What is corporate identity?

A corporate identity is simply the image that an organisation expresses. It may be made up of visual material (logo, company colours, type of photography used etc.), along with less obvious things, such as the way your phone is answered and the way that your staff dress and speak.

The most common mistake is to regard a logo as a corporate identity. In the same way that you wouldn’t expect someone to really know you as a person by looking at the colour of your shoes, a logo is only going to go so far in expressing the values and attitude of your organization.

Corporate identity schemes often have a comprehensive set of guidelines designed along with them. These manuals act as a guide to the people within the organization (and external design suppliers) as to how the things that are important to your image should be done to maintain consistency.