue as in cyan.
brand identity — a visual system, (traditionally called

corporate identity) which specifies a brand’s unique identity in
terms of colour, typestyles, symbols and layout. It also
ensures the consistent reproduction of the brand’s identity, as
it was intended, across a broad spectrum of possible
applications.
301 GLOSSARY ...
copyright © — the right of a person who creates an original

work to protect that work by controlling how and where it
may be reproduced.
Chinese — a race in the Far East that approves of eating

dogs. The Sharpei breed nearly became extinct as a result of
this primitive practice, before American breeders saved it.
descriptor — a concise description of what your brand offers

in terms of services or products.
design — the skilful arrangement of elements by a talented

specialist, resulting in a novel solution.
FMCG — fast-moving consumer good.
golden section, mean, rule or principle — this is based

upon a mathematical construction using the ancient Greek
ratio known as the golden mean (the mathematical ratio of
1:1,618, otherwise known as phi or the symbol ol or the
golden ratio, the Fibonacci ratio, the divine ratio, the golden
mean and the golden section).
This proportion has for centuries helped artists, architects and

others create eye-pleasing forms and works of art. This
formula for dividing an area into theoretically harmonious
proportions results in a rectangle of a most elegant and
pleasing shape, roughly 2:3 in proportion. The ratio of
1:1,618 (the golden ratio) is also referred to by other names.
graphic designer — a professional born with lots of talent

(cannot be added as an optional extra after birth) and
dedication who has studied at a tertiary learning institution
for at least three years of full-time study in graphic design
and associated disciplines, followed by many years of practice
in the industry, aided by extremely expensive specialist
306
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, Frederick. 1994. Secret Formula. New York:

HarperBusiness.
Campbell, Alastair. 2000. The Designer’s Lexicon. London:

Cassell & Co.
Craig, James. 1971. Designing with Type. New York: Watson-

Guptill Publications.
De la Coix and Tansy. 1975 (6th edition). Gardener’s Art

Through the Ages. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.
http://www.beautyanalysis.com (accessed on numerous

occasions between January 2003 and June 2009).
http://bivioconsulting.blogspot.com/ (accessed on July 1

2009).
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=490 (accessed on July 18

2009).
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=23616&tag=nl.e539 (accessed
on 1 September 2009)
309
Please visit my website for:
a free PDF sample of Face your brand! that you may

download and share with associates and staff;
a free subscription to my monthly newsletter, On the Brand

Face ;
connecting with other readers of Face your brand! and On the

Brand Face ;
my brandblog;
a link to case studies of my recent brand projects;
links to other sites that could be useful in facing your brand;
for the latest version of the free brandmark and name audit
that you can complete on line and print; and
connecting with me and access to my services.

310
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With more than 30 years of rich experience, Alexander

Greyling is a free-spirited maverick having never worked for a
boss. He was born in 1957 in Rustenburg, the capital of South
Africa’s North-West province, as the youngest of nine
children. After spending most of his youth on a nearby farm,
his family moved to the province of Gauteng.
At the age of 15, Alexander was admitted to the prestigious

Johannesburg School of Art, Ballet and Music where he
studied art, design and sculpture and matriculated in 1974.
He then completed two years of compulsory national service,
with his last year as a junior officer in the Infantry of the
South African Defence Force.
He was admitted to the Johannesburg College of Art (later

Technikon Witwatersrand and now the University of
Johannesburg), where he studied graphic design for three
years. In his final year, he lectured on art at the Technikon
Witwatersrand and the Joubert Park Technical College while,
at the same time, attending evening classes in marketing at
the Technikon Witwatersrand.
311 ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...
To pay for his college tuition, Alexander freelanced by

designing brandmarks (logos) and corporate brand identities.
By dealing with upstarts, mom-and-pop businesses, illiterate
markets in the apartheid era and, later, sophisticated national
and international brands, he gained invaluable experience and
insight covering a broad range of branding, design and
advertising challenges.
His sector experience includes:

