Technical Tips on Pattern Creation
Patterns, as previously discussed, can be a crucial part of building brand recognition and keeping your brand fresh without having to rebrand. Not only this but they can create engagement for your customer and it helps to pick you out from a crowd of promotional products. So, how do you create a memorable pattern from your branding?
Well first thing's first, as always you need to think about who your customers are and what they will want to see. If you want to discover what shapes can convey to your audience, check out this article. If you’re more corporate, like an accountancy firm, you may want to go for a more simple geometrical shape whereas if you are a more creative company you might choose to go for a more outgoing pattern.
PATTERNS CAN BE SIMPLE
Whatever your take on the design on the pattern, geometrical designs can be an effective way of catching your passer-bys. Branding can be simple and subtle or designed to stand out. If you’re going for a subtle look you could do something as simple as repeating your design over in a diamond shape with a small font and using your logo to break up the space between the text. Or you could use the white space to let the customers use their imagination with what might be outside of the branding area that they can see and get them to engage with your brand that way. Alternatively, keep it really simple and use just the text like McDonald’s did with their fresh and clean look to represent their brand values and committing to their approach to cleaner fast food.
BE BRAVE
Now, if you’re looking for something less subtle and more stand out from the sea, go for bright and bold. Keep the shapes simple and the colours bold. Less complexity works here as you’re already going for a bolder approach to the design. Find a shape that you think will be relevant to your branding and then repeat it across the page, to create a complete backdrop pattern for your brand and when you’re happy with it, you simply need to find a place you are happy for your brand logo to go and place this on top of your pattern.
PLAY WITH TRANSPARENCY
If you’re struggling to find a shape that you think works with your branding or you want something less geometrical, you could always get your logo, repeat this across the page and then play with the transparency to create a pattern that has differentiation across it. Transparency is a great tool for creating branding that combines the stand out design of filling your branding area but uses the subtlety of only changing the artwork slightly to draw your attention to one point of the design.
DYNAMIC BRANDING
Or, if you’re feeling like going the extra mile you could try dynamic branding. This process is where it becomes the logo that is recognisable rather than the colours or style. This way the colour and style become interchangeable and you can vary them as much as you like, whether that be to promote a different aspect of the company or just to freshen things up. Some brilliant examples of this are the City of Melbourne, Aol. and, most famously, the Google logos.
