In the architecture space, your firm’s brand can be the final element that either earns business or repels business. An unclear, unorganized brand signals unprofessionality to potential customers and can motivate them to look elsewhere. Meanwhile, a well-thought-out and purposeful brand message attracts customers and signals trustworthiness effortlessly.
Branding is powerful; it can be the most important decision-making factor for some customers. This influence works both ways: customers can decide on the spot that they want to further investigate working with your architecture firm or they can determine that your firm isn’t a contender in their search without ever reaching out or speaking with someone.
Amongst fierce competition in a saturated market, it’s more important now than ever to invest in branding. This guide will prepare you and your architecture firm’s team to build a compelling brand, whether rebranding or starting from scratch.
Branding: Your Architecture Firm’s First Impression
A business’s brand is what their customer grabs onto and remembers. It materializes a business in the buyer’s mind and makes it more accessible to relate to and, thus, buy from.
A strong brand can also distinguish a business from its competition and give an elevated appearance of credibility and authority.
Think of a brand as a company’s overall presentation and personality. That presentation can be sleek and modern, whimsical and lofty, steady and established or any combination of impressions.
A brand isn’t made up of just one element; later in the article, we’ll spell out the building blocks of a brand that result in a holistic feel and message.
Your Firm Has a Brand Whether You Know What It Is or Not
It’s essential to understand that whether or not your architecture firm has purposefully created a brand, it has one. If your firm hasn’t intentionally built a brand, odds are your firm’s current brand is murky, flimsy and confusing. If your architecture firm developed a brand at one time, but it’s been several years or decades, a rebrand may be necessary to ensure the firm’s brand identity is still relevant and outstanding in today’s culture and market. An outdated brand is just as harmful as a haphazard brand.
Your Firm’s Brand is an Invitation or a Repellant
Your architecture firm’s brand is the gateway to the rest of your business. If customers don’t resonate with the firm’s brand, they may never discover its quality work, design and craftsmanship.
Branding is a Statement of Authority and Credibility
Not only is your architecture firm’s brand important for customers, but it’s also important for your firm’s competition, subcontractors, business partners and employees.
A compelling brand acts as a statement of authority and credibility to your architecture firm’s competition. It can elevate your firm to a place of leadership and respect, placing your firm among the most established and trusted architecture firms.
For subcontractors and business partners, a strong brand can attract the best in the business and put partners at ease when working with you. It also acts as a protective and elevating force for subcontractors and other business partners as their work is stamped with your firm’s reputable brand.
Elevated Branding Elevates Work Culture
Employees experience greater well-being, purpose and belonging at work when a company has a strong brand.
The brand and firm’s identity should influence every part of the business, including the company culture that the employees live and breathe every day. A vibrant and healthy company culture, attached to a purposeful brand, will draw and keep exceptional talent, reducing turnover rates, boosting morale and resulting in quality work.
What Your Architecture Firm Needs to Get Right When Branding
Architectural branding is an exciting opportunity; Your firm can create a brand with as bold and unique as its design techniques.
Finding a brand that connects with end consumers as well as business partners can be challenging as their priorities can feel different.
End consumers might seem more focused on the final product while business partners are concerned with coworking arrangements. However, looking for common values between these two parties such as excellence and transparency can help shape a compelling brand for all parties.
If your firm chooses to align the brand with its design techniques, consider hiring a branding expert who is familiar with architecture and architectural design techniques and can understand how to use your firm’s architectural design elements in the branding elements.
Remember to do thorough research on your end customers as well as business partners to choose a brand design that will feel welcoming and inspiring to them in their unique position in life.
Elements of a Compelling Brand For Architects
The following elements make up a compelling brand:
- Design (logo, color palette, typography, images, video, audio, UX)
- Mission statement
- Marketing materials
- Vocabulary and tone of voice
- Market positioning (value proposition)
Your architecture firm’s design elements should be recognizable across assets. Whether customers see an ad, receive an email, hear a radio ad or visit the firm’s website, they should be able to easily tell that they all belong to your business.
The unity and consistency of the color palette, vocabulary and media quality help reinforce your firm’s presence and keep it top of mind for in-market clients.
