Branding a library or an author is currently a hotly debated topic. Can an author be a brand? Can a library be ‘imbued’ with values in the same way as a product brand? How do we define the term ‘brand’, is there more to it than the Trade Marks Act?

To me an organization like the library
works with its corporate identity and
its corporate image which consequently
forms the ‘brand’ for example the
brand Stockholm Public Library.

For a period of over five years
Stockholm Public Library has worked
with modernising and accentuating
our corporate identity and our corporate
image. The corporate identity is
the sum total of the organization’s
services, products, quality, working
environment, communication, behaviour
and policies, in short ‘the soul of
the organization’ and the corporate
image is how the organization is perceived.

Even if the term ‘corporate’ is used it is
applicable to all kinds of organizational
structure as government, political and
charitable organizations. In the following
I will show you some examples
of how we have worked with our corporate
identity and the corporate
image focusing on our external communication.

Profile, identity and image

When a business or organization has
been around for a long time and a gradual
change of task has taken place and
without any particular attention to
external communication we need to
stop for a moment and take a deep
breath, gather the organisation together
and make a fresh, consolidated start.
We need to discuss our ‘identity’ (our
own image of ourselves) and our ‘profile’
(our desired image of ourselves).
Do we all see our assignment in the
same way, how do we experience our
reality and the world around us, what
kind of internal organisational culture
do we have, who are the ‘customers’
what do they want from us and how is
our quality measured? We have to prioritize
and allocate time for internal
and external discussion and customer
surveys.

At Stockholm Public Library it resulted
in unifying our values, briefly expressed
as:

• Important
• Welcoming
• Accessible
• Modern
• Visible.

These sound like nice words randomly
chosen, but the words/values must be
honest and deeply rooted in the organisation.
They govern how we act, how
we receive our visitors, how our environments
communicate. Internally we
must “practise what we preach”, i.e. the
staff, managers and senior managements
should be welcoming and visible.

When we develop new services, products
or planning a new library we
must think ‘welcoming’, ‘accessible’,
‘modern’, ‘visible’ and ‘important’. How
can the Stockholm Library card be more
accessible, more modern, more welcoming?
During interesting discussions
new ideas emerge.Why not produce a
tactile card, executed in a more cheerful
and welcoming colour and why not
transparent in a modern way.

Brand awareness – brand image
Are you aware of your customers’ perception
of your organization or
‘brand’? Is there a gap between the
‘brand awareness’ (the knowledge the
surrounding world has of us) and the
‘brand image’ (the image the surrounding
world has of us) then you need to
minimize it. Many of those who visit
the library regularly have ‘lived’ the
changes but what about the ‘non-visitors’?
How do we attract and reach new
visitors despite their preconceived notions.
Furthermore, if the library was
uninteresting before, why should they
bother now?

Visual identity

We need to communicate with people
outside the library’s walls and we need
to make them realise that today we
have contemporary libraries with all
sorts of services.We need to reposition
– quite simply to modernise the library’s
image.

But how do we reach the target audiences
especially the non-visitors? Using
a visual identity, a graphic design,
based on values, is an effective tool for
cutting through the plethora of information
and makes us stand out from
the crowd. If they noticed that we have
repositioned, we might get the opportunity
to ‘show’ them our modern
Library and hopefully we will be able
to minimize the gap between brand
awareness and brand image.

The visual identity is a graphic design
that has not been developed just to
look good, but rather to communicate.
As Stockholm Public Library network
includes 44 libraries we needed a graphic
design that accepts local adaptations,
though with the same common
expression. It has to be cheap to produce
and easy to use without the staff
having to be graphic designers.

For over a year we worked with interviews,
various focus groups and surveys
and printed the Stockholm Public
Library’s visual identity. A toolbox was
produced with a number of components,
illustrations of which are shown
above, along with interior fitting modules
to use on the actual library premises.

To be able to strengthen the local library’s
speciality, we have chosen to develop
a number of modules, from
which the staff themselves choose what
they feel fits their library’s environment.
The toolbox has been gradually
extended to include several more modules
and new ideas.Within the next
two years I think the time will be right
to measure the results.

The toolbox

The sender of the communication is
most important.We always use the
same sender irrespective of which
library is communicating. Local material
is supplemented by the address of
the sender in a fixed place.

2. Typography - Biblio

For reasons of both accessibility and
visibility, we have chosen to develop a
new font. In all our communication,
advertisements, logotype, indoor and
outdoor signs, we now use the Biblio
font.

3. Advertisements and posters

So that our advertisements stand out
even more from the crowd ‘visibility’,
we put the symbol on a black background.
A newspaper reader does not
spend more than a few seconds looking
at advertisements and since our budget
does not stretch to advertising very
frequently, we need to grasp every opportunity
in sight.
Our posters have to be easy to make. A
wizard is connected with the intranet
where the organization can produce
their own posters, change colours, pictures
and text. As we have about 6,000
programmes a year it is essential that
we find easy ways of producing locally.

4. Colour

Our basic colours are black and white.
All signage adheres to the principle, but
in printed matter, posters, bags, library
cards, we need to ‘lighten things up’
using modern colours.We use two
scales: classic colours and fashionable
colours. As regards fashionable colours,
we choose a colour scheme each season
which we use on consumables.We use
classic colours on material of a more
long-term nature.

5. Design elements

Libraries are well-known for their
strange letter combinations.We have
therefore chosen to make these into
visible and hopefully humorous design
elements as text on decorative window
film, book covers, bags, pens, erasers,
etc.

6. Campaign identity

When we are campaigning we want it
to be quite evident that this is a special
campaign, as well as easy to connect
with our logotype.

Eva Anzelius Jonson
Marketing Director
Stockholm City Library

eva.anzeliusjonson@kultur.stockholm.se

Translated by Gary Watson