Brand Strategy and Identity

If a brand strategy needs to stay aligned with the highest levels of an organization then what are the limitations for creativity as a designer? In school we learn new techniques for implementing design tools but in the end when we land a job at some firm, is there creativity beyond creative director? If you consider that creativity is both new and useful and you aren’t the person working with the customer you can’t really consider anything that you do creative. You are just another pick ax in the salt mine. Perhaps it’s just a matter of semantics but what really needs to be focused on is your knowledge for how people view and perceive aesthetics and drop the pursuit of being a creative person. Beyond that your job is to be able to communicate with the people around you and show them that you can communicate with the end user.

To understand how this applies to branding we just need to consider some basic components of communication through design. Firstly whom are we communicating to and secondly are we speaking the same language. By creating an identity for the brand we are speaking the language of a specific demographic otherwise the message will never be understood. Does it even require creativity to brand for a specific demographic? If all we need to know are jocks like shiny fast metal-looking graphics and bikers like black leather jackets and a load of attitude than getting your message across is simply a matter of plugging in the right elements with the right intonations.