Identity systems

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Flexible and generative identities

Lesson 3 of 18 in Identity systems.

Why Flexible Branding Reaches Millennials | CJ Yeh | TEDxFultonStreet · TEDx Talks
Lesson

The canonical case is Casa da Música en.wikipedia.org in Porto. Sagmeister's studio set out to design an identity that avoided the Rem Koolhaas en.wikipedia.org building and concluded that the building already was the logo. They took its faceted volume, derived six profiles carrying seventeen planes, and built a tool that samples any image (a photograph, a painting of Beethoven) and pours its colours into those facets. One rule, endless marks, all of them obviously the same institution.

the logothe smallest parttypecolourlayoutimagevoicemotionpeople can name the logo and nothing elsethe other six are what they actually recognise you by
What an identity system holds beyond the logo: type, colour, layout, image and voice.
A sketchbook doodle with three small pictures on the left, a sunset, flowers and a field, sending dotted arrows into a grid of nine identical faceted gem-like outlines each filled with a different set of colours.
One faceted outline is filled with colours taken from different pictures. Every version looks new, yet the shape never changes, so they all read as one identity.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    A designer builds a flexible identity where the only fixed element is the typeface and everything else is free to vary. What does a customer end up seeing?

    • Several small companies rather than one confident one
    • One brand, since type is the strongest recognition cue a system has
    • A brand that dates quickly, because typefaces fall out of fashion first
    • Nothing unusual, until the company tries to register the mark
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “A logo produced by a rule rather than drawn once. The rule is the asset; the outputs are instances.”

    • Distinctive asset
    • Colourway
    • Generative identity
    • Counter
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The element held fixed across every variation. Without one, a flexible identity is just inconsistency.”

    • Brand fatigue
    • Abstract mark
    • Constant
    • Misuse

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