Some large domestic design companies and some design education institutions will have a module of the design called PI visual identity system design services
Jia Lan Tu:
Yang Mingjie Design Agency:
Product Consultant:
Many customers and designers see the basic will be confused, PI is what? What is the role of the enterprise? How to start building?
For PI (Product Identity) Baidu Encyclopedia's explanation is this: PI: Products Identity and product image, is the product in the design, development, circulation, the use of the formation of a unified image of the qualities of the product's internal quality image and the formation of the external visual image of the unity of the results. Product PI as a means to serve the brand personality, many times need to use character traits or consumers tend to personality and taste to define the characteristics of the product community, so that the product community of products, although it looks like the appearance of colorful and different, but they can express the same idea and the same values, and then attract the same point of view of the consumer, to obtain their recognition.
So let's talk about some of the problems with PI design:
What is PI?
The official explanation is more complete and academic, so I'll try to explain it in simpler terms. We compare a product to a person, then a person's inner temperament and outer image is called the product's inner quality image and outer visual image. Mike Jackson through different lights, hairstyles, accessories, clothing and other elements of its inner wild, romantic, domineering temperament, fully adapted to the singing of different types of songs for the interpretation of style needs. The newest addition to the lineup is the newest addition to the lineup, the newest addition to the lineup.
Then here are two questions: why the inner image and outer image need to be unified? What kind of "song style" (nature of work) is suitable for what kind of image?
We first look at a group of stars with different styling image of the difference, to explain why the product temperament and image of the unity or not can bring different effects:
Wang Baoqiang's image has always been in the eyes of the public is the image of the stupid root, and suddenly one day a group of portraits appeared on the Internet, completely breaking the public's impression of Wang Baoqiang, it seems to be the image of a successful person.
Chen Yanxi's little dragon lady bun modeling has always been known as the most failed little dragon lady modeling, while the modeling in "Those Years" seems to be refreshing, and has become the public's image of the first love.
Here is a problem. Wang Baoqiang and Chen Yanxi with what kind of image in the movie, you will buy the bill to see? I personally and around is like the simple version of Wang Baoqiang, think the delicate version of Wang Baoqiang is too much, the pure modeling of Chen Yanxi is obviously more popular with the public. A question arises here, why I don't like the delicate Wang Baoqiang? Because in my opinion, Wang Baoqiang's inner image (origin, knowledge level, character? etc.) is more attuned to the silly root image rather than the oiled and powdered look, while for Chen Yanxi (pure, gentle, brave.?) The image of Chen Yanxi (pure, gentle, brave.?) is more suitable for the right side of the modeling. This analogy is used to answer the question of the importance of the unity of inner temperament and outer image, and also to express that an image that is not refined is popular everywhere. The same can be said when we project the theory of celebrity image onto product design.
From the chart above, if the image of the excavator is designed to be as delicate as a limousine, the sales should not go up, because the excavator in the eyes of the consumer is a solid, durable, powerful image, if with the appearance of the limousine will reduce the sense of trust, which is like wearing a suit to do manual labor, which will give people a very serious sense of inconsistency.
The second question is to explain what kind of "song style" (nature of the work) fits what kind of image? Similarly, we also looked at some of the characters to explain the importance of matching the mood of the song with the image.
Why do pianists who play piano wear tuxedos? And why do rockers all like leather jackets and pants and studs?
Here we can start with what the atmosphere of piano music and the atmosphere of rock music convey: the lighting, the venue, the tempo of the music, the state of the audience, and other factors determine that different types of music require different images of the performers themselves. If we compare the image of the piano with that of the rock player, we will see that the audience is skeptical of the player's ability to play.
Looking at product design, different areas of the product image requirements for different products, we take a few typical product direction as an explanation (medical, power tools, beauty products)
We use product images to fill in the words to the intention, so that you can feel the products of a ****, as well as the differences between different types of products:
From the above products and people's inner temperament, it is possible to see the difference between the different types of products. > From the above products and personnel of the inner temperament of the set and the design of the external image, we can basically understand the PI product image of the inner temperament and the external visual image of the interpretation of unity. Then just unification is enough? Let's imagine, if the product PI is only a simple classification, and stacked with the corresponding elements, it seems not very difficult. Then here we need to introduce another condition, the product image if only the temperament and appearance of unity, then it will result in this kind of product of different brands will present a similar product image. This situation of the product image is not competitive, then we need to add personalized elements to it, so as to stand out from the same category of brand products. This point we put in the later how to design PI to explain.
