Brand Identity Versus Product Design — What is the Difference?

Starting a company goes beyond having an idea. There is a whole new journey that is involved, which includes creating an identity for such a business idea and validating the thought process behind it through the conduct of user research, competitive analysis, and several other boxes that need to be checked. While there is no particular way to start a business, the intention remains the same, which is to make a profit and convert users to customers while navigating the marketplace by staying ahead of competitors.

What does an Ideal process look like?

Aside from checking the market structure of the economy the product wants to dominate, I will be discussing two roles that are important to be filled in this process. First is the brand identity, which usually involves turning the idea behind a product into something that the people or staff can relate to and abide by. Secondly is product design, which involves reaching out to potential customers to understand their pain points through the conduct of research and several other processes, which will be discussed further below.

What is brand identity?

Branding is an interesting process that is supposed to create a connection between ideas and the execution of projects. The identity created is reflected in the big and little things such as logo design, the use of color, typography, and even related to the business vision and mission. Branding is like telling a story of how ideas came to be. For example, when you see some business logo, you can easily understand what the business does due to how it is designed, and even from their choice of typography, the kind of business the product operates can be deciphered.

Reading branding reports is like going through cascades of emotions as it guides readers through the idea and the story of the brand while connecting it to many things. One such brand report I read was one of Piggyvest, designed by @Fourthcanvas, which explained the details that went into the design of the company logo and the identity they were trying to achieve and achieved.

There is a story behind every brand, and this is what a brand designer makes visible through the choice of color, typography, logo, etc. Branding is very important for business, and in my opinion, I would suggest that companies should create an avenue that makes the report accessible to workers to read and digest to see where the company is coming from and where they are going.

What is product design?

The world of product design is different from brand design, and while branding has to do with creating an identity, product design involves validating ideas by conducting user research and analysis of existing competitor products to ensure that user pain points are solved and business goals are scored.

Product design is the process of designing functional products that solves a problem. The job is solution-oriented and combines the effort of different departments to bring its effort to life. In this area are two important aspects, which are UX and UI design.

While UX design means the process of designing experiences for users by conducting research, carrying out competitive analysis, and designing information architectures, user stories, personas, etc. User interface design involves paying attention to the use of color, typography, iconography, etc, for a product.

If a business has a brand identity report, UI design does not have to worry about what kind of colors to use or the typography to go for. Instead, the attention will be diverted to other fundamentals in this role. This is because the brand identity designer would have taken care of this aspect, and what the UI designer needs to do at this point is to conform to the color on the brand identity report, which has a meaning and has been approved.

For a product designer, the design process does not end when the project finishes. Instead, the process continues as KPIs are measured, and users’ daily, monthly, and even yearly product usage is monitored to ensure that the product is running smoothly and serves the needs of users while addressing pain points realized.

Conclusion

In all, brand design and product design are closely related and work hand in hand and both need each other to design meaningful products. Although the truth is that most companies skip the brand identity design process, the importance can not be over-emphasized as should be considered by business owners.