Building a Strong Visual Identity at palamides

Blog by Rainer Schwarz, Content Manager at palamides GmbH

I want to share my learning journey on building a visual identity when rolling out the new palamides brand.  I'll take you through the steps I followed to create a strong visual identity for palamides, with a focus on developing the brand manual, translating it into visuals and connecting with our customers through images and videos.

Step 1: Developing the Brand Manual

The first step in building a visual identity was to create a comprehensive brand manual. This manual focused on printing and layout guidelines, ensuring consistency in our visual communication across all platforms. It established our color palette, typography, logo usage and overall design principles. This document served as the foundation for our visual identity.

Step 2: Translating the Brand Manual into Visuals

With the brand manual as our guide, the next step was to translate its guidelines into tangible visuals. To achieve this, I reviewed our palamides archive of photos and videos. These existing assets helped me understand our company's history, values and unique selling points. By analyzing the visuals that resonated with our audience in the past, I gained insights into what visuals would work best for our new brand.

Step 3: Collecting Ideas and Creating a Mood Board

To further refine our visual direction, I turned to stock images and videos. We used Canva, Pexels and Pixabay as well as trade magazines to collect content for our mood board. They served as a valuable resource for collecting ideas and inspiration. I curated a mood board and even a concept video, assembling a collection of visuals that aligned with our brand's personality and values. This step allowed us to explore different styles, compositions and emotions that we wanted to convey through our visuals.

Step 4: Test Shootings and Videos

To ensure that our new images and video concepts would connect with our customers, I conducted test shootings and video productions. Instead of collaborating with externals, I was the photographer and videographer to bring our visual ideas to life. This process involved capturing images of our machines, showcasing their features and conveying the essence of our brand through authentic and engaging visuals as well as capturing applications and customer benefits demonstrated through people and concepts other than machines.

Images: From Mood Board to Test Shooting to Final Image for Application image- Pharmaceutical

Step 5: Feedback

Instead of reaching out to customers, we used our palamides usa website usage data with Google Analytics to determine which photos and videos have the most engagement. We are using this to further optimize our visual identity. During upcoming customer visits and tradeshows, our marketing team will collect insights from our customers on how well the new palamides visual identity connects with them.

Conclusion:

Building a strong visual identity is a vital component of rolling out a new brand. I've been privileged to be part of this transformative process. Through the steps from starting with the brand manual, translating it into visuals and connecting with customers through images and videos, we are establishing a compelling visual identity reflecting our brand's values and resonating with our audience. The journey of creating a visual identity is an ongoing process of refinement and adaptation. By staying true to our brand's guidelines and continuously seeking ways to engage our customers, we can build a lasting and impactful visual presence for palamides.