“Same-ness” just isn’t the same
An old adage in business and marketing describes how someone in the sea shell business can succeed: put the sea shell store right on the beach… and right next to another store just like it. The rationale of this strategy—that the best way to sell something is to do it where everyone is already shopping for what you have to offer—is sound. And while it may certainly still be true in some commodity product businesses today, the nature of intellectual property, broad product and service offerings, internet trading, and global competition makes the adage much less true now than even 20 years ago. Today, companies must compete with great design… in their offerings, strategies, and communication.
This is not to say that a graphic designer’s primary objective is to help clients look and sound different. As Malcolm Grear, Professor Emeritus of Graphic Design at RISD, used to say: “The goal of design is not to be different, only good. Then it is different.” A case in point is the French epidemiology company, EpiConcept, whose visual identity and positioning is so unlike that of any of their competitors, they have carved a solid niche in this specialty medical services industry.
The core driver of EpiConcept’s visual identity and communication is a belief in the inseparable relationship between man and nature. The logotype, an iconic, geometric representation of humankind, has become the foundation of all EpiConcept’s marketing materials. The figure is always shown either residing within the natural world, or making sentient connections with nature. Expressing this balance is crucial for a company who works to protect mankind from epidemic diseases, while respecting the higher goal of protecting the delicate balance of nature.
The logotype for EpiConcept, along with the identity developed as an international symbol for communicating information related to flu viruses.
New Year poster entitled “One for All and All for One.”
A special set of pictographs designed for EpiConcept software products
When hospitals across France were all using different forms for recording mammogram data, this form was designed for EpiConcept and is now used as the standard.
Two-sided poster: “Tomorrow is less to be discovered... than to be invented”
EpiConcept website
© 2009, Legendre+Rutter
