Bringing Your Logo to Life: Immersive AR Branding Experiences

Augmented reality is hard to pin down. Some sources cite computer scientist Ivan Sutherland as the creator of AR in 1968, others point at Louis Rosenberg in 1992, and still others lay the credit at cinematographer Morton Heilig’s door all the way back in 1957. One thing is for certain: in the past few years, AR has garnered more interest and attention than ever, largely because of advances in technology — and because of how many new areas it can be used in.

Branding is a classic example. Wherever new technologies crop up, application to branding and marketing isn’t far behind. From the first enhanced reality print ads (from BMW in 2008) to the now-normalized everyday practice of virtual product testing (think the use of AR by companies like Ikea and Wayfair), AR is enhancing the process of branding on every conceivable level — and there’s more where that came from.

Ultimately, the question is less about “How did AR get started?” and more “How can AR help me to enhance my branding?”

In my career as a serial entrepreneur, with a host of startups and ventures under my belt, I’ve found that keeping on top of advances in branding is one of the most valuable ways to spend time during development. Whether it’s your brand’s design team or you, as the entrepreneur yourself, ensuring top-notch branding with a finger on the pulse is one of the best ways to guarantee a good launch — although “guarantee” is not a word to throw around lightly when it comes to launching a brand.

And I don’t mean just keeping up on what’s on-trend when it comes to branding. Some may take the view that augmented reality is just a fad, something that will pass through — but with an increasing interest in VR and AR across the board, the applicable principles behind AR-enhanced branding and design are here to stay.

For example, any startup owner wants to feel that “the sky's the limit” when it comes to their new business. AR developers, too, aim for the sky. For AR-enhanced branding, I advocate a “ground to sky” approach. In other words, as you develop your branding, it’s vital to build in AR-friendly design elements from the very beginning.

The first design style that may come to mind in the context of AR is 3-D. Three-dimensional logos seem to have AR elements built into them; it’s a simple way to cater to AR development while ensuring the usability and uniqueness of your logo even without AR. The scope for design within the 3-D world is enormous, too, which gives any entrepreneur or designer plenty of room to play.

Apart from 3-D, or in addition to it, there are other aspects of logo design that help it to be an immersive, ground-to-sky design.

Augmented reality is based around the principle of enhancing what we see, whether that’s with the aid of wearables (like Google Glass) or by using a mobile device. I already mentioned a few brands that use AR to help their customers try out products. Making products and services available to your clients is an important part of branding overall, too, but since I’m focusing on visuals in this article, let’s talk about how branded visuals appear in AR.

Basic elements of a good logo design, for example, includes ensuring visibility, legibility, and clarity. Designers have to make sure that their fonts are readable and their images understandable against the background they appear on; checking black and white and monochrome variables are all part of the design process to keep the logo as effective as possible. Logos in the augmented reality space face an unusual challenge: you can’t be entirely certain what the background will be.

A normal, real-world logo needs to be scalable, to appear on everything from a small print advertisement to a billboard. Scalability is even more important in AR, when your logo could be showing up almost anywhere. As the branding process moves forward, checking the logo against possibilities in AR is just good design sense.

I also like AR-enhanced design for how it encourages designers to think outside the box in creating reactive, in-motion, and themed logos. Here’s a quick run-down of those design choices:

All three of these design choices can be mixed and adapted to better fit into AR — and to enhance the immersive experience of branding as a whole. Changing the branding experience to fit seamlessly into AR adds an entirely different level to the consumer — which is a benefit to both customer and company.

I like to use logos as an example simply because a business logo is the single piece of visual branding that will be used most — not to mention being most readily identified with the brand in question. This makes logo design a perfect place to start for planning and developing immersive branding experiences, but of course the principles behind AR logo design can be expanded to any other visual, including marketing materials. Using the same principles and goals to guide your branding journey can ensure a harmonious, cohesive end result — branding that is instantly recognizable, regardless of where it’s spotted.

At the beginning, I mentioned the first use of AR in the marketing world, with BMW’s advertisement in 2008. Overall, AR has been used more in marketing and in giving customers a chance to try products virtually than it has within branding itself. But I think that should play an important role in how we brand our companies to begin with. Making sure that we keep a cohesive brand experience across the board, regardless of whether it’s in AR, VR, or just plain old reality, is part of what draws customers to a brand.

And as AR applications continue to expand, it’s only natural to speculate that immersive branding will have to find new ways to keep up. After all, if your customers spend most of their time in AR or VR, you’ll want to make sure that your brand is in there along with them.

There’s always new advancements in brand design to be discovered. And as with augmented reality, there’s always more where that came from.