Portal to standardize Army branding

By E. VanPoolMay 20, 2010

Portal to standardize Army branding
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, May 20, 2010) -- The Army is making its branding tools available through a new portal, scheduled to go live June 7.

The U.S. Army Brand Portal will provide in one place Army brand elements such as Army logos, camouflage backgrounds, color palettes, typography, and released Army photography. The site will also provide guidelines on how to use those elements together to ensure consistent Army branding.

Soldiers, Army civilians, Army contractors, or commercial agencies who want to develop Army-themed signs, websites, posters, PowerPoint slides or advertising can visit the site first before embarking on their individual design efforts.

By visiting the site and getting the Army design elements and guidelines from the same place, they can ensure their use of Army branding is consistent with the Army's own designs -- ensuring a strong "Army brand." The site provides instructions, even templates, so users can put together their own professional-looking Army-themed products that will be visually consistent with what others are making.

Today, said Robert Strahler of the Army Branding group, there are inconsistencies in how Army branding is being used -- in the use of logos, and colors, for instance.

"Where they get the information and graphics from is different, for instance. So there's a need, from a real practical side, to put it all this in one place," he said,

The Army has spent considerable money and effort to develop branding elements like the Army logo, the gold-framed star, use of universal camouflage pattern as a design element, or selection of the color schemes and typefaces that many now associate with the U.S. Army, Strahler said. Maintaining those associations in people's minds, and strengthening them, is central to Army brand development.

Strahler said when developing an Army-themed presentation slide, newspaper ad, or flyer for a unit function, for instance, using the same colors, typefaces and graphics as others might "seem like a small thing, in some cases it is a small thing, but once you start to allow your brand to become diluted -- not controlled -- where does it stop'"

Right now, Strahler said, the U.S. Army Brand Portal will focus on supporting accessions command -- Army recruiting.

"If you're a recruiter on a college campus, a novice who knows a little about design, or a fairly skilled designer -- everything on there will be of that professional quality that you can use to do an ad and put it in Sports illustrated," he said. "We have a very robust user manual and there is going to be tutorials put on there as well, so you should be able to go on there and develop whatever you need."

The next version of the portal will include information for commercial agencies to license use of Army logos for commercial use. Also in the future could be the addition of video, audio and music elements to help standardize audio/visual presentations.

The new portal is scheduled to go live June 7 at usarmybrandportal.com.