An Information Interface for Corporate Identity System Yu-Lin Hsu, * Tzuoh-Herng Sun, ** Chi-Hsiang Lin, *** *Department of Information Communication, Kao Yuan Institute of Technology **Department of Visual Communication Design, Tainan Woman s College of Arts & Technology ***Department of Visual Communication Design, Transworld Institute of Technology National School of Design, Swinburne University of Technology Australia ABSTRACT The purpose of this design research is to develop a system to help users understand how Corporate Identity Systems (CISs) are developed. It is intended for designers, marketing professionals, and design clients. Within CIS, design is one of the most important elements. Trademarks, or logos, represent a set of values, ideas and often also emotions about an enterprise s image. Using the capacities of new media technology and advanced design, the design research will develop an information interface that categorizes and analyses existing CISs. This will enable users to understand the complex issues involved in managing their own CIS, including the briefing of designers. The wealth of information on CISs on the web site will be an invaluable aid for those involved in CIS decision-making. To explore the above issues, this design research will collect the top fifty finance company s logos as example in this study to comprehensive investigation. First, through a questionnaire survey, it will summarize that the most expected 10 logo images to be perceived in finance company. Then the samples were presented to subject to make various evaluations. Through analysis of semantic differential, cluster analysis, and multi-dimensional scaling analysis, the perception of logo images were revealed and a perceptual of these logo images were derived.
These findings can be further applied not only to establish the desire image in designing CIS, but also to shorten the perceptual gap between designers and users. In this research, the CIS will be applied to different products (business cards, letterhead, information material etc.) and can easily be indexed through databases and search engines on the web. Using advanced design skills the diverse information and analysis represented in the CIS database will be presented in ways that are both coherent and sophisticated. Keyword: Multi-Dimensional Scaling, Cluster Analysis, Semantic Differential. 1. INTRODUCTION This study has aimed at the character of the global information web that generates new service system due to the progress of the Internet technology and thus affected the users habit to form the new trend of broadcasting service. This study has made use of the design mechanism when designing the Corporate Identity system with the Internet as a platform to integrate the function of the Internet. The examples are: the set up of the database and the searching engine, and to collect and classify the corporate logo of the top 500 industries in Taiwan as the database so as to provide information for designers efficiently when they are designing the Corporate Identity system, which include the instant reference on typeface, logo and standard colors of the industries, further, it also provide interface analysis to allow designers and users to get the information in time and make decisions. In order to achieve the goal of this study, the Semantic Differential Method was applied for analysis, and it will widely collect and investigate the corporate logo of the top 500 manufacturing industries in Taiwan at present as the major research objects. They were further classified into ten major kinds. This study has taken the financial corporate as example and has arranged the priority of sequence according to the revenue, then picked out the top fifty (50) logos through the way of questionnaire and by the test takers based on the principle that met their image feelings, then took out the ten (10) most impressive corporate logos. Besides, through assessment of semantic differential, and applied the factor analysis to confirm the potential structure side. Further, this study applied multi-dimensional scaling analysis and cluster analysis to sum up the digitals and drawings to set up the comparison of the corporate logo and color, also, this study investigated the visually and mental recognition relationships of the customers toward the corporate logos. This study discussed the preference of the customers toward the design and application of financial corporate logo, and the attributes and image of the corporate logo, and discussed
and analyzed on these two aspects: 1. To discuss the preference of the customers toward the design and application of financial corporate logo. 2. To discuss the design of the domestic Corporate Identification logos, and the image that the corporate logos projected on the consumers. Logo stands for the industries, which appropriately presents the style and ethics of a corporate and shows whether it is successful or not for the design of the logo. The goal is to see whether the logos may actually express the character of the corporate. Among the corporate logo system design, the logos that represented the industries are most important and basic elements at the center of the CI system. To speak from the logo style, it may be roughly divided into three types, which are: pattern, wordings or combination of the two types. Industries may be based on the Corporate Identification strategy to find out the logo design most suitable for industries from the above three types. The Corporate Identity system can generally divided into: the Basic Design system presenting fundamental design rules, and application design system, which provide development stands for applied design. A basic design system represents the consistent, unchanging aspects a of design system- the fundament rules. It comprises basic design elements such as corporate