research

My dissertation research investigated the use of visual communication as part of a start-up organization’s strategic communication practices. A corporate visual identity is a package of elements consisting of a name, a symbol and/or logo, typography, color, a slogan, and often additional graphic elements. Effective designs are memorable and flexible, appearing on everything from letterhead and business cards to websites and promotional materials to employee uniforms and company cars. These designs, like written or oral messages, are carefully constructed to catch readers’ attention and persuade them to use the organization’s products or services.

Most of the existing research about corporate visual identity focuses on large, well-known organizations with designs created by professional designers, tested extensively with potential users, and protected fiercely against imitators. Very little is known about how start-up organizations and entrepreneurs think about and create corporate visual identities. The purpose of my dissertation research is to fill that gap: to identify and examine the way start-up organizations create corporate visual identity and use it as a form of professional communication with customers, vendors, and the general public.

The results of my study will help organizations, students, and educators understand the role that visual communication plays in corporate strategy and communication. It will also help improve students’ critical thinking skills by making them aware of the signs and symbols around them that communicate visually rather than textually.

Dissertation Overview

The theoretical framework of my research uses theories of ethos, social construction, visual identity/branding, and visual rhetoric to explore how corporate visual identity can be used to support its ethos, or reputation with stakeholders and the community.

To explore the ways that start-up organizations use and create visual identity, I used qualitative research methods for instrumental case studies, using interviews and document analysis as my primary methods of data collection. Qualitative research is exploratory in nature and provides a “detailed understanding of a central phenomenon (Cresswell 2005, 45). Since corporate visual identity is a relatively new topic within rhetoric and professional communication, the characteristics of qualitative research (naturalistic, humanistic, participatory, interpretative, reflexive, and inductive (Creswell 2003) suited my intention to develop a greater understanding of how CVI functions as strategic professional communication.

I focused upon a small sample (four start-up and three well-established organizations) and gathered data about perceptions, opinions, and processes of developing corporate visual identity. The start-up research participants include a pet services company, a sports training company, a professional ventriloquist, and an alpaca rancher. As Robert E. Stake (1995) explains, instrumental case studies like the ones here use the case to focus upon issues and and to understand a general situation or understand other cases by using small samples sizes and focusing upon particulars. Thus the goal of this research project is not to make generalizations but to learn more about a phenomenon that has not yet received much attention in business communication.

In April 2009 I successfully defended my dissertation.

Future Work

After interviewing several entrepreneurs from several start-up companies in the Mankato area, I've realized that many individuals are experiencing the same difficulties and frustrations as my business communication students. In addition to teaching courses in professional communication I would like to being consulting or presenting workshops to strengthen the ties between the work I do in the classroom and businesses in the local community.

Bringing Visual Identity into the Classroom

When the fall semester began I decided to use the experience in my business communication class. As part of the WOVE pedagogy (written, oral, visual, and electronic communication) at Iowa State University, we’re encouraged to have students practice with all four modes of communication. For the visual mode, I asked my students to create a visual identity for themselves to use in their job application packets. On a small scale it would break them free of the Word templates (I hoped). It would also unify their resume, cover letter, business cards for the annual career fair as well as the professional communication portfolios they would create at the end of the course to take to interviews.

Most of the students enjoyed the project. If nothing else it was a change in their normal routine. Many said that it was fun “playing” with typefaces although the formatting of the documents, particularly the resume, was difficult without the option of just clicking on the fields in the Word template. Some, like Wendy, used typography and simple graphical elements to unify the portfolio. She used a consistent typeface and set off the first letter of her name as a monogram. She chose red as a unifying color and held the pages together with a red report cover, although I was never able to understand why her resume was in teal ink. Others, like Javan, created a logo. There were execution problems, obviously, because he wasn’t able to get the icon to scale larger, but his intentions were good. Still others used graphic elements to symbolize their interests or aspirations. Caira is studying to be a social worker so she chose children’s hands to represent herself and her career. It’s more than a year later and I still remember her major based upon the graphic.

A Visual Identity in Progress

I even share some of my own attempts at creating a visual identity with my students and with my research participants. I started with what I call the Circle V. It was inspired by a design for a Garth Brooks promotion, but I liked it because the V has symmetry and the design looks like an old-fashioned typewriter key, which felt appropriate for a writer. I haven’t had time to really learn Illustrator or Photoshop, so I used Microsoft Paint to create it. If nothing else, I figured I could show them a design using basic software that they all have on their computers. The problem is that my Circle V doesn’t scale well either. Next I experimented with Illustrator. I still don’t know what I’m doing with that software, but at least the design is clean, not crumbly. And this one scales much better. I’ve been able to incorporate it on letterhead, a business card, my vita, and on my website.

Today my personal visual identity consists of a logo (the "circle J"), a color scheme (red, white, and black or gray), a collection of typefaces (including Garamond for body text and Trebuchet for contrast).