Your architecture firm needs a mission statement that goes deeper than “to build buildings.” Although building and designing buildings may be exactly what your firm does, a mission statement encapsulates why your architecture firm exists and the change it hopes to create in the world through the work it does.
For example, Solstice Architects’ mission statement could be summed up: “To change the way people live through designing truly memorable and timeless buildings.”
When crafting a mission statement, it can be helpful to consult satisfied customer reviews and testimonials to identify what meant the most to them while working with your firm.
Marketing materials (created with your firm’s brand’s design elements in mind) work to establish brand identity in more ways than advertising. The marketing channels your firm chooses to invest in speak to your brand as well.
This determination is largely based on who your architecture firm’s target audience is and where they spend their attention and money. Trade shows? Social media? Radio or podcasts? Community events? Conferences? No matter where or how your firm markets, do your research to ensure your target audience will be listening and that your materials resonate.
Your architecture firm’s choice of vocabulary and tone of voice will influence everything from copywriting to sales pitches to product names. For example, choosing to describe your firm’s environmentally friendly materials as sustainable, planet-conscious or earth-first all bring a subtle difference and atmosphere to your brand. Additionally, choosing to write in an active voice rather than a passive voice can imbue your brand with contagious liveliness.
Your firm’s market position or value proposition will define the business’s niche and will influence how other branding elements should be crafted. Does your architecture firm design new residential spaces? Imagine remodels? Work solely on commercial developments or government buildings?
Within your architecture firm’s target audience, define exactly what sets your firm apart from the competition and the immediate value that customers will experience while working with the firm. For example, an architecture firm’s value proposition that designs senior living communities could be, “adding dignity and fun to every resident through thoughtful building design.”
Branding Inspiration
Check out these architecture firms for branding inspiration:
Solstice Architects
Solstice Architects’ branding is simple and laid back, creating space for their architectural designs to shine.
They’ve mastered the balance between building a strong brand that complements and highlights their work and doesn’t overwhelm it or take center stage.
Raymond Jungles, Inc.
Raymond Jungles’ branding is understated yet refined. Its heavy emphasis on images draws viewers into the experiences that Raymond Jungles’ designs create.
Graham Baba Architects
Graham Baba Architects’ use of white space and motion create a sense of gentle confidence and clarity that’s reflected in the architects’ design style.
The Living
The Living’s brand brings to mind words and concepts like innovation, before-its-time and organic. While the architects’ designs mimic living and moving organisms, the branding is stable and sturdy, giving way to a contrast that’s intriguing and memorable.
Things to Avoid When Building a Brand
When building a brand for your architecture firm, here are a few things to avoid:
- Advertising a brand that isn’t truly representative of how your architecture firm functions. It can be tempting to market a brand for your architecture firm that may balloon or overpromise on what its actual capabilities are. Customers can easily discern when a business isn’t telling a truthful story. Customers may feel duped, cheated or taken advantage of and will ensure no one in their circle works with your firm again.
Additionally, your employees and business partners will feel the disconnect and find it difficult to work with integrity or recommend your firm to their circles. Customer service representatives will also end up spending copious amounts of time bridging a gap where there is no bridge and fielding inquiries that end up going another way. The business adage of “underpromise, overdeliver” rings true, even in branding.
- Ballooning. A “ballooned brand” is a brand that’s attempting to communicate too many things at once. A ballooned brand is unclear, difficult to remember and overall ineffective at establishing a compelling company identity. Even if your architecture firm does multiple kinds of buildings and uses a variety of design techniques, advertise the main throughthread that ties it all together and acts as your firm’s personal stamp.
- Passivity. Using active verbs, intentional colors, lively language and trending typography are just a few ways to create a brand that’s alive and evolving. Lifeless tone of voice or haphazardly chosen design elements lead to a brand that appears sluggish and uninspiring.
This doesn’t mean your architecture firm’s brand needs to be neon, flashy and loud (unless that’s on brand); All it means is each element of your brand needs to be thoughtfully chosen and presented in a way that communicates an inviting movement that makes others want to be a part of it.
Steering clear of these common branding pitfalls will help a carefully curated and powerful brand rise to the surface.
For more on branding…
Check out Venveo’s other resources or speak with one of our team members today to get started on building a marketing strategy that works for your architecture firm.
