Corporate identity is the coherent group of design elements which transmits the same and an unique message. The group’s homogeneity is essential for the message to be transmitted. Different elements constitute what we call the corporate identity —Logo, website, catalogues, brochure, business cards, etc. These elements have an order of importance. Surely, the most important element is the corporate Logo, due to its founding and fundamental features. The company’s Logo is a key element since, without it, the company cannot launch its products to the market, it cannot place its products on displays nor offer them to anyone. The foundational features make reference to the fact that, as the Logo is the first element, the other elements will have to adjust to the parameter of the Logo to conform to it.

Next in importance is the corporate website. Nowadays, the company’s site is a corporate identity element of superlative importance. People enter a site to know the company, to analyze it, to buy something, to investigate it, to make sure it is reliable, etc.; having a good design is important, so that users like it, increasing sales and gaining prestige.

Nonetheless, every element of this homogenous group has features of its own. That is to say, that both the Logo and the site, and the catalogues have particular features, which must be respected so that the design is created accordingly. But you have to be careful when dealing with these features. Specially in the case of the website. What may happen to a site designed out of these parameters?

It may be excluded:

Given a homogenous group of elements, a site may not conform to it. Therefore, the site will be considered by the pubic as a strange element to that group. However, the group will still represent the company before consumers. Result: the website you have invested in is not considered to be an element that represents your company. In this case you lose the investment on the design but also you lose the already mentioned benefits that having a site provides —since a site that is not considered by the public does not exist.

It may be confusing:

Given a homogenous group of elements, a site may not conform to it. Nowadays, people know that the company’s page is an essential element for the company’s image. Therefore, consumers interpret the site’s wrong message as a right one. Thus the message opposes the rest of the elements and consumers have to get the meaning of the group from this website. In other words, the message you tried really hard to transmit to represent you company, given the site’s importance, is distorted from a heterogeneous element. This is the worst example, since it is not one element that is excluded from the right message but the right message is replaced by the wrong message and it is harder to solve.