The Core - how to find and visualize a common identity for several companies

Sammanfattning: Brand identity is what an organisation objectively stands for, the core essence. It is something you can see, hear, touch and hold. Brand identity is something that addresses our emotions both verbally and visually. To distinguish themselves from competitors and display uniqueness, organizations should put effort into the creation of their brand identity. This report is about our work with the brand identity of the Stadskärnan i Söderköping association. The process we used is taken from Alina Wheeler’s model in the book Designing Brand Identity. The member companies of Stadskärnan are numerous and active within a wide scope of practice. The work with the brand identity of Stadskärnan resulted in a production of core values and a new name for the association. The purpose of the thesis is mainly to find what process would be appropriate for the shaping of an operating brand identity for an association comprising several companies. The result shows that the brand identity of an association can be shaped from the tested parts of Wheelers brand identity model. Due to the lack of time, not all parts included in Wheeler’s process have been implemented and we can therefore not tell if those should be applied or not. We can for sure ascertain that the tested parts, conducting research, clarifying strategy, designing identity, are appropriate and works in the brand identity process. To perform the thesis, we made a case study with two different research strategies, one quantitative and one qualitative. The quantitative study was executed as a questionnaire and the qualitative one was an interview with Linda Olofsson at the brand agency Identx. A workshop was also carried out with the association board. We are dedicating the theory part of the report to explain the meaning of the terms brand identity, core value, signature, The big idea and moodboard.