Designing brands identities in uncertain times Space of Ad is one of the biggest 360-degree marketing agencies Wrocław providing creative services for Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Argentinian and German clients. The agency started its operations shortly before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic which unable the agency employees to get to know more fully both its foreign partners and their products.
As SOA is composed of people born and raised in Poland, their daily struggles consist of tireless efforts to understand and fit into the clients’ cultures. And among the agency’s creatives, packaging graphic designers are the ones who deal with the biggest challenge – designing brands identities beyond their own (cultural) comfort zones. For us a packaging is the space which not only sells products, it sells emotions, character and spirit of the brand. It sells the brand identity, one might conclude.
These brands identities, which were brought up to life by the usage of typography, colors and shapes should be easily identified by customers in Portugal, Spain, Argentina and Germany.
To a silent observer’s eyes, the many reasons why creating a brand identity for foreign markets is so demanding could be condensed and reformulated into 3 basic rules:
1. Your ego is not your amigo – which stands for overcoming the designer’s understanding of certain products and their usage.
2. You won’t get it with Getty – when available tools are not sufficient and what kind of competences are needed to create an efficient interculturally-oriented creative team.
3. Intercultural knowledge is not enough – reflects a false belief that having book knowledge on a given culture or society will do the job.
All the rules are going to be showcased with compelling case studies (artworks, tools, and insights into creative processes).
Joanna Mołek
Joanna Mołek – Junior Account Manager at Space of Ad/Design Thinking Facilitator. Joanna volunteered for a Brazilian association in London, wrote a dissertation on Italian internal communication and graduated from Portuguese studies. For several years she worked in a French corporation providing training to her culturally diverse teammates and IT support to clients from different European countries. Now she’s a member of Client Service team responsible for packaging design management in one of the biggest 360 creative agencies in Wrocław. Her interests blend arts with business. Sometimes she can be seen facilitating Design Thinking workshops on climate changes affecting her favorite city – Lisbon. Member of SIETAR Poland, Clube de Criativos Portugaland Art Directors Clube of Europe.