Brand alignment and brand portal for VisitScotland

The brand landscape at Visitscotland consists of twenty plus various identities, designed in response to a variety of target audiences, business objectives and long-running campaigns in both corporate to consumer spheres of activity. These identities have evolved over the years and as such appear often quite different from one another.

The goals of the brand alignment project were to:

• audit the identity landscape across the organisation
• development of a recommendations document for leadership
• develop a brand book intended not only to tell the story of the VS brand but also to clearly identify the constituent qualities of the core brand
• consolidate existing identity design guidelines and in some cases create new for each of the twenty plus identities
• align identities, starting with key elements such as font, colour and TOV, and eventually moving on to logo
• develop an online brand portal as a 'single source of truth' for all things brand at VS, deigned both to make access to and management of the VS brand easier. The portal is also designed to build visible, navigable context and rational around the brand, so allowing users to not only access brand assets, but to understand that identity in relation to the core brand.

Mark Haddon's role in this project was Product Owner. He worked through each stage of the project development, from project scoping and audit, through to brand book and brand portal. Needless to say within an organisation, where there are so many established identities, the project has not all been plain sailing, but it is a work in progress, the ultimate aim of which is to stabilise and strengthen the brand. Make it more able to respond to the varying demands being made upon it and equally, better represent the organisation as a whole.