What is the role of the enterprise?
This customer is more concerned about this point, the design of the PI system does not have the actual product design to the direct and concrete, so how do we explain the importance of the PI design and the need for it with the customer, we are from a few angles to explain: product image definition planning, product design, marketing.
Planning: how to plan the next product? How to plan the next quarter (next year) of the product? Is every product planning staff to do the daily pondering of things around the product appearance, function, technology, quality and other product factors to unfold, the realization of technological advances rely on long-term R & D accumulation, the quality of the supply chain relies on the overall upgrading of the two factors we call hidden factors, upgrading changes are difficult to make a big breakthrough in a short period of time. While the appearance of the product styling there is more room for play, the appearance is often reflected to a certain extent the quality and positioning of the product and the fit with the user's preferences. The external image shapes the internal temperament. We also use Wu Xubo's modeling style to do an explanation. In the movie "Beijing Meets Seattle" in 2013, Wu Xiubo successfully portrayed a mature, stable and caring uncle image, which is suitable for the current young girls' preference for uncle, and was instantly popular, so much so that the image has been continued in the later publicity and promotion activities and photo shoots. However, due to Wang Baoqiang's image is too y rooted in people's hearts, even through a set of portraits, it is difficult to change the inherent image in the minds of users.
A few days ago, Xiaomi released a 999 yuan smart rice cooker, and launched a new brand "Mijia", why would you launch a new brand? A big reason is that millet brand to the user's inherent impression is cost-effective, and cell phones are strongly bound. The image has been y rooted in people's minds, and the launch of the new brand can reshape the image in the minds of consumers, so as to build a complete product line under the brand. From this perspective, we can also understand why many domestic manufacturers like to take the strategy of multi-brand operation.
Back to the main topic, for planning, the benefit of establishing a complete PI system is that it can accurately grasp the visual style of the product, and can be summarized in the core phrases. At the same time, it is convenient for planners to be able to look at the core design keywords of the brand through the surface image of the existing products when conducting market research on competing products.
Design: For designers, the PI system is a complete set of visual design guidelines. The guidance includes: styling, core visual elements, primary/secondary colors, color ratios, use of materials, etc. The PI system can help designers clarify many issues, or set up many frameworks for designers to improve their design efficiency.
Why? Because the current enterprise design needs come from two main sources: the establishment of the enterprise's own design team and rely on external design companies. The PI system is a way for the design team to avoid the disruption of design styles caused by the preferences of different leaders, and for the design company to effectively avoid cooperation with different design companies resulting in different product styles. In fact, the PI system is the agreement between the enterprise and the design company for the market demand on product design.
Agreement on product style:
Agreement on product elements:
When these elements are determined and unified, they can be directly reflected in the unity of the series of products:
Marketing: What effect can a complete unified and differentiated recognition of the product bring in terms of marketing? In the marketing process, often need to rely on the leverage of the market to carry out the marketing work, and the marketing department just play a role as a fuse. The premise of "a single spark can start a prairie fire" is to have the environment of hay. Market leverage can play a role from two aspects to start: opinion reference and display effect.
Since the opinion reference contains fewer designs, we will focus on explaining the role of the PI system for the display effect. The meaning of display effect is actually relatively simple, involving cognitive psychology about the conditions to improve the memory: a significant memory characteristics and enough times to show. The primary goal of marketing is to make the brand or product memorable to the consumer so that the value of the product can be transferred to the consumer. Display effect can be mainly from three aspects to start, then the PI system of unity and difference in the expected relationship is as follows:
Product uniqueness: the uniqueness of the product can be different from the same category of products can become the user's memory, in the planning of the PI system needs to be added to the characteristics of the brand that are different from other brands, which can make the user to produce a unique memory, and visual elements such as form, color, material and details of the color of the brand to the user's unique memory.
