Corporate design is corporate publishing is corporate design

In many companies, the classic applications of corporate design have become increasingly irrelevant. The uniformity of office communication is ensured with electronic templates. Letters (if they are not replaced by email) and forms are printed entirely on color printers, business cards are produced "on demand" with web-to-print applications. Presentation templates are obtained from the cloud. And if a company's presence on social media platforms soon becomes more important than its headquarters, building identification will only play a minor role.

At the same time, the importance of content and visual consistency in corporate publications is increasing. Visions, ideas and values should be conveyed and the company should be immediately recognized as unique on every communication channel. This requirement applies just as much to marketing communications publications as it does to corporate communications. The company should be perceived as a single entity, from the brochure to the website and social media presence to the annual report.

Ensuring this is difficult when control over perception increasingly lies with the stakeholders. Email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and newsletters and especially mobile devices, on which, for example, reviews of services can be created and received anytime and anywhere, have changed and continue to change the behavior of customers, suppliers and employees towards companies. The amount of data written, spoken, filmed and created when visiting websites is exploding. Companies need specialized help in extracting information from the flood of data, while consumers are using it confidently and influencing their stakeholders without restraint. So what can companies do to stand out from this information overload? Publish, and on all channels! The "strategic telling of a story", also known as storytelling, is crucial for the attractiveness of publications. This editorial form of communication can be used to convey corporate history, culture and values.

What does this mean for corporate design? Has it become superfluous? Not quite; however, some corporate design agencies have recognized that corporate publishing encompasses and achieves far more than the production of printed corporate information. Avenir Suisse, the "think tank that deals with the future of Switzerland as a business location", commissioned Arnold Inhalt und Form to give its visual identity a "gentle refresh" - a classic corporate design assignment. After analyzing Avenir Suisse's most important form of appearance and expression - publications! - it became clear that the available resources should instead be invested in a corporate publishing concept. And in content and visual as well as economic and technical changes.

The variety of publications - from the website to newsletters to studies and discussion papers to books - required precise knowledge of the target groups and led, for example, to the new handy best-of for on the go and for imparting knowledge in schools through a poster. This was the basis for differentiating the functions of the publication channels and platforms, such as a website based on the technology of blog and news portals or a newsletter format suitable for tablet computers. This in turn influenced the dramaturgy of the content and the reader guidance and especially the design of the omnipresent graphics. And - yet another classic corporate design: fonts and colors, papers and production processes were redefined. One example is the targeted use of the binding process to control the value and durability of each publication. The goal of the new visual identity - first to ensure and then to increase the credibility and authenticity of Avenir Suisse's messages - was achieved more sustainably with the first publications produced according to the new concept than by simply refreshing the logo, colors and fonts. All of these measures together lead to the desired unique appearance that meets the highest standards in terms of content and form. Lukas Huggenberg