Designing Brand Identity: A Comprehensive Guide to the World of Brands and Branding

by Alina Wheeler, Rob Meyerson

Revised and updated sixth edition of the best-selling guide to branding fundamentals, strategy, and process. It’s harder than ever to be the brand of choice―in many markets, technology has lowered barriers to entry, increasing competition. Everything is digital and the need for fresh content is relentless. Decisions that used to be straightforward are now complicated by rapid advances in technology, the pandemic, political polarization, and numerous social and cultural changes. The sixth edition of Designing Brand Identity has been updated throughout to address the challenges faced by branding professionals today. This best-selling book demystifies branding, explains the fundamentals, and gives practitioners a roadmap to create sustainable and successful brands. With each topic covered in a single spread, the book celebrates great design and strategy while adding new thinking, new case studies, and future-facing, global perspectives. Organized into three sections―brand fundamentals, process basics, and case studies―this revised edition Whether you’re the project manager for your company’s rebrand or you need to educate your staff or students about brand fundamentals, Designing Brand Identity is the quintessential resource. From research to brand strategy, design execution to launch and governance, Designing Brand identity is a compendium of tools for branding success and best practices for inspiration.

Genres: Design, Business, Nonfiction

352 pages, Hardcover

Published March 6, 2024

About the author

Author, speaker, consultant. Alina's business focus is managing perception. Her service is strategic imagination. Her passion is brand identity. Wheeler reinvents the marketing textbook, demystifies branding, and illuminates best practices and tools.

Reviews

[kit · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a mess and a half. For being about design, it's strangely unintuitive and difficult to read, because your eyes are jumping from chunk to chunk of text all over the pages. It's also more like a glorified scrapbook in how it's full of quotes from known designers and business people... the book itself barely contains any knowledge. None of the examples mentioned or used in this book are timeless either... I just know certain brands (like BeReal, and already Mr Beast) will be very dated not even a year from now. Which is sad considering how timeless brand identity is supposed to be.

I'm honestly not sure what this book is meant to be. Maybe for swindling broke design students out of their money? What a joke.

[Dannie Lam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book as someone who is hoping to start their first business, but I found it quite difficult to digest the information, as there was so much of it - many lists and questions. I’m not really sure what I’ve learnt from it. I’ve flicked through all the pages and I guess it’s more like a textbook about different considerations in branding and case studies. I’m probably not the target audience.

[Frauke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is primarily written for management and leadership roles, such as project managers, directors, CEOs, and sales teams, rather than for practicing graphic designers. Most mid level and senior designers will already be familiar with its concepts through professional experience, training, or prior reading.

The strongest part of the book is the collection of brand identity examples at the back, which works well as reference material and for teaching. Anyone looking for practical guidance on the graphic craft of branding, such as typography, composition, or logo design, will find very little of that here. The focus is on language, structure, and client and team alignment, not on design execution.

This is not a flaw but a direct result of the author’s background. Alina Wheeler came from a design background and ran a design studio, but she did not work primarily as a practicing graphic designer. Her lasting impact lies in brand consulting, strategic thinking, language, structure, and executive level decision making.

As a result, the book provides clarity and shared vocabulary for studios and organizations, rather than in depth guidance on execution level design workflows.

The recommendation is straightforward. Buy it if you work in management, run a business, or need stronger client facing language. If you are a junior designer or new to branding, borrowing it is sufficient.

[Mazen Medhat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book overall. It teaches you every aspect in the world of branding. I claim that it covers all the concepts and definitions in the field. The most exciting part is the case studies the book narrates and you'll see the process learned in last chapters come to life with real-life examples.One of things that was very confusing while reading is the way the text is written. You feel like you're lost between lines and don't know where you should read next. But fortunately, by immersing yourself reading it, you'll get used to how it is structured. The second thing is that you'll find images just dropped in the page without any information about them and what the author meant or wanted to point when he/she putted it. That was a bit confusing for me.

[Synthia Salomon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blinkist app book of the day today


Designing Brand Identity (2003) breaks branding down into a simple five-step process that helps teams build a clear and confident identity. It shows how research, strategy, design, touchpoints, and long term management fit together, and it uses real examples to make the ideas feel practical and doable. It gives anyone working with a brand a straightforward way to bring focus and consistency to their work.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I srill have so many questions. How do you make sure the logo/typography isnt used already?
If a client says "elegant" what exactly does that mean in image form? In the case studies in the back, it doesnt show the transformation of old to new reformed logo, just the overall experience.

Great book, just looking for a little more.

[Isa Byrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for a senior visual communications class and felt like I know most of this information already. Might be a better read for someone who hasn’t had as much exposure to design and communication

[Sonya Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most comprehensive brand book for designers. I’ve got all 6 editions. Each inspired me to understand the deeper underpinnings of brand identity.

[Ethan J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was interesting to read, it was not particularly useful for me today but eye opening to think about different forms of logo design.

[Gary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Authors are designers, not writers.

Labored through this one not out of love for the work, but merely because there's few alternatives.

Good information, lifeless writing >:(

[K. · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a book about design, the layout of the 2013 edition is very poor – multiple columns, small font size, and chunks of text and images placed chaotically on every page make it unreadable. I can’t really say much about the content, as I had to give up reading.