The color of the material and details has the greatest visual impact:
The blue bottle of Sansei and the white headphone cable of the ipod belong to the strong memory points brought about by the color differentiation. Of course, the point here is not that color is the only way to create a brand identity, but what visual elements are used to characterize a brand depends on the consumer's perception of the industry and the level of development of the industry. At the same time, it should be noted that, can not be different for the sake of different, the result is very easy in the minds of consumers to create a negative impact, differentiation must be the characteristics of the user's aspirations, and the industry does not have or has not yet been developed and expanded.
Uniformity of the product: I just said that the way to enhance the memory is the unique characteristics and the number of times the display, because many companies have more products in the product line, if each advertisement and publicity put in a completely different product image, it is bound to increase the user's burden of memory, which is why, for example, the advertisement of the characters of the Platinum and the advertisement of the slogan need to be constantly repeated all year round, and will not be replaced at will. This is why the advertisement characters and jingles of Platinum need to be repeated year after year, and will not be replaced. Then if the visual elements of the product has a unity, by combining the differentiation of the point of continuous exposure, it is bound to enter the minds of consumers, let's say, the following picture of the product if it is blocking the brand LOGO, as a car enthusiasts you are still able to recognize? (Please face the wall if you can't recognize it)?
Why car enthusiasts can simply say the brand of the car in the picture above, there are two main reasons, the use of unified elements of the product series and high-frequency exposure, the result of which is to be able to symbolize the product, so that you do not have to go through the LOGO to remember the brand. Audi's different models of front unified visual elements embodied:
High-frequency exposure: this belongs to the marketing channel investment issues will not be elaborated in this topic, high-frequency exposure involves the investment of funds, advertising ideas, as well as the time of placement, etc., in any case, it is also very complex, I do not know very well, I will not brag about it?
How do you design a PI system?
This issue is more of a concern for design firms and designers, since the PI system plays such a big role for companies, how should we start? I think there are two main steps: 1, determine the brand PI image keywords. 2, use the corresponding modeling elements to shape the image described by the keywords. And to complete these two steps we need to analyze in 3 main dimensions:
A. The industry's PI system construction
B. The user's aesthetic trends / market development trends
C. The company's own strengths and weaknesses
We are still using the star's modeling to illustrate the case through the popular to illustrate the reasons why it is necessary to analyze their image! Positioning, " Yuppie " style has become more popular in recent years, and a host of domestic stars have similar portraits.
The word "yuppie" can literally be understood as "elegance + gangster", which can break the boundaries and rigidity brought by elegance, while reducing the wildness of gangster, compared to most of the elegant route stars and rock stars. It has gained a lot of popularity among fans. Yuppie refers to a group of people in Western countries who are young, capable and upwardly mobile, and who are generally highly educated with a high level of knowledge and skills. The yuppie look emerged in the 1980s. Some people refer to "yuppies" as "yuppies". With the rise of the middle class in China, "Chinese Yuppies" (Chinese Yuppies) have gradually become a hot topic in the media and high-end consumption. Foreign media have even coined the term "Chuppies" (formed from "Chinese Yuppies") to describe a new generation of well-educated, well-paid young people in China. This is in line with the current trend of celebrity consumption in China, so defining the yuppie style is equivalent to defining the keywords of the PI's image system, and what kind of hairstyles, accessories, and clothing to create the style belongs to the stylist's styling language. Of course, special attention should be paid to the fact that although yuppie styling is a trend, it is not necessarily suitable for all celebrities, which is the same as the same strategy, but not necessarily suitable for all companies, forcing to be attached to the yuppie styling will often result in failure. The company's newest product, the "Yuppie Look", is a new trend.
ok, next I briefly introduce the design company is how to build the enterprise's product PI visual identity system through a systematic approach, generally we will first select a few domestic and foreign brands as the market leader and direct competition brand as the industry's pi system analysis object. First of all, first selected a few well-known brands, here to a medical device industry products as an analysis of the case:
Generally selected five brands as the object of analysis, through the enterprise's own business market to determine whether all of them belong to the competitors or potential competitors.
