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Adding creative direction can take your brand development to a different plane, helping it connect with your audience on a deeper level and boosting your brand. However, many business owners do not understand, or see the value, in creative or art direction.
On this page, we’ll look at exactly what creative direction is. We’ll look at the role of a creative director in design and branding. Finally, we’ll look at how, as a creative and art direction agency, March can help you launch a campaign that achieves the results you want.
Creative direction is the branch of brand development that deals with the concepts around a brand. It’s the ideas that become a reality in the form of logos, advertising campaigns, marketing materials and more. It can be hard to define because rather than being one thing, it’s a combination of many elements, including:
As a practical example, think of a world-famous brand like Coca-Cola. Over years and decades, it’s creative direction that has come up with the red can, the distinctive logo and its iterations over the years, its Christmas ads that run every year. All the individual pieces of branding, marketing and advertising that Coca-Cola does will all fit with its creative direction.
However, creative direction is not just for big brands like Coke. From a design for a flyer, to a new logo, to a total redesign of a website, it works better when you have an overarching concept in play.
What does a creative director do?
A creative director is usually in charge of this aspect of brand development. They will run the process of formulating the concept for the brand and its marketing. They will also oversee its implementation, ensuring consistency and that any variations are still ‘on brand’. They will generally oversee the art director, who will look after the visuals for the brand.
As mentioned before, the world’s biggest and most successful companies have used creative direction over long periods of time to build a brand and connect with their audience on a massive scale. It would not have been possible to do this without it. Without a winning concept behind their brand, their visual presence and marketing activity would be disjointed and inconsistent.
Even smaller businesses will find benefits from taking a more strategic, thoughtful approach to their branding. Whether it’s the consistent use of a colour that makes your audience think in a certain way (dark blue is associated with professionalism and trust, for example), or a strapline that you can use across your site and marketing materials, you can make creative direction work for you.
It’s hard to be your own creative director, because of the training and experience you need in design and strategy. However, if you want to get deep into the concepts of your brand, here are some questions you should think about:
If you need some expert help, it’s time to talk to March.
Case Study: Creative Direction for The Healthy Back Bag
As a creative direction agency, March can be the creative director for your brand. We have the skills and experience to come up with a concept that will help you achieve all the goals for your brand.
Together, we’ll look at your business, your customers and your vision for the future and devise a branding concept to match, including:
At March, we apply our creative direction skills to almost every project we take on. From the smallest jobs, like designing a flyer, to the biggest ones, such as building a full e-commerce website, there are elements of creative design in everything we do. Our work for the Dapur Malaysian Restaurant is an excellent example of our skills in this area.
You don’t need to be Apple to design with creative direction in mind. When you do, you can build a positive relationship with your audience that will remain in their minds for years to come.
March have been a pleasure to work with from the very outset, whether it be discussing ideas for the brief, wireframes, UI, or visiting the client with us to gain a better understanding and scope of the project. The final work that March deliver is always of an exceptional standard and we're looking forward to working with them again on many more exciting projects.Dave Woods