 automotive, petroleum, oil and lubricants  beer, wine and
spirits  cosmetics  financial advertising, annual reports and
stock-exchange listings  financial services and insurance 
food and beverages  parastatal organisations  politics 
legal and professional  property, building and mining 
resorts and tourism  retail and information technology.
Significant highlights of his notable career include: the design

and production of the Iscor (now ArcelorMittal) annual report
with the biggest print run in South Africa at the time; the
landmark 1994 ANC election campaign, the one aimed
specifically at business, that brought Nelson Mandela to
power; and the rebranding of Fedics Foods, which resulted in
this company winning the South African Institute for
Marketing Management’s (now IMM GSM) marketer of the
year award in 1998.
Greyling is a keen scuba diver and has travelled extensively

around Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and most of the
Indian Ocean Islands. He has a passion for cars and was a
founding member and past chairman of the Lamborghini Club
of South Africa. He also started one of the most prestigious
auto-body repair shops in South Africa.
He is passionate about nature and wildlife conservation and

loves the outdoors. His pro bono clients include the Animal
312 ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...
Anti-Cruelty League South Africa and Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society of Whale Wars fame. He is a past clerk
of events for the Land Rover Owners’ Club of Southern Africa
and has travelled around South Africa, Botswana and Namibia
extensively, mostly off-road to remote and inhospitable
destinations.
In 1992, he married Dr Sharon Isernhinke (palaeontologist,

astrologer and genetic engineer) and acquired two
stepchildren. He runs his own strategic brand and design
consultancy, lives in Johannesburg, South Africa and, instead
of having his own children, he opted for a psychotic
Rottweiler, two dysfunctional budgies and around 20 rather
fat goldfish.
He may be contacted at alex@faceyourbrand.co.za

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The visual language

*Academic, Accountant, Architect, Attorney, Account Executive, Analyst,

FREE SAMPLE BOOK

However, feel free to send this sample book to any person

The sample book represents less than 25% of 312 pages of

Because it is a sample book, some of the bookmarks and the

Face your brand! is a digital edition eBook (see DIGITAL

Enjoy reading this sample and I sincerely hope it will inspire

Before any design professional, purist or perfectionist

Cost-effective, fast and friendly to the environment

Unlike printed editions that date and are expensive to revise

The cost to the environment caused by producing traditional

Why Tahoma type for this eBook?

for the stratovolcano Mount Rainier (Mount Tahoma), which is

For maximum readability at 100% magnification in an eBook

Letter spacing was addressed by a generous increase in

However, there is a sacrifice. To cater for a wide base of

Because this reflow changes the position of the body text on

South Africa has a peculiar national standard that requires a

Now enjoy reading the rest of this eBook.

F A C E Y O U R B R A N D ! THE LANGUAGE OF VISUAL

Published by Alexander Greyling in August 2009, PO Box

© Pyramid Trust 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

Set in Tahoma 10,5pt/15pt

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Face your brand! is an independent publication and has not

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Dewar’s and White Label are registered trademarks.

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associated logos are trademarks of Diageo Brands BV,

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PowerPC is a trademark of International Business Machines

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The author respects the intellectual property of others and all

Although every precaution has been taken in preparing this

IS THIS BOOK FOR YOU?

1/SOME BRANDING BACKGROUND

The A l i e n that spawned sequels, a quadrilogy

3/BATTLES, RAPE, PARASITES, DIAMONDS AND

Brand exploitation by the parasites: the myth of

4/THE QUALITY AND COST OF GOOD BRANDING

5/HOW TO CREATE GOOD BRANDING

7/THE SCOTTISH WAR CRY: YOUR SLOGAN,

8/THE RIGHT SYMBOL

9/THE PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE OF COLOUR

Tertiary colours: two unequally mixed primary

10/TYPE AND TYPOGRAPHY

11/GOD’S SIGNATURE – YOUR BRANDMARK IN THE

12/EVOLUTION, REVOLUTION AND MAINTENANCE

13/COPYRIGHT, OWNERSHIP, INTELLECTUAL

14/LET YOUR BRAND FACE AN AUDIT

15/LOGO COMPETITIONS, OUT-OF-THE-BOX LOGOS,

16/USING A DESIGN PROFESSIONAL

ABOUT THE AUTHOR