Next, we will select the industry's competing product line of the brand for the id appearance analysis of the product, the material, color, color ratio, LOGO form and location, as well as the choice of fonts and the size of the product deconstruction and other elements:
From the previous analysis of the actors, we can derive a basic point: the product's appearance to a certain extent can be shaped product temperament. temperament, which is why we need to analyze the product's appearance design in detail. After analyzing the modeling language of different products or product lines of a unified brand, we can come up with the core keywords of the brand:
Through the overview of the product line, we can extract the keywords of the overall image of the product, and here we need to pay attention to the fact that the product analysts must have the ability to summarize the keywords of the shape and modeling, and if they don't have the ability, it will be easy to cause the product analysis to be Deviation of product analysis. When we will industry analysis of the object of keyword collation and biaxial layout, we can clearly recognize the industry's brand for the distribution of product image:
From the above keyword analysis, we can come up with a number of basic generic words (affinity, exquisite, professional) and some of the brand's differentiated image of the word (rounded, tough, science and technology), we need to consider here in the Here we need to consider the basic premise of generic words to meet the differentiation of the keywords is how to define? What are the conditions of definition? We can then start to introduce a development trend and the psychological feeling of the user.
The development trend represents the future development of the industry, this piece of information in fact, as the industry practitioners are able to give a more objective answer, but also from some of the articles on the Internet to view:
We also need to introduce the user in the actual use of the product in the physiological and psychological state, as a medical product, more special is the need to have two parts As a medical product, it is special to have two parts of the population to be analyzed at the same time (doctors and patients)
By analyzing the evolution of the product on a time axis of the representative brands in the industry, we can intuitively feel that the product is a state of development. Finally, we need to analyze the company's own products, and with reference to the industry's brand analysis results to draw objective conclusions, and the use of SWOT analysis methodology for its multi-dimensional analysis, so that customers and designers can be clear about the necessity of the enterprise for the construction of the PI system and the direction of the construction of the:
The so-called SWOT analysis, i.e., based on the internal and external competitive environment and the competitive conditions of the situation, is the study of the object closely associated with the study, the analysis is the analysis of the product's evolution and the development of the product. Analysis, is closely related to the object of the study of the various major internal strengths, weaknesses and external opportunities and threats, etc., through the investigation of the list, and in accordance with the matrix form columns, and then use the idea of system analysis, the various factors match each other to analyze, from which a series of corresponding conclusions, and conclusions are usually with a certain degree of decision-making. Using this method, we can conduct a comprehensive, systematic, and accurate study of the situation in which the research object is located, and then formulate corresponding development strategies, plans, and countermeasures based on the results of the study.
After the SWOT analysis to derive the PI keywords of the client's brand, and its PI image in the industry to accurately position:
Then the general way of positioning the main horizontal and vertical dimensions to position, of course, if necessary, we can introduce more dimensions, and here I introduce the self-initiated expression of the emotional data, through the introduction of variables to the product or Here I introduce the self-created emotional data expression, through the introduction of variables to the product or brand dimensions to describe, which need to be through the core users and designers to *** with the judgment:
So far, we have completed the first step of the PI planning - to determine the PI keywords, the identification of keywords as a guiding direction of the later styling design, can be an effective standardization of the output of the different designers to avoid confusion in the styling style, and the keywords to avoid the confusion of the designers. Avoid falling into the modeling style confusion, and keyword identification needs not only the design department's approval, should be throughout the company between the various departments, in terms of marketing, for the plane of the promotional materials and so on the same need to be with the image of the product keywords to fit.
The next focus is how to fill the PI keywords with suitable elements, which involves a large amount of work, and is highly dependent on the ability of the designer, which can be trained. For example, for some of the keywords style can be summarized through a large number of cases or pictures (Product Intentions):
Tough, safe:
Soft, friendly:
Retro trend, nostalgia:
Fashion, personalized, texture is the way to go:
Masculine, technological, material:
Anthropomorphism, cute, lovely:
The key words are: "I'm not sure if I'm a good designer. Materialization, cute, lovely:
In addition to the overall style, you can also define the color, the definition of the color designers can start from the target users, of course, through the case to the overall grasp of the style, this point I have in other articles in order to reflect:
Gold-collar low-profile and proud:
White-collar pragmatic and introverted (men):
Fashionable flaunting and cool:
Young vigor and sunshine:
Traditional texture and natural:
The above product keyword intention map is just a product to do a big style direction to grasp the specific product modeling also need to rely on the design of the play, after all, I can't be introduced to the lines of a product and other elements of how the product should go to the design and use. Designers cheer it up: collect and accumulate, categorize and analyze, and finally be able to do whatever you want under the framework, the so-called dancing in shackles!