In short
The mark is the smallest part of the system. What people actually recognise is everything around it.
Ask a founder for their brand and you get a logo. Ask a customer and you get a feeling, a colour, a tone of voice, the way an email opened. The mark is the smallest piece of the thing.
What people actually recognise
- The colour, long before the shape
- The typeface, whether or not they can name it
- The way you write, especially when something goes wrong
- How the product feels in the first ten seconds
Design the system and the mark gets easy. Design the mark first and everything after it is a negotiation.
