Creating an identity is more than deciding on a typeface and throwing together a quick logo. It involves analyzing your company from the ground-up. That entails defining your business, its history and goals, as well as its ethos and directions.

Corporate Identity is the visual representation of these. It is how you present your company to the world in color, text and design.

Reviewing and creating a new corporate identity project can seem like a daunting task. This is the most public and frontline marketing activity that you will undertake. Having a cohesive and consistent brand that projects the correct image for your business and differentiates you from your competitors is a critical part of the marketing mix. Successful companies invest wisely in establishing a strong brand identity and then work hard to ensure that brand erosion does not occur. This is ensured by continually checking that the identity is applied consistently wherever it is used. When you start examining the creation of a corporate identity for your business, you will quickly see why professional identity help is needed.

Step 1 - Baseline
Take a long hard look at where you are now. This will form the baseline for evolution (or maybe revolution) and allow you to get a real feel for how much work is required and the order of priority for rollout of the new identity.
Pull together all of the tools that your business uses to communicate to the outside world. As well as the more obvious elements such as brochures, web site, mailers and adverts, do not forget less obvious communicators such as envelopes, fax cover sheets, invoices and email layouts. Spread these all out on a table and look for consistency of presentation. Does everything look like it originated from one company or are there differences in logo usage, colors, layouts and quality? It is not uncommon to see a number of different styles of presentation, maybe different colors and/or typeface usage, or perhaps the logo is being treated differently across the various media.

Step 2 - Perception
Fundamental to reviewing and creating a corporate or brand identity is to understand the difference between "how you think that you are perceived", "how you actually are perceived" and "how you wish to be perceived". To start the thinking process, take an obvious example such as car brands. List a number of brands that you can think of on a sheet of paper, and once you have written down the main examples, try to think of some of the lower volume vehicles. Now next to each vehicle name, write down what you feel about each car. Which brands do you feel comfortable with? Which appeals most to you and why? When you think of that brand, what do you instantly think of? Is it value, or reliability, performance, luxury or exclusivity? Each brand will also occupy a certain position within the pricing scale. Now that you have got your mind working on perception, write your own business name on a clean sheet of paper and add your competitors names as well. Now go through the same process of listing against each company words and phrases that you associate with the company that represents their "perception" in your mind.
Next write down against your company how you would wish to be thought of by the outside world. There is often a difference here between how you think that you are currently perceived, and how you would wish to be thought of.
Once you have completed this for yourself, ask colleagues, associates and the real earth shattering group - customers, the same questions and compare the results with your own view on how you thought that you were being perceived by the outside world.

Step 3 - Development
This is the stage where you will probably need to take the project to a professional designer/innovator to develop the visual look of your new identity. The designer/innovator will need the background information that we discussed in steps 1 and 2, and will also need a complete list of the applications where the logo is to be used. This company will also need to consider the profile of other logos used within your marketplace and these could be from competitors, suppliers of complementary products to your own, as well as customers. After all, a key aim is usually to create differentiation for your corporate or brand identity, so the designer will need to consider what other people are already thinking and doing.
Another key element that the designer will need to consider for your identity is all aspects of indentity usage. This could include applications such as the color of the paint on the building, flags and vehicles, as well as brochures, web site and stationery.
The designer will go through a staged evolutionary process of developing logo ideas; many of which you won't even see, and you will be asked to provide feedback at several stages. Each version as it develops will bring you closer to the final identity that will be central to your corporate identity.
The identity is more than just a logo, it is the visual interpretation of how you are perceived to the outside world. So the identity will include the colors and the typefaces, and how the logo is displayed in all of its applications. The designer will normally create versions of the logo to encompass all usage requirements in spot color, full color and single color applications. It may also be appropriate for the designer to create a "corporate identity guidelines" document that sets the rules to ensure that the new identity is applied consistently.

Step 4 - Rollout
Once "the look" has been defined, it will be time to roll it out through visual communicators as diverse as the corporate brochure, the web site, stationery, signage, uniforms and even the interior look and feel of your premises.
Typically rollout takes place over a period of time and is usually dictated by such practicalities as resource and budget, but having invested in the creation of your new identity, ensure that the usage is maximized by applying it to everything that is within the clients sensory scope.
Imagine standing in McDonalds; you instantly know where you are, and get the impression of the type of business you are going to deal with. Open a box of software from Microsoft and even if it is Chinese you would know who it was, and what that company represents to you as a customer.
And that is the power of a corporate identity.

A final thought
A strong corporate identity cannot be used to paper-over-cracks in the quality of your product or service. No business will survive for long if it is not delivering the very best to it's customers, but a consistently applied corporate identity will reinforce the values and differentiators that you offer the market place, and will make a strong statement about all that you stand for. Your corporate identity will form the very backbone of your marketing activities.

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