Watch Your Tone

Posted by Rahna on March 6, 2008 under Branding | Be the First to Comment

I have come across a problem more common than I would have thought possible: professionals who don’t know what they stand for. 

Recently, I have been working with several,  very diverse businesses to help them provide guidance for creative development on some sort—logo development, website redesign, etc.  This usually involves development of a creative brief.  A standard part of any good creative brief discusses “Tone.”

The question is, “What should the tone of the communication be?”  It can be a simple list of adjectives that describe the impressions you are trying to create….”light and flippant,” “scholarly and serious, “ “Unpretentious but on the cutting edge of cool.”

This is vital information to a creative.  They use this information to turn those adjectives into color schemes, word choices, design ideas. 

Everyone should know what the tone of their brand is, so if you don’t, ask around.  Ask your customers, ask your employees, ask your spouse.  “Are we fun?  Are we young?  Are we established?” 

One classic way to think about this is to pretend that your brand is a person.  Now describe that person.  Try that and see what you come up with.

It doesn’t matter to me how you come up with what your brand is all about, but if you want creatives to do amazing work for you, you’d better be able to describe your intended impressions!