symbols, statements, logotypes, typefaces, and colors. It serves as the starting point for all visual communication within the CI system, and by means of its application on Applied Design System to express and present the spirit, style and culture of the corporate. What is the intuitive impression of the general public to the industries? What is the mental feeling of the expected image? If it is possible for designers to use the corporate logo, typeface, and colors, etc. design elements to express the industrial image to the consumers actually from the Basic Design System, and to analyze and discuss the recognition and mental feeling of the consumers through this study. There was a Japanese scholar Takahaski, S. who used to investigate the corresponding relationships between the abstract pictures and the mental feelings they tried to express 1. There were also some related studies on image identification in Taiwan, for example: the image identification study of the visual symbols for information receiver take the corporate identification logos and activity identification logos promoted in Taiwan as examples 2 ; The discussion of colors and style elements of the professional characteristics expressed on the logo designs; The development of the computer aided geometric logo design 3 ; Research on sensational words and the image recognition and decision-making construction on design of the corporate brand logo among the commercial banks 4, etc. 2. METHOD This study mainly took KJ method and Semantic Differential Method to analyze the expression methods of the logo design of the domestic financial corporate, further, it discussed
the preference and image of the consumers toward the financial corporate. This study has been done in two stages, at the first stage, the KJ method was applied to proceed with the attribute difference group division on domestic financial corporate logo, and to analyze the expression form of the logos; at the second stage, it was based on the results of the first stage to point at the consumers to discuss the corresponding relationship between the visual image and preference generated from the corporate logo design according to the attribute difference of the corporate logo. 2.1 First stage 1 Investigation method: Take the KJ method to proceed with the degree of attribute difference group division on domestic financial corporate logo 2 Investigation instrument: 1. The assessment objects at this stage of this study, according to the top 1000 manufacturing industries investigated by Commonwealth Magazine, the 36 financial corporate shown at Figure. 1 among the top 50 industrial corporations, and to duplicate the corporate logo with computer software, the fidelity and the size have been adjusted in uniformity for the convenience of making the samples. 2. Among the 36 financial corporate logos, it took the focus team discussion method to find out the construction elements and influence factors of the corporate logo design to proceed with the classification, and to put the similar logo with close construction elements. 3. Then invited 10 general consumers as background personnel to select four most favorite samples from the five major classes, then randomly drew two items from the most favorite samples upon accumulated statistics, which totally obtained 10 corporate logo samples as shown in Figure. 2. 3 The investigation objects: The team members of KJ method at such stage were general consumers; their educational background was above college level. Figure. 1 Financial Corporate Logos Figure. 2 The KJ samples obtained at first stage.
2.2 Second stage 1. Experiment method: Took the Semantic Differential Method to proceed with the discussion of the preference and image of the application of financial corporate logos. 2. Experiment instrument: 1 Experiment samples: Find out the top two items according to the results of the KJ classification at the first stage as the testing samples of this stage with total 10 testing samples, which were CHINATRUST COMMERCIAL BANK HUA NAN BANK CO., LTD. THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANK OF CHINA THE SHANGHAI COMMERCIAL & SAVINGS BANK, LTD. E.SUN COMMERCIAL BANK LTD. TAIPEI BANK DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF POSTAL REMITTANCES AND SAVINGS BANKS UNITED WORLD CHINESE COMMERCIAL BANK TAIWAN COOPERATIVE BANK BANK SINOPAC respectively. 2 Assessment tables: In order to try best to cover the wide range of semantic space of the financial corporate logos to construct the corresponding adjectives of semantic analysis, this study has referred to the applied semantic measurement scale of related studies having done by others before (Chiu Ni-yi, Huang Ling-tze, Lai Chuan-yi, and Chen Hsiao-ming, etc.). Besides, there were 11 sets and 7 points of high frequency words used in the corporate identity system design, which are: active/dull; sensational/rational; fancy/plain; delicate/rough; warm/cold; professional/unprofessional; square/round; internationalize/localize; complicated/simplified; traditional/modernize; conservative/fashionable. 3 The contents on the questionnaire at the second stage were basic information; the 30 test takers were mainly the consumers, their educational background was above college level. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS To proceed with analyzed study with semantic differential method when doing the data processing. It shall pay attention to SD Profile to understand the word sets as well as the factor loading when doing the Principle Components Analysis, factor analysis so as to get different measurement scale, and to compare and integrate the data of the factor points and space image distribution of different concept, semantic measurement scale group conditions, so as to proceed in-depth discussion. 3.1 Discussion of the consumers impression toward financial corporate logos.
