
Branding goes far beyond just a logo or graphic element; when you think about your brand you should be thinking about the entire customer experience, including everything from your logo and website to your social media experiences and the way your customers experience your staff. In short, your brand is the way your customer perceives you.
This is exactly what we, here at Design Office, had in the forefront of our minds when we made the decision to bring in a selection of branded workwear for all of our staff. Of course there was some debate; as a creative team there was the counter argument of ‘are we taking away our individuality if we are all wearing the same thing?’. What we each choose to wear is often a representation of our character which is an element we believe our customers may want to be able to recognise. However, as a design company who are always creating new brands as well as managing existing ones to ensure consistency across all platforms for our clients, we agreed that it was only fitting that we also did this for ourselves.
Branding promotes recognition and customers tend to do business with companies that they are familiar with and feel comfortable with. If your branding is consistent and easy to recognise, customers will feel more at ease when purchasing products or services from you. Having a clear and consistent brand also informs the customer of what to expect every time they interact with your business and experience your brand. This also leads customers to talk about you. People wear brands, they eat brands, they listen to brands and they are constantly talking about the brands they love. On the flip side, a customer can’t tell anyone about a brand that they don’t remember. Therefore a strong brand is critical to generating referrals and vital traffic.
Branding is the key tool that you can use to set yourself apart from your competition. In today’s global market, you are no longer competing on a local scale, you are competing in the global economy. This makes it critical that you use your brand to stand out from the thousands of companies just like yourselves.
A clear brand strategy provides the clarity that your staff need in order to be successful and subsequently make your business a success. It tells them how to act, how to win and how to achieve the business’ goals. As a unit, it also helps you to stay focused on your mission and vision; your brand can help you be strategic and guide your marketing efforts, saving both time and money.
As mentioned before, your brand is the way in which your customer perceives your business. Therefore a full brand experience, from the visual elements such as a logo and identity to the finer details like the way you greet your customers and what you are wearing will tell the customer what the brand says about you, what kind of company you are and what you’re going to deliver to them.
For all of the above reasons, we made a united decision to introduce workwear into our building to strengthen our brand and ultimately solidify our team, our business and our quality of service.
After making the initial group decision to introduce workwear our senior members of staff then began working on providing staff with samples of establish their sizes and choosing a selection of styles and colours suitable for our brand. While they wanted to ensure that the workwear looked smart and represented the brand well they also wanted to make sure that the final selection would be suitable for every member of staff, ensuring that above all our staff are comfortable in what they are wearing.
The brand contains a suite of six different coloured logos, giving our staff a great amount of flexibility when it came to choosing colours; the final garments were produced in two different colour palettes, one for men and one for women, enabling us to tailor two separate styles to suit men and women whilst also keeping the colours within our brand. Blue Polo Shirts and T-Shirts were branded with a white logo and grey Sweatshirts were branded with a purple logo for the men, while purple Polo Shirts were branded with a black logo and black Sweatshirts were branded with a white logo for the women, not only giving us the opportunity to use multiple colours from our brand but also offering the opportunity to physically showcase just a small sample of the type of workwear we could have produced for any of our clients.
The Polo Shirts, made from a soft Polyester and Cotton blend are ideal for embroidery and printing making them the perfect choice for workwear, while the Classic Sweatshirt, featuring ribbed cuffs, welt and neck and unbrushed Fleece are perfectly warm whilst still managing to remain lightweight, avoiding any restrictions in movement.
Here at Design Office we offer a wide range of products and services and workwear is one of them. We believe that adding workwear to your business can immediately enhance your brand and with our wide range of garments available we are sure that there will be something to suit both your company and the type of work you do. If you are interested in workwear for your business, why not arrange a meeting with us to sit and discuss what we have to offer – call 01270 252106 or send an email to marketing@designoffice.co.uk now!