Brand Values: Exploring the Associations of Symmetry within Financial Brand Marks

One of the key purposes of corporate brand marks is to communicate an aspect of organizational strategy—typically a distinctive point of difference. Although brand marks originally functioned as an aesthetically pleasing identification tool, the primary purpose of today's brand marks is the expression of organizational values, moving beyond awareness (brand recognition and recall) to having associations that differentiate an organization's offering (Devlin and Azhar, 2004).

Within the practice of graphic design, symmetry is usually associated with compositional studies rather than as a tool of expression. Simple concepts such as balance, stability, and harmony can be expressed through a symmetrical composition; in contrast, an asymmetrical composition can evoke a sense of instability, tension, and movement (Arntson, 2003). Such concepts appear to be exploited by the designers of the visual manifestations of corporate brand identities—more commonly referred to as logos.

Symmetry has long formed a central component in the design of human material culture, carrying both implicit and explicit meanings, and human cognition has evolved a perceptual system acutely attuned to detection of symmetry (Humphrey, 2004; Tyler, 1995). The prevalence of symmetry within identity design seems to indicate that this ordering principle continues to be used by designers intuitively with the intention of communicating specific messages. Despite a number of earlier observations (Hargittai and Hargittai, 1997; Henderson and Cote, 1998; Miller, Foust, and Kilic, 2007), the potential of symmetry as an unambiguous and reliable communicative device, within the field of brand identity design, appears to be a relatively unexplored domain.

A review of case studies from prominent design consultancies revealed that designers had relied upon symmetry as a visual device to express concepts such as cohesion, efficiency, and equality. While designers might intend to communicate such concepts, there is no assurance that they are reliably interpreted by recipients. However, it does appear that recipients are adept at assigning values and concepts to the presence of symmetry within brand identities. Recent research has indicated that organizations that use symmetrical brand marks are perceived as being more ethically and socially responsible than those whose brand marks are asymmetrical (Van Quaquebeke and Giessner, 2010).

The study discussed in the following begins by acknowledging the prevalence of symmetry within the brand marks of financial services by identifying occurrences of various types of symmetries within this graphical context. The second stage shifts the focus from the communicative intentions of symmetry to the recipient interpretations of symmetry within brand marks. The specific purpose is to see whether respondents perceive certain symmetries as conveying specific organizational values.