to what extent do you agree with the claim “good branding can make a small company look bigger than it is”?
Seems plausible. I’d have to know the intended meaning of “big”, and why that’s desired. Behind “good branding” is a vision and a direction.
I design brands for a living at the moment and would definitely agree. Good branding will make a company seem competent than one without, though that can absolutely mask some shortcomings with the company and be taken advantage of in order to make bad food seem fancy, for example. It’s not always a problem but it good branding is occasionally used for that sinister mean. In general, I think every company should strive to have good branding, and would much rather prefer both bad and good companies have high quality branding. Branding is absolutely always a tool to get more eyes and attention on a business, and that could just as easily be done for a small business with good quality products looking to get noticed than a crappy company with crappy products trying to catch eyes in order to push their crappy stuff.
Good branding on a small company makes it seem like a scam to me. I would say the quality of your branding should be in a direct relationship with the size of your company
As a brand designer, strongly disagree. Every business should strive for good branding, regardless of the quality of the business. Your personal taste may result in being distrustful of a small business with fantastic branding, which may be fair in some cases, but a branding has no direct correlation with the quality of the business, only the visibility of the business. You’re just as likely to find a small business with good quality and strong branding as one with poor quality and good branding, if not more. businesses that don’t really put much effort into the quality of their product likely aren’t gonna have super good taste or value designer input, and designers are likely not gonna be super jazzed about working with a crappy company unless the pay is fantastic, which a small business might not be able to fulfill. Either way, I think this is a case of a few bad apples poisoning an otherwise perfectly fine well of high-quality small businesses with good branding and good products.
Now that I think about it, that is kind of stupid. I shouldn’t gatekeep good branding to only big companies.
i wouldn’t call that good branding in most cases, but i do think branding can do that