What is Visual Identity?

Visual identity relates to what aspects of a brand make it stand out from the rest, (kind of like if a brand was a person, who would they be? What would they wear? etc.). In this case of design, we are mainly focusing on the visual aspects and their relation to what the brand creates or provides. This can be explored in the development of the McDonald’s logo, as it shows how overtime, as brands become more famous they require less context, and so-forth the logo design becomes similar.

https://www.izeyodiase.com/psychology-of-color-branding-in-logos/

As seen above, what started as a simple barbecue restaurant turned into the multi-billion dollar franchise it is today. Some of the major changes include, the use of colour in the 1953, showing how the red became iconic in branding from an early age. Then in 1961, the addition of the yellow arches appear, which have become the most iconic aspect of any McDonald’s branding .  Then as time progressed the “McDonald’s” typeface became simplistic, up until the point where it was separated from the logo entirely. Now that McDonald’s is so mainstream, like Nike, the single of the golden arches in “M” is enough for most of the worlds population to understand that this is “McDonald’s”.

Along with McDonald’s other examples include

• Apple

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibeH2T7Qclg

• Pepsi

https://www.logolynx.com/topic/pepsi#&gid=1&pid=3

• The Rolling Stones

https://ecodiario.eleconomista.es/musica/noticias/8001076/12/16/Los-Rolling-Stones-publican-su-primer-album-de-estudio-en-una-decada.html

The Effects of Colour

There is also a belief that certain colours have certain effects on branding too. This has been questioned with McDonald’s, as some people speculate that the psychology of the colour yellow grabs the attention of the viewer, while also improving their mood, likewise of being in sunlight. While the red encourages appetite and evokes the user to take action. I believe some aspects of this may be true, as many of the most popular food brands seem to theme some form of red in their branding design, such as Domino’s, KFC and Coca-Cola.

Due to this reasoning, I feel that visual identity is key in any kind of successful branding use.