We live in world where the professionalism of politicians and the quality of public representation of their accomplishments has come under increased scrutiny. Developing one’s own personal brand is crucial when it comes to creating a long-lasting relationship with those who matter most – public sympathizers and voters.
Individuality and character are the central components of a personal brand and what it seeks to represent. Politicians and those generally in the public eye face the challenge of achieving public recognition as someone who is not just different, but has a better professional focus than their counterparts. Within the political or professional sphere, the key focus is on the development of key strengths or virtues that society values and which distinguish an expert from the rest. Authenticity and integrity are crucial components in today’s era of transparency in which everything is or will soon be known.
The client Željana Zovko entrusted us with creating a visual identity - a personal brand that would convey her individual values, style and her personal story. While working on the creative concepts of the logo, our focus was on lifestyle, breadth of knowledge and the significant past experience our client. In this case, the logo had to include three components. Firstly, the strengths and virtues of the client-human face of the brand: "Who she is?" Secondly it should be in correlation with the EU and its references and standards (from the areas of politics, sociology, history, law and economics). Finally, elements related to Croatian national identity (Croatian national symbols and/or colors), creating a combination of who she is, what she stands for and what she does.
From a design standpoint, the challenge was how to fit together these diverse components. How could we show the personal, national and international values of our client in a symbolic form? We pushed the personality and style of our client through the letterforms and created a logo monogram containing the initials of the name, Ž and Z. The blue color was determined in accordance with the EU administration standard, and the red square of the logo introduces the Croatian national element to the brand identity. The final solution adopted was not the only proposal; while designing conceptual solutions of the logotypes we offered alternative options and guidelines.