Monday, 21 July 2014

Go Back To Your Constituencies... And Prepare For A Change Of Font

An interesting missive has reached Liberator from Party Headquarters, sent to party organisations taking part in Federal Conference (it is not believed to have been sent to us, but we should embrace it in the way our readers would appreciate):-

"I'm emailing regarding our corporate identity. Many of you will have 
noticed that our logo and branding has changed recently. This is in large 
part due to a substantial amount of work carried out by our in-house designer, which has culminated in the attached branding guide.  [Sadly this document has not yet reached us]

Autumn Conference represents an excellent opportunity for us to get our
branding and corporate identity right. I?d ask that you all review your logos and branding, and where practicable, update them so that they are coherent with our new branding. For some of you, such as ALDC this isn't appropriate, given that you have your own branding, but for others, it represents a great opportunity to refresh the look and feel of your logos.

Much as I would like to, I can?t at this stage promise that Steven will be 
able to devote any time to refreshing your logo himself. If you have a specific request of him, please let me know, and I?ll pitch it to his line manager (who is off this week). Unfortunately, I don?t have access to the correct fonts to carry out the task myself, but I can send over logos and other materials if that would help. If you have any further questions, 
please either get in touch with me, or email brandidentity@libdems.org.uk.

I know that the conference team are keen to make sure that our directory and conference exhibition are as on brand as possible. Thanks in advancefor your assistance."


We may be getting slaughtered in the polls at 6% but have no fear, brand identity is here.  Quite who it is designed to impress at the Conference exhibition remains a little less clear.

"Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for a change of font!"  

Of course, rather more progress could be made if rather than branding exercises an approach was taken to identify the Liberal Democrat brand with its values. People identify with brands based on what they think they mean to them, and that depends on what values they associate with the brand. It appears that whoever commissioned this exercise in getting often voluntary bodies to redo their logo has not grasped that basic fact.