(1) The calibrate value and standard difference According to the investigation results of the semantic analysis, after averaging the assessment of the 30 test takers, which could induct the 11 sets of adjectives into two factors upon factor analysis, and the total variations was 78.62%. 3.2 The SD Profile of different corporate logos To use the semantic differential method to proceed with corporate logo assessment is to turn the abstract feeling into concrete numbers to do the comparison and analysis, further, to understand the image of each concept and their advantages and disadvantages. From the SD Profile, one may clearly observe the image of each corporate logo that projected on test takers, and it may also proceed with overall observation and comparison. The financial corporate logos assessed on this study were totally 10, and there were 11 measurement scales. Figure. 3 is the SD Profile of different corporate logos. Figure. 3 The SD Profile of different corporate logos 3.3 Factor analysis The extraction method of the factor of this study has applied Principal Component Analysis to extract the common factors. The following principles must be observed on selection of appropriate factor numbers: 1) The Eigenvalue of the factor must be greater than 1. 2) After the Varimax rotated, the absolute value of the Factor Loading must be greater than
0.5. 3) The difference of two factors must be greater than 0.3. 4) The relative coefficient of the Item to total must be greater than 0.5 and significant. This study has been through the Principal Component Analysis, after it was rotated upon the Verimax, the results upon Principal Component Analysis are shown on Table 1. The Eigenvalue of such results is significant. The Varimax of the first factor was 40.70% of the total Varimax, while the Varimax of the second factor was 37.91% of the total Varimax, and the total accumulated Varimax was 78.62%. The interpretable degree of these two factors were high, therefore this study has taken the two factors to do the interpretation. Table 1.Eigenvalues (new.sta) Eigenval % Total Variance Cumul. Eigenval Cumulative% 1 4.477744 40.70677 4.477744 40.70677 2 4.171114 37.91922 8.648858 78.62599 3 0.839172 7.628832 9.48803 86.25482 4 0.786335 7.148499 10.27436 93.40332 5 0.351552 3.195925 10.62592 96.59924 6 0.200647 1.824064 10.82656 98.42331 7 0.101634 0.923945 10.9282 99.34725 8 0.058817 0.534697 10.98701 99.88195 9 0.012986 0.118053 11 100 Extraction Method: Principal components Analysis. The Factor Loading obtained from the this study is shown on Table 2, the description of the results of the extracted Semantic measurement scales is as followings: First factor includes active/dull; internationalize/localize; complicated/simplified; traditional/modernize; fashionable/conservative; etc. five sets of measurement scales. The response of the test takers to these factors was related to the image and style of the corporate logos, which may combine these images as image factors. The second factor includes fancy/plain; delicate/rough; warm/cold; professional/unprofessional, etc., four sets of measurement scales. The response of the test takers to these factors was related to the mental feeling the corporate logos presented, which may combine these images as value factors. We may infer from above results we learned that when financial corporate identification logos are designed, it must pay special attention to these two factors, and to observe the character of the financial corporate logo so that there will be a basis for re-designing new logos. After the above common factors were extracted, it is possible to go on finding the factor points of
different assessments on the image as illustrated on Table 3. gained on each factor from each concept. It is possible to know the scores Table 2. Factor Loadings (Varimax raw) (new.sta)(marked loadings are >.700000) Adjective Factor1 Factor2 Active/dull -0.83787 0.424864 Sensational/rational -0.51258 0.569633 Internationalize/localize -0.82561 0.059689 Complicated/simplified 0.767699 0.460976 Traditional/modernize 0.842897 0.458597 Conservative/fashionable 0.980341 0.071521 Fancy/plain 0.279771 0.855361 Delicate/rough 0.273143 0.8804 Warm/cold -0.14841 0.922831 Professional/unprofessional 0.016448 0.790106 Square/round 0.529662-0.60558 Expl.Var 4.363019 4.28584 Prp.Totl 0.396638 0.389622 Extraction Method: Principal component Analysis 2 components extracted Table 3. Factor Scores (new.sta) Factor1 Factor2 S1-1.49813 0.010302 S2-0.85432-0.88645 S3-0.29171-0.54758 S4-0.02047 0.07737 S5 1.373299-0.2941 S6-1.07567 1.840616 S7 0.073217 0.621 S8 1.181902 0.676679 S9 1.218066 0.362078 S10-0.10618-1.85991 Extraction Method: Principal component Analysis Rotation: Varimax raw
4. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS The factor points are obtained from combined calculation of the raw digitals and factor analysis result, the size of the value shall be able to represent all of the variation factors, while each common factor is a coordination axle, if each factor axle is crossed, it may get the semantic space of four quadrants. Use the factor points to find out the space point of the semantic of each test taker, it may induct the points at the same quadrant to same type. 4.1 Corporate logo semantic analysis The four quadrants represent four different semantic space, while each corporate logo image, for example, on Table 4, you may find out that better corporate logo on both image and evaluation were S7, S8, S9,, which the semantic characteristics meet the internationalize, modernize, professional, active, and simplified image types; while the worse corporate logo on both image and evaluation were S2, S3, S10,, which the semantic characteristics meet the dull, localize, traditional, conservative, and complicated image types as shown on Table 5. Table 4 Corporate logo sample image factor points Factor1 Factor 2 Logo Sample Image Evaluation S1, S4, S6, Image Evaluation S2, S3, S10, Image Evaluation S5, Image Evaluation S7, S8, S9, Table 5 Four-image types Sample Image types S1, S4, S6, Fancy, delicate, complicated, warm S2, S3, S10, Dull, localize, traditional, conservative, complicated S5, Internationalize, cold, simplified, plain S7, S8, S9, Internationalize, modernize, professional, active, simplified 4.2 The symbol style of the corporate logo To sum up the common points of the symbol style design of the above corporate logo, they are described as the followings: 1 Use the corporate title as the word symbol, i.e. use the shortened English Title as logo, such as: ICBC and CS.
