RE:BRAND:01 - Keywords, “All Aboard!“
In this one of several series, I discuss the step by step process I used to re:build the creative components for our brand. So, to get everyone “All Aboard”, how do you collectively incorporate every team member’s point-of-view and get them involved in the process of re:building a brand at the infant stages?
It’s been extremely busy in the labs at MindComet for the past several months. Though the Executive team all agreed to maintain our brand recognition and loyalty with our current Identity mark, we have been redesigning ALL of our entire brand materials while maintaining a consistent flow of client work. Many of late nights, long weekends, beer and coffee drips have been part of this long process, but the biggest and most important part has certainly been our collective team’s drive and dedication. Not every team member could be involved in every step of the process, but we did encourage everyone in contributing their point-of-view of what, ideally, the new MindComet brand should represent. An effective exercise that I have used in my career on several occasions is establishing a “Keyword” list. This is a great way for multiple parties with different skill sets to get involved in the creative process without getting into the minutia of immediate details and wants. You can easily assemble feedback and obtain a better “unbiased understanding” of where everyone fits into the puzzle, and what is ultimately important in their eyes.
To get this started, I asked two simple questions…
1) “What qualities do you feel the MindComet brand represents?“ and
2) “In the future, how would you like our current clients and new clients to feel about MindComet?“
On a sheet of paper, I had everyone write down a series of words to help mold and shape their thoughts as it relates to the questions asked. One at a time, everyone read back their list and described what each word meant to them and why they ultimately chose it. The lists were collected, and consolidated into a single list to be referenced throughout the re:branding process. This was our final keyword “thought cloud” (See Image Above) supporting and molding the new direction MindComet’s visuals would be taking moving fowards.
Below is a list of the team’s original keywords:
Posted by David Martin on Oct. 19, 2009
