Five Best Books on Branding You Need to Read
Branding is one of the most collaborative and diverse fields of both the business and design industries. It blends strategy, research, marketing, and design into one experience that can make or break a company. With the increase of start-ups, the effects of social media on businesses, and the desire of clout from followers, the demand for branding has never been greater. Countless books hit the shelves of bookstores and major online retailers in the last years to feed the demand for information and advice on this topic. Most of those books cover the same vague content with little to no substance and context. They explain branding within a bubble without providing any real insight or quality examples leaving readers, especially those new to branding, more confused than when they first picked up the book.
Although books that focus on the universal principles of branding, like Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler, are incredible resources, they discuss branding in a vacuum. The best books on branding intertwine the universal principles with stories from real-life experiences to show what branding looks like in the real world. Books like the ones listed below make these concepts digestible to ensure anyone can understand them. Lo and behold here’s the best five books on branding that you need to read:
1. This is Not a T-Shirt | Bobby Hundreds
Written by Bobby Hundreds, owner of a streetwear brand, The Hundreds, This is Not a T-Shirt is a collection of Hundred’s stories of how he created the brand, with each chapter focusing on a different lesson from his to his life experiences. Hundreds reiterates the importance of building a brand is to tell the brand’s story and to build a community centered around it one individual at a time. This memoir is a fantastic look at how he built the Hundred’s brand from the ground up, and how he managed its growth through every step of its development. This book needs to be read because it discusses life around the management of a brand. He discusses how his childhood, his journey throughout the industry, external factors, and his experiences impacted his brand. This book is ideal for the person focused on creating a brand from scratch and overseeing it longterm.
2. Superfans | Pat Flynn
Superfans by Pat Flynn is a collection of strategies that help build a brand’s most important asset: its community. This book is broken down into several sections, starting with building a causal audience and ending with converting them into a “superfan.” Each section has an array of strategies best for building that community and is followed by an exercise that readers are encouraged to complete. Superfans is a must-read because it discusses a topic that most books on branding lightly touch on, and it provides clear and simple universal strategies that any reader can follow alongside. Flynn also intertwines his narratives into each section making this an enjoyable read, and quick-paced read. This book is ideal for the person focused on the marketing and audience-building of branding.
3. The Process is the Inspiration | House Industries
The Process is the Inspiration is unlike most books on branding. It is a well-designed and curated collection of visual design mixed with fantastic case studies of House Industries’ work. It is the most visual book on this list as every page is designed to the very last detail. Flipping through and reading this book is an incredible experience. This monograph discusses the experiences of the designers who started House Industries from its creation and throughout various projects the company worked on. Although the stories focus on the company’s brand, they provide fantastic insight on how a brand can extend across multiple industries, products, and projects. This book is ideal for the person focused on the visual aspects of branding as well as brand extension.
4. Identity Designed: The Definitive Guide to Visual Branding | David Airey
David Airey’s, Identity Designed, is a collection of branding case studies from various studios and agencies. Each case study contains work from a specific project as well as the process behind the work. The process is broken down into subjects like pricing, idea generation, experimentation, and strategy. Identity Designed provides a succinct look at the different processes that occur while going through visual branding and is a good balance between visuals and advice. This book is ideal for the person new to visual branding and wants to learn more about the process.
5. Brand Brilliance | Fiona Humberstone
Fiona Humberstone wrote two fantastic books on branding, How to Style Your Brand, and Brand Brilliance. Although both are great, Brand Brilliance dives deeper into the context of a brand. This book discusses the inner workings of setting up and creating a brand from scratch. It walks readers through essential steps to help clarify their brand to hone in on one consistent experience and then follows up with steps to make the brand shine. This book is on this list because Humberstone explains branding in terms most people have never talked about branding before. She takes difficult, and sometimes vague, concepts and simplifies them so they’re understandable and relevant. This book contains lots of visuals and contemporary, trendy photography that is incredibly inspiring to look at. This book is ideal for the person new to branding and is overwhelmed by books with lots of jargon and industry-talk.
Since this is a concise list of books on this particular field, are there any books on branding that you suggest? If so, share your favorite branding book in a comment below, and keep the conversation going.