Breaking the Brand
As a full-time, in-house designer in tech, there's no way to escape the all-consuming deity that is brand. It becomes your favorite big sister (or little sister when you find her hard to wrangle). An aspect I enjoy about working in-house is the brand is in your hands. If you have a seat at the visual table and you're letting your company's brand sit with the grandeur and finality of the Constitution of the United States, propped up in its glass box, then you're not doing it any favors.
I believe a brand is a living, breathing thing. And if you're in the driver's seat (or in the car at all), it's your responsibility to make sure it doesn't stall out. A living brand should always be evolving. When a rebrand occurs and a new style guide and brand book is developed, that's the starting line, not the last word. In my last job, it was my responsibility to tweak the brand book quarterly and update it based on the ways the visual identity and messaging had been massaged and brought to life in marketing materials throughout the quarter.
No matter how robust a brand's guides may be, create enough ads, social posts, emails, ebooks, webinar graphics and sales materials with it, and you'll see you've used every expression of a shape and every color combination at your disposal.
If you work somewhere that allows you even an iota of creative liberty, it's your job, without being asked, to see how you can push and continually improve upon the visual identity. Try to break it. See how far outside the lines you can color with it still feeling in the same universe as your brand. You might then be asked wrangle it back a bit, but sometimes you have to go too far in order to reveal the possibilities to yourself and your coworkers.
I've taken this approach to the completely next level: Work that is so outside my company's brand's color palette and aesthetic that it's never something I'd present as a real idea. But it's reinvigorating for me. It's finding a way to be super playful while still being in the realm of my real-life goals and responsibilities. I never expect this to actually come to life within my company's brand, but this exercise has a) allowed me to take inspiration I've found from outside sources and see how they could radically be applied to my current brand, and b) it's gotten the gears turning in directions, with a lens I hadn't previous positioned toward this brand.
As a designer you must continually be on the search for what inspires you. Notice when a brand's social media style isn't correctly aligned to their website design. Notice when the look and feel of a brand doesn't quite match what you consider the audience and persona they're trying to market to. Continue forming and stating your strong opinions. Keep asking why what inspires you, inspires you. Try re-creating aesthetics that catch you, so you better understand how it was made and ways you could riff off it. Keep your eyes open and the wheels turning and your software knowledge up to date, and you'll find yourself a huge and continuous value add to any team.
