What Is a Brand Identity Designer?

Well, let’s first ask, what is a designer?

A designer solves problems within a set of constraints. Those constraints often being the audience for whom the solution is intended.

In his book, Design Is a Job, Mike Monteiro put it best:

If you’re solving the problem of creating a chair that doesn’t hurt your ass if you sit in it for eight hours, you’re a furniture designer. If you’re sixteen and holding an empty toilet paper roll in one hand and a piece of aluminum foil in the other, you’re an industrial designer.

So, what is a brand identity designer?

A brand identity designer is someone who looks at the big picture. Looking at how a company’s values align with customer values and how the manifestation of those values influence a customer’s perception of the company's brand. Because a brand is rooted in the perception of its customers. Influenced by the marketing, products, services, and word of mouth the company receives.

It’s the brand identity designers’ job to bring into alignment those perceptions with what the brand represents. Aligning the brand’s values with customer values.

That doesn’t mean tricking people into liking a brand. Rather, it means getting the brand in front of the right people. The people the brand stands to help the most.

Through research, a brand identity designer will uncover a brand's unique narrative and create strategic visuals that help it stand out and together with the audience it serves. Visuals that often include a logo, colour palette, typography, imagery and look and feel.

The benefits?

By bringing those visual elements together, it helps convey the brand's narrative in a compelling way. Drawing in the people the brand stands to help the most, while the people helped draw in others with their enthusiasm for the brand.