The Stylescape, done the Neu Entity way.
In this article I will attempt to describe the stylescape in words — its purpose all the way to its essence and creation.
I first heard about stylescapes from Jose Cabalier, who was part of the Skool (now thefutur) youtube channel at the time. It was made even more popular via Chris Do and the good people of thefutur. Since then, it seems to have become a rather strong industry standard with more and more people recognising what it is and how important it is to the final developments of the brand identity.
That said, my journey into the industry of branding had been filled with lots of experiments and discoveries that allowed me to tailor my approach to the clients we serve at Neu Entity. It is rather different from how the folks at thefutur is teaching it, but I think it’s part of a solid process in brand identity design.
Let’s begin.
When people talk about branding — unfortunately, most still refer to the logo. A second majority will see it as the logo + elements such as colours, fonts, images etc. Very few understand branding for what it truly is.
For the second majority, what they are actually referring to is the Brand Identity. It’s a crucial part of branding no doubt, but it actually covers a few things:
The visual language
The logo system
The verbal vocabulary
Let’s look at each one very briefly:
The visual language
The visual language comprise of visual and design elements such as typography, imagery, colours, layouts and more… that captures a certain perception and feel of the brand through the visual medium.
The logo system
The logo system is the various configurations of the logo that proves its robustness and versatility to be applied on multiple platforms. For example, the logo has to work as a small little favicon, beautifully laid out on an official letterhead and at the same time, it must work as a large, blown out version stamped on to ship containers. Different businesses will have different potential uses of the logo and the logo system must cater to each possibility.
The verbal vocabulary
The verbal vocabulary is a slice taken from the brand messaging (which I will not go into depth in this article) but it basically contains the main keywords, phrases and tone of voice that can be used throughout the brand touchpoints. We will have things like taglines, boilerplate copies, and so on.
There are subtler disciplines of branding that adds to the identity such as sonic branding and scent branding — but let’s focus on the main ones for now.
Now, when our agency is engaged, it is primarily to develop our clients’ brands — and the work involved includes some heavy duty brand marketing. This is extremely difficult to do if we do not get our clients’ buy in to the brand identity we have designed for them. If they happen to like the logo, they might still have disagreements on how the layouts are done, or how the tone of voice is applied to the copy. This will delay progress tremendously and make the relationship feel strained.
With stylescapes, we address all three aspects of brand identity.
The stylescape beautifully captures the visual language — with all its typography, colour palettes etc… and more importantly, how it looks like being put together as a piece of design. Next, the stylescape presents the logo in its authentic and contextual place of belonging. The logo is no longer a single design element that has no visual relationship with anything else. In the stylescape, the logo sits comfortably and gives a glimpse of how it may look like in action. Lastly, the stylescape contains the words that gives the entire design deep meaning, down to the tone of voice. Taglines or headings provide extensive context to the design.
So in summary, the stylescape presents the brand identity in its full glory, encapsulated within a landscape canvas — and most importantly, it serves to make the client fall in love with their own brand and get hyped and excited for what’s to come.