2 Take the initial of the corporate title, the English or Chinese typeface or pronunciation, such as: Hua Nan Bank, United World Chinese Commercial Bank, China trust and Directorate General of Postal Remittance and Saving Bank. 3 Use the financial business pictures such as: currency, to extend the corporate culture and the operation idea to become the representation of corporate logo, such as: Taiwan Cooperative Bank, Bank Sinopac and Taipei Bank. 4 Use the corporate title as the connection to corporate logo image, such as: E Sun Commercial Bank. 4.3 Perceptual map of corporate logo color Colors play important role on corporate logo. The application range of color is wide. The establishment of the corporate image includes: to apply the advertisement strategy, build up segment table for market color, set up color image level analysis, search for color positioning, so as to reinforce the competitiveness of the corporate identification. In the case the application of color on corporate, due to it faces the corporate goal and consumer groups, it shall be much objective and rational. As Figure. 4 illustrated, one may clearly compare the color systems of different corporate banks. Figure. 4 Perceptual map of bank corporate logo color 4.4 Suggestions Although this study has obtained the above conclusion, there are still dissatisfactory parts, which have been describe hereunder as a reference for consequent studies: 1 The measurement scale used on this test, the common character is not high on sensational/rational square/round, which were 0.56 0.52 respectively. Besides, the two factor loadings were less than 0.3, which means the two adjective words are not proper to apply on corporate logo and shall strengthen up the appropriateness of the measurement scale to reinforce its accuracy. 2 In addition, the method applied on this study shall be able to expand for application on the corporate logo research of other type, so as to provide consequent research
opportunity, and through the connection of the Internet it allows the corporate logo, including symbol, typeface, and colors etc., to do induction, analysis and comparison through the building up of Internet database and the searching engine function. Further, it may provide the users with the information receiving method and examples at the time the corporate identity system is designed. 4.5 Conclusions To speak from the current logo development trend, such as: IBM Acer Dell Sony and NEC, etc, corporations have all mainly directed by words, and then based on corporate identification strategy to do the direct typing design on the words. The purpose of which was to enable the users clearly use the visual identification and to speak out, through the sound and words combination to send out the corporate image to the users. The rise of the Internet, the building of the database, the integration of the searching engine function have been through level by level analysis and suggestion to provide the users with usable database in time, and to shorten the distance between the users and the designers. In this way, it may achieve the design goal with concrete mutual and science, objective selection. They may also provide reference for related industries to consider re-operate the brand again and to upgrade the corporate competitiveness. 5. REFERENCES 1. Takahaski, S., 1995, Aesthetic Properties of Pictorial Perception, Psychological Review, Vol. 102, No. 4, pp.671-683. 2..Liao, Chung-jen, 1977, the image identification study of the visual symbols for information receiver take the corporate identification logos and activity identification logos promoted in Taiwan as example, thesis for Applied Arts Graduate School, National Jia Tun University. 3.Tsai Sheng-you, 1997 The development of the computer aided geometric logo design, thesis for Graduate School of Industrial Design at National Cheng Kung University. 4. Tseng, Ching-chi, 2002, Sensational words and the image recognition and decision-making construction on design of the corporate brand logo among the commercial banks, thesis for Graduate School of Industrial Design at National Cheng Kung University. 5.Huang Ling-tze, 1995, Discussion for colors that express profession character and style elements on logo design, thesis for Applied Arts Graduate School, National Jia Tun University. 6.Wang Yeh-ching Chuan Ming-cheng, 1997, Research on visual symbol of the national
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