Branding Season

Branding is personal

Illustration is hugely effective in the area of branding for companies, organisations and individuals across a multitude of applications. Alix-Rose Cowie talks to clients commissioning branding work for identity and packaging and hears from the illustrators with a range of styles responding to those briefs.

Branding is personal. Its role is to convey not only what the product is but who it is. At its core, branding is about establishing an engaging and believable brand personality that people can relate to before adopting the brand into their lives. Successful brands speak to people on a human level. We choose to wear, eat, drink, drive and support brands that connect with how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen by others. With its ability to express human traits, moods and emotion, illustration can inject big personality into branding, and the brands that embrace it ? and do it well ? can create lasting impressions. 

Illustration to make new friends

Perhaps the most direct way to befriend new customers is by creating a character that acts as a brand mascot embodying what the brand is about. We?ve come to expect this from household products like breakfast cereal that appeal to children, but what about with something as serious and adult as wine? Vinelly is a pop up wine shop in Brescia, northern Italy. To best represent their curated selection of artisanal, experimental and independently-made wines, the owner Allessandro Carboni wanted to move away from the stuffiness that often comes with wine branding. ?We looked for something that would help us communicate wine in a simple, fun and very attractive way,? he says. With the help of brother-and-sister team, graphic designer Filippo and illustrator Maria La Duca, they came up with a character called Paul Vinelly.

?As an illustrator, I immediately thought of a character who could represent the client's intentions,? Maria says, ?It had to be sociable, charismatic, friendly, nature-loving but also honest and loyal...basically a dog!? Paul Vinelly is a long-eared, sunglasses-wearing, skateboard-riding, wine-loving hound whose image is used on everything from c