WDM2211 Digital Identity Design

Turn in Competitive Audit and Design Brief, Reading Summary 2

According to your textbook, Designing Brand Identity, a tagline is a short phrase that captures a company's brand essence, personality, and positioning. A good tagline generally has these properties:

• short
• different from competitors
• unique
• captures brand essence and positioning
• easy to say and remember
• no negative connotations
• can be trademarked
• evokes an emotional response

The author suggests 5 categories of taglines -

• Imperative - starts with a verb, commands action
• Descriptive - describes the service or product
• Superlative - positions the company as the best in its field
• Provocative - thought-provoking, usually stated as a question
• Specific - establishes leadership of a category

Use the links below to find one example of each of the 5 categories of taglines listed above. Write them down in an MS Word document. Save the document as "FirstinitialLastname_tagline.doc". Place it in the folder indicated by your instructor.

• Textart.ru
• Scribd Famous Brand Slogans

For this exercise, you'll brainstorm some ideas for your client's tagline. Then we'll work with your classmates to refine those taglines for your company/organization.

Part One - Individual Work

• Open Word or get out some paper and a pencil
• Take 10 - 15 minutes and write down any words or phrases that might describe your client, product or service.
• Try to go as fast as possible and not edit your thoughts. You should come up with at least 15 - 20 words or phrases.Write anything that comes into your mind.
• If you get stuck, think about the types of taglines - imperative, descriptive, superlative, provocative, specific. Can you come up with new words or phrases based on these?
• If you get stuck, try a Thesaurus or Visual Thesaurus - type in one of your words and see what other words come up.

Part Two - Group Work

• Give the company name and explain what your company does to the others in your group.
• Read the words/phrases you came up with.
• Brainstorm tagline ideas with group based on your words (or any they come up with)
• Write down ideas
• Refine tagline ideas with group
• Decide on one or two final taglines

Six types of Logos:

• Wordmarks
• Letterforms
• Emblems
• Pictorial
• Abstract/Symbolic
• Character

Preliminary logo assignment