Can you afford not to create a 3D brand?
Katy Rea is the founder of Battalion, a design studio and creative agency based in Manchester and Berlin. She discusses how the implementation of 3D branding can create a more purposeful identity in make-or-break situations.
As the metaverse becomes the norm, start-up brand managers can’t really afford not to embrace 3D brand design for their organisations, it offers businesses a competitive advantage while offering no end of creative possibility in communications.
We all know the reasons why a start-up should have a good 3D brand:
- Gives your business a unique identity, that you can aim to create a loyal customer base.
- It helps your business to stay relevant for a long time, it demonstrates your commitment to the market and enables your customers to recognise you across multiple platforms.
- Branding improves a start-up’s visibility among customers, stakeholders and investors.
- Branding helps gain traction, as you reveal your brand's purpose, the brand gains trust in the minds of your customers creating repeat purchases and loyalty.
- Branding helps you to establish a strong business image, you can work with a strong digital strategy to foster a loyal customer base.
- Your brand can make you an authority in your sector, use your platforms to address the problems of your customers.
As a brand agency who services the European start-up and scale-up community we know how integral we are in a company’s success and take our responsibility of launching businesses seriously by consistently working at the forefront of brand design.
As start-up budgets are often tight and have to be spent wisely, we constantly explore how we can create meaningful, impactful brand identities that utilise the latest technology. Our clients need identities that reflect their passionate innovation and will support their growth and investment ambitions. We’ve been experimenting with 3D design for quite a while, creating brand identities that embraced the possibilities of NFT and the metaverse.
We understand that embracing the latest technologies for web 3 might be daunting to most people, but investing in a metaverse brand now will future proof your organisation. We’ve recently been working with all our clients on cross browser brand solutions to enable them to adopt the web 3.
3D elements for websites can be interactive and animated enabling our clients to access AI and Web 3. Plus, the sky's the limit when creating 3D worlds and brand assets (see Metacrafters.io, an online learn as you earn crypto game for one example). But not only is gaming taking advantage of 3D, look at Pet Pak, a flexible packing company who demonstrates their products beautifully online.
3D brand identities bring the mark of a business to life, while creating a library of assets based on 2D assets and brand colour. This offers a business many creative options as they need for their communications and campaigns. A 3D brand sets a business apart from its competitors, the bold animation will enable customers to notice a 3D brand first. To stand apart from competitors is key at any stage but when a business is in start-up or scale-up mode that can be a game changer for the company.
US company Uplinq have utilised animated 3D elements in their recent brand update. These elements are used to communicate Uplinq’s automated bookkeeping offering, beautifully treated with colours and textures that coincide with the brand's aesthetic. 3D brand design has the capability to integrate characters who can humanise the business while adding personality. Animation can be a clever agile alternative to photography, which can incur copyright issues and saves time and money on a photoshoot. A unique character can be easily adapted to future campaigns maintaining an ongoing relationship with customers.
The benefits of adopting 3D brand design include:
- Creates attention and sets you apart from competitors
- Drives click throughs
- Brings professionalism to your corporate website, no matter how big you are
- Better reputation in Google due to the attractiveness of your page
- Drives SEO positioning
- Ultimately increases revenue
It’s no secret that new businesses need as much exposure to their target audiences as possible, whether they’re at start-up or scale-up size. And let’s face it, a purposeful identity can make or break a company.
