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Wally Olins: The Brand Handbook – Book Review #4

Posted 23 Nov 2009 - 3 Gratefully received comments

Ever wanted to know what a brand is? Do you know your product brands from your corporate brands? What about brand structures and value? How do you make a brand work?

If those last four sentences meant nothing to you, or even if you think you know what it all means this is the book for you.

Blurb: Many people talk about branding, but very few people know how to actually do it. Wally Olins, generally recognised as the world’s most experienced practitioner of corporate identity and branding, draws on a lifetime’s experience to present a concise, practical guide. He explains – in trademark straightforward fashion – what brands are, how to create them, how to make them work, and how to sustain them. All aspects of the process are covered, from developing the ‘core idea’, creating the name and designing the logo to launching and managing a successful branding programme. Inspirational as well as practical, this easy-reference manual is essential reading for anyone interested in the field of corporate identity and branding.

I have to take issue with the title of this book, ‘The Brand Handbook’ sounds like something you should flick through for quick reference. This book is more like an educational essay that should be studied by anyone connected to the field of corporate identity and branding. That is the only issue I have with it.

Design books tend to fall into a few distinct categories. They are either inspirational, instructional or informative. This is most certainly one of the latter.

As it is an informative book you aren’t going to get a lot of visual inspiration, but that’s not the point. This is a book to be read and absorbed. It isn’t very long, and it doesn’t take all that long to read, but the wealth of information it imparts is quite staggering.

The Brand Handbook is broken into distinct sections, the first explains what a brand is and does, what purpose it serves and how they are formed.

The second section goes into detail on how a brand is created or changed.

The third is a small section that gives advice on how to make a brand succeed.

The first section should be pretty straightforward information to most designers out there, but it’s the sort of theory that is always worth repetition, and i bet there are little nuggets here that even the most experienced designers will appreciate. The writing is simple and clear, the examples are apt and up to date. Plus, each section is finished with a short list of bullet points repeating the salient information that should be taken away.

This book began to shine for me in the second section. The author explains a lot of the ‘invisible’ work that is done to bring a brand into being. The examples used are a reflection of big businesses, but the smallest design freelancer will be able to read through it and pick up tips on what they should be doing with their customers to get the most out of a brief.

The most surprising thing about this book is that it isn’t aimed at designers, in fact the actual production of visual branding is bypassed quite quickly. The processes outlined will help a designer define a brief. However the importance of creative thinking is constantly underlined.

This book will be of benefit to anyone that reads it, because the only people that will read it will be involved in the business of branding, but I think it might be worth lending a copy to your clients as well because it reinforces the importance of working relationships and trust in creative partnerships.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the book that sums it up: “In my experience the very best, most effective ideas come from inside the heads of creative people… So the answer to the CEO who asks, “How do you know if it will work?’ is ‘You have to have the courage of my convictions!”

Let me know if you’ve read this book, let me know if you read it because of this review, I’d like to know what you think.

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