We are discussing branding, corporate identity and design in business with Alexey Maximov

Not so long ago we talked with our friend, talented designer and art director Alexei Maksimov about style in general.

V.V. Sometimes a company comes to us and says: «We’re just starting up, make us like everyone else. You professionals!» . Where does work on corporate identity begin for you? And what does this work look like in general?

Aleksey: Often, in fact, this option occurs. The company comes and asks for some set right to start, some simple standard things.Leaves, lives with them, grows in. While growing, they get some additional media, some presentations, commercial offers, brochures – designed by them independently or with the help of some other designers. And this, and that, and awry. A year and a half passes, and you can go back to them and say: “let us comb it all for you.” This option will be more useful for such a company, because she doesn’t know herself well yet.
When they lived with it, they already understood what they need, what they don’t need, how and what works, which of these media is used how, in which programs are run by their employees. It’s great to comb those carriers that crystallized in the process of their work.
This way is longer, but it is, in fact, often even more effective than giving them this huge brand book that they don’t know how to use now. They will start to distort it, they will get crooked / oblique commercial offers or something else that was not in this brand book, because some medium was overlooked and not developed initially. Or they themselves did not yet know that they would have it.

V.V. In IT, this approach is called Agile. Flexible methodologies.

Aleksey : Maybe.

V.V. We usually research and study the client’s business, and look at what he what he does, how he communicates with his audience.But I still ask: what, in your opinion, is the minimum and maximum composition of a brand book or corporate identity?

Aleksey: Everything here is individual and depends on the specifics of the client we are doing this for, on his type of activity and needs.I probably would not want to work with a minimum team because it often happens that guys write in advertising: “We will develop three variants of a logo for you, a business card, a letterhead and, for example, an envelope.”