Using a pattern in your designs and how this can increase customer engagement.
Patterns can be found wherever you look, from how to knit your first scarf to the architecture of great buildings such as the Viceroy Hotel located at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. But what about branding? What are the uses of patterns when it comes to branding and how can they make a difference and help you stand out from the crowd? The first thing that comes to mind with regards to patterns is memorability. Think about knitting. Can you see that pattern in your mind? Now let’s relate this to a brand. A couple of the most iconic brands to incorporate patterns in their products are Louis Vuitton and Burberry. Louis Vuitton use a mixture of shapes and their company initials and Burberry use a pattern of grids and lines to which have become iconic with their brand.
A couple of the most iconic brands to incorporate patterns in their products are Louis Vuitton and Burberry.
A perfect idea to create an iconic fashion brand but how does this relate to you? Well, as we said before patterns are memorable. They help to make your brand identifiable and help you to stand out from sea of competitors, especially with promotional products. For example if you have a customised notebook and you stick your orange logo in the centre of the white background then you’ve got your product. It’s simple, it’s got your design on it, it looks like everyone else’s. Now, if you were to take that product and print the background with a simple pattern of grey squares decreasing in size and your orange logo on top of that, it becomes a completely new ball game. Suddenly you’ve created a product that not only has a more interesting design but is now in a different ball park to competitors. Its got that extra level of detail to spark some curiosity in your customers and, therefore, gives you that additional chance of getting noticed from your competitors.
One of the most valuable qualities of using a pattern is the fact that it allows you to diversify your brand without having to actually change your logo or rebrand every time you want to freshen up your designs.
One of the most valuable qualities of using a pattern is the fact that it allows you to diversify your brand without having to actually change your logo or rebrand every time you want to freshen up your designs. A great example of this is the mobile taxi service company Uber. The company use a geometrical design in all of their work from the patterns for the background to the cities at the bottom of their website pages. These geometrical designs, alongside their iconic colour palette, mean customers can easily identify them. However, because there is no set design, other than geometrical, it means the company can create new patterns and use them in their branding when they want to introduce new products or offers. Patterns give you the ability to create a fresh look and with your customers now being constantly exposed to your brand through things such as social media, a fresh look is always great for showing you are moving with the times and keeping up to date.
When you open Uber’s app the geographical design beats as the app loads, forcing you to pay attention to the colour scheme and pattern. However, when designing patterned promotional material the design of it does not need to be so obvious. You can go for a more subtle approach when it comes to using patterns with your brand. An example of work that we have done for a client is the Century Club. They used their brand logo and replicated it across the notebook and then, rather than print their company name onto the notebook, they changed the colour of one of the logo’s to one of their brighter brand colours. This subtle, patterned branding not only adds to the brands engagement but also gives the book a premium looking finish rather than just a promotional product.
Patterns are not only useful for creating brand engagement but also for tying all your products together. Sure, a logo does this because they’re all identifiably from your company but a pattern gives you the ability to create a set. An identifiable, engaging set of products that your customers are going to enjoy using. The increased customer engagement at the start also means they’re more likely to keep the product after receiving them which increases exposure in comparison to your normal promotional products. To conclude, patterns can be a useful tool when it comes to engaging your customer and tying your products together to create products that your customer is more likely to engage with and